Learning about people's processes

[SnakeyWaters]

So I was looking at Alex's Melodic Asperation and I was thinking, like how does anyone even begin to make something that good?

I was wondering if any of the top people like Cool172 or Alex or Syntax could make a video of themselves working on a song.

I totally understand if people don't want to do that, I know I wouldn't.

Just a thought.

[Crumb]

consoles

[Cool172]

theres a time lapse of me making a song on my youtube channel but i suppose it doesn't really give you any insight into how i actually do anything

[emekat]

Apart from the occasional happy accident, everything that I write comes form my head. I hear stuff in my head and draw the notes on the screen until it sounds like what's in my head. Sometimes I have whole orchestrations in my head, other times just parts. When I sequence a part I play it back which makes it easier for me to imagine other parts or sounds that would go with it, or little details like hooks and such.

All of us hear things in our head. The trick is to take them from your head and put them into the world. Once I learned to count and was taught intervals, this became easy. Train your ear to count and to hear intervals and you can write anything that is in your head. Some basic general music theory is all you need. You don't need to read sheet music at all, just learning these things will give you the tools to make it happen. It may take a few months of ear practice to get them down but once you learn them there's no going back. Even after all these years I'm still not great at counting but I can hear intervals like reciting the alphabet. Still, hearing something, anything at all, and drawing it onto the sequence grid is usually a piece of cake because my ear has the tools.

[Ale_K]

So I was looking at Alex's Melodic Asperation and I was thinking, like how does anyone even begin to make something that good?

Oh. I just saw this thread but I can explain my process for MA. 

Basically I started with the chorus. I was messing around with certain timbres looking for dubstep like sounds. 

I then moved into the first break down which I figured out some dubstep fx from previous experimentation with Bobby Crawford. 

Then I was at a point where I was lazy and couldn't figure out an intro, so I just made a buildup before the chorus and use some of the elements from that for the intro. 

I then went for the 2nd break down. I saw lopyt do a triangle synth so I attempted something similar. 


The rest is just basic simple song structure and layering. 
My mental process for layering is just fill out the frequencies. I usually have a solid idea of general instruments timbres. This makes it easier to come up with instrument layers. I also stick to instruments I know sound good together by either experimentation, or from other people's experience.

If you want me to go further on my methodology, I have a lecture on my YouTube channel.

[Cool172]

I streamed myself writing a couple songs back in february, where i wrote the entire song in the stream. (this was part of the album in 10 days challenge)
If you want to see the streams I can dm you

[SnakeyWaters]

yeah sure cool172 please do