what do you consider to be essential for production?

cleaning all my shit up has got me thinking about that a lot. having a shitload of plugins and a shitload of samples is always awesome but i feel like it can also over complicate shit a whole lot at times.


what do you consider essential to your workflow?

Having too much shit to choose from can convolute your whole workflow

IMHO you need...

ONE GOOD SYNTH (Massive / FM8 / Reaktor / Animoog / Access Virus etc..) - all of these advanced synths have bass patches, dirty leads, pads etc. Find the one that makes sense for you and learn the shit out of it.

DRUMS - Preferably controlled by some form of drum pad or controller. 808's, 909's, Jomox sounds are essential. if you want to be artsy, you can get into acoustic sounding drums but lets face it.. this is dance music and 808's are what you're going to use most.

RECORDS / SAMPLES or anything to sample from. Chords stabs, old rave sounds, accapellas, etc.. nowadays everything is on the net

EFFECTS - Filters, delays, chorus, flange etc..

MASTERING TOOLS - Limiters, compressors, etc... whichever brand you use, they all do the same thing.. some do it better than others

of course you will need the extras (monitors, controller, soundcard, etc..) but now that everyone is mobile, those things are becoming less and less crucial

i was talking to paul last night about how you could easily do pretty much whatever you need with a copy of ableton and a copy of komplete.

but i guess really you could a whole lot with just ableton suite

Smell Gibson wrote:i was talking to paul last night about how you could easily do pretty much whatever you need with a copy of ableton and a copy of komplete.

YEAH, SOFTWARE WISE, THE ONLY OTHER THING ASIDE FROM THE ABLETON PLUGINS AND THE NI SHIT THAT I CONSIDER ESSENTIAL IS A SOLID LIMITER/MULTIBAND COMPRESSOR LIKE VOXENGO ELEPHANT OR THE WAVES L3 OR SOMETHING QUALITY TO STRAP ON THE MASTER.

I ALSO CONSIDER A GOOD SOUNDCARD AN ESSENTIAL PIECE OF KIT. IT REALLY DOES MAKE A HUGE DIFFERENCE.

^^Agree, especially if you are finalizing your tune

but you can make tunes on a crappy soundcard, export the wavs and take it to the badbwoy studio and mix the shit down

JJ wrote:^^Agree, especially if you are finalizing your tune

but you can make tunes on a crappy soundcard, export the wavs and take it to the badbwoy studio and mix the shit down

YEAH BUT IT AFFECTS WORKFLOW IF YOU CAN'T RESAMPLE ON THE FLY, AND WORKFLOW IS ALWAYS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF WRITING MUSIC IMO

THAT'S WHY A GOOD ORGANIZED SAMPLE LIBRARY IS ALSO A KEY PART OF YOUR ARSENAL

yeah, and templates that have drums pre-loaded are crucial also

that's not a bad idea. i have a drumrack i'll just load up with drums that already are eq'd and shit and tweak them according to what i'm doing but having templates is essentially the same thing but quicker.

Soccer Mom wrote:

JJ wrote:^^Agree, especially if you are finalizing your tune

but you can make tunes on a crappy soundcard, export the wavs and take it to the badbwoy studio and mix the shit down

YEAH BUT IT AFFECTS WORKFLOW IF YOU CAN'T RESAMPLE ON THE FLY, AND WORKFLOW IS ALWAYS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF WRITING MUSIC IMO

THAT'S WHY A GOOD ORGANIZED SAMPLE LIBRARY IS ALSO A KEY PART OF YOUR ARSENAL

i feel this work flow. ableton has changed how i write tracks and i'm able to do stuff really fast now.

i'm still learning, but i just figured out sidechain compression and that is most essential now when doing my tracks.