What methods do you use to compose?

[blackattackbitch]

Lemme start with myself. I'll get an idea for a song one day. Since most of my songs are "situational" songs, usually I get an idea of a situation and then try to compose music for that particular situation. Like fight music or something like that. That's why 4 of my most recent songs seem to be telling a story. Anyway, then I get on my computer and start it. I'll usually customize the drum machine first since that's been proven to take the most time out of all of my customizations.
Then I move to the first sample I'm gonna use. Usually I start out with a string or percussion instrument, then build up with more and more instruments. I only work with samples, soundfonts, and physical modelling synth since I usually try to go with the most realistic sound possible. Sometimes those samples take a lot of configuration. (for staccato instruments, I have to load multiple copies of the sample, each tuned at a different root note to avoid slow-hitting instruments or vast differences in sound throughout the staccato sequence.
Since I use FL Studio, I can't save my projects and come back to them at a different day, so I usually have to record the current progress as a WAV file, save it, and literally tack the next section on. (unless I'm making a beat, in which case I usually just save the WAV file and start it from scratch later since it can be finished literally in 4 hours)
Technique
usually I start with a bass instrument. I have a tuba sample, 5 double bass samples, 2 bassoon samples, and a personally made low orchestra sample made from a combination of my other samples. In addition, I have 2 personally made orchestral staccato samples, 2 db staccato samples and 2 brass staccato samples. Those usually construct the bassline, and the bassline is usually very simple. On occasion, I will use a timpani, but my timpani sample is so bad, I refuse to use it in certain situations.
Higher pitch staccatos, percussive instruments, and woodwinds are usually used to make pretty random melody sequences also. They hardly ever clash with the bassline. But I usually can't copy that melody later if it's really complicated and really random. They are usually looped over and over again while the main melody plays.
Samples that seem like they incorporate a lot of instruments are usually placed as the background melody while a main instrument (or instruments) plays. They hang on one key for anywhere from a half-bar to 3 bars, but the key change is usually pretty consistent and predictable. These are also looped but not as much as the staccatos.
The main instruments are usually louder than the rest. Their melody sequences are more complicated than the other instruments. Also, they almost never loop.
Drumbeats are usually the hardest thing for me to make right. I hate repeating drum styles, but frankly I'm running out of ideas for the drums. Usually they incorporate a connector sequence where a whole bunch of drums will play right before a crash springs, connecting two sections of the song that are hard to connect. That idea was given to me by Yoko Shimomura's songs. The main drum beat usually incorporates bass drums playing one main sequence while other drums play supplemental sequences. That can cause problems very easily, but the song would sound dry without it.
That's basically how I make my songs. So I pose this question to the other composers here: what methods do you take to make songs? Your response doesn't have to be nearly as long as this one. I'm just curious as to how you guys make your songs.

[MaestroRage]

for me, you nailed it with the fact the song tells a story. My goal at any song is to tell a story. An idea, a scene, a culture, a meaningful song cannot be built without a background behind it. Otherwise it's a sequence of notes and often the case these songs come off uninspired and you walk away with nothing from it.

For instrumentation it always depends. I usually find myself reaching out for either legato or staccato strings, depending on what i'm making. Staccato if i'm going to use lots of orchestral hits, legato if i'm making a smooth gentler piece.

After that point it's just asking myself which instrument is going to tell the story best, and the answer is usually always instant.

[Rig]

Screw stories. I find sounds that sound cool and arrange them to my liking.

[Psychophan7]

I play around with a few notes until I find something that I like, then build off of that. One of the songs I'm working on is going to be used as background game music. As much work as an artist can put into crafting an environment, it's often the music (and various ambient sounds) that bring the player into the area.

What I do to help make music that fits an area, I'll load up a sound test build and use a swap file to load soundfont samples to replace all the normal sounds. After the sound swap I'll just record my gameplay of a few playthroughs and come up with something that echoes the gameplay. I haven't been at this for very long, but the cave area is probably going to be all easy-going electric rock music. Not a lot of tempo change, not much variance in the pitch, nothing that would cue aggression and stuff.

[Koriigahn]

Mostly Experimentation. I create most of my tracks by downloading generally 'Bad' vsts and trying to make a decent sound out of them.

[Flash-MX]

Since I often do ambience, I'll find a very specific mood that I'm looking to evoke, and then get on the piano and do a complete rough sketch, often making 7 or 8 different note lanes for the piano and aside from the drum track, completely composing the song in piano and then taking pads and synths and basses and applying them to the piano.

To me, composition comes before timbre and cool sounding stuff;
If you can bring out an ambient and specific mood with just piano... thats a good composition and from there on just applying instruments is no hard part.

Think about it, how many songs can you think of that you can strip bare to piano and notes and it still sounds good?

I did that with half of my music and the composition value was horrendous :(

[Chronamut]

My techniques are probably among the most varied here, sicne ive covered so many different styles..

reading that long ass first post reminds me of me a couple years ago when I heavily relied on soundfonts and had to layer them to make the instruments sound full and interesting. Some advice might be to get reason, and insert your soundfonts in there. Fl studio will open the entire soundfont, thus wasting a lot of cpu, while reason only opens the actual instrument you are using IN the soundfont - you an also individually edit every single key sample in reason in a soundfont :)

as for my technique - It's all about a feeling for me - I try to incorporate certain feelings into my song - I hate to self advertise - but my symphony of darkness was probably my most successfu original ever simply because the story I wanted to tell (lol maestro) and the feelings I wanted to invoke were successfully played through almost entirely through the ambiance I used. So much so that the song itself almost became secondary to the whole experience.

You claim that repeating drumlines are bad. I can actually think of several songs where the drums never changed throughout the entire song and they sounded completely fine. One song is "thats just the way it is" by bruce hornsby, another "just another day" by jon seceda, "fast car" by tracy chapmen, who actually doesnt use percussion but her guitar pattern remains rather consistant throughout..

Another misconception is that you need crazy drums, or even drums at all to make your songs amazing - for lots of classical compositions percussion isnt necessary.

on the flip side if I am composing 8-bit I tend to like to emulate the classics and work in 4 channels, one for the bass, one for percussion, one for lead, and one for accompaniment :)

then for classical I take a more foresty/heaven approach - old sounding flutes, piano, harp, choir, strings, acoustic guitar, crystally sounds, bird ambiance, waves.. a lot of my time is taken into giving a FEEL to the song, that and mixing it so that it sounds clear :) - I find this sort of style tends to creep into a lot of my songs actually..

and sometimes I'll just hear like a split second of a pattern somwehere and say to myself "hey that would sound great if i did such and such to it" - and off I go! Hunkering down and trying to create something from simple notes without any outside inspiration is th hardest thing you can do, as it generally ends up just being a jumble of notes with no feeling or soul behind them..

and smetimes I do what rig does and just get a bunch of sounds and filter and distort and screw them up until they sound cool - those are generally my industrial songs, or sometimes even techno.

Then if I do trance I tend to do what Kingbastard once coined as my own style of "ambi-trance" - in which I'll go for that driving trance feel but I'll make it sorta dreamy and ambiant like.. I like infusing different styles into things. An example of that would prolly be glistle..

and sometimes I'll write piano compositions, and then take that entire composition and assign instruments to all the different parts and make it into another sounding song entirely - an example of that is most definitely sonata of light and forest of light.

I could go on but I'm starting to bore even myself haha..

[Krank]

when it comes to me making music there are two situations:

I sit down at my laptop and I'm either in the groove or I'm not

In the groove, I make awesome music! ideas come effortlessly, the song flows,a nd I can "feel" the song out as I'm making it.

or I sit down and I get log jammed and don't feel it, in which case i leave and come back until I;m in the groove.

This all comes down to how little thought you ahve during the proccess, ie. how focused you are on the music itself.

[Nav]

At 11/30/08 10:35 AM, Bjra wrote: when it comes to me making music there are two situations:

I sit down at my laptop and I'm either in the groove or I'm not

In the groove, I make awesome music! ideas come effortlessly, the song flows,a nd I can "feel" the song out as I'm making it.

or I sit down and I get log jammed and don't feel it, in which case i leave and come back until I;m in the groove.

Amen. Sometimes I'll start a track, but if I'm not in the groove, I will probably never finish it. Most of my projects are done in 3 sittings:
1. Element creation: I make the stuff that's gonna be in the song.
2. Arrangement: I use the elements I previously created to arrange a song. I add more elements as needed.
3. Critique: This is where I send it out to others, and get peoples' opinions on it, so I can fix it before putting it on Newgrounds, where it has to be effectively finished.

[Krank]

At 11/30/08 11:20 AM, Nav wrote: Amen. Sometimes I'll start a track, but if I'm not in the groove, I will probably never finish it. Most of my projects are done in 3 sittings:
1. Element creation: I make the stuff that's gonna be in the song.
2. Arrangement: I use the elements I previously created to arrange a song. I add more elements as needed.
3. Critique: This is where I send it out to others, and get peoples' opinions on it, so I can fix it before putting it on Newgrounds, where it has to be effectively finished.

yeah I start alot of tracks just for shits and giggles, with an instrument, try an effect. i have a "new project" folder filled with little 2 second things. sometimes the little thing i do will click and I'll end up with a song like caverns of time.

I never dont finish a song I put more than an hour of work into.

about the criticism thing, this is horrible! never send your tracks to other to be critiqued UNTIL you say its finished. I used to think this was the key to getting better. it isn't! it kills your morale and makes you think you're song is either better or worse than it actually is.

a sexy yardstick you can measure whether a song is finished or not by is "would i listen to this on loop repeatedly for hours on end"

that isn't a definitive yardstick, but its the one i use, and my songs really move me! when they are finished. I don't try to please people. just myself.

If you truly, truly know something is off with your song but you've been listenening to it for hours upon hours, and your sense of sound is distorted to it. leave for about a week or two and come back. you will clearly hear the issues and know what to do. I just did this on my "move for freedom revamped" track, it sounds PHENOMENAL now! gonna upload soon :)

[blackattackbitch]

At 11/30/08 11:41 AM, Bjra wrote:

yeah I start alot of tracks just for shits and giggles, with an instrument, try an effect. i have a "new project" folder filled with little 2 second things. sometimes the little thing i do will click and I'll end up with a song like caverns of time.

I never dont finish a song I put more than an hour of work into.

about the criticism thing, this is horrible! never send your tracks to other to be critiqued UNTIL you say its finished. I used to think this was the key to getting better. it isn't! it kills your morale and makes you think you're song is either better or worse than it actually is.

a sexy yardstick you can measure whether a song is finished or not by is "would i listen to this on loop repeatedly for hours on end"

that isn't a definitive yardstick, but its the one i use, and my songs really move me! when they are finished. I don't try to please people. just myself.

If you truly, truly know something is off with your song but you've been listenening to it for hours upon hours, and your sense of sound is distorted to it. leave for about a week or two and come back. you will clearly hear the issues and know what to do. I just did this on my "move for freedom revamped" track, it sounds PHENOMENAL now! gonna upload soon :)

I can never start a track randomly, I usually need a gameplan before I can jump into it. And for a little bit, I had good sounding songs that I literally abandoned. I still have a half-finished song sitting in my documents folder waiting to be finished and the truth is that I may never finish it because it's outdated in terms of my current skill level. I would have to restart it from the beginning.

And your yardstick works both ways with me. A good song will drag me in and I'll sometimes finish that song so unbelievably fast. For example (I'd hate to advertise) My song The Kingdom took me a week and a half to finish but right after that I jumped into my song Hell's gate and finished that in a little less than 3 days. But the current song I'm working on actually messed me up because I sat there listening to the song as I was making it and enjoying the hell out of it. Because I spent so much time listening to the song and not working on the song, I still have work I need to put on the song.

[TMM43]

I just roll a ball across my keyboard, and if it sounds good I put a kick and other percussion on it. It usually comes out pretty good.

[Chronamut]

At 11/30/08 12:31 PM, TMM43 wrote: I just roll a ball across my keyboard, and if it sounds good I put a kick and other percussion on it. It usually comes out pretty good.

I just put a bangin' donk on it :P

[TMM43]

You're killing it chron!

[Chronamut]

At 11/30/08 12:40 PM, TMM43 wrote: You're killing it chron!

...needs more donk..

[TheComet]

I tend to get alot of ideas for songs kinda out of the blue at random ^^;

If I just feel like messing around and starting something, usually what I'll do is start off with a simple 2-4 note progression in a certain key (usually C, very versatile), then just expiriment and move things around from there, adding and removing notes, tweaking instruments, and then once I've got a 4 bar pattern together, depending on the sound of it, I will make 3 more patterns to run off of it.

Always worked for me, unless I'm doing strings where it's a totally different story, then I'm combining chords at different times to see how they blend together and progress

[Phyrnna]

Well, I'm a pianist to the core. So I start out on the piano. I first start by creating a melody. All my songs are melody based. The harmony is typically second to the melody, and I create that after I get a primer melody. And then I create both harmony and melody as I go along after I get the primers set.

[HMS-Productions]

My songs kinda just come out at random... I'm sitting doing some homework, usually listening to some music. While I'm listening to the song I suddenly get all pumped, I fly into FL and rape it up the ass.

Anyways... my songs usually reflect my life at that point in time, my "universal" mood sorta for that certain day. It usually starts off, I'm just humming to myself something while eating, walking or w/e. When I get into FL first thing I do is right down a melody on some generic synth of soundfont.

Then I try to write some kind of harmonies to play along with it. Only then do I start picking out my instruments, I arrange what I've written so far, mix em, master em, FX here and there and that's usually about the first minute of my song.

I'll then start out on a beat or some kind of rythm driver for the song. Then I'll waste an amazing amount of time perfecting that first minute.

This is the crucial point, if I'm still in the mood, then I continue raping it and I'll have the song done in a day or two. If I'm no longer in the mood, I'll maybe stretch the song to 2 minutes, make a "test" render, tell myself I'll work on it later, and it falls into the depths of my harddrives. Over time it may or may not get finished.

I really hate spending a long time on a song, but when I do, I feel more connected with the song and I'm more proud of it rather than something I made in a day.

Im trying to get into the habit of using more samples and 'glitch' FX to spice my songs up but that pretty much summarizes my FL life :D

[CWN]

Melodies just pop into my head, if I have no instrument near me, I grab my cellphone and record the melody (singing). Then I try to convert the melody into something playable on acoustic guitar...
And then I start jamming with myself until some kind of structure appears.
Then I convert everything to Metal inside my head and record it :D

[Flash-MX]

^^^ That's ingenious, somewhere else I read it was important to keep a recording device about to document those spurs (often immediate) of creativity.

I think Im gonna start doin that :D

[Shikakapoop]

I usually just play around with knobs until I accidentally make noise, then I loop it and export. lol...

[HaniiPuppy]

I have an "Experiments" Logic file full of short clips of music I've thought up at one point or another. I also keep a notebook around with me everywhere where I write down song names, song ideas, etc., and when I have a song name, a song idea, and clip of music all matching, I build on that and make it up as I go along :P

Sometimes I have stories to go along with it, sometimes I don't. I didn't have a story to go along with Live By The Chord (Die By The Chord) for instance ... but now I'm trying to write lyrics and my lyrics barely make sense XD But the people I've showed them to seem to think they're good :P

[xKore]

I usually start out with a chord progression, I get midis from songs I hear with good chord progressions like final fantasy midis and midis from old pop artists like the carpenters (I used one of there's in my song 'View'), I get the chord progression, stretch to 140bpm tempo, modify some of the notes, lengthen it, change the key etc. until I like it. Then around that, the melody, extra sub melodies, arps, basslines, strings, choirs etc come naturally.

[Krank]

At 12/2/08 03:05 PM, xKore wrote: I get midis from songs I hear with good chord progressions like final fantasy midis and midis from old pop artists like the carpenters (I used one of there's in my song 'View')

melodic stealing i see :O

[xKore]

At 12/2/08 03:21 PM, Bjra wrote:

At 12/2/08 03:05 PM, xKore wrote: I get midis from songs I hear with good chord progressions like final fantasy midis and midis from old pop artists like the carpenters (I used one of there's in my song 'View')

melodic stealing i see :O

i steal ur faic

[joshhunsaker]

At 11/30/08 03:56 AM, Rig wrote: Screw stories. I find sounds that sound cool and arrange them to my liking.

Dammit Rig, you are my hero. That's exactly how I do it.

[SolusLunes]

There are many different ways.

For me, a story being told in a song is EXCELLENT. Most of my classical/orchestral compositions are motivated by telling a story.

But every song begins with "Hey, that sounds cool." Take Ice Cage. Man all I did was screw around with pad sounds and then I put them together.

Then I put a donk on it (or rather, some awesome pitchbending effects.)

And as for using MIDIs for ideas?

Hell yes I use midis for ideas. Look at For Schala. I got a midi of Schala's Theme from Chrono Trigger and then I rapeded- um improved it.

But again, there's the problem of "groove". Am I in it? Normally, no.

And that's just sad. :(

[blackattackbitch]

Not all my songs were made with a story in mind. One of my more popular songs, Darkside, was just me playing around at first, until I realized how scary it sounded and spread that theme throughout the song. Another song, Clashing Swords, is probably one of my more entertaining songs, mostly because it isn't some insane battle ballad like about 85% of my songs are.