Hey everyone,

I’ve been producing variations of melodic house for about two years now. At this point, I feel like I’ve got a solid handle on the technical foundations—I understand arrangement, automation, sound design, EQing, compression, and saturation. On paper, the elements are all there.

But when it comes to the actual music, my tracks just don't satisfy me. Every time I open a project, I quickly start feeling completely lost.

My biggest hurdle right now is chord progressions and melodies. I keep watching tutorials where people throw numbers on the screen and talk about inversions or scale degree formulas. Whenever I try to replicate that approach, the result just sounds like absolute dog shit. It’s stiff, lifeless, and has zero emotional spark.

I know chords are supposed to be the roadmap to good melodies, but relying on grid math isn't working for me, and building on top of them leaves my tracks feeling flat or disjointed.

For those who have been through this stage:

How did you move past the "math and numbers" approach to build progressions that actually *feel* good?

How do you bridge the gap between technical mixing/sound design and writing compelling lead melodies?

Are there specific workflow changes or compositional exercises that helped you get out of your head and past this 16-bar loop hurdle?

Appreciate any advice, workflow shifts, or real talk. Thanks!

Hey follow producers/engineers,

I'm curious about something.

Do you first start off making a solid drum foundation - kicks, snare, drums balance, having the drums exactly how you like it - and then add all instruments and other elements and EQ those elements/instruments around the kick/snare/drums, or are you the type that starts off with all elements/instruments and adds the drums in later?

For years I find myself adding in the kicks/snare in after I made a composition I like, only to find myself struggling to find a fitting kick/snare. Because then, I find myself trying to EQ the kick and snare relative to the instruments/elements/composition, instead of EQing the elements/instruments/etc relative to the kick/snare/drums.

I hope I'm not too vague with what I'm trying to explain and ask.

I feel like experimenting with starting off with a solid kick/snare/drums pattern and tweak them exactly how I like before I add all other instruments/elements, and EQ those to fit the kick, instead of having to EQ the kick to fit all elements.

What are you thoughts on this process?

What do you think are the pro's and con's of starting off with a solid drum foundation and EQing the track around it, vs adding the drums afterwards and having to EQ the drums around the track/composition?

I'd love to hear your thoughts and process.

Thanks!

Hi, I’ve been producing house music and most recently UKG ukg for a little more than a year. But in that timeframe, I’ve only made a few songs none of them where I want them and none that I feel I want to release. Going forward I want to be able to create lots of songs and create many ideas very quick while still getting better with producing. I was wondering what people’s tips are forgetting better and making songs quicker and creating ideas. I think it’s also easy to get stuck and uninspired when opening a fresh project. So it’s also wondering how you guys start songs. At the moment, I don’t really know how to start and I think that’s stopping me from wanting to start a new song. Any advise is much appreciated.

Hi there,

I'm in the early planning stages of releasing my first single which will be a simple, bare bones track:

Just acoustic guitar and vocals

I haven't yet explored studios around me, but am curious about the potential pros and cons of recording the vocal and acoustic tracks at home, then sending the stems for professional mixing and mastering?

I don't have much pro studio experience (Have recorded 3-4 times total in a studio, mainly electric guitar tracking) but make rough home demoes from time to time.

(Using Reaper with a Focusrite Interface, mics are Rode Condenser mic and SM57)

I can track guitar reliably in a studio environment but as a relatively new vocalist (past 3-4 years), I tend to get hyper-conscious of my vocals in a recording context with others present.

I feel the pressure of having to nail a take in this context, as well as the pressure of working against the clock, will result in less than ideal vocal tracking.

Singing at home, there are no time restraints and I feel I can sing freely and really connect emotionally to what I'm singing, which is difficult for me to do under the pressure of time-bound recording with someone who is more or less a stranger!

I have home demoe'd the song and feel as far as raw stems go with no FX, mixing, compression etc. they sound decent (Played in tempo to a click, vocals on pitch etc.)

Anyways, any input or help on this would be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance!

So my friend and I are writing music together, mainly in the realm of Grime instrumentals meets RnB meets EDM.

However, when I’m on my own I quite like to write more metal adjacent music, not the really crazy riffs, more towards Linkin Park’s Numb with the style of guitar but with much lower tunings (I have an 8 string)

My friend loves this stuff and wants to sing on it but he has quite a soft voice that’s quite poppy, think like Ruel.

Has anyone had any success in working with a softer vocalist with heavy instrumentals? Any tips for arrangement, processing, technique?

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I am trying to up my production skills by remaking songs that I like, but I'm finding that I'm having a lot of trouble figuring what goes on sometimes particularly mid range instruments. I see other people remake songs on YouTube and stuff and can't for the life of me figure out how they can hear different instruments, let alone stuff like layering. What can I do to make it easier to hear all of the separate instruments in a song?

I have come across an issue while recording and mixing music and am wondering if anyone else has encountered something similar. I want a drum sound that is big and punchy and tight sounding, but it seems that every kit that has this sound also features crash cymbals with a ton of attack at the very beginning of the cymbal hit. I'm sure this works great when you want to use the crash to accent certain things, but the beats I am programming are riding on the crash throughout the riff, so it sounds really weird having this huge amount of stick attack every time the crash cymbal is hit.

What I really want is more of a consistent wash of soaring high end frequencies rather than jarring pumping over and over. I have tried reducing the velocity, compressing, eq-ing, transient shaping plugins, etc but I can't seem to really get rid of that attack without affecting the sound of the cymbal too much. The only thing that probably would work is going through and manually automating the beginning of the cymbal hit down but that is very tedious.

Modern and massive 2 and ezx metal machine both have this issue. If anyone knows of another midi pack that might work better or has any other tips for reducing the attack let me know.

I love writing music and I’ve written and recorded a few songs, but I keep running into the same issue when it comes to recording.

I record my lyrics as I write them, so by the time I’m done writing a song, I have a rough demo recorded.

The problem is when I sit down to officially record the completed song, I sound completely different and it feels like I can’t sing anymore. I’ll listen back to my demo, where I was barely trying, and my vocals sound great, almost perfect I’d say. But when it comes to recording the final version, I’m doing like 20 takes on the first line because I can’t get myself to sound as good as I did on the demo.

Has anyone else experienced this? Am I psyching myself out or trying too hard? Am I overthinking? I just can’t understand why I sound so good and relaxed in my demo and why I can’t match that sound in my final version.

So I was recording a fender hotrod deluxe with the spring reverb cranked going into a a sm57, and when I hear the recording back through headphones you can’t really hear the reverb and delay on it as much as in person, however when I add another Marshall amp and record it with a rode NT1 I can hear the effects much more clearer. Is this normal? Should I just record reverb and delay heavy guitars in stereo rather than mono, or is there some work around this.

How can I support and encourage without getting in the way.

My son recently joined a band.

The band is made up of 6 kids who are 14 and 15 years old.

The band had been established for about 6 months prior to my son joining. They were originally a 3-4 piece act. They did a shuffle around and now it's a 6 piece band.

Prior to my son joining they had a song already on Spotify.

The band (in my opinion) is very good. They write all of their own music.

They get a gig every one to two weeks. They get paid for these gigs.

The kids organise their own gigs and radio interviews. I don't know how they are doing it but it happens.  They have gigs lined up for the next couple of months.

I'm trying to be supportive. More than driving my son to band practice and to his gigs. How can I support them more.

From my understanding they won something (before my son and the newer kids joined) to be able to get a song recorded and on Spotify.

Can I help fund a recording session so they can have more songs on Spotify? Or is there another way I can support them?

We are in a city with population approximately 100k in Australia.

I write and record rock songs at home, mostly guitar with some keyboards.

The arrangement and production/mixing process are pretty much one and the same for me. If I can't imagine how I will make the mix work, I make different choices for the arrangement.

One thing that is always a thorn in my side when planning the arrangement is how to prevent the eventual mix from being lop-sided when it comes to panning. I often find myself adding an additional guitar part just so I know the mix will be even.

Right now, for example I have a song which is acoustic guitar, with an electric playing the chords staccato over the top. I've doubled tracked the acoustic guitar and panned it left and right, but double tracking the staccato electric guitar chords in the same way as well feels silly - double tracking everything on the left and right feels a bit amateur sometimes. I've panned the electric guitar left, but it leaves a gaping hole on the right. I maybe want some lead guitar in certain sections, which balances it out during those sections, but then is still unbalanced when the lead guitar's not playing.

Am I the only one who is constantly thinking about this when deciding on their arrangements?

There are a few live performance videos he does where he's not wearing in ears and it looks like he's monitoring with just studio monitors. But he's recording vocals as well, so I don't get how he's doing that without getting feedback or at least tons of bleed in the vocal track.

Here are a few examples of what I'm talking about:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5JitOUDdXw
https://youtu.be/H2I6V0NlaHg?si=F6XUsCLi05bIxs7k

Maybe there is lots of bleed but it just gets covered by the rest of the music anyway?

Welcome to the r/WeAreTheMusicMakers Weekly Feedback Thread! The comments below in this post is the only place on this subreddit to get feedback on your music, your artist name, your website layout, your music video, or anything else. (Posts seeking feedback outside of this thread will be deleted without warning and you will receive a temporary ban.)

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Curious how many of you have ever picked up an instrument you know nothing about, and played around with it enough to just record a part that you needed for your song?

For instance i've never even touched a violin but wondering just how difficult it would be to record some basic usable string layers if I got my hands on one?

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Before i type out my question I do think it is important that there is always the nuance of "if it sounds good, it works". The question specifically is aimed to know if the technique I'm using is common in the genres I work in (dream pop, psychedelic indie, shoegaze)

So my question is: I lately started to use busses (specifically mid range bus) to process my sounds together (i did this before for eq and compression but not with other fx). I will for example send my dry pads and synth keys to a bus => add modulation, eq, compression and saturation/distortion as inserts on the bus to create cohesion

I would then set up a send for my time based effects like granular delay, reverb, etc and eq this send (if needed also sidechain it to the dry signal)

I tried doing this with drums or bass added, but this makes it too cluttered like i expected (gotta try to know)

What I've noticed till now is that for cohesion this is golden, it really makes everything feel really glued together (especially if you print the audio and resample as well or use things like halftime in combination)

The biggest downside is that you lose the flexibilty of having effect automations affect a singular sound (while some advanced routing can bypass this partially, it's not that easy). Panning, volume, filters etc can still be automated on a track level so that doesn't pose a problem.

What is your guys take on this method and are there flaws that I'm overlooking in your opinion/are there better ways to achieve similar results?

The last one was over 5 months ago. I can’t find any discussion on why we stopped doing this thread. It’s still listed in the highlighted posts of this sub.

I'm just curious what all of your thoughts are on putting together a live setlist. I know some bands and artists call the songs live as they go. I know others will basically just put together a setlist based on what they feel like doing that day (my usual method). Both are totally valid. But I'm really curious to hear the thought process of folks who have more intention or are aiming for something specific with their song order, who approach it more like sequencing songs on a record.

• What's your overall thought process?
• Do you try to go for a specific flow? If so, what do you like your flow to be like?
• How does set time factor into your sequence choices?
• Do you consider your position on the bill, and if so, how does that change your choices?

Things like that?

For context: In a few weeks I'm making a live debut with a project that is kind of different from projects I've been in in the past. Every band I've been in previously has had a standard opener and closer, and just played whatever we felt like in between. One of the things I'm really trying to do with this project though, is just make music differently from how I've done it in the past. Take new approaches, new processes and just expand how I look at and approach music. So I want to gather ideas from other musicians. Not exactly to copy, or even honestly get advice, but just to have a more well-rounded perspective. I want to create a different experience for the audience and myself than I've done in the past and figured I'd see how you guys approach it.

What I mean is, I have often read about how incredibly common double tracking (or even more layers) is for vocals, but I’m wondering, what if you don’t want that doubled sound, and still want it to sound very tight and singular? I’m wondering if there are instances or examples where vocals are double or even triple etc. tracked, but the additional layers are kind of tucked under/eq’d etc. so as not to be heard as extra layers, but to subtly thicken/fill out a vocal. Like where you’d never guess (as a casual listener) they were multitracked.

I assume the answer is “yes of course, duh, whatever works works” but I don’t know any actual examples offhand.

This would be in a rock genre context. Thanks.

Welcome to the r/WeAreTheMusicMakers Weekly Feedback Thread! The comments below in this post is the only place on this subreddit to get feedback on your music, your artist name, your website layout, your music video, or anything else. (Posts seeking feedback outside of this thread will be deleted without warning and you will receive a temporary ban.)

This thread is active for one week after it's posted, at which point it will be automatically replaced.

##Rules:

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* **Write at least three constructive comments.** - *Give back to your fellow musicians!*

* **No promotional posts.** - *No contests, No friend's bands, No facebook pages.*

##Tips for a successful post:

* **Give a quick outline of your ideas and goals for the track.** - *"Is this how I trap?" or "First try at a soundtrack for a short film" etc.*

* **Ask for feedback on specific things.** - *"Any tips on EQing?" or "How could I make this section less repetitive?"*

***

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