When I’m writing music, I have a concept (I created) to help me change modes, so I can make my songs sound like what I’m hearing in my head. I call it writing by feeling.
People have been doing it for years but I just gave it a name. I gave it a name so when I either got writer’s block or wanted to come up with something unique and creative, I could just remember to do this.
In my early teens, I took guitar lessons. They taught me scales, chords, practice and sight reading. While I was learning to play and sight read other people’s music, I was always asking my teacher, how do I write my own music. I never got a satisfactory answer, so I quit but I continued to play guitar.
When I went to college, I met two people with different styles and I learn from both of them. Darryl Nichols was a classically trained pianist and Jerry was not, but Jerry was always in the piano rooms playing and singing songs he wrote. My friend Darryl taught me about music theory. This helped me understand how songs are were structured and I learned from Jerry how to just trust my ear. From this point, I was able to write full tracks.
Jerry wrote songs by feeling. He’d hit a chord and his ear would tell him where to go next. He’d sing a word and his ear would tell which note and what word to say next. This is the foundation of improvisation. He wrote great songs relatively fast. This concept helped me be more creative and write hundreds of songs.
I love this concept because it forces you to be creative on the spot. When you used to run out of ideas, now you have more ideas than you can record.
I decided to write this blog to see what other writers/producers are using to get their sounds. I was also hoping maybe could put me up on some new equipment.
I write electronic music and r&b. So, my list of equipment consist of:
guitars (Ibanez) Great neck makes it easier to play.
bass guitar (Ibanez) Great neck makes it easier to play.
wah wah pedal (dunlop) great sound
AKG mic (I believe its a c-3000) great sound
Mac computers I’ve always owned a mac.
multiple DAWs (I’ll talk about those later)
many soft synth plug-ins
midi controller (M-Audio). inexpensive
monitors (Yamaha). Good flat response
head phones (Sony) Great bass and overall sound
As for my Digital Audio Workstations, I have:
Digital Performer
Logic 8
Ableton Live
Reason 3.5
Ardour
Out of my DAW’s, I like Digital Performer the best because you really can do everything with it (write scores, record audio, step record, write drum grooves, etc.) and its easier to master than Logic. Logic 8 is lot better than earlier versions. I hated every version before Logic Pr0 8. In my opinion, Logic has more sounds and some times betters sounds (like apple loops, all the logic synths and Ultrabeat). DP5 now comes with plugin instruments and they sound good, but it seems like every time I load one, I always have turn up its volume.
I’m not crazy about Ableton’s sequencer, but I love how easy it is to beat match loops instantly. This gives me a quick way to see what sounds good together.
Everybody likes Reason including me. If I had to ask for an enhancement to Reason, I would ask for audio recording and maybe cleaner sounds. Reason’s sounds are no where near as clean as Logic’s sounds. I also have Native Instruments but I’m not crazy about their products. I expected more from Battery 3 after listening to demo on their website. I thought it was a stand alone drum machine similar to Reason but it requires a good sequencer to do all those tricks and I just can’t get DJ Traktor to work without crashing.
As for keyboards, I have one analog Ensoniq SQ-80 that died a while ago. All my other synths are on computer. From Zebra 2 to MX-4 to Logic’s and DP5’s plugins, I have too many to list. But, my favorites so far are Zebra and linplug’s Albino.
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