how many elements do you normally incorporate into a track?

[ZEB WALTON]

im curious to see how other people get their ideas for adding on. over/under production is one of the issues i feel is my weakest area.

usually ill fukk with

drums (hat kick snare)
bass
sample/(whole song could be sample)
keys
gtr/additional key

i try not to add too much in or i feel like i clutter shyt up.

on average what do you guys work with. sometimes i use one keyboard and some drums and i can complete a song. sometimes i need 3. so many different varietys. thats why i love music

 

[Why-Fi]

my basic formula is a rhythm section (drums & bassline), a melody to counter or enhance the bassline, a sparse sound to do the opposite of what the melody is doing (counter or enhance the bassline), and a pad to glue it together. I'm almost always use fills too, and something extra in the hook, usually another pad

using a sample i usually just put a rhythm section under it, a pad in the hook and k.i.m.

every case is different but thats the basis

 

[Ian1362]

I really don't have a process.

Lately i've been just going through my samples in this sort of order:

pick out drums I like, sometimes program them myself e.g. hat kick snare in FL, but lately i've been fukking with drum breaks a lot more b/c I like the organic dustiness to them when arranged nicely.

From there I look for a bassline that a like, find something that sounds good with the drum arrangement. I usually go the old-school way and low-filter the shyt out of good bass sections of tracks I come across and arrange it that way, sometimes suppress the low end of it and throw in a wah-wah for some added movement at parts too.

Then I look for a primary sample piece, can vary depending on the type of track but can be a guitar lick, chord peice, etc, something to accent the basswork but simple enough that it sounds cohesive when I lay something else over it like a sax peice or a vocal sample.

And then from there I add in the "centerpeice", something that gives the track movement, be it in the chorus with a vocal sample, or a horn, or what have you. The Lou Donaldson bit around 0:06 for example (at that point in the construction it's the 4th sample i've layered down through the process):

[ame=http://soundcloud.com/willink/the-art-of-noise]The Art Of Noise by Willink on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free[/ame]

I literally just go through records, find pieces and then play them in my head alongside what I already have to see if they fit before messing with the pitch/tempo to make it exact. I usually mess with the filtering of my samples here too.

After that I mess around with the beginning, I like to throw in bits from other tracks I like just so the beat doesn't just drop in.

After that I do my scratching, usually just through Virtual DJ + audacity b/c I'm too broke at the moment to buy CDJ or good turntables.

Then I mix everything down. I resample my stuff down hz wise to give it more crunchiness, I don't like stuff that sounds really clean unless its well done musically. I guess I just like Lo-Fi stuff that sounds straight off the cassette.

Depending on the beat, that usually comes to

-drums
-bassline
-bass sample elements
-primary sample
-movement sample
-scratches

I have a keystation mini 32 too but I rarely use that, I don't like keyboard beats and I think that sort of thing ought to be left to either trained guys (J-Swift, RZA, Dilla, etc) or developed via sample b/c just hitting a few rhodes keys sounds really dry to my ears.

I've made a few things with my MPD, and some stuff in FL but lately I've totally constructed things via just Audacity, most intuitive to me I guess. This was totally constructed in Audacity and is composed of 8 channels:

[ame=http://soundcloud.com/willink/do-do-do-do]Do Do Do Do by Willink on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free[/ame]