Produce Music

Feeling inspired by the new day, you grab a bagel, gulp down some orange juice, find an empty room in the library, and roll out your gear.

There was a promising thing that you pull open again. Yeah, this is it, the slick drumlines that you managed to piece together yesterday. It’s faster than what you usually do, sitting at a cool 172 bpm, and as you lay down some passable preset synths, you decide to lean into the drum & bass sound that you haven’t explored as much before.

You spend about ten minutes playing with the kick sound, working with two sets of layered samples, but can’t quite pick between the two of them. You shrug to yourself, and set it up so that the piece gradually transitions between the two.

Now comes the bass. You keep it nice and simple, introducing a basic chord progression that gives the piece a nice full sound even before you’ve really tweaked the patch you’re working on. After a couple more minutes, though, it really starts to come together, and you close your eyes, drinking in the looped bars for a solid half minute—getting the LFO just right was the magic you needed to tie this together.

The top end is missing a little something though. Coming back to the preset synths, you give it some much needed EQ, and then work out an arpeggiated line that gives the song just that little extra bit of drive.

You bounce back and forth across the track, and have yourself a real solid minute or so down by the time an hour’s passed. Having tied up the section, you sit back and listen to what you’ve made, and it’s… not quite perfect, but starting to come together.

You crack your knuckles, ready to keep going, but then see a redhead tapping at the door. Oh, you know this girl, and you like the look on her face. Hurriedly, you pack up your gear, inviting her in.