Developing your ideas

[ LiB ]

Dave's got a great idea for a tune. It came like a bolt of lightning while he was waiting for the bus. He hums all the way home in case he forgets it and quickly records the melody into Logic as an eight bar lead synth part. 'It's brilliant,' he thinks. 'Absolutely brilliant !' He cycles it round a few times and hits upon a killer bass line. 'Fantastic!' he yells. He improvises some drums over that and records a funky chord sequence using a favorite guitar patch. 'This is it. This is gonna make me a fortune ,' he cries. 'Strings! It needs strings,' he bellows, and he sets about adding a string pad. Already his musical canvas is pretty full. He can't think of anything else to add at the moment so he saves the file and goes off to make a cup of tea.

A while later Dave returns to his masterpiece. He plays the eight bars. 'Hmm, it's only eight measures long. It definitely needs more, but I can't think of anything else. I know, I'll do a rough mix instead. Something will come to me later.'

Dave sets about the mix and experiments with the levels in Logic's Track Mixer. He used the ES P Instrument for the lead synth and tries out dozens of different plug-in effects to fatten it up (does it really need them?). A couple of hours later he sits back to have a listen. 'Mmm, it doesn't sound quite as good now. It's not quite what I had in mind when I was on the bus. Perhaps that bass line needs to be a bit different.' And so he changes the bass line, which in turn requires a modification to the chord sequence. 'That's better, but hold on the melody needs altering to fit that new chord.' Dave alters the melody. Oh dear! Wasn't that the brilliant bit, conceived at the bus stop? 'I'm not sure about that kick drum, it doesn't sound fat enough. Where's that article I read in Sound on Sound about compression, it's here somewhere. Oh well, maybe some EQ instead.'

He's lost the plot now, although I'm not so sure he had one in the first place. It was all so promising as well. What did he do wrong? Well he didn't know where he was going for a start.

[ LiB ]