Tinker. Tailor. Beatmaker.

Tinker. Tailor. Beatmaker​

Introduction​

As 2024 was winding down, I set some loose goals for the coming year. Closing in on the half-way mark of 2025 and reflecting on those goals, I’ve realized they were more general aspirations rather than objectives. This realization also came during a weeks long stretch of writers block - queue the incessant overthinking and minor existential crisis. Starting 2025 I had resolved to make more music and hopefully improve on my craft in the process. The first few months were going very well, and I even started participating in battles. Then the writer’s block hit. Looking for inspiration I reached out to Iron Keys for mixing tips and something he mentioned was incredibly enlightening. “Have a clear direction. This should also apply to your production stage, but when approaching your mix, try to have a clear idea of the emotion you want the record to have..”

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Hobbies​

Music making is my main hobby. It’s important for me to have the delineation between work and play — and music falls squarely into the play category. The curious thing about creative hobbies is that they are abstract in nature and the intent is not as obvious as something like playing sports. If you were in a men’s basketball league; the objectives of the game are pre-defined. Score more points than the other team. The structure of the season and playoffs are already outlined. Best records make playoffs, winner moves on to the next round. This tailored hobby frees you to have fun and enjoy the physical and social aspects of the game. Music, art in general, lacks this tailored structure. Or rather, it’s not laid out explicitly for you. Of course “make a song” is an objective - but there isn’t an opponent, shot clocks, 15 minute quarters etc. Unlike moving down the court and putting the ball in the opponents basket, in music you can quite literally dribble the ball in circles indefinitely. You can endlessly tinker with sounds, mangle samples, piece together arrangements, and come away with nothing. For some this may be perfectly fine — with the fun being the aimless exploration. For others, like myself, it can almost feel un-rewarding, or a fruitless endeavour.

Intent​

Mulling over Iron’s statement and thinking back to the productive early months of the year, the concept of intent revealed some interesting insights. In January, when I was making music everyday, it was because there was a clear intent on making music. I carved out time every evening to write. I spent my workday listening to music; mining for inspiration and ideas. By time I sat down behind Maschine, I had fairly clear cues for what I wanted to make. These cues varied in specificity. It could be a broad concept like “jazzy boom-bap” or “early Def Jux” sound. Sometimes it was more pointed like “use the TB-03” or centred on recreating a certain synth patch or bass tone I heard during the day. Even in terms of sampling, which I rarely do, I found myself actually making music instead of pulling out snips of records and being left with an incoherent collection of sounds and no direction. The same applies to battles. For one Warzone I had the concept of “military drum line” in my head. I spent a good while crafting an 8 bar drum line loop - and it was near exact what I heard in my head earlier int he day. The next day I thought “movie score” would sit nicely on these drums - let me load up my orchestral VST. That particular beat scored me Silver in the finals.

Conclusion​

Making music will always be an integral part of my life. And like any life long commitment, I want to make sure I’m consistently enjoying it. Part of enjoying music making is having that ‘reward’ or finished product that I can showcase. Having an intent when I fire up the home studio definitely helps me earn that reward. I like when I get an idea out of my head and the finished product sounds close to the vision. While writer’s block and creative slumps are inevitable having a coping mechanism of sorts can help to mitigate the frustration. Ultimately, this concept of intent has helped me give an additional layer or purpose and structure to the ephemeral nature of art and creativity.

Enjoy the process and the music will make itself. I make music simply because I love making music. The followers, the likes, the battles all come secondary to just enjoying making music and growing as an artist in doing so.

Music for me is also all about emotion, and getting that emotion across. Stirring feelings in myself, and hopefully in others too. If I made music for followers and likes I'd have given up many many years ago.
It's my hobby, hip hop has been my passion since I was a teenager, that passion has stayed with me my whole life.

Music making has gotten me through some really tough times in my life, instead of climbing into a bottle of alcohol or hard drugs to escape painful reality, I found solace and escape, also release, in making music.

Love, bro

Sitting here ready to tuck into some well structured post, then see myself getting mentioned!

I'm glad I can be having such impact and inspiration on someone.



You see tho, you can apply it to those same moments of "writer's block" --- those chops of records, or just pick something random, find a random preset or sound that interest you, or a melody, or tell yourself 'going to make some really percussive thing', then use that one thing as the inspiration of the emotion.

Sometimes, like with all things, it might just get stuck there. But oftentimes you'll maybe find some technique or idea in that for moving forward.

I typed this all up in Pages and pasted it, forgot to @ you.

I will say, you're definitely living up the the "Ill OG" banner in your avatar. Coming in with a focus goes a long way. Especially for me, who isn't one of those "always inspired" creative types, I need to add some structure or goal to work towards. Even if it's simple or random like you said.

BiggChev said:

I will way, you're definitely living up the the "Ill OG" banner in your avatar.

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I've come a long way.
Back from when my name was more similar to 2Good's and my energy was more akin to an Arvin (minus the shit that would make you want to get social services involved), and I was asking questions about how to chop/time samples and probably some shit about "how to get big kick drums"

Been a journey, still is, but I like the point of it I'm at now.

Just to capitalise on it a bit more.


Always down to help and drop some wisdom and whatnot. Think that's at least one thing that's clear over the last few years.

Honestly... in regard to mixing, it's a lot of;

- learning a bunch of stuff
- second guessing your instincts
- learning to unlearn a bunch of stuff
- realising a bunch of the good stuff you learned seemingly doesn't make sense and contradicts itself so how tf are you supposed to apply it as intended
- Learning you were right all along
- learning to trust yourself
- experience
- still learning and unlearning more shit

Iron Keys said:

Honestly... in regard to mixing, it's a lot of;

- learning a bunch of stuff
- second guessing your instincts
- learning to unlearn a bunch of stuff
- realising a bunch of the good stuff you learned seemingly doesn't make sense and contradicts itself so how tf are you supposed to apply it as intended
- Learning you were right all along
- learning to trust yourself
- experience
- still learning and unlearning more shit

Click to expand...

This! I recall watching a “how to process your drums” video and blindly was doing the same over compressed cookie cutter processing. It wasn’t until last fall I was like “you know what, let me just get the levels and gain staging right.” Made a huge difference.

As a guitarist, the music theory isn’t so much an issue as I know the “moves” I want to make…mixing is still really new to me. I’ve had some fun lately kinda learning the science behind it and helps with the understanding of how to apply certain things.

I just love emoji'ed every post. Rightfully so I think. Great title too.

Now lets just take a moment and think about @BiggChev 's cutlery drawer. That is one tidy drawer, innit? That's how you write a post. Everything has it's place, a beginning, a middle, an end and a purpose.

I understand and I get the "intent" and have no doubt it plays a part in getting that final product to where it needs to be. As a time served procrastinator I have no doubt I could learn alot from that post and it's intention too. However if I was to offer you ONE piece of advice it would be to, sometimes, just throw caution to the wind. Mess up your desk a bit, spill some coffee, better still spill some beer on that pure white, ridiculously tidy and organised desk f yours - from smashing the pads on that Maschine too hard , cause you got lost in the vibe. Don't count the bars, don't metronome in, just get lost smashing buttons for 5 minutes solid. Don't forget to hit record before you start. You'll find something in there, something a bit more raw, something unintentional, something you wouldn't have made with intent, purpose or setup. Don't know what chords you're going to play and in what order. Don't have a beginning, a middle and an end. get out of your comfort zone / template / workflow routine. You can always slide back in after a shake.

In terms of mixing. I think it's important to know and learn as much as you can about the art of it. Knowing what EQ, compression, reverb, limiting, gating can do for you - but it doesn't mean you have to use it, or feel the need to. Depending how you've out together a track it might need nothing. Knowing it's there and how and when to use it is the important thing.

Thanks @hosie !

Ironically, my cutlery drawer is the least organized part of my house lol. I was like “how TF does he know I have a white desk?!” Then I remembered I posted a pic in the “Show Your Setup” thread.

I whole heartedly agree with you on “reckless abandon” approach. Music is equal parts mental and visceral; and I’m sure there’s some physiological impact of just letting loose and having at it. Reminds me of an interview Slash did years ago where he mentions practicing guitar standing up - and how it changes the way you “feel” the guitar and what you’re playing.

I like the pad mashing process especially when sampling. Once I have my chops laid out across a group I can just go on forever slamming around sample chops and just have fun. Some of the best patterns I’ve come up with have been accidentally hitting a pad and the choke group doing its thing.

This year, so far, has been a cool journey of rediscovering the FUN of making music.

P.S. you should’ve seen all the red wine stains on my old desk haha

BiggChev said:

accidentally hitting a pad and the choke group doing its thing

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Shout out this scenario
!