On a cold winter day while I was working a night shift in midtown Manhattan I was tasked to be a greeter at the Apple store on 5th ave. As the trees whistled from the wind and the cab drivers were taking smoke breaks in front of the store I snuck one of my headphones through my shirt to listen to !llmind’s then new podcast BLAP CHAT. He had one of my favorite producers, Cardiak, as a guest and like any other creative he was a bit hesitant giving the listeners insight into his process. Understandable. Being a Grammy Award winner, yet still coming up through the ranks and establishing yourself as a top tier producer, you would be a bit hesitant to while you are still developing your brand. Amongst his story of transitioning from New Jersey to LA and meeting Dr. Dre he dropped probably one of the biggest gems of all time; for me that is. He told !llmind about his workflow.
He spends Monday through Wednesday developing chords, melodies, and arrangements and then spends Thursday and Friday laying drums. At this point in my career I had no placements so I figured why not give it a try. I went home and tried it and by the weekend I knew I struck gold. The batch of beats I had made that week were fuller, the arrangement had multiple change ups, and the mixes felt different. I knew I was onto something but I couldn’t quite put my finger on why my music sounded so much better than before. I vividly remember my fiancée walking in one day listening to a beat I had just made and asked, “ Is that you?” I knew I was on the right path.
Simply put, when you are creating a beat from scratch you are using your brain to write a top line (melody), chord progression, percussion, drums, arrangement, add any effects, on top of mixing and mastering.* [Most of us aren’t actually mastering when we say this. Basically, we are making sure there’s enough head room in the mix that will allow us to turn everything up so that the mix is loud. Engineers, feel free to comment.] You’re trying to multitask while creating and just like a computer the more ram you use the less efficient your processor can be. However, if you were to only focus on the melody and the chords and maybe the arrangement, you are now using your mind to only focus on those few tasks. No need to worry about what the drum cadence should be or how you’re going to EQ anything. This leaves room for innovation and creativity.
Let’s say for instance you put yourself on a 30 minute timer where you’re only going to work on these 3 stages of creating a beat separetly.
- Chords and melody
- Arrangement
- Drums
Most people can up with a pretty basic melody and progression within 15 minutes. Now imagine giving yourself and extra 15 minutes before moving on. Think about how creative your sound design could be if you don’t worry about anything else. This is what I learned from using this method and its the reason, I believe, my beats became good enough for someone to buy a lease.
Of course there are more than 100 ways to make a beat now a days. With sound packs coming out every week on Splice, Arcade constantly updating their sound libraries, or even your friends sending over loops you can make anything in no time. However, what if you switched up your work flow if only for a week to see if there’s a better way for you?
Ford may have implemented the assembly line first, but Toyota made it better.
