Intro

!is is only the beginning...

Welcome to WARPFLOW! Congratulate yourself for investing in your music. !e knowledge presented here will provide you with the tools needed to complete your tracks. One of the worst problems producers have is not being able to complete their projects. I am 100% guilty of this. I have hard drives "lled with hundreds of un"nished tracks. !e issue is not the techniques or resources you do or don’t have. Anyone who’s spent time in a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) such as Logic, Live, FL Studio or the many others has access to thousands of di#erent sounds, virtual instruments, and loops. In this digital world we live in, it goes without saying that there are tutorials all over the Internet. Books, DVDs, and schools abound that show you how to make sounds, how to mix, outline production techniques, explore music theory, etc. !e resources are there. !at’s no secret.

In my experience, the problem ultimately lies in putting all of the techniques you know to good use in a logical fashion, following a framework designed to meet your goals. In a word: work"ow. !at’s what this book is all about. It’s about separating the right-brained activities from the left, and making a plan that can be followed and ultimately executed. In addition to providing a guided outline I will also provide insight to the techniques that I’ve picked up over the years that have made the greatest impact on my music.

In the next ten days, you will start from ground zero and work your way to a "nished product. !ere is one thing I must stress at the outset. Take your time on your "rst journey through the book. Even if it only takes an hour or less to "nish the "rst day’s task, take your time and do it right. !e idea is to put you in a speci"c mindset for the day’s goal and execute it without distraction. !ere’s a completely di#erent mindset for creating a bass ri#, and another for mixing or choosing samples. Complete each task as perfectly as you can. Revisit it later or even the next day and make it perfect before advancing to the next step. Move on only when you are satis"ed that you have done your absolute best work. So again, take the entire ten days, if not longer, to "nish the project and don’t rush ahead. It’s amazing how a little structure can help to unleash creativity. Find the method to your madness.

When you’ve completed the track you will have discovered what works best for you, and more speci"cally, you will understand your own, personal work$ow. You can then condense your work$ow into a shorter process, and even work on multiple tracks at the same time. I can now e#ectively compose a song in a day or two. Followed by mixing, and mastering the track in two additional days. You will be able do this as well, maybe even quicker.

You will also discover what you need to learn and improve upon. You will begin to see your hurdles and imperfections as a means to improve. Pursue them as opportunities to grow. Tackle them with relentless assault and learn as much as you can.

One "nal point and we will begin. Everyone on this planet can do anything they dream of. It’s bothersome how many producers don’t play real, live instruments. If you do, then awesome! Don’t ever stop jamming on them and with others. !e ones, who don’t, always have some excuse for not doing so. !ey say it takes too much time to learn; they just can’t play it, a#ord it, whatever. Some will say they just have no interest. Well, get interested because you are missing out on a whole world that will open your mind, body, and soul to great things. Instruments are the ultimate medium that allows you to express your soul through them.

Besides, there are so many to choose from; voice (it’s free), guitar, bass, ukulele, bongos, congas, djembe, drum set, piano, thumb piano, mandolin, pan pipes, violin, "ddle…anything that makes sound without zeros and ones in between you and the music. I can’t explain why, but every time I sit down at a real piano, speci"cally a concert grand, I always create something that I love. It happens every single time. It’s magical…that’s the only way I can explain it. Not so much on a MIDI keyboard with a multi-sampled Steinway Grand Piano. So pick up an instrument and play it. It doesn’t have to be a $25,000 grand piano and you don’t have to be a maestro. I promise it will be worthwhile and will teach you many great things about life, the world, and yourself along the way.

Got it? Great. Now rinse o# the soap, get out of the box, and we’ll get started.

Day 1 Pre-gaming

Prepare your mind and workspace for the creative "ow of music.

Clean up your studio: Have you ever walked into someone’s home o%ce only to "nd papers everywhere with left over corn dogs and dust all over the place? What did you think? How did you feel? It was terrible right? Absolutely. Take pride in your workspace by cleaning it up. A cluttered workspace makes for a cluttered mind. You want to be creative and able to focus. Organize everything. Dust o# that monitor and clean up your keyboards. (!e black and white one and the one with numbers and letters on it.)

Some argue that they like clutter with instruments strayed out all over the place on the "oor etc. I say get over yourself, it’s a distraction whether you acknowledge it or not and is ultimately just an excuse to not clean. Clean everything. You will feel much better.

Vibe: Now that your studio is clean, work on creating a setting that puts you in a musical mood. Surround yourself with things that represent who you are and what you’re doing. Make it look like a studio, a place where music abounds and creativity $ows. I have posters, paintings, sculptures, instruments, and acoustic panels hanging on the walls. Sometimes all you need is great lighting.

Lighting: You don’t have to spend a lot of money on lighting. Turn o# the light switch and get a $oor lamp. Open the shades and let the sunshine in during the day. Personally, I love Christmas lights and have some soft white ones lined across my ceiling. !ey put me in a good mood. Find out what puts you in a good, productive mood and integrate that into your studio workspace.

What’s up with the lighting? It’s not just about vibe. !ink about it. You have #ve senses. When one of those senses isn’t needed as much, then that energy gets devoted to your other senses. If your eyes don’t have to process as much information, then that gives your ears more room to work. Try dimming your computer monitor and mixing in the dark. It can be an ear-opening$experience.

Relevance: Make sure you only do things in your workspace related to the tasks at hand. Don’t eat at your desk or surf the web aimlessly. Save those things for the kitchen and the co#ee shop. Otherwise, when you get stuck creatively you may end up sidetracked checking email while munching on those doughnuts you know you don’t need. You know what I’m talking about. When someone walks into your studio it should be obvious what goes on in there. Music production. Not corn-doggery, desserts, and wastebasket basketball.

Focus: Silence or even better, turn o# your phone during a session. You won’t miss out on anything that can’t be handled at a later time. It takes a long time to get back into the groove when your work$ow is interrupted.

Set goals: Decide on what you want to compose and why. Have you ever thought about this before? It seems obvious, but think about where your music is going to end up. Will it primarily be played in clubs, iPods, or both? !ese thoughts will shape the way you write, mix, and master the music. If you don’t have a goal to strive for, then you just leave yourself to the whims of the muse, which is $eeting at best. Create a concrete goal like: “I want to create a club worthy, seven-minute trance track in the style of Tiesto’s “Tra%c” that will be played primarily in clubs and headphones”. Now you have a more de"ned goal to strive for.

Side note: !ere’s a law in life that states that the image you hold of yourself in your mind will act itself out and you will ultimately become that image. Do you want to be a huge performer? !en imagine yourself in that situation and it will manifest in time. !e same goes for anything else you want to do in life.

De#ne right-brained variables: In some cases, ‘no boundaries’ is a good thing. However, if you haven’t streamlined your work$ow, then the prospect of having unlimited possibilities can be overwhelming, which can hinder the completion of a song. Don’t get me wrong. I am all for spontaneous jamming. However, you need to complete a track. De"ne as many right-brained variables as possible and your creativity will explode within those boundaries. Bear in mind they don’t have to be set in stone and can change later in the game. You are basically going to be creating a template.

Logic Sidechain Setup with an audio track: If the sidechain input track is an audio track as oppose to an MIDI or an instrument track, then all you have to do is set the output of the duplicated kick track to no output. When you insert a compressor on a track, the chainer track will show up in the sidechain input drop-down menu. Choose the audio track and you are good to go.

Plug-in Channel Strips: Every track (buses too) should begin with an EQ with an analyzer. Leave empty slots for a few plug-ins and insert a gain plug-in last. !e gain plug-in allows you to add or reduce gain quickly after automation has been written in, and "ip the track in mono if needed. You can save whole channel strips with all of the plug-ins as a setting that can be recalled and dropped onto any track later. An example would be a typical master channel (a.k.a. 2-Bus, Master Fader, Stereo Output) with EQ, compression, and a limiter. Instead of having to add these plug-ins to a master channel one-at-a-time on every project you can just recall the channel strip setting.

Day 6 Harmony

If only I had 3 voices...

!e rules stay the same as the key changes. !e only di&erence is the root note shifts and you start from that point. In the key of D Major, the distance from D to F# (third scale degree) is a Major third. !e distance from D to A is a #fth etc. Back to C Major.

All of the chords listed above are in root position. Now we get to the fun stu#. If a chord contains the same notes outlined above, but the note on the bottom is di#erent than the name of the chord, it is said to be “inverted”. !ere are 2 inversion types: 1st inversion, and 2nd inversion. When describing a chord in root, 1st or 2nd inversion, the bottom note all that matters.

Here is C Major in all of its possible root and inversion combinations:

Root - C-E-G or C-G-E 1st Inversion - E-G-C or E-C-G 2nd Inversion - G-C-E or G-E-C

If you play each combination of the C Major chord in di#erent positions (root, 1st inversion etc.), you’ll notice that each one sounds di#erent. Chords in root position have the strongest pull. 1st inversion has less pull than root, and 2nd inversion has less pull than 1st. Experiment with inversions in your compositions. A general rule to stay by is if the chord is the "rst chord of a phrase, it should stay in root position to help establish/ground the key.

Outro-Towards the last few measures of the big drop, things should start to wind down. Individual instruments will either fade out via automation and/or cuto# modulation (tomorrow’s next step). It can essentially be a mirror of the intro in reverse.

If the track doesn’t sound as interesting or is too repetitive, don’t worry. FX and automation will help out a lot.