This post was originally published on Ilpo’s excellent blog: http://resoundsound.com/breaking-workflow/. You probably get stuck sometimes. I know the feeling. I’ll be looking at a half-finished song and my brain is fixated on the next step. But the solution isn’t coming to me. As you probably know, I tend to be pretty organised in my workflow. Step [...]
New Year’s Resolutions… really?
by Kim Lajoie on January 4, 2013
This is a nice big long post and I’m going to give you some gold in the second half, but first let’s talk about New Year’s Resolutions. Ok, what are some of the usual suspects? “I’ll spend more time making music” “I’ll buy less gear” “I’ll read the manuals for all the gear I already [...]
Mobile music apps: Fast-tracking creative development
by Kim Lajoie on August 19, 2012
This is interesting. Remember loopitis? What a terrible term. In fact, I think the term is worse than what it describes. Anyway, it’s a bad habit of being unable to develop a piece of music beyond a cleverly-crafted loop (usually 4, 8 or 16 bars). Well, like other aspects to making music, there are no [...]
Muscle memory and why workflow matters
by Kim Lajoie on June 19, 2012
Dalton Caldwell: What is fascinating to me is that Great creation stories all sound surprisingly similar. Something along the lines of “yeah we went in the studio and put down some tracks, and they sounded pretty good, and we had to redo a couple of things, and then when put out the album.” Disappointing, right? [...]
Quick question – long long does it take you to mix?
by Kim Lajoie on April 5, 2012
I know I haven’t been around much lately. Sorry about that. I’ve been busy. Anyway, I’ve been thinking about efficiency and productivity a lot. And I’ve been thinking about why we do things like optimise our workflow and find ways to waste less time. So I’ve got a blog post or two coming up very soon [...]
Workflow example: Dance music and vocals
by Kim Lajoie on March 21, 2012
Satoshi Tomiie: When I work with a vocalist, I tend to provide the basic rhythm and melody of a song so they have something to build on. However it’s important not to overdo the production beforehand, so as to leave enough space for the songwriter to come up with ideas. It’s always interesting to read [...]
Different types of workflows (with examples)
by Kim Lajoie on October 10, 2011
When planning a workflow for a song or other recording project, it helps to approach the production process as three distinct stages: Preproduction. This includes writing, rehearsing and refining the song. It also includes setting the creative direction and making decisions around sound and feel. It can also include deciding on matters like who is [...]
What’s the difference between workflow and project management?
by Kim Lajoie on September 12, 2011
As concepts, project management and workflow are similar and related concepts, but they’re not interchangeable. They’re not the same thing. When I discuss workflow, I’m discussing the order or tasks required to reach a goal such as recording a song. Usually a workflow is short and general enough that it can be applied over and [...]
Don’t build a structure by just muting/unmuting parts
by Kim Lajoie on August 15, 2011
It’s pretty tempting. You’ve spent days developing your utterly brilliant eight-bar loop.It sounds full and thick. All your EQs and compressors are perfectly set. It almost makes you want to get up and dance. But it’s only sixteen seconds long. And you didn’t want to make a sixteen second song. You want to stretch it [...]
Workflow for collaborative projects
by Kim Lajoie on August 8, 2011
Workflow for collaborative projects is different to workflow for solo projects. When you’ve got two or more people involved, you need to be more careful about how you balance the workload and manage the sequence of tasks. For example, a typical workflow for a collaborative project might look like this: Preproduction / demo Initial vocal [...]