Game-Changing Guide to Innovative Music Production
Date: 12-5-2023
Do you want to lay your hands on music production and want to create unique and innovative tracks? If your answer is yes, this blog will help you get sound never heard before. Read below to know seven simple ways to create unique and innovative tracks.
Seven Ways to Create Unique Tracks
1. Acoustic Equipment Delays
Adding a delay plugin is one of the easiest ways to give motion and increase the activity of acoustic equipment without changing its original sound. The DDLY (Dynamic Delay) plugin can help you create some awesome sound effects.
Consider a marimba as an example. It's unlikely that a pop song would use this equipment frequently. But you can give that same equipment motion by adding a cool stereo delay to a straightforward part. It starts to sound a little bit more like it could have come from your favorite synth.
2. Build Up Long Reverb Tails
Another interesting way to subtly alter sounds is by applying a reverb tail. In music production and other aspects of sound engineering, reverb is a crucial effect. The decay or fade-out of the reverb after the dry direct sound signal has ended is the reverb tail or simply it is a late reflection.
Reverb tail benefits equipment by making them sound better and vocals by softening them and making them bigger to go well with instrumentation.
Now, when you are producing music try applying a long reverb tail of say 15 seconds. Though it is a bit longer, if done sparingly, it can have an interesting effect. We'll create it as an insert on the track rather than setting it up as a send effect. Let's remove the original audio source (referred to as the "dry signal") and only use the processed reverberated signal (referred to as the "wet signal") to make things really interesting. You're now beginning to produce some lovely eerie sounds.
3. Pitch Shift of the Musical Equipment
Pitch-shifting as you know is used in sound engineering to pitch equipment way out of its natural playing range and when used skillfully can help create great music. Understanding and effectively utilizing the pitch shift can help your compositions and mixes gain depth and richness.
Let us understand this by taking the example of a Xylophone. With a playing range of F3-C7, it is primarily mid- and high-note equipment and therefore can't play low notes.
But when you adjust the instrument's pitch down a few octaves, all of a sudden, you're using higher octaves that have been down-pitched and slightly time-stretched. This gives the same equipment a completely new sound. When you further change the pitches, the sound will become more morphed and warped. And when your objective is to genuinely create something new, that's not a bad thing.
4. Layering Effects
Layering, in sound engineering and music production, combines multiple individual sounds to produce a more complex and interesting cohesive sound. This can be done to achieve specific sound design goals, such as layering different synth sounds to produce a richer tone. Additionally, it is accomplished by layering various effects to produce a more intricate soundscape.
Try layering effects in Cimbasso, a brass piece of equipment. By using a pitch shift and then applying delays and throwing on a reverb, you can turn this classical musical equipment to create a low "Waaaah" that, despite being entirely organic, has a synthesizer-like quality.
5. Go Crazy
Similar to the step above, you can go with further layering. Apply absurd layers upon layers to create sounds that are truly otherworldly.
For instance, you can start by adding little compression and EQ to your original sound. Then you can add a stereo delay with some long feedback followed by adding a long reverb of 12 or 13 seconds with a high amount of wet signal. If you want your sound to be crazier, you can repeat the pattern to create an airy sound. Moreover, you can also layer your sound with a cool groove, and some bass and piano notes. With these sound engineering techniques, you will create an awesome song.
6. Utilize Musical Equipment In Novel Ways
This sound engineering technique is a little trickier when using equipment say a guitar, piano or any other. However, if you're recording live equipment, take advantage of the chance to experiment and discover the numerous surprising sounds that each piece of equipment can produce. The same acoustic equipment can be used in so many inventive, non-traditional ways.
How about strumming the violin like a guitar instead of using a bow? And instead of strumming a banjo, how about bowing it? Consider tapping a cello's body to produce a rhythmic percussion effect. Or playing the piano by plucking its strings?
Prelude by the Piano Guys is one of the best examples where all the different articulations and sound effects have been achieved using one piece of equipment in different ways.
7. Time extension
Time stretching is the process of playing back something faster or slower than it was originally recorded. For years, this sound engineering method has been used to produce some incredibly distinctive effects. You can make things sound higher pitched, like chipmunks, by speeding up an audio file. On the other hand, slowing it down significantly will cause it to sound distorted, incredibly low, and almost demonic.
The music composed by Hans Zimmer for the movie Inception is one of the best illustrations of intense time stretching I've ever heard. The entire soundtrack for the movie is based on Edith Piaf's 1960 recording of "Non, je ne regrette rien," which was slowed down by 70% to create a wholly original new sound.
Conclusion
As a music artist, making something new is what you aim for. To achieve this, you will have to move outside of your comfort zone and explore the realm of imaginative sound creation. Be brave and continue experimenting. No one knows you might produce something really awesome.
ZOOM Recording Studio, a recording studio in LA, is the best place where you can produce your music. At our state-of-the-art recording studio, our latest equipment helps you obtain great sound, and our sound engineers will perfect them with their excellent mixing and mastering skills.