Which production concepts/techniques have improved your production the most?

[Thymos]

...for me it was the usage of scaler 2, which introduced me to scales/chords and which reduced situations were one element is slightly out of key and I could not figure out which one exactly and how to fix it. This led me also to a new workflow in which I always start with a chord progression and build anything on it.

What about you folks?

[jamcat]

For me it’s thinking through the complete analogue studio signal path, and reproducing it from start to finish.

[saint_william]

Something about snapheap made effects click for me. I demoed Naturaizer amd thought hmm I could do with with snapheap and spent a few hours figuring out how which opened up effects routing for me in a bit way. Shout out to Dash Glitch for his awesome tutorials.

I’ve now made naturalized presets for each part of the drum ensemble, and synth categories. Super fun!

[__Karlo__]

Using the EQ match feature on ProQ3 against a reference mix definitely makes me realize I do not have "golden ears" lol... but I think it's helped my mixes quite a bit.

[imrae]

Making level-matched A/B comparisons with bypass and other settings or plugins. It's so easy to fool yourself with loudness and to assume that more processing is always better.

Starting with a good fader balance and not too much processing, then adding effects where they actually help.

Using a smooth slapback delay as a send and trying it before reverb in many cases.

[cryophonik]

I can't point to any specific concept/technique that made a huge difference in the final results, but going back to a primarily old-school hardware-based approach and committing parts to audio has made the process far more enjoyable for me lately, and I think that has translated into much more satisfying results.

[i need Help]

I can't point to any specific concept/technique that made a huge difference in the final results, but going back to a primarily old-school hardware-based approach and committing parts to audio has made the process far more enjoyable for me lately, and I think that has translated into much more satisfying results.

This. I use to try to keep all my sounds “live” meaning the synth and plugins running so I could still edit them. Now I’ll bounce stems of say distorted basses and disable the plugins, then in a future saved project file I’ll eventually delete them.

[HOTF]

Stop overthinking and trust my judgement

[legendCNCD]

Listening and doing fast actions

[JiggSaw]

Simple but I basically stopped soloing/muting tracks. I make it a point to do everything in context.

[lfm]

I think that would be putting together a reference music track with about 90s or so from various professional recordings I find sounding terrific in different aspects:
- incredible drums
- nice over all airy sound
- nice synth bass
- heavenly vocals

Calibrating ears with this in between is really good. Coming back to a mix next day does not sound crap as of before now using reference more often. Slowly coming to terms with what makes a mix sound good.

[kingozrecords]

I've been rather impressed with the kilohearts effects packs. They have an audible grain; but they have a commercial feel. I don't think they would be suitable for a live environment, because after much testing, I began to realize that the algorithms they employ have latency, or perhaps they are not optimized enough to operate without a buffer and say 250ms latency.

I think the gamechanger, is a good brickwall limiter with a ceiling that has a smooth finish. I was pretty impressed by boz's the wall, I like it. But. I got tired of it un-registering (I kept having to put my serial # in again and again), so I stopped using it. Some limiters out there sound too smooth, and if you can find one that has such a glassy feel, please share the name. One of the most interesting ones I've tried is the mbprocess by Hornblower, it was an older KVR DC entry. I've yet to try a limiter that sounded so artificial. It was flawed, but proves that it can be done.

[Dust_NL]

Not following tutorials on YouTube anymore and start EQ-ing tracks in context with other tracks playing and then finetuning with only likewise tracks playing (eg. only low-end). Most important learning point: stop “swiping” frequencies to cut all resonance peaks, like they tell you to do in the tutorials. Sometimes they just belong there.

Other thing is less quantizing, add more swing, using “add some random” velocity setting in Ableton and even manually nudge and edit velocity of some of the notes to make Ik sound more human (humanizing technique).

And the last thing: use reverb and “ping pong” delay as a send instead of an insert. My songs sound much more “pro” now (I wish )

[JimDiGritz]

Remaking tracks that I admire.

I'm focussed on EDM, specfically MidTempo stuff so I've spent many hours completely remaking tracks by Rezz, K?D, Gold Geisha, Space Laces etc.

I've picked up 1,000s of ideas and had loads of light bulb moments on topics like:

Song structure and arrangement
Managing Dynamics, energy and tension and release
Mixing
Layering
Sound Design (I learnt a lot about synthesis just trying to recreate bass and synth sounds)
etc

I also drop back to this if I'm not feeling creative but want to 'put some hours in' and still have fun.

[Mdekoning]

Using References (for ideas and Inspiration)