PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic Workflow & Creativity

Here is a well-articulated workflow description that may be useful to others. I find the entire thread interesting. Note the reference to BiaB in his step # 11.
Workflow & Creativity

I’m 56 years into my musical journey but only three years into digital music composition & production. In my recent experiments, I’m getting to a workflow (I mostly write jazz-inflected songs) that keeps me creative. But I’ve got questions, and I’m wondering how others do it. Here’s my workflow - questions follow:

1. In my DAW (Studio One Seven) I’ve got a template with 7 plug-in tracks: Scaler 3, EZ Keys II, a percussion track with ADSR Sample Manager, a vocals track with SynthV, and three tracks, each with a separate instance of Kontakt 8: one loaded with NI’s Upright Bass, a melody track loaded with NI’s The Grand piano, and a guitar track with an NI Strummed Acoustic.
2. I always start with Scaler 3 to experiment with chord progressions. Even if I know my basic harmonies in advance, I always use Scaler to find interesting chord subs. I’ll sometimes use Scaler to test out various motions, bass lines, and articulations, but the more I use it, the more I find myself using it mostly for harmonies.
3. EZ Keys II is usually my second stop, especially if I’m working on a jazz tune or a standard. I find its vast array of accompaniments very inspiring.
4. Bass is usually my third stop, because it helps establish or reinforce the groove. I had been using EZ Bass, but now I’m using NI’s basses. Their selection of patterns is a bit more limited, but I find them less cumbersome to use than EZ Bass.
5. Melody is my fourth stop. I’m a guitarist, not a keyboardist, but I like to use piano to write my melodies because of its clarity and neutrality. I almost always write my melodies in the piano roll.
6. I might at this point decide to switch my main accompaniment from piano to guitar, which is why I pre-load the guitar. (Sometimes I’ll start with the guitar, if I’m composing a rock song or folk tune or something else I hear that way.)
7. Synth V vocals are next. My process is to type the lyrics into my melody track in Studio One, export the melody and lyrics as a midi track, then import that track into SynthV. I’ll rewrite the lyrics and melody in SynthV as I go along, but I’ll always save and re-export the midi along the way so I’ll always have that midi-melody-vocals track.
8. Percussion is my last compositional stop. After experimenting with Impact and EZ Drummer 3, I now mostly deploy loops, because they’re more varied and diverse than anything I can conjure on my own. Managing loops remains a pain. Neither ADSR nor Kontakt 8 can index Presonus’s built-in loops; Studio One doesn’t do as good a job on Kontakt’s loops as Kontakt 8 does. I find myself switching back and forth among those three loop platforms.
9. After my basic composition is done, I’ll arrange it - with the proviso that at this stage things might change dramatically. I might decide that a chorus is better as a verse. I might replace the piano with a synth. A cabaret number might turn metal. I use Studio One’s chord track to mediate between Scaler 3 and my other plugins - that is, I’ll drop my Scaler progression into Studio One, and use that to drive other instruments. (I had been doing a lot of this “compositional arranging” using multiple tracks in Scaler 3, but I found it difficult to keep a clear view of a full composition in Scaler because of its layout limitations, so now I’ve reverted to using my DAW for the arrangements.) My go-to’s for instruments are NI and East West’s Composer Cloud, the latter especially for brass and background vocals.
10. When I’m mostly done, I’ll do vocal harmonies. I’m finding the new Studio One Harmony Wizard add-on a great tool for this, and a lot of fun to use.
11. I will occasionally use Band-in-a-Box to create a solo break. Sometimes, I’ll use loops and samples. On rare occasion I’ll cut my own samples. Sometimes I’ll solo myself on guitar.
12. Recently, I’ve begun using EZ Mix 3 to mix, and I’ll always go to e-mastered to master. Mixing is a weak spot for me.
Questions:

• For other Scaler users, to what degree do you use or not use its built-in motions, either for inspiration or for final production or both?
• Also for Scaler users, to what degree are you using it as a DAW-within-a-DAW - i.e., using multiple tracks in Scaler to compose and produce, vs doing that part in your DAW? If you are using Scaler for this, what’s your workaround to get a full view of your composition?
• How do you manage loops? Have you found a satisfactory way to index them all together, or are you using two or more separate systems?
• After two weeks of experimenting with Kontakt 8’s new tools - Chords, Patterns, and Phrases - I’m finding them less useful than what Scaler 3 already has built-in. In fact, I’m pretty much persuaded that they’re primarily built for live performance and beats-makers, not for songs or composition. Has anyone found broader uses for the new Kontakt 8 tools?
• I’m only beginning to experiment with macros and shortcuts in Studio One. I’d love to know which macros and shortcuts song composers (as opposed to orchestral composers or beats composers) find most useful.
• I don’t use melody tools - I use my ear. Are any of you using melody tools for inspiration, and if so, which ones?

I’m posting in three favorite forums (Scaler, VI, and StudioOneForum) so apologies if you stumble across this in multiple places.

Just passing through this morning, spent a minute reading... You and I worked on a couple songs together ( beginning back in Octorber of 23 with "Gray Wolf", ...I just checked). I have to say your "workflow" has advanced versus our early days together! You have been very busy my friend. Glad to see the progess you have made.

Yes, Dan, we did collab on a couple songs, they were fun indeed.
And my workflow may have advanced in the intervening time, but the workflow described above is not mine.
My skills are not nearly as strong as described above.

Well I learned something new. I thought that the Presonus forums were dead but they are alive and well. Well almost well as I am not going to fork up $176 USD to answer other's questions. But other information and updates are still free.

A couple points.
Yes, the "official" Presonus chat site did die and that was disappointing. That may of had something to do with Fender acquiring them. But (apparently) there was so much interest to talk about all things Studio One and related topics, that a group self-organized themselves and created a "private" S1 chat forum. They self-organized similar to how we self-organized to collab on the white paper. I was not involved in creating that site in any way but learned about it a year or so ago. If you poke around that site you might find more history on this.

This I kinow, there are some awfully smart/creative/articulate people over there. The above workflow (which is not mine) is one example.

As for paying, to read or even post over there does not require payment. They do ask for contributions to keep it alive but payment is not required.

Interesting workflow. I get all the steps, and how/why they can work effectively for creating a song.

On the other hand, it's not for everyone. For example, I write all my songs before sitting down at my workstation, usually on guitar. From that point on I'm trying to leverage technology in a non-invasive way to translate what's in my head to a finished track. If I'm changing a RealTrack chord inversion in Melodyne, it's because it's what I hear in my head, not because a plugin suggests it.

Not that there's anything wrong with the posted workflow. To each their own. There ARE some amazing tools available today for augmenting and/or replacing musical imagination. Heck, I'll say there are some tools that are SUPERIOR to my own musical imagination. I just enjoy the part that I do, meager as it is, too much to give it up to tech.

I, too miss the Presonus open forum. RIP.

BTW, Presonus is running their summer sale until the end of the month. Resellers like Sweetwater are offering upgrade prices much better than the Presonus site. UPDATE: Actually, you CAN get the upgrade price direct, it's just convoluted. Go to MyPresonus (NOT the Presonus store) and click on "register upgrade license" and then select "purchase upgrade license". They MIGHT have put those in the opposite order, but...

Agreed, I'm sure EZBass (or BiaBBass) can play much better than I can, but the point for me is to be "in-the-loop" the max I can.
Of course, the above workflow is just one guy's flow. Everyone, I'm guessing, has their own unique approach. I do like how he broke his process down in sufficient detail for all to read.

We get together, find an idea we like from one of us and flesh it out using whatever tools we have available that fit the desired outcome.
Having a regiment like his list would be confining for us.
Between Barry and I we have a couple hundred songs and growing .. some have made it to a finished product, some haven't (yet).

What we do is just for fun nowadays, but that approach has served us well and we made some $$ along the way.