hey guys it's Mike here you're watching
in the mix and today I'm going to be
sharing with you some of my thoughts and
advice about workflow as a music
producer so this video is going to be
split into two parts the first part is
just going to cover some general advice
that should apply to just about anyone
and the second part of the video which
you can skip ahead to just covers FL
studio specific workflow tips so the
reason that Brad and I decided to make
this video is because we think workflow
is possibly one of the most important
things to consider as an artist
obviously you need musicality creativity
and the right inspiration and what's or
not but if you can't translate that
musicality and creativity into actual
songs you're only going to have barriers
and complications as an artist so we
thought we'd share some of our advice on
workflow so that you guys can be up and
running - we've just released an
original song called pretty little by
Road and that's over on our artist page
called hybrid and we'd really appreciate
if you guys could go and check that out
after this video and let us know what
you thought of it so the first tip would
just be to make sure that you're
comfortable in your music production
environment so make sure that you have
everything close by that you need to
weather that water or food and snacks
make sure that everything you need is
closeby when you're producing this also
extends to all of your kit cables
chargers passwords for sites often if
you're using things like splice or
contact you need to stay logged in so
make sure that you have your passwords
and email addresses and all that readily
available with cables just make sure
that you have your mic cables or USB
cables available and also chargers
there's nothing like trying to check
your phone quickly for some
notifications or an email and then it
dies and you spend about 10-15 minutes
searching around your flat looking under
the couch to try and find your charger
cable it's just a total waste of time
and it will distract from your workflow
better yet just keep your phone turned
off our second tip would be to actually
try to finish as many of your songs as
possible it's not when I used FL Studio
I just had some sort of ideas and like
loops going on but I didn't really turn
them into finished project it was only
when we started finishing tracks that we
sort of actually pinned down what our
workflow was like knowing that you had
to work to a deadline or you eventually
had to draw a line under a piece of work
and say yeah this is good enough for the
world to see so we've released the EP
and we've released a few singles we're
also working on a second EP
we have these sort of deadlines to work
to but something that's really helped us
are over cover songs that you've
probably heard on our main channel so
usually we just hear the song in the
morning and then we spend about five six
maybe seven hours producing the track
mixing mastering editing it recording
and video editing that together and
posting it and what it means is that
every step of the way we have to decide
whether or not we're happy with it and
we have to learn to draw a line and move
on to the next thing we're working on
which is just workflow and that really
helps us learn how to work efficiently
and fast but it's only because we know
that there's an end goal of actually
releasing the track or releasing the
video you can do the same thing by
imagining that you have to release your
song or even better just working towards
a release of the song knowing that you
have that deadline to work towards
should help you work better point number
three is about collaborating with other
artists so this could mean working with
a production partner or another artist
on the other side of the world just
online and it's best to establish your
aims your goals and who's doing what the
very start of the project we've been
involved in quite a few collabs that
have gone well but we've also been
involved in a lot of collabs that have
gone very very badly and they haven't
resulted in songs being released and
we've just lost time and money over them
and it's because people at the start of
the project I was included we didn't sat
down who was you know exactly who was
singing whose lyrics it was going to be
who's involved in mixing who gets the
final say on the master who does the
artwork who gets to choose when
everything is done what date are we
finishing this by and if any of these
aren't sort of concrete set in stone
there's just this room for sway and then
people start having an opinion on
something on another opinion on
something else and you know it's
difficult when you know you may be
working with two people we're both both
you have a singer both and you can
produce and you're not sure who should
handle what things can just get awkward
really quickly so it's best to just
decide at the start of a project pretty
much who's doing what and also who gets
the final say it should just allow that
work to actually continue as opposed to
just grinding to a halt and resulting in
new work being released and the last
point before I talk about the FL studio
stuff would be to just relax so but all
of this said I don't want you guys to
stress about having too
a certain way I work fast or worry about
coal labs if you can just relax when
you're making music it will put you in a
very good mindset in a very good state
to keep working and enjoy the entire
process of doing it so moving on to the
second part of this video we're going to
focus on FL studio specific workflow
tips and the first tip would be being as
familiar with the software as you
possibly can and you can achieve this
many ways first would be practice so
just practice making as many songs beats
loops as you can to gain familiarity
with the software but you want to make
sure that when you're getting familiar
with the software that you're not
incorporating a lot of bad habits into
what you're doing so there's often
better ways or more optimal ways to do
things inside your DW and this is true
in FL studio too there's so many ways to
do things that there's often a better
way to do that tasks so there's loads of
ways you can learn better ways to do
things and one would be to find a mentor
so a friend or someone online who you
know isn't necessarily better than you
but maybe has a better workflow than you
so you can look to them for inspiration
there's also a lots of channels on
YouTube which show you how to use FL
Studio we have a few videos covering FL
Studio workflow where we're actually
working on projects and also sort of
shortcut videos but there's loads of
channels out there I might need a few
links in the description to good places
to get some help and advice from and the
last point would be to actually use the
manual and I'm probably going to sound
really outdated here because most user
manuals are written in about 110
languages tiny tiny print and you can
never find what you want so we all just
throw them out and get going anyway but
the FL Studio user manual is actually
amazing wherever you are in your project
you can just press f1 and it will pull
up the user manual specific to the
section that you're working on there's a
search function and you can really
quickly find what you're looking for for
me it usually works a lot better than
googling or even going on to their
online help for them because it's all
laid out really well you can't really
get lost and usually that's where I
first go for help and I never lost in FL
Studio or wondering how to learn the
software a little bit better we get a
lot of comments in these sorts of videos
with beginners looking for help and I
love that because this community is
actually great and usually people will
reply with the specific help they need
which I love seeing or I try to reply
myself but if they just check the user
guide the help would have been there
probably would have saved them a lot of
time
probably saved a few other people time
but we do enjoy helping that's also what
we're here for my screen is just turned
off point two would be using templates
so as the studio comes with a couple of
templates that you can open or you can
open your own one for instance I've just
opened one that loads up that a piano
and the channel and I think like a vocal
bus as well which can help if we're
working on that sort of project so these
templates can open up and give you
somewhere to start depending on the sort
of music you want to make and if you
want to save your own templates all you
have to do is work on a project until
it's the way you'd want to open a new
project go to save out and then save it
into the templates folder inside the
image live folder on your computer and
I'll leave a link down below to show you
the files that you have to go through to
get there when you open a new project
you can simply open this template and
start working right away and it will
have all the synths and all their keys
and all the processing that you usually
have open using templates effectively
can save you a lot of time we don't tend
to use them for original music because
the sort of music that we may expand so
many different genres that trying to
template them out or cut them into
blocks doesn't really work for us but
what we do use our templates on vsts
point three is using presets effectively
so there's a few ways you can do this
you can have mixer presets you can have
VST presets and like instrument presets
and also effect presets so the mix of
presets are great if you want to apply
the same sort of processing to lots of
different channels so you have your
vocals split up but you wanted to have
generally the same processing you can
simply right-click on the channel and
save the mixer preset and then
right-click and open it on a new channel
or you can actually drag and drop all
the effects over or just one effect as
you need it onto a new channel which can
save you a lot of time instead of
navigating for the vsts yourself there
are also loads of effect presets that
you can use so these could be on effects
such as EQ and compression but you need
to be really careful you open up a
compressor preset lots of the parameters
will be completely wrong there's no way
that the compressor will know what level
or what sort of audio is going in so
it's not going to have the right
threshold for a start you're going to
have to set some of these manually so
you still know you still need to know
what you're doing when you use these
presets but they can be a really great
place to start especially if you're new
you can also use instrument presets and
these are
this will form part of your some product
that I'll talk about later and what
these do is if they're sounds that you
know you use like you create some cool
synth sounds you fridge some cool keys
sounds or something like that you can
load them up later so you can save them
by going to the top right hand corner
and going save preset ass and then you
can simply open them up whenever you
need them in the future and this is
great if you've got sort of soundscapes
where you know certain elements work and
there's some sort of fundamental sounds
that you want in your track that you use
before you can just load them up just
like that
obviously you don't want to use these
presets too much otherwise you music can
start sounding generic or also the
similar but they can be really really
helpful especially when you're just
trying to put down ideas and you want
something that sounds good that isn't
maybe just a piano or just a basic
sentence with your ideas downward point
for is having your own personal sample
pack so I don't just mean sort of kick
samples snare samples I mean a broader
sample pack so this might be written on
your computer and a note pad or in the
browser of FL Studio and this will
contain all the sort of stuff you use so
your ideas and what works together as a
concept but also kick drum snare drums
claps and all those sounds you might
have also instruments that you know sit
well together in a mix and what you did
to them to make them work in the mix if
you keep a log of all this stuff or keep
it all bundled together you'll gather
this sample pack of information and also
sounds that will help your workflow in
the future a quick point to mention
there would be file management in your
computer so you want to make sure that
all your backups are saved where you
want them to all the stems from your
songs or printed out and saved somewhere
and your computer has a good
organization because otherwise these
sample packs that your project will be
more difficult to navigate or when
you're trying to find new sounds will be
harder to access them so spending a few
minutes on organizing your computer
making sure that everything is safe and
secure and backed up can save you days
or weeks of data loss if the wash were
to happen FL studio' is pretty solid we
found but occasionally things go wrong
computers are just loads of ones and
zeros anyway and we don't necessarily
trust them all the time so if something
were to crash or you've got a virus
heaven forbid you'd want to know that
you
actually backup your data and not lose
weeks and weeks working on an original
song the last point would be on setting
up two MIDI keyboard or controller
correctly if you have one if you're
lucky enough to be using a MIDI
controller I find that they really speed
up workflow because you can very quickly
sample sounds or listen to them I should
say as demo them to see whether they're
going to fit in your song so you don't
need to spend so long and searching for
sounds but also the transport buttons on
it to the play/pause start/stop buttons
if you've got those all working well for
you they can help you navigate your
project really quickly so to set these
up you have to go into the MIDI settings
and then make sure that the controller
type you have is accepted now FL studio
covers just about every MIDI controllers
you can think of that some of them
aren't there so if you go online and
look for help for your specific MIDI
controller you can usually use in a more
optimal way than you're probably using
right now so those are the workflow tips
and tricks that Brad and I use when
we're working but if you guys have any
specific ones just please leave a
comment down below I'm sure other people
would love to hear them it's actually
been really good to see all the
engagement in the comments recently
usually if someone has an issue or is
trying to figure something out you're
all sort of pulling together and give
you some really good replies and advice
down there and across on the Facebook
page so I just like to thank you all for
doing that it's really really cool to
see this community that we're growing
all working together towards the same
thing and helping each other out because
that is what this is about it's just
about helping people so if anyone has
any video ideas that you think would
help you the most just please leave a
comment down below as well it's good to
sort of see what sort of audience is
watching this and what sort of advice or
tips you're looking for whether it's
really focused on FL studio specific
videos or just more general videos
rather than I can make videos on all
sorts of things we could just do an
access to do a basic series we could do
a series about sort of mindset working
as a music producer or we could do very
specific things like vocal tracking
recording and whatnot so if you guys
just let me know what you'd like to see
in the future that'd be great and until
then see you guys in the next video
she's really little fun
maybe he'll make my way through the town
I don't know a to embroidered a pretty
little blur
but he become from here I say you can be
my world
[Music]
always