Listen, Listen, Listen: Analyse Your Favourite Tracks
This is one tip I come back to time and again when people ask me for advice. Experience is the key, so make sure to analyse and dissect the arrangements of all your favourite tracks. Listen to what other producers have done and try to figure out how it’s done and why it works or even why it doesn’t! The more you get a grip on what producers are doing, the better you’ll get at picking out the those important but minor details that make tracks and using them yourself.
Next time your in the studio listening to tracks, try this out:
Import an mp3 or wav of a favourite track into your DAW, chop or add markers at the beginnings of each new section; keeps note’s on which elements appear in which section, and you’ll be to build a picture of how the producers arrangement window would have looked. You can take this one step further and make colour-coded dummy parts on their own audio tracks. This will represent each part you hear in your analysis. This can be a really helpful method to help you understand how good arrangements are put together, and help you put these into practice in your own tracks!
