You open your DAW and reach for that one instrument or patch without even thinking - what is it, and why do you reach for it?
Could be a piano sample with just the right wear, a dusty string pad, or maybe the synth that never behaves but always surprises.
Let’s hear your comfort-zone sounds, and the first thing you reach for when you’re not sure what you’re making yet.
For me, it’s usually one of two defaults - either piano or a strings library. And then I find myself in several iterations of “breathe, get into the ZONE, play something random”, duplicate the instrument track and try again until I get something workable! Why these ones? Well, for me piano is linear and makes aural sense to me and strings are so emotionally charged it’s like dancing with the sound of the strings until there’s something that makes sense as a song. (I realise this sounds cheesy!)
*Also, curious if anyone’s go-to instrument has changed over time? Like, were you once a synth evangelist and now a felt piano loyalist? Or maybe you’re stuck in an eternal loop of marimba + reverb and not mad about it.
Piano. Your comment about linearity and aural sense resonates with me too. I’m a drummer, but you can’t really write melody and harmony using the drums. However, the great free jazz pianist Cecil Taylor said that he thought of the piano as a collection of 88 tuned drums, so maybe that’s the connection…?
Ahhh hi Eleri, that’s such a great thread…
I find all the smashing sounds a bit distracting to start with, so I twiddle my chair round and use my super elderly electric piano which isn’t attached to my daw, and a pen and paper first… and then a bit of a think about voicings. Then into logic and start building things up. If I open logic first I’m like a four year old in Woolworths pick and mix…
I don’t really have a go to, per se. I reach for whatever fits the mood or the bit of inspiration I hear in my head. Sometimes it is a drum, sometimes a bass line, sometimes horns or winds. Occasionally it is strings or synth, but only once in recent memory has it been a piano.
I don’t have a set starting point. Playing the sample instrument directly can help to inspire the sound. If I’m trying to find a melody or harmony I’d probably reach for the East West Bosendorfer 290, or the ( Legacy Knight Piano) from piano book. Something with a clear sine type waves makes finding a melody easier for me. In an ideal world I would play my Stratocaster or Koto until the music gets to where it needs to be, but live in a flat so that is not always possible
I decided about a year and a half ago to spend some time figuring out how to play piano so that is usually where it starts. I love having the celestatone (spelling?) providing some pad like sounds under it for more than one thing.
Then whatever interesting thing pops up (there were a ton of instruments included in the DAW) .
Just got the Handpan that was a recent release on Pianobook and that is an inspiring instrument so I will probably spend more time with it moving forward.
when i have no idea what im about to make i tend to have like… 3 pianos all stacked, one normal piano (lately logics studio piano, it just sounds good), i’ll pull up an electric piano (the imperial obviously) and either a version of dan keen’s gentle grand that i made for decent sampler, or the spitfire originals cinematic soft piano. these are usually not for the piano but for the pad sounds they have. i stack these 3 layers to make some REAAAAAL spacey sound and see what happens from there… or i’ll pull up the BBC SO cello
Thanks for raising this, Eleri - it’s one of those unexamined things I realise I’ve taken for granted - and it’s so interesting to see the different responses here.
For myself, I usually prefer to work without a DAW until I feel like I’m onto something - usually in the stand-alone Decent Sampler player, and usually with some sort of piano. My first choice has varied over time; currently it’s a version of Jon Meyer’s Steinway, but over the course of a couple of years I’ve had moments where I’ve favoured versions of Paul James’ Legacy Knight Piano, Christian Henson’s Claustophobic Piano, Dan Keen’s The King’s Upright (all on Pianobook), Dave Hilowitz’s Reel to Reel Tape Piano (free from the Decent Samples site), and Benn Jordan/Venus Theory’s The Piano (from Forms: Piano, free on Gumroad). In all these cases I saved a patch with effects and RT/pedal noises off, and used that.
Now I’m confused. At first reading above, I figured the database was giving you the most likely things based on some input and your past history with it.
Completely random seems… er… random. Like putting together unrelated things because the dice rolled that way. Am I missing something?
Well I get very different results every time. That is the charm!