Being a music producer is a tough gig. Like so many creative jobs you can work long hours, over a long stretch of days, and still not come close to achieving the sound you are looking for. So why make it any tougher than what it is? If you can organise your samples and work in ways you understand then you will increase you productivity tenfold.
Favourite Samples
As a producer you need to have a firm idea of your favourite samples and presets before you start producing. Most successful producers will already have a folder of these on their computer that relate to the type of music they want to specialise in. In addition, they will have a strong opinion of what they like and how they could improve an artist's work.
Short Cuts
One of the best ways to become more productive producer is to find short cuts that don't effect the quality of your work. Probably the most effective way of doing this as a producer is to create short cut keys that turn a 5 second job on a programme such as Appleton or Logic into a 1 second job.
You probably know these already from using Word or just the Internet. For example ctrl-p takes you straight to the printer option. All you need to do is to remap your functions on your programme to one that make sense to you and you're ready to go. The new commands may take you a while to get used to, but once you have wired them into your brain, they make your job a lot easier.
Categorise Plugins
If you keep on top of your plugins they will be your best friend. If you let them pile into a long list they will become your worst nightmare. You'll have no idea, which one to go to and by the time you find it, you'll be desperate to finish work. And that would be a shame when all you have to do is to categorise the plugins into folders.
Organize Your Samples
In the short term organising and labelling your samples takes a lot of work. In the long term it is well worth it. First of all it will help you understand your samples on a whole new level. You can delete the ones that you longer like or sound too similar to other samples.
Second you can give them descriptive names that enables you to go to them straight away and without having to listen to them all over again. Just imagine how much time that would save.
FX Chains
You should always remember to save all your plugins for every instrument so you can return to them at a later date. There is nothing more frustrating to a producer than to have to keep on having to find and download the same things over and over. Especially when it is so unnecessary. One way to do this is to organise your plugins into a folder.
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