Here’s how to stop spinning your wheels and get more written in the studio.

When composing music, be it an instrumental track for a TV spot, or a full song with vocals for an album release, an unwanted interruption in workflow can really be detrimental.

There’s not much worse in the songwriting world than having your creative flow slowed down or even stopped cold!

Here are some techniques that will help you speed up your creative workflow and keep yourself on track.

Write the Song First and Produce It Second

We all know it: Sometimes we are the ones slowing ourselves down. When inspired by an idea, don’t aim for perfection right off the bat, just work on the basics of it first!

Don’t get too precious when you’re in your creative mode. Consider everything you initially record into your DAW a scratch part to be revisited later. When writing, use your DAW as a compositional tool first and a production tool second.

In the old days, we would create a demo of our music (most likely on cassette) before going into the studio to record it “for real”. Given today’s tools, we can record “for real” right from the very start. This is as much of a curse as it is a blessing. We often get hung up on (and slowed down by) putting down pristine parts from the get-go.

For example, an acoustic guitar riff comes to you and your goal is to develop it into a full-fledged track with drums, bass, percussion, keys and the like. Don’t start off by taking time to perfectly record the acoustic guitar live. By the time you set up a microphone, get levels and record a part you like, inspiration can suffer.

Even worse, once you do have the perfect acoustic guitar part down, you know you’re going to start trying compression, EQ and reverb on it, further delaying the creative process! Move fast. If need be, just plug in the acoustic direct, get a scratch guitar part recorded and move on to the other important creative compositional aspects.

As you develop the song with other parts, keep reminding yourself that you’re composing and not producing. Save the production elements until later.

Have a vision of how you want the end result to sound, but put off the nitty-gritty work until once you reach a certain point. A point, perhaps, where you are happy with the groove, form and instrumentation and have successfully outlined the basics of your idea. Write first. Tinker and perfect later.

Use Track Templates

Templates are a great way to keep the workflow moving. In Pro Tools, you have session templates and “Track Presets” (which I know and love as “Track Templates” in Cakewalk by Bandlab). Some form of session and track template is available in almost any DAW.

A track template lets you store a tracks settings for easy recall. Inputs, outputs, EQ, volume, panning, effects settings and even audio and MIDI data can all be saved within the template. Here are some good uses for this feature:

Amplifier Sims

Don’t stop your workflow to spend time configuring a track with an amp sim for an electric guitar part. I keep templates for clean, mild distortion and heavy distortion sounds so I can easily call up a sound in the ballpark and keep creating.

If you use the same electric guitar for most of your songs, the input and output level settings of the amp sim should be very close to where you need to be when you call it up. Later in the process, the amp sim can be tweaked, replaced with a different amp sim plug-in, or even replaced with a microphone on a real guitar amp. But for now, just call up a template and get the basic idea down!

Piano and Soft Synths

Having track templates ready to go with keyboard patches and synths pre-loaded with your favorite presets is a great time saver and a total no-brainer.

Live instruments

For the production stage, I keep templates for recording certain sources I use again and again, like acoustic guitars. Stored in the preset is microphone input selection, track output and level, EQ, compression and reverb. These are all starting points; I know that the acoustic I use usually needs some low-end rolled off so I save that EQ preset to the template. Compression and reverb are dependent on song style and performance of course, but at least these plug-ins are already loaded up and ready to be configured.

Vocal Tracks

A while back, I hired a singer to perform on a multi-song project I was hired to do. She recorded parts on her setup at home and transferred the WAV files to me. I simply called up a track template and imported the audio. No need to manually configure my chains for EQ, compression, de-essing, effects sends and the like each time.

If you’re not using track templates yet, know that they don’t even have to be created from scratch. I would suggest loading up some past projects and simply saving existing tracks you would find useful as templates.

Track templates can be further developed into song or session templates. Song templates are starting places that can be configured in many ways. Create session templates that contain your most frequently-used elements and instrument combinations.

For instance, I recorded five gypsy jazz tracks recently. Each one was to consist of two acoustic guitar parts (one recorded in stereo and one in mono) and a bass part. After recording the first song, I saved it as a template to easily begin recording the next ones. Mic inputs, EQ, volume, reverbs and compressors were already gain staged and ready to go.

This worked out especially well because the songs were so similar in nature and I wanted them to sound consistent. But even when you want to go for a different feel for each track, it’s nice to have half the routing and setup work out of the way, saving even more time for creative decisions.

Organize, Organize, Organize

Quickly finding just the right instrument or loop is vital to workflow. (Fortunately, SonicScoop already has this topic covered in the article How to Better Organize Your Sample Library.)

There is an important consideration relating to your content however that is often ignored, and that is license agreements. (For a deeper look at this subject, try How to Sample Music Without Getting Sued: The Curious Case of the Most Controversial Copyright.)

Here’s a workflow-stopping scenario for you: You’re creating music that you plan to upload to the music libraries you work with. You’ve just added the perfect loop to your song. Then the thought hits you, “Wait, how am I allowed to use this loop? Is it cleared for commercial use? Is it cleared for music library use? Are there other use limitations?” Workflow stops while you’re off to search out the answers.

These days, I simply do not purchase loop libraries with restrictive license agreements. I read the agreement carefully before purchase to make sure I can use it commercially or in songs destined for music libraries; however I need to. The most common restriction I find is the loop can’t be used in isolation, it has to be mixed in with other elements. This is pretty much universal among all companies and certainly acceptable. After purchase, I print out the license agreement and keep it on file in case an issue ever arises. Planning ahead this way, when I grab a loop for a song, I know there is no problem in using it.

Back to organization, that doesn’t cover content I’ve purchased in the past, before thinking this through and coming up with my rule of not purchasing restrictive products. The biggest issue I have with previous purchases is “not for library use”, meaning even if you mix the loop in with other elements you are not allowed to place it in a music library.

These I place into a “Not for Library Use” folder so I can easily avoid them when working on a track destined for a music library. I also begin the organization of my loop library by the company that produced them. This way, if I do have a question about an older product’s license agreement, I know where to start my search.

So know your license agreements. There’s no sense stopping your flow to research if you can or can’t use that loop! Organize your sample libraries, and your session files too.

Record Yourself Live

If you use a separate room to record yourself performing vocals, guitar, saxophone or any other live instrument, you know the drill: You keep going back and forth between rooms as you set your levels. There’s not much avoiding that, but once you do have good levels you can save a lot of time by starting and stopping recording remotely.

I use an old MIDI transport with a wire run through the wall for this. In addition to recording and playback control, I’ve assigned buttons to transmit File | Save and Undo. You can do it this way with a MIDI or USB wire, but we don’t need wires for remote control anymore, as there are options like Bluetooth, and tablets connected to Wi-Fi.

Today, there is the option to control your DAW via Wi-Fi, which isn’t dependent on the distance between the tablet and computer, as long as you are on the same network. For Android tablets and phones there’s “TouchDAW”, a universal DAW remote. 

For iOS, some companies provide free apps strictly to control their particular program, like “Logic Remote” for Logic Pro X or “Control” for Pro Tools. Search the App Store to see if there is a dedicated remote for you choice of DAW. If not, universal DAW iOS controllers include “DAW Remote” and “DAW Control”.

If that’s not your style, you can simply try a wireless computer keyboard. If you’re not far from the computer and the walls aren’t too thick this could work (some models, like the “Logitech Wireless Keyboard K270” are advertised as featuring “Long-Range Wireless”).

In the Bluetooth world, one choice to investigate is Korg’s “nanoKONTROL Studio”. This has a transport and a mixer section. And, if you find yourself out of Bluetooth transmitting range, it also works via a USB connection.

To help keep workflow when recording live, I like to have multiple microphone stands always at the ready. One at the proper height for recording acoustic guitar, one perfect height for vocal, one ready for my guitar amplifier; you get the idea. Each has the microphone clip attached based on the microphone I usually grab for its purpose. I’ll even keep the mic wire draped on the stand.

Finally, always keep your headphones setup, configured and available in your live room. Another timesaver—just put them on and off you go!

Practice with Your DAW

Learn how to accomplish tasks on your DAW before you need to know how. Just like playing a musical instrument becomes second nature because of all the hours of practice we put in, the same can be true for your DAW skills.

The more projects you do in your DAW, the better your DAW skills get. But I also advocate practicing on your software during those times when nothing is at stake.

The next time you want to noodle around, work on your chops, figure out a new tune or the like, record that practice session in your DAW, and monitor through it.

You can even set up challenges for your self as well. Set up a scenario for yourself and see it to conclusion. For example, ask yourself something like, “What if I had a bass part that just wasn’t in sync with the audio stereo drum loop?” Then, set out to solve it.

Think up scenarios that you might or have run across when recording but haven’t yet delved into. The reward comes when you’re working on an actual project and don’t have to slow down to figure something out!

I hope these five techniques help you keep yourself on track and avoid interruptions in your workflow. When you can make your work speedier and make the recording process second nature, there is so much more energy left for creativity.

Michael Nickolas is a music creator working in Massachusetts. Placements of his music include “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah”, “The Voice” and Showtime’s “Shameless”.

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