Workflow with Headhunterz: Starting a new song

By Hard News 12 March 2016

Headhunterz is very active on Instagram and he likes treating his fans to daily updates. While he isn’t as active in the Hardstyle scene as he is on Instagram, he has been giving extremely valuable studio-tips for a few weeks now.

‘Workflow Wednesday’ as he calls his tips are something that a lot of our readers will find interesting, because many of them have an interest in pressing buttons and turning knobs. That’s why we’ve decided to publish them on our website whenever he decides to deliver a new one. Last Wednesday he explained something about ‘Starting a new song’. Read and learn!

“Even though I just arrived in Hong Kong after a 15 hour journey for a small Asia tour I’ll do my best to give you something useful.

Many people ask me how I start a new song and I know that this is different for everyone. I know producers that start with a kick and a bassine, I know others that start with a groove, but for me when I start a song it’s about the idea. The magic has to be there from the start. I don’t want to make ‘another track’. I want to make a great song. And in the music I make, that is not going to happen just by having a good kick and bass or a nice drum groove. I’ll make those when I’m not feeling inspired or when the idea is already there. The idea starts in my mind. I really ask myself what do I want to make? Very often I’m lucky to have a great vocalist who sparks the idea for a melody, but if you don’t, why not just throw in an acapella you like, make a song and then take out the acapella?

I love vocals as a starting point, and then a melody inspired by the vocal. The drop is often the last thing I make after putting down an atmosphere for the rest of the track. The drop compliments all of that, like the plot of a movie unfolding. Most of the time I feel very uninspired when I have to make a drop off the bat. Just doesn’t work for me. Melodies of the bat can work, but I find when I have a vocal that my melodies come out more unique, in a way I couldn’t have thought of without that vocal. So to put it short. Start with the idea for a track. it has to be great from the start, without having great drums, without having a buildup etc. A naked idea. The better the idea, the less you can go wrong from there on.

So many legendary songs have many flaws but we love them because they have the magic of being great ideas that resonate with us on a deeper level than just music science.”