Workflow Wednesday met Headhunterz: The empty page

Door Hard News 25 februari 2016

Headhunterz is erg actief op Instagram en trakteert z’n volgers dan ook dagelijks op nieuwe updates. Hoewel hij niet meer zo actief is op het gebied van hardstyle, is hij sinds een tijdje bezig met het geven van waardevolle studio-tips.

‘Workflow Wednesday’ noemt hij deze tips zelf. Aangezien veel van onze lezers zelf ook wel eens aan wat knopjes proberen te draaien in de studio zullen we deze tips iedere week op de website publiceren. Gisteren besloot hij om wat uit te leggen over ‘The empty page’. Lees en leer!

“One thing has always scared me and it still does: The empty page. I feel it when I have to start a new project and have no Idea what I’m going to do. Suddenly a song feels like a big mountain you have to climb and you can’t find the first rock to hold on to. You felt like you knew it all before and now you’re a beginner again.

I just don’t want to be in that position again so nowadays I’m prepared. First of all it’s smart to start with an idea. When you make a song you’re never going to invent the wheel. Everything’s been done already and your song is going to be an interpretation of music that has been made before. Originality will arise out of how original the combination that you make is. Make a Spotify playlist that gives you a better idea of the direction you’re headed. When that is clear, start gathering sounds. Gather as much as you can so you can start being creative without being bothered about tweaking synths and eq’s.

When you do have the sounds you want start throwing in rough ideas. Take as long as you need to find a nice melody or whatever you’re trying to get, but when you got it, start building the song immediately. Endless looping and tweaking will kill the flow. Imagine that in the next couple of hours you will have your whole structure of the song finished! That would feel great and after that you’d have all the time in the world to perfect every little detail. When you do that during the process of arranging you’ll lose the feel for the song before it’s finished and it might even start to annoy you.

One more thing, the idea of a song is the single most important thing of the song. When an idea doesn’t work, don’t be afraid to throw it out the window. So many times I had been struggling all day not getting it right, and next morning I’d wake up, throw it all in the trash and come up with a great idea almost immediately. That’s the moment when an empty page can be very inspiring instead of having all these sounds that won’t seem to work together. Don’t be afraid to lose the hours you put in before throwing things away. You never lose the experience you gained.”