Critical Listening and Referencing

Hey Everyone,

There is something that you can start doing today that can potentially be the single most influential activity on your growth as a producer. That thing is critical listening and referencing. You may have heard about referencing as it relates to mixdowns, but this is different. 

I 'm sharing a Spotify playlist that I made to help expand your horizons and give you various ideas and inspiration for sound design, arrangements, compositions, rhythms, transitions, percussion, mixing, etc.

Each track in the playlist can be a great learning experience if you listen critically. Beyond just cool sound design and the obvious stuff like that, they might have an interesting arrangement, a focus on percussion, polyrhythms, a hooky melody that stays interesting for 7 minutes because of automation, one unique sound that ties the track together, no breakdowns, etc. 

The tracks are all within the progressive/deep/melodic house and techno space, but keep in mind they may be for different purposes...some are very club focused with a particular energy level/moment in mind for the DJ, while others may be more for streaming/casual listening.

If some of the components seem so far out of reach for referencing (i.e. sound design where you wouldn't even know where to start)--try zooming out and thinking at a higher level...that's what this is actually for. 

Here are some examples to get you thinking on the critical level that I'm talking about:

-Does the melody repeat every 4 bars or is it a polyrhythmic 2 1/2 bar pattern? or maybe 3 bar pattern? If it is a polyrhythm, how often does it reset? or just does it just go on forever and never really sync back up with the song?

-How simple or complex is the bass/chord progression? Does it repeat every 4 changes, or maybe only ever 2 changes--or maybe there is no bass change at all...how does the song develop then?

-How often does the artist add a new percussion element? 8/16/32 bars? At what transitional points in the song are they all removed for impact?

-Are those pads actually chords or just single notes?

-Are there melodic/transitional sweeps right before the downbeats or are they placed more creatively?

-How does this still have my attention, what new elements does the artist introduce to keep it interesting?

-There's no white noise sweeps...what type of element did the artist add to build energy?

-Did those elements have a reverb/delay tail or did they just cut out immediately?

-Is that delay synced or unsynced?

-How late/soon in the track do we get the full drum kit/groove?

-How late in the song did the artist introduce this new element?

-When did the artist first tease the melody or lead sound?

-Is that stuttering sound actually an arpeggiated pattern or a sustained sound with a tremolo that's creating the 'notes'/separation?

-What kind of call and response is there within the melody. Is it the same sound doing both or are there two different sounds playing off each other?

And there's thousands upon thousands of additional conclusions and ideas you can draw from these tracks and literally any other track. Take some time every so often (or maybe daily) to do some critical listening---whether it's in the playlist or with your favorite songs. It can be super inspiring and help immensely in training your ear as well as providing your brain with the mental representations of good songwriting, composition, arrangement, mixing, etc. which will enable you to make better decisions in your own tracks.