Speed Awareness: Cue Fast-tracking.

Constantly refining your workflow is ever part of the conversation in any industry, or at least should be. Things needs to evolve.

In music (by default) you 'get good' at producing cues with repetition - but what about those seemingly small bits of setup that (when given their due) can inject a deeper sense of pace into your output? I'm talking about key-commands, templates, presets, and 16 bar 'Musical Slice' chunks + samples working in tandem with MIDI programming.

Below is a small list of pre-production tips and techniques that I've found incredibly important to utilise ahead of recording anything at all.

🪄 1. Master Template/s

Set up templates! Multiple templates if it's applicable. Investing time into this pre-production task is so crucial as you'll be referring back to these templates (time and time again) for consistency across your DAW preferences and instruments used.

Whether you're saving templates for project-specific purposes or indeed fleshing out a small pool of master templates that you can have added to your DAW dashboard (Cubase is great for this) - either / or, working from templates is an essential time-saver.

🍰 2. Vertical Slice Loop

This is a really handy tip - drawing straight from video game production methods. Take the idea of a 'Vertical Slice', a polished, refined and near-final chunk of the intended produce.

You can apply this to music production in putting together a 16 bar loop (or less) of a cue in it's most polished state (ignoring arrangement and form at this point) - purely throw all the ideas into what could be considered the 'chorus' of the cue.

Once that loop is feeling fit for purpose, and mixed to a satisfactory standard, you can then filter chunks of the timeline out into other areas of the composition - making for quick arrangement, with small tweaks along the way to add further colour.

⌨️ 3. Key Command Shortcuts

Key commands are like having quick-draw pistols in your arsenal. When you get these down to muscle-memory, you'll be able to apply necessary edits without even thinking about it. Massively increasing your flow. 100%

A pick of the bunch that I use almost all the time are below - note: these are specific to me and Cubase Pro...

🔨 Quantisation / lock that MIDI data into the grid

🪞 Duplicate Track / quickly copy tracks and all their settings & data

⬆️ Fixed Velocity / great for establishing consistency across MIDI data

🔃 Random Velocity / great for establishing randomisation across MIDI data

➡️ Legato / stretch MIDI data across the editor to the next sequential note

⬅️ Reverse / mirror MIDI data in the opposite direction

Having the above available at the press of a button, or small sequence of buttons are constantly shaving production time, and I can trust the result by knowing that muscle memory has got me covered here.

'Random Velocity' in particular is especially helpful with orchestral production, as that randomisation leaves me not needing to worry about specifying each and every velocity curve for each recorded note. There will be spec-cases where you'd want to emphasise a certain beat or phrase, but as a general rule - massive blanket help to get things started.

🧪 4. Samples & Loops

I used to splutter at this (once upon a time), but honestly? I'm not entirely sure why. Using samples for added loops, texture, risers, or hits can add great flavour and impact to your cues - just make sure to be using legit packages with the correct licenses where applicable.

🗃️ 5. ABAC...

This is another massive time saver, and greatly helpful in putting chunks of your cue in boxes - helping to both solidify form and quick-draw again the ability to establish loops, whilst you work on one given chunk of your piece.

I used to refer to this as 'Chemical Plant' practice. That cue from 'Sonic the Hedgehog 2' has such strong form, I've drawn inspiration from this time and time again - but applying the same practice to your cue will aid in establishing form before your even need to invest the think-space and action that part of production.

🔲 6. MARKERS

Love these.

Quick fire time chunks for form and instant looping. Mapping out form (see section 5. (ABAC) is almost always one of the first things I'll do ahead of producing anything that resembles music.

I'll think about what form I'm looking to adopt, what works for the cue, and how granular do I want to / need to be.

Mapping these out saves great time further into production as you'll be able to reference and quickly identify a segment of your work - acting as a single source of truth too, without needing to select and click an event to create the same work-function.

🧰 7. PRESETS

I've always felt that anyone making good use of tool or plugin presets gets frowned upon - why? These are excellent for 'out of the box', 'ready to go' tool settings that can fast-track you towards your intended design. Once you've given a quick cycle through what's available, and landed on something suitable - tweak and tweak away for sure. But for pure vibes, and to assist with finding your sound, I can't sing the praises of presets loud enough.

Summary

All of the above is project/person specific, so much of what is detailed above comes down to preference and taste - but you must find what works for you, and nothing else.

Rules and limitations often spawn new ideas that previously you may not have thunk-up. I find that applying rules and working quickly allows me to (at least initially) eliminate un-useful fluff and focus purely on what's going to get a cue moving forward.

Refinement can come later once the bones are in place.

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NOTE: This blog and its posts are a personal side-project and aim only to share and invite conversation within a community. This blog is not in any way affiliated with any company or organisation that I work with or for - views and opinions are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of others.