Nico Morano, the melodic powerhouse DJ and Producer from Belgium welcomes you into his studio to provide his top tips for making that winning track. Following a great year, hosting his very own Ontourage livestreaming events at some of Belgiums most iconic landmarks, Nico now embarks on one of his most exciting years to date with a flurry of releases scheduled in the coming months.
Nico’s studio tips are undoubtedly behind some of the work he’s put into his upcoming music on Récits de Mars and Sincopat. He’ll be debuting on the Spanish imprint in February but before then, Nico unleashes the ‘Resilio’ EP alongside Radeckt at the end of this month. We hope you find his top tips useful in the studio.
Nico Morano & Radeckt’s ‘Resilio’ EP is available from Beatport on 31.01.20
1) FOCUS – FOCUS – FOCUS
Super cliché, but oh so true. If you are an in-the-box producer, or your studio is full of analog gear, just keep your focus in order to finish tracks. I mainly try to focus on 1 synth per track. Better to know one synth inside out, than going through all 200 synths and searching for that certain preset. Better to know your machine and create your own favourite presets, save them and use them more than once to create your ‘trade mark’ sound.
For me, my focus goes to my Prophet 06. I absolutely love this machine and every single track over the past year has got key sounds of this beast.
2) DELETE-DELETE-DELETE
It’s easy to lose the overview when producing and end up getting lost. Try to push the DELETE button a little more. In the past, I saved every little idea, every single sound, …etc. Nope, you should just delete the stuff you don’t need or you are not sure of. Just keep the best and only the very best, in order not to end up with 20 layers of the same sounds. I made this error plenty of times. Layering & layering… Nope, less is more!
3) ASK HELP – PREFERABLY IN OTHER GENRES
In order to get your productions to a higher level, why not ask a real guitarist (if you aren’t one ☺) for an acoustic solo? Recently, I started working together with people who didn’t put any foot on the dance floor of a club. They were newbies to ‘melodic house’, but loved to collaborate. The result is just pure magic. You will be both out of your comfort-zone but the result will also be very exciting, because you will end up with very surprising riffs and less predictable bass lines. In a few weeks and months you will hear how this approach has improved my personal sound, I can’t wait to reveal this!
4) VISIT OTHER STUDIOS
Over the last 2 years, I have visited different studios in various countries. This has various advantages.. Every room sounds different, so you are able to hear the difference in terms of the room, speakers, different instruments – That way you can decide the best option for you. You will learn your way to go and have the chance to try synths you only saw in a magazine. Most probably, the owner will be able to give you a direct answer on the pro’s & con’s of these machines & therefore you can learn a lot on a short time. In the end you will be able to make better decisions and end up with a setup you don’t want to sell after a week, because it only looked nice on a picture! ☺
5) RECORD YOUR AUDIO DIRECTLY
Don’t waste time and when using analog gear, play and record. Simple.
You can always delete. But record everything when jamming. You never know you fail to find your setting a second time; But as mentioned in tip number 2, don’t forget to delete all the shit you recorded too!
