If you have very limited time in your studio and struggle to make the most of it, you’re going to love this.

In this video I go through 6 tips for optimizing your time, creativity, learning and more.

This video was sponsored by Skillshare

Browse and organize presets
Pick a virtual instrument at random and start going through the presets. Often there is some basic management options like ranking or starring favourites. Going through a full preset list might take you more than 15 minutes, especially if there are a lot of good ones, but not only will you have a curated list of the best, but also a much better understanding of what the instrument is capable of.

Save new presets and templates from previous projects
Open up one of your previous projects and start saving anything that you might want to reuse later. Save a preset for a great guitar tone, the fx-chain for that killer vocal delay with sidechain ducking you set up, or multiple tracks with routing and fx as a track template. Building up a library of your own best sounds will save time and effort in future projects.

Sample literally anything
With a portable recorder or even your phone you can record common everyday objects and turn them into something interesting, useful, otherworldly with simple editing and effects. A spice grinder can become a percussion groove, smacking a paper bag becomes a snare, and a squeak from a door becomes a horror pad.

Watch a Tutorial
So of course since your watching this video you already had this idea, YouTube is obviously a good place to find tutorials, but this is also a good time to talk about the sponsor of this video – Skillshare.

Skillshare is an online learning community for creators, with more than 25,000 classes in music and video production, art and design, and more

Recently I took a class on Lua scripting basics which helped me better understand the structure of scripts in reaper, a course on improving my YouTube channel, and my kids and I enjoyed a class together on doodling.
I love that there are no ads or distractions on the site and an annual subscription is less than $10 a month.

Try Skilshare premium membership

Timed challenges
Set a timer, grab a random sound file and turn it into something completely different. This is a great way to practice your sound design skills and build up a collection of sound mangling fx-chains. If music is more your focus, try making a song in just ten or fifteen minutes. It’s even better to do this while screen recording. You will quickly find several things that slow down your creative flow and area you can improve and optimize. If you spent 5 minutes on just the kick drum sound, you need to collect a small set of favourites so in your next challenge you get past that stage in just 5 seconds.

Production analysis
Take one of your favourite songs and break it down, figure out what makes it great. Even if your not great with music theory it’s a good exercise.
What are the layers in each section and how would you describe their role?
What has your attention in each part and why?
Map out the structure and chart the dynamic levels

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