March 11, 2008. 140 BPM.

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I had been working on a song since last December, and I thought it was finally done. I burnt it to CD and played it in my van, and it sounded straight-up awful. Incredibly disappointed (and too inexperienced at mixing properly to fix the problems I was having with the track), I came back inside and started on some homework.

A few hours later, I opened up FL. As usual, the inspiration just wasn't there, and I ended up saving a .flp with nothing more than a generic offbeat bassline and a subpar drumloop. Then I decided to check out the CD that came with my copy of [i]The Dance Music Manual.[/i] I listened to the various elements of the trance demo track... then I listened to the finished product. It was as if somebody let me out of the cage that had been my prison.

I dialed up z3ta+ and made a quick hypersaw patch. Then I started throwing notes down onto the piano roll. Inspiration was flowing so freely that my mouse pointer couldn't keep up with the ideas that kept pouring out of my mind. It was nothing short of incredible.

I think that my problem was that I used to spend too much time trying to make my songs the "right way." I was focusing on production more than on the final product, and it was killing me. Now I've got a new outlook on producing, and it's awesome.

I programmed all the synths except for the offbeat bass, which was a preset (I'm not too good at programming basses yet). All synths are z3ta+ except for the 303, which was Phoscyon. I also programmed all the drumloops using individual samples, most of which were Vengeance Clubsounds.

For effects / processors, all external filters were Sonalksis TBK (huge gold knob FTW!1). I used some iZotope Trash and Fruity Fast Dist on the 303. All compressors are Kjaerhus Audio Classic Compressors. I ran the entire mix through PSP VintageWarmer 2 - that's probably why the mix is as clean as I managed to make it.