Produce Music Like Solar Fields, Ableton - Part 1

How to produce music like Solar Fields in Ableton, first part with sounds selection, effects, session view, creating parts and ideas.
I put together a few notes, see below, use these to have a go yourself or to inspire a session:
Talks about the track as a story, different chapters on the journey.
Depth and movement to sounds, chorus, tremolo, loads of reverb.
Uses a lot of NI, Kontact 5, uses Reaktor for its unpredictability in sound design.
Bass, layering with a pad like sound, dirtying up with saturation / overdrive.
Rhythm, uses polyrhythm and plays with the perception of the actual rhythm.
Additional rhythm in a different key rather than using the same pitch.
Nord Modular is his go-to hardware synth.
Reversed cymbal and reversed flute, lots of reverb, create a sound that pushes you forward.
Shortwave radio samples, random scream like sounds, building up tension.
Filters on the snare group for slight variations in each snare hit.
Gradually bringing in some stability to the rhythm.
Cuts and boosts with EQ on every channel.
No sidechaining, either cuts away a sound or uses EQ to give room in the track. Doesn’t want to have a pumping feeling.
Bringing sounds into the middle of the track that are part of the main theme, reversing so it’s there but just a tease and not overt.
Introducing the theme up to the section gradually, tension then release as the theme hits.
A lot of focus on bringing up tension in the piece.
A big focus on using forms of distortion to give life to the sounds.
A few happy accidents with sound design, left in because they worked with the arrangement. The kick that comes in later had a click that he couldn’t remove.
Used a mandolin to create an acoustic feel as the theme comes in, along with an arpeggiated acoustic sound.
Table with EQ on a section to cut it through the mix.
Track builds up to the peak, which is the main theme and how it fades out.
The peak loses the polyrhythm and goes to a 4/4.
A lot of different parts that come in and go out in different sections.
Automation of quite a few parameters, likes to make sounds a little bit wonky for variation.
Same pad for outro as intro - piano with attack removed, sequenced, load of reverb, delay, modulation.
Always keeps the master channel clean.
The whole album was made in the same arrangement.
Creates and makes things in the moment, doesn’t plan out beforehand.
Big sounds and pads, uses distortion to bring the sounds out, early in the signal chain.

[@tombpunk]

Fitting enough that Solar Fields just released his new album. Incredibly inspiring.

[@musicprodstuff]

Ah cool I hadn't realised, looking forward to a deep listen of it!

[@DS-wi3bk]

wowwww great work man, thanks

[@jamienoble631]

Absolutely love your tutorials man, the music i want to make is kind of dreamy progressive trance, old James Holden style and much what you do here can be applied on that type of music. Would be cool to see you make an oldschool progressive trancer James Holden style or like Sasha - Bloodlock

[@musicprodstuff]

Thank you. I like that idea, I often gravitate towards trance type progressions, but I worked in Ibiza during the summer of trance so I have a special connection. You've set me off today revisiting some of the old trance classics! (currently have Art of Trance - Madagascar on, Ferry Corsten mix)

[@eggycat]

That was great. I'd be interested to see your take on Jan Jelinek or Huerco S.

[@musicprodstuff]

Both great but Jan Jelinek is awesome, I am so looking into that now!

[@AlexmDrums]

Amazing video! Great sound that you've created with all of the instruments, so many of these you've captured in a way that sounds just like Solar Fields. The pads and 303 stabs remind me of several of his sounds used across his discography, and it's great to finally see them explained. Really incredible job of capturing this so perfectly. I've been putting off getting the Valhalla Room reverb for a while, but every time you un-soloed the tracks and I heard the decay from the reverb, that finally sold it for me. Can't wait to see Part 2, and see what you're doing with the reverb auxiliary bus to make it sound so good!

[@musicprodstuff]

Thank you! The work that Solar Fields puts into his music is awesome, I just couldn't do it justice in one week. I was hooked into his production style from the Mirrors Edge game, I remember when it kicked into the menu music it was like nothing I'd ever heard in any game before, so unique. I'm doing part 2 next :) I got the demo of the Valhalla to see what the fuss was about and after about a day I bought it, it's such a great reverb.

[@AlexmDrums]

@@musicprodstuff Looking forward to it! I'm in a similar boat, I heard his work on Mirror's Edge first, and then heard Movements. I've been a fan ever since!

[@PieterLaroy]

Love your vids as always :-) And, also use the reason rack extensively, and LOVE Steerpike! For one reason or another, I always return to it.

[@musicprodstuff]

Thanks. I can't keep away from Reason, I've got a lot of sounds there and the rack is the best plugin there is, Steerpike is a beautiful RE!

[@babakbahmani9544]

Thanks a lot

[@musicprodstuff]

No worries!

[@Chris-vc1dh]

I thought ableton was better for live music, what do you think about FL studio?

[@musicprodstuff]

Hi there. It's the best DAW for live performance but it's also very intuitive for production for me. I've used Cubase and Reason most recently, Ableton feels more suited to idea creation and the way it's quite modular appeals to my way of working. I haven't used FL Studio, but really any DAW will do the job for making music, they all do essentially the same things, you'll mostly find that the workflow is what you gravitate towards.

[@Chris-vc1dh]

@@musicprodstuff I love FL studio It’s like which woman is best for a man I think…

[@bobrobertsNotUrBob]

is there a link to the random operator (tut or rack) you used for the beats?

[@musicprodstuff]

Indeed there is kzbin.info/www/bejne/kKWkZ6d4p5eBgNE - I used the third one for the sounds, shortened them with the Attack, Decay and Release Macros. I just had a single instance of it, 1 note in a 1 bar loop playing over as I hit 'rand', then it's easy to export from the file menu when you hit a sound you like.

[@bobrobertsNotUrBob]

@@musicprodstuff thank you