Photo Credit: Marie Staggat
Born in Oslo, Beth Lydi grew up playing the violin and piano. Her curiosity has taken her around the entire world, and eventually, she ended up in Berlin. Currently, she is the co-owner of SNOE, actively engaged in artist management & booking. as well as touring as a DJ throughout the world. A workaholic with a butterfly image.
Kicking off 2022 in true style, Beth Lydi now presents the ‘This Is Love’ EP for Desert Hearts. To celebrate the release, she shares 5 basic organizational tips for the studio.
1. Carve out time in your schedule
I think it is important to be able to make music undisturbed, and although these spontaneous “oh, now I want to make music” sessions are great, I like to also set days during the week where I block my calendar for anything else and just make music. Of course, it is hard to plan when you want to be creative, but if I have one of these studio days where I don’t feel creative at all, I can use the time to clean up my project folder (I sometimes like to listen through and sort old projects), watch tutorials and learn something new, or experiment with new plug-ins or hardware.
2. Make sure you work clean from the start
This is a tip for beginners, and I experience it every now and then when new producers ask me for tips and tricks when they feel stuck in the flow. Make sure you sculpt your sounds properly from the beginning. No, I am not talking full-on mixdown. But, it means EQ what needs to be EQ’ed, stereo-ise what needs to be stereo-ised, put love into your automations right from the beginning. You can, of course, do some of this later, but I have had to go through the experience that cluttered songs often prohibit new ideas to develop. These little efforts give more room in the soundscape and free space for new ideas.
3. Don’t be afraid to move on from a project
This is also something I had to learn over time after spending way too much time on tracks that were never going to become anything anyways. Train yourself to move on, start something new if you are stuck and have tried a couple of different basslines or synths. You learn something from every track, and the next one will be a little bit better or a little bit easier, and some will be an immediate match. If it is a fantastic sketch, save it, but don’t pain yourself with trying to force a track to happen. Not all songs are meant to happen; some are just meant to teach you something. Kinda like friendships 😊
4. Making a good groove
It is easy to be overly eager when making a groove, adding and adding sounds until the good groove foundation has become chaotic. What my partner once said to me, what really stuck with me and I continue to do if I feel I have been too eager is: make a loop, mute all the percussions, add one by one and different ones together, and with this identify what is really making the groove amazing, and what holds it back or makes it too nervous or full.
5. Experiment, experiment, experiment
Be curious, try unconventional things, bend the rules and see what happens. Of course, a few basic things work as good foundations for every track, but most of the extraordinary stuff can happen by accident. Some stuff will sound terrible, some stuff will sound fantastic and open your eyes to a whole new way to work with the tools you have at hand.
Beth Lydi’s ‘This Is Love’ is out now via Desert Hearts. Purchase your copy here.
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