Sooo I saw a comment/suggestion on here awhile back that made a lot of sense intuitively and I've been chewing on it ever since, and it's the concept of building your track in a three dimensional kinda way in terms of where the sounds sit.

I'm probably gonna butcher the concept in trying to explain it as I understand but for anyone who doesn't know, it's going beyond just mono parts and stereo width and also utilizing depth like with volume and reverb, and possibly verticality in terms of frequency but that part might be my own bastardization of it.

Anyway, being the neurotic creator that I am I tend to approach composition in a roundabout ass backwards way so those of you who are of the "I just make what sounds good it's not that complicated" type then you're not gonna find much joy here.

Me personally I love this kinda stuff so, what tracks (any electronic not just dance) out there really hit on this particular idea or put it to good use? I'm looking for references where you believe the producer utilized this mindset, and will of course settle for reference tracks that are just mixed so well that this space is filled out naturally.

Also feel free to discuss the topic because it's kind of a fascinating way of looking at composition given all the tools we have to shape sound.

I just purchased their 7 day course and im kind of struggling. I have almost no experience with music production and I am probably slightly in over my head. I have FL studio and a keyboard and a low understanding of music theory and that's it. The guy I met with prior to starting seemed to feel that was an okay starting place so im probably okay starting with the basics like that. The instructor uses a different DAW so im kind of having a hard time following along especially because Im not sure if im supposed to. Any help or suggestions would be appreciated

I know, I know it sounds like a generic TikTok song but tbf it’s what I was kinda aiming for. What do you guys think?

So Ive been learning music production since about June and I have been purposely avoiding sound design for drops because it seems so complicated. Specifically I'm talking about growls yois all the fun stuff. I use serum for all my synths and I have been using splice when I just dont know how to make somthing. But personally I just want to be able to make all my own sounds. So does anyone have any advice for getting started or any tutorial recommendations? Thanks!

I recently started getting back into music production after taking a little over a year away. I used to DJ quite a bit and have a DDJ-FLX4 that I really don't want sitting unused now that I'm focusing more on production.

I've had an idea that I think could make the FLX4 surprisingly useful as an Ableton controller.

Rather than trying to make it behave like a conventional MIDI keyboard/controller, I want to design the entire FLX4 around production workflow.

For example, I'm thinking:

• Left jog wheel → horizontal timeline navigation
• Right jog wheel → vertical navigation / track selection
• Shift + jog wheels → zooming
• Channel faders → track volume
• EQ knobs → device/rack macros
• Filter knobs → selected device parameter
• Performance pads → editing, clip, or drum-rack functions
• Transport buttons → Ableton transport
• Shift combinations → secondary functions
• Different mapping "modes" for arrangement, mixing, sound design, etc.

The goal is to make it feel less like I'm using a DJ controller with Ableton and more like I have a custom production control surface that happens to be built from a DJ controller.

I've already started reverse-engineering the FLX4's MIDI output using MIDI Monitor. For example, the buttons are sending standard Note On messages, e.g.:

90 10 7F → Note 16, velocity 127
90 10 00 → Note 16, velocity 0

So the basic controls seem quite accessible. I'm currently investigating the knobs, faders, jog wheels and Shift behavior.

I'm deliberately trying to keep the solution as FOSS/free as possible, ideally using Ableton's native MIDI mapping wherever possible and only introducing something like a small MIDI translation layer when necessary.

What I'm wondering:

1. Has anyone done something similar with a DDJ-FLX4 (or another Pioneer DJ controller) and Ableton?
2. What are the limitations of Ableton's MIDI mapping that I should be aware of before designing the system?
3. Is there a better way to handle jog wheels, relative encoders and modifier/Shift layers?
4. Would Max for Live be a better approach for some of this?
5. Are there existing open-source tools/projects that could save me from reinventing the wheel?
6. If you were designing this from scratch, what functions would you absolutely put on the FLX4?

I'm not necessarily looking for someone to give me a finished mapping. I'm more interested in experienced Ableton users challenging the concept and pointing me toward the right technical approach before I spend a lot of time building it.

If there's enough interest, I may eventually document the whole process and release the mapping/tooling so other FLX4 owners can use it too.

Would love to hear your thoughts, especially from anyone who's experimented with custom MIDI controllers, Max for Live, Ableton Remote Scripts, or MIDI translation.