Where Do People Start?

[Faastwalker]

Pads! I'm a sucker for pads / strings. So I usually start here, stumble on something I like & maybe this will evolve in to something. I rarely start anywhere else thinking about it. A nice pad tends to be the catalyst.

[Raveshaper]

Melody (feeling) first almost always. Sometimes it's either rhythm or "everything at once" epiphany, but mostly it's melody / mood first.

[willowman]

Whenever I'm short on ideas/writers block I'll just jam away (whilst recording) on a particular synth for half an hour or so and listen back to what I've recorded.....there's normally always a few good ideas or starting points there

[Creativemind]

Sometimes for me, one patch or sound can inspire a whole song. The lushness of it inspires me. I remember one time, I was on the bus coming home and just got a lead melody in my head. Got home and put it straight down on Thor. Then I spent half an hour synthesizing a sound (than just a blank Thor patch) and then obviously there will be chords that fit that 4 bar lead melody, so then I found another nice patch to fit that and spent 20 mins working out what chords would fit. Then I think I probably did the bass line for it, then a vocal melody just came and most it just came straight away. it was this song:-