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How do you get it? For me most people want to make "a wobble like x producer", myself included in that-now I want to do my own thing and tell myself not to follow the crowd. Even when people go "you should do it like this" for me there shouldn't be no rules. A lot of dubstep sounds the same, we all know that, but what I'm really getting at with this thread is how you go about stamping your own mark which is original....anyone got examples of what they would consider "original" dubstep?

I think that experimentation with a crossover of other genres is good (grungestep, trancestep, and I had a go at some 176 hophopdrumstep, "bounce your bumpers" in my signature). And not following the crowd even when the demand for a certain style outweighs supply of producers producing it, so to speak....your thoughts?

I think the first step is dropping all Subgenres. They tend to lock you into a way of thinking about how it should sound. One of the things I love most about Dubstep is the lack of defining rules. As long as youre in the 140 range so it can be mixed, you can do pretty much whatever you want. My advice is blaze a spliff, hit loop and record, and start hitting the keys. Freestyle the melody, listen back and grab any parts that sound good. I use ableton so if I get 2 bars that sound nice I consolidate them, erase the rest and record again. To quote Bruce Lee, "Don't think, feel."

globalbabylon wrote:I think the first step is dropping all Subgenres. They tend to lock you into a way of thinking about how it should sound. One of the things I love most about Dubstep is the lack of defining rules. As long as youre in the 140 range so it can be mixed, you can do pretty much whatever you want. My advice is blaze a spliff, hit loop and record, and start hitting the keys. Freestyle the melody, listen back and grab any parts that sound good. I use ableton so if I get 2 bars that sound nice I consolidate them, erase the rest and record again. To quote Bruce Lee, "Don't think, feel."

I hear you. I'm using those subgenres as an example of different kinds of dubstep. I agree you shouldn't pigeonhole into subgenres...... and freestyling basslins ftw if you don't know much about music theory. That's a good idea of how to get a bassline btw.

Originality in some sense is important, but I think its more important to make honest music that youre really feeling, even if it has strong influences in it. Like you say theres cross over stuff, but in a way thats just 'whos going to be the first person to rip off 2 artists from different genres at once', its not really true originality. In some sense all art is theft, and when you sit down to make music using a 4/4 grid, western scales, comprised of drums, bass and melody youre following a very narrow path of possible ways to construct sound for enjoyment thats been going on for 100s if not 1000s of years. You can pull out fsol tunes from 1994 that sound just like dubstep, but around 10 years later someone was considered original for repeating the formula and now we have Dubstep. If you want to be fairly original within electronic music, probably best to go back to the old fsol tapes and try and find one of their blueprints that hasnt yet developed into a full scene, work from there . But to be truely original with music, thats pretty hard, its always an evolution, you can always go back another year and find a small step back in the way things are done. I think people like Aphex Twin and Autechure are a few people whove managed to hit on a few really original ways of doing things to my ears. But they also stole a lot of styles along the way too.

So yeah, important to kepe things as fresh as possible imo, and crossing over styles is a good way to do that, but Im cool with taking strong influences too. Musics like an evolving langauge, if youre too original no ones going to understand what youre doing. You got to challenge peoples expectations to keep them interested and on their toes, but you have to also meet some of the expectations so they dont get lost.

Good post above from babylon, agree with all that. subgenres are deadly, more important to see each tune as an entity within itself. When you make somehting that perfectly fits a subgenre youre very familliar with, thats a good sign its not original enough I guess.

jaydot wrote:

globalbabylon wrote:I think the first step is dropping all Subgenres. They tend to lock you into a way of thinking about how it should sound. One of the things I love most about Dubstep is the lack of defining rules. As long as youre in the 140 range so it can be mixed, you can do pretty much whatever you want. My advice is blaze a spliff, hit loop and record, and start hitting the keys. Freestyle the melody, listen back and grab any parts that sound good. I use ableton so if I get 2 bars that sound nice I consolidate them, erase the rest and record again. To quote Bruce Lee, "Don't think, feel."

I hear you. I'm using those subgenres as an example of different kinds of dubstep. I agree you shouldn't pigeonhole into subgenres...... and freestyling basslins ftw if you don't know much about music theory. That's a good idea of how to get a bassline btw.

Did you just quote hid advice and then try to give it back to him? :s

Don't ever mention 'grungestep' again. If you remix a grunge song it's a dubstep remix of a grunge song. It's NOT grunge step! When appleblim first got big he didn't Market himself as techstep did he?

As for originality, I would try to find it from other places other than music. Try and incorporate strange sounds and shapes your not used to hearing in dubstep songs.

write a lot of songs, throw 3/4 of them out, and never assign the word -step to the end of another word = CREATIVE SUCCESS

Sharmaji wrote:write a lot of songs, throw 3/4 of them out, and never assign the word -step to the end of another word = CREATIVE SUCCESS

Find original samples or record your own.

Experiment.

Don't think too hard about what your trying to make, just make it.

Break the rules!

"Did you just quote hid advice and then try to give it back to him? :s"

Hm? Am i missing something? Wasnt quoting anyone, not sure who thats directed at, or why.

New music is just the fusing of older genres. Get back in touch with the non-dubstep music that you love or used to be real into. Borrow some of their sounds and arrangement-formula, etc. You gotta be like a sponge and soak in music from all kinds of directions. But then you have to forget about genres and scenes and all that nonsense.

And like In The Shadows touched on, music is a language. That's something I believe in very deeply. In the track, express things you know from personal experience. Find something you want to say to people, and give them a heartfelt monologue, whether it be a somber telling of pain, or a happy go lucky love affair, and everything in between and to the extremes, but it has to be something you know very well to make it original and genuine.

In The Shadows wrote:Originality in some sense is important, but I think its more important to make honest music that youre really feeling, even if it has strong influences in it. Like you say theres cross over stuff, but in a way thats just 'whos going to be the first person to rip off 2 artists from different genres at once', its not really true originality. In some sense all art is theft, and when you sit down to make music using a 4/4 grid, western scales, comprised of drums, bass and melody youre following a very narrow path of possible ways to construct sound for enjoyment thats been going on for 100s if not 1000s of years.

This is great advice and I don't follow it anywhere near enough. Expressing yourself honestly through whatever style is at hand will end up feeling far more individual than sitting down and trying desperately to contrive a combination of elements that noone's ever used before.

globalbabylon wrote:"Did you just quote hid advice and then try to give it back to him? :s"

Hm? Am i missing something? Wasnt quoting anyone, not sure who thats directed at, or why.

It was aimed at jaydot...it was his post I quoted

i think it's important to have a broad knowledge of music outside of dubstep. i came from a house and techno background (still make it) so that has a big influence on me. getting more into dubstep has made my house far more interesting too.

slothrop wrote:

In The Shadows wrote:Originality in some sense is important, but I think its more important to make honest music that youre really feeling, even if it has strong influences in it. Like you say theres cross over stuff, but in a way thats just 'whos going to be the first person to rip off 2 artists from different genres at once', its not really true originality. In some sense all art is theft, and when you sit down to make music using a 4/4 grid, western scales, comprised of drums, bass and melody youre following a very narrow path of possible ways to construct sound for enjoyment thats been going on for 100s if not 1000s of years.

This is great advice and I don't follow it anywhere near enough. Expressing yourself honestly through whatever style is at hand will end up feeling far more individual than sitting down and trying desperately to contrive a combination of elements that noone's ever used before.

definatly, Im guilty of it myself all the time. Sitting down and thinking 'I have to do something original' or just as bad, the other extreem, 'I have to do something conventional thats gonna work on dancefloor', thats usually the points where I end up making the worst music. I listen back to it a few days later and even if its a passable effort Im thinking nah, thats just not me. I think if you just follow your muse and stay true to what your feeling then your own sound will inevitably develop in the ways you work, the sort of sounds youre attracted too, the way you process your bass and drums etc. I have litterally 100s of dubstep tunes here in various stages of development, going back to late 2006, and Im only just starting to get to the point where I think the sound quality is high enough to do the tunes justice and what Im making feels honest. I dont think what Im making now has any more or less originality than it did a few years ago, but untill Im presonally impressed by the tunes and feel proud to have my name on them nothing is leaving this room, regardless of how original or on par with the scene it is.

The guy who made the Ghost In The Shell films, forget his name, said he will never be free from Bladerunner, no matter what he does with sci fi films its always going to have an element of Bladerunner in it. I dont think the dubstep I make will ever be free from Distance, Kryptic Minds etc, but you just got to be ok with that and try and do your influences proud, make something worthy of them rather than just settle for an imitation and over time your habbits and limitations will start to give what youre doing its own personality.

I definatly agree that the wider your musical knowledge is the more youre going to bring to the table too. Inbreeding leads to some seriously uncool looking kids.

The Bug said in an interview that the problem with dubstep is that way too many producers only listen to dubstep which leads to that "copy of a copy of a copy" feel one may have when browsing catalogs... Are you in that case ?

Personally, the biggest obstacle to originality is the technical limits.
Imagine you can make all the sounds you want, would you still have a problem with originality ? Probably not.
So work hard on the sound design.

jaydot wrote:now I want to do my own thing and tell myself not to follow the crowd

Switch off the amplifier, close your eyes, relax... what do you hear ?
I mean come on, don't tell me you don't have like 10 killer tunes a day in your head that's 100% jaydot's production.
Master your tools and make them for real.

jaydot, you are one of the worst subgenre offenders around. you may think this is opening your horizons, when really it is limiting you greatly.

free your mind. free your heart. smoke some fucking weed already! write a song inspired by a classic rock song (but don't sample it). make a song that isn't -step.

cut it out with the subgenres. it's all dubstep.

Recessive Trait wrote:jaydot, you are one of the worst subgenre offenders around. .

I am??

Listen to some Sully... Then add a UK G bassline, or organ bassline, (simple sq + sine ) add some suffule and groove. Bang in a flat 4/4 beat.... = Rolling ???

Originality ...

Definitely a huge part of it is not limiting yourself.

I mean - a perfect example is - I somewhat regularly post here, I have a show on Sub.FM... but to be perfectly honest, I don't think I have ever made a single dubstep track in my life. Throwing yourself in into a scene that has nothing to do with what you normally do is great. I am not here to learn how to write a dubstep track... I am here cos I like talking about production and I like trading ideas with people who are playing with ideas for completely different reasons.

Just pay attention to the saturation that is easy to build up in your ears... sometimes is helps to listen to as much music as possible. Sometimes it helps to not listen to any music at all. Sometimes it helps to not write anything but just focus on dj'ing or practicing an instrument or whatever... sometimes it helps to write as much as you possibly can in as short of time as you can. There is no one solid answer. You just go with it.

jaydot wrote:grungestep, trancestep, 176 hophopdrumstep

but for real, the post above me is good advice imo