so whats with the lack of actual production talk on here

[deadly_habit]

seems like most of the threads are hey check my new tune out
just an observation

[shonky]

Might well be cause the majority of tunes disappear without trace on the audio thread. Think it'd be good to have a thread purely for tunes to be honest. I usually check out here for tunes and the Grid for production tips - not a great fan of dnb but they seem to have quite a lot of knowledge over here.

There's also a large number of duplicate questions (wobble bass, dubstep drum patterns, etc) so maybe we need a few different queries up.

[i978]

I think the reason why there are so many duplicate questions is that most of the answers people provide are, perhaps unintentionally, not very satisfacory - by in large due to the fact that they tend to take for granted concepts that the questioner may not have. The standard answer to the wobble bass question is "simple, assign yor LFO to your filter cutoff". But someone starting out may not know what the fuck an LFO is let alone be able to "assign" it (how?) to a filter cutoff (whatever that is?). People talk about "Layering" sounds like it's the most obvious thing in the world. It's not. How do you layer? Why would you want to do this in the first place? Lets not forget the minefield that is talk of compression and EQ. And for all the talk of Sub Bass no one seems to be clear on what they mean by the term - some seem to be under the impression that sub seems to refer to the overall bass sound - including the mid-range wobbles.

I know it's difficult to explain how to do certian things, especially when everyone has different setups. But there are basic principles of programming a synth - after all they all consist of ocilators, filters, lfo's etc.. ; basic principles of mixing desks (virtual or real) - all have faders, panpots, busses etc... It would be cool to have Wikki style articles on different elements of production. A simple explanation what things are and examples of how you actually use them without having to scroll through pages of crap.

A dedicated forum for finished member tracks is a good one. But I do like the idea of people posting work in progress in the production forum to get advice and feedback of a more technical nature.

[shonky]

I agree, but on the whole I think that people need to have some understanding of the basics (and filter and lfo is very, very basic in the scheme of things) before asking questions that are too rudimentary.

I must admit that I tried to learn sampling from my emu e4k handbook, which is without doubt one of the most useless ways to learn anything. I think they expected you to know everything about synthesis techniques beforehand, so it was quite a steep learning curve. It was only once I found out more about synth techniques that the manual became any use to me so I know what you mean.

[narcossist]

to play devils advocate to your post i978:

there is a shit load of stuff all over the web where people can learn the basics - places like sound on sound have alot of articles on the basics through to the more obscure aspects of music production, along with the specific forums for the major sequencers which i'm sure highlight the faq's. It's easy to find stuff out when you really want to know it, quite often a lot of the questions asked on here come across as pure laziness, especially ones regarding arrangement/beat placement etc.

How much better would it be if someone wrote something along the lines of: " I was reading about reverb today on suchnsuch.com and they suggest its best used to create a sense of space in the track, however when i apply it to the master bus the track looses its definition. How best do i get round this?" rather than simply "check dis track" to which someone had to then reply "mate you've wasted it with too much reverb", not knowing it was cos the producer had simply slapped it at 50% wet on the master, and therefore not knowing to explain that its best used sparingly at individual levels on specific tracks. seen?

not having a go at anyone, just trying to think how to make this spot more co-operative and useful so everyone makes better tracks.

[jack sparrow1]

once upon a time there was a seperateaudio section where people could upload and ys just clicked and listened



aparently........

[i978]

Fair enough, there are a lot of articles on the net about production basics but when you're starting out you don't actually know what you need to find out in the first place.

Sound on Sound articles, although they contain useful information, have a tendency to push brand x's new super-gizmo - which can lead to acute equipment anxiety - "I'm not getting "that" sound because I don't have such-and-such gear" - which is not helpful. Also, a lot of online production articles lean more towards recording live instruments and it's not immediately obvious how certain techniques can be applied to electronic music production.

I'm sorry to say I find the Arrangement/Beat Patterns threads ridiculous in the extreme. The whole 140bmp orthodoxy irritates the hell out of me as well...but hey! People are always going to post threads that seem to miss the point or are at odds with your aesthetic sensibilities. They make more sense of you read them as "I want to make Dubstep but don't know how". Arming people with some basic knowledge will reduce threads like that leading hopefully to the more constructive approach like Narcossist suggests.

Of course there are people in love with the idea of being a producer rather than producing itself ... the whole you can lead a horse to water thang.

[docwra]

What is production?

[thump rat]

I noticed this aswell, i tried to instigate a discussion with my soft synths thread in which i actually gave away some presets but that died away. I think it would be a good idea to have a thread which tells you the basic's of dubstep, bpm, half step and wobble bass, it would eliminate alot of these recurring threads.

Perhaps a thread to post new tunes would be good as well.

[jack sparrow1]

i dont wanna piss on anyones bonfire but...

if we draw up a ''hi this is dubstep and this is how to make it'' doesnt that create a formula?

as a guide yes i think give people tips on production


dubstep agony aunt maybe...

[metalboxproducts]

This comes up time and time agian. " Do you think we should have a sticky with faq's about production?" Yes we should. Infact i seem to remember someone did write a list that tackled all the basics. Don't know where that went.
With regards to rudimentary questions, I just can't be arsed to type an answer. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to help out other people but, i type really slowly and would spend my intire day helping others to make music and not doing any myself....

[fubar]

I reckon they should keep them stickies that were up for a while before, and maybe some more useful ones, maybe create a seperate forum which you cant post in just with helpful threads that have come from here.

[seckle]

this FAQ idea is a double edged sword. on the one hand, you don't want to give people blueprints, as if we're trying to promote a "formula" like "here, this is how you make a dubstep riddim, and this is how you get dubstep LFO bass." etc etc. this music is and has always been about experimentation.

formulas have killed off DNB, imo. the doa grid, as much as it's a treasure chest of info, also had a gigantic influence in the stagnation of the music. you could buy a copy of fruity, go to the doa grid for a couple of hours, and boom...within a day you've got a dnb "formula" track going. raahh!
this has lead to thousands of copycats in dnb, which in turn has lead to thousands of tunes that sound exactly the same.

the amount of loefah copycats have tripled imo, and i'm not going to start naming names because it serves no purpose, but it's a bit blatant lately.

sure the production forum is vital to this scene, but i'd like to think that we're trying to learn from the mess that dnb has become, and try to encourage people to think outside the box and stay as anti-formulaic as possible. information is key, but road maps to the sound might not be the way forward, but backward in reality. this is coming from someone that is actively trying to produce dubstep in my spare time, but has come to the realization that it's not a good plan to just crank out mediocrity. i'd love to see everyone move forward, and push things to the next level, but maybe it's important to think twice about spitting out tunes that might not be up to scratch.

i worked as an a&r for an american hip hop label for 2 years, and one thing i learned about going through thousands of demo's a month was that people will always remember you for your worst tunes, before they remember you for a masterpiece in the making. food for thought.

[fubar]

this FAQ idea is a double edged sword. on the one hand, you don't want to give people blueprints, as if we're trying to promote a "formula" like "here, this is how you make a dubstep riddim, and this is how you get dubstep LFO bass." etc etc. this music is and has always been about experimentation.

formulas have killed off DNB, imo. the doa grid, as much as it's a treasure chest of info, also had a gigantic influence in the stagnation of the music. you could buy a copy of fruity, go to the doa grid for a couple of hours, and boom...within a day you've got a dnb "formula" track going. raahh!
this has lead to thousands of copycats in dnb, which in turn has lead to thousands of tunes that sound exactly the same.

I dont think its production tips that have created forumulars in genres like D&B its just because as it grow in popularity there are more successful artists with styles for people to capitalise on, tips on mastering/eqing/compression/ using software does not creat formualic music, tips on song structure and rythmic structure I agree probably does but even if you didn't let anyone give 'guides' on rymthic structure/song structure people would still listen to tunes they like and either purposefully or with out realsing copy it.

[jack sparrow1]

why not have a blog with dloadable pdf documents?


then we can pidgeon hole new tips and they can be dloaded if and when needed

plus people can be alerted when new bits get uploaded

[seckle]

why not have a blog with dloadable pdf documents?


then we can pidgeon hole new tips and they can be dloaded if and when needed

plus people can be alerted when new bits get uploaded

good idea. who's going to start the blog?

[shonky]

You are Seck - cheers for sorting that out, nice one, hoorah, etc

[seckle]

You are Seck - cheers for sorting that out, nice one, hoorah, etc

yeah sure, with all the time that i don't have at the moment. blog's are fun to read, but a headache to maintain.

[deadly_habit]

the whole dnb being formulmatic argument doesn't sit well with me as a dnb producer. just because a load of people seem to lack the creative drive to do something different or outside the box doesn't mean the genre as a whole is all the same ol shit.
there are plenty of artists pushing the boundaries that don't get the exposure they deserve. while there is plenty of dancefloor fodder that gets churned out and plenty of copycats trying to make a name for themselves there is also the flipside if you dig a bit just like any genre.
just because the knowledge is out there on the grid on "how to make my reese sound like x producers" doesn't mean you should clone it.
the whole point of a production forum is to gain knowledge on how things work and add it to your arsenal. what's done with the tools ultimately falls on the producer, and what gets released, whether its something samey sounding or something new falls on the labels (unfortunately alot of them aren't willing to take a chance on something thats iffy on the units it will shift)

[seckle]

just because the knowledge is out there on the grid on "how to make my reese sound like x producers" doesn't mean you should clone it.

seen. i wish 3/4 of the people on the doa grid thought the same as you. clearly that's not the case, the unsigned section being proof of what i'm saying.

dnb 2006 is a formula, and i don't think you're going to convince me that's it's not. i've been on doa since 2001, so i'm not just talking out my bum about this. i love dnb, and wish things hadn't ended up as they did. it's cookie cutter music now.
here's the crashing amens, and here's the token build up, and here's the token drop out, and let's end it off with a reese stab and blade runner sample. YAWN.