How do you make your songs dancable?

[Rekah]

its all about the fucking groove man

so much dubstep seems to forget about this... listen to some techno or something and check out how they shuffle their percussion. all about that pushing feeling so the track has energy and drive.

as 2 other people have said get some groove going with your hats and dont just have kick on 1 and snare on 3, also i couldnt help but notice but the basslines in your tunes seem to slow for the tracks if you see what i mean

[Recessive Trait]

"groove is in the heart." either you got it or either you don't. sorry bud.

[EBR]

I'm running at wits end. I think my production is fine, my mixdown is alright, hell, I'm even starting to get an idea of how mastering is supposed to work... but for the life of me I can't make a dancable song

I just have absolutely no idea how to do it. I even sit down and think "alright, I'm going to copy excision/downlink/whoever", and the end result... although filthy... doesn't really lead to anything!

Anyone have any production ideas/suggestions on how to make a song "bumpin" or "bangin" or even "head-nodding"?

I have some stuff here: http://soundcloud.com/resykle
in case you wanted to take a look at what I've been trying at.

Work close with Djs who will test your material out @ the club. They'll let you know what works and what doesnt.

Listen to the Beastie Boys. They got filling the dance floor down to a science.

Also, you have to make music that has you up, dancing around. If you don't enjoy what you are making then you have no hope.

[jaydot]

I rarely find myself doing more than headnodding to most dubstep tracks, which, when listening alone in my room, my bloodstream devoid of alcohol and usually drugfree (unless you just take drugs alone in your room, hey some people do...) is acceptable behavoiur....

Genres I can dance to are electro and drum and bass, it's a well known fact that people can't dance to dubstep.

[-[2]DAY_-]

it's a well known fact that people can't dance to dubstep.

Not true

it's a well known fact that producers can't dance to anything.

fixed.


IMO the most dance-inducing tracks are those whose hihats/shakers/percussion carry the groove. gotta be some empty space in the track for contrast and movement... those empty bits let you swing your body in free space, and then the beats that hit lock you in with the time sig. That's how it feels to me anyway.

Also obviously helps to push basslines closer to the dirty/hype side than the mellow side @ drops

[AllNightDayDream]

EDIT: nvm lol

and why isn't there a delete post option?

[Sharmaji]

groovy drums and exciting breakdowns.

no one dances to a "it took my 9 hours to synthesize-and-resample-this" synth sound. It might get you excited, but it's the drums that get the job done.

and i reference my earlier thread: http://www.dubstepforum.com/brostep-pro ... 6-100.html?

[krispy]

you need some swing in it
hi hats for some grooove or rider cymbals

you need people to be able to anticipate what to expect next
that way when you are dancing and you think the drop is coming, it really does drop, instead of you are just standing there like an idiot because you just did your drop dance move when it didn't drop because the guy made a wacky song

[jsills]

feel like im beating a dead horse here but the rhythm section is key to getting the intended headnod effect. imo if your neck isnt broken by the time you lay your basic drum pattern your need to go back to the drawing board.

[arktrix45hz]

Having never made a danceable track in my life I can't really say how to do it, but as somebody who doesn't write danceable music I have a lot of experience in failing to make people dance.

As such I've provided a handy list of things not to do if you want people to dance:

Overload the listener with too many musical ideas. A song which has three melodies in three different time signatures at once, while very interesting from an intellectual point of view, is probably not conductive to dancing.

Have a long intro and a short lived drop. Self-explanatory.

Put weird ass instruments like sarangis and dizus in your songs, the dizu while a lovely instrument is probably not conductive to making people dance, except in rare circumstance.

Open your song with a Cmb6add11 chord. Makes people freak the fuck out. Freaking the fuck out is not conductive to dancing...

Write an atonal dubstep wobble-fest influenced by the works of Salvador Dali. Being pretentious is not conductive to dancing.... Neither is atonality... Nor Dali...

Write your song in 23/16. It should be noted that 23/16 is not conductive to dancing. Venetian Snares is the only exception to this rule. Although you don't so much dance as you do spaz the fuck out to Venetian Snares tunes, so I guess writing in 23/16 and opening with a Cmb6add11 might actually help in a backwards kind of way... But only if you're opening for Venetian Snares.

Include a sample of William Shatner performing a vocal rendition of 'The Jabberwocky' pre-drop. Neither the Jabberwocky, William Shatner nor silly sample usage are conductive to dancing.

If your song requires lyrics then it should be noted that writing lyrics about anything other than the following is not conductive to dancing:
1., Being single and loving it because of all the hot women who want to suck your cock
2., Being a VIP and as such far too cool for the club to handle just how cool you are
3., Doing a girl in the middle of the dance floor

It should also be noted that being anything other than vulgar and gratuitous in your expression of this lyrical content is not conductive to dancing.

This was probably unintentional, but this whole post made me chuckle a little.

In answer to the OP, one word - GROOVE. Study the shit out of Garage/Two Step drums and more importantly, watch videos of funk drummers. See how hard/soft they hit specific accented notes and then introduce this through your individual midi patterns etc. Maybe?

[slothrop]

Buildup + release of tension is also important, I think.

[carsonac]

Like some people have said on this board ill listen to my track and just bob my head to it and jam with it. If I find i cant bob my head for some reason or it sounds awkward i just try to think of what i would like to hear or what would make me get in the groove more. Start djing too, I have just picked up playing parties and you get a good sense of what people like and what works on the dancefloor.

[Depone]

Groove is in the heart

[tylerblue]

As others have said, it's all about the groove. Everything else in your tune needs to dance around the groove that your drums create.

[abZ]

It's not just the drums tho, all the sounds should make the groove. Have defo heard plenty of music where the drums are really minimal and yet the track is still funky. Even in the breaks where there is no drums the sounds should carry the momentum.

[DJ Crackle]

Idk about copying Datsik. I don't find much of his stuff dance-able. I'm not one of the hate everything wubwuwbwub related guize here, his stuff just doesn't have the right drive to it...

Anyway, I'm a big believer in the power of drums .
Dubstep isn't all kick, snare. There's should be shit going on in between the beats. I'm not saying throw every drum sample you have in, but you have to have enough going on to really drive the beat, and keep you moving... proggressively in the song, and on the floor. the smallest hats and shakers can do big things for a beat.

[-[2]DAY_-]

[symmetricalsounds]

less is definitely more when it comes to creating that groove. being understated with that bassline is going to help much more than having a caustic nasty horrible bass. can't remember who said it about funk but to paraphrase 'it's about the notes you don't play'

[madmeesh]

^ ^ I believe it was Monk who said what you don't play can be more important than what you do.

In the context of dance music production, your job should be focusing on making better LOOPS. In a way, dubstep is some of the most repetitive dance music, as the tempo and spaced-out nature of the rhythm allow what is essentially a loop to feel more like a "song". ie people are more content with a strong dubstep loop that doesn't change, and don't want too many unanticipated musical ideas thrown in there.

If we call dubstep tempo '140BPM', then often times the loop occurs over half a bar, one bar, two bars or four bars, maybe eight, doubtful 16. This means that at most 8 bars is all you need to convey what you need to convey. Hell, even ONE BAR is enough to smash it as tunes like Icicle - Xylophobia clearly display.

This is the one area where I think young producers get it 100% wrong when trying to make better beats. They look for problems in the way the tune evolves, rather than focusing on the depth of sound and the groove achieved between elements in the space of about 5 seconds! That's all the time you need to make an impact.

For example, take the tune TRG- Horny (reso's rmx)
His bassline loops every half-bar, meaning that the main bassline hook occurs twice for every kick-snare cycle. This adds a ton of dance floor momentum, and you're hooked in under TWO SECONDS.

[RightOnTime27]

I'm running at wits end. I think my production is fine, my mixdown is alright, hell, I'm even starting to get an idea of how mastering is supposed to work... but for the life of me I can't make a dancable song

I just have absolutely no idea how to do it. I even sit down and think "alright, I'm going to copy excision/downlink/whoever", and the end result... although filthy... doesn't really lead to anything!

Anyone have any production ideas/suggestions on how to make a song "bumpin" or "bangin" or even "head-nodding"?

I have some stuff here: http://soundcloud.com/resykle
in case you wanted to take a look at what I've been trying at.

Work close with Djs who will test your material out @ the club. They'll let you know what works and what doesnt.

Listen to the Beastie Boys. They got filling the dance floor down to a science.

Also, you have to make music that has you up, dancing around. If you don't enjoy what you are making then you have no hope.

Lol was in the middle of cutting samples from the beastie boys when i saw this.