Thinking out loud...

faultier · Post by **faultier** » Fri Nov 23, 2012 1:30 pm

well thats my afternoon sorted

thanks for sharing

accordionfan · Post by **accordionfan** » Sat Nov 24, 2012 9:48 pm

wub you're a treasure

wub · Post by **wub** » Sun Nov 25, 2012 12:50 pm

http://bassadelic.com/2012/07/17/lazine ... ing-music/

So, there you are, in your studio (or bedroom… or parent’s basement… or underground lair… or spaceship…) and you’ve decided to write a new bass-killing mega-jam to destroy the fucking rave and garner fame, respect, and critical acclaim from fans around the world…but first you need to check

Ah, look at all those lovely numbers on your little Facebook globe thing! Ten? Gotta click em all! See what each of them says! Anything good? Ah, just more invites to some club inSt. Louis… (Why, oh, why did you click ‘LIKE’ on that St. Louis Dubstep page? You live nowhere NEARSt. Louis! Ah

Oh, look, that cute girl fromIndonesiasaid something on your wall! Awesome! What’d she say? … “Thanks for the comment, Will! Glad you like my photo!” … Nice.

Ok, time to check Gmail. Hmm… nothing but some spam. Just need to delete that. Oh, fuck, out of cigarettes? Need to take care of that. Oh, there’s a new Tetris app? Well, you’re not sure how they could’ve possibly improved on the old Tetris, but surely, you’re game! Oh… it doesn’t have the original music? How did that Tetris song go? Damn, that’s like… the only Russian song you know… Maybe you should see if there’s any interesting Russian songs you could torrent off of Demonoid…

Does any of this sound familiar to you? Perhaps all of it, except maybe the girl you’re flirting with isn’t fromIndonesia… maybe she’s from down the road?

…and perhaps you didn’t click ‘LIKE’ on St. Louis Dubstep – but, the point is, it’s easy to get distracted. So fucking easy! So, I decided to write an article on two things that we’ve all dealt with – DISTRACTIONS, like the ones above, and also, LAZINESS (the ugly older brother of DISTRACTIONS).

Here are some things that pertain to both distractions and laziness to really consider when making your newest track. I’ve set it up in the form of 8 bullet points. Obviously, if you’ve found another method that works, use that instead. But force yourself to actually USE it, and be stubborn about it.

0. Get a Notebook

1. Second Job Mentality

2. Set Specific Deadlines for Specific Goals

3. Unplug

4. Prepare Before Working / Have some coffee

5. The Marijuana Distraction …Get High AFTER Production J

6. Stay Organized

7. Be Realistic

8. Consider the Outcome of Laziness

This is just one setup, and like I said, if there’s another one that seems more practical to you, go for it. Or, if you want to write in the comments about how this list need be drastically altered, again, go for it. But keep an open mind and really consider what I’m saying, and you find some of this stuff very useful.

0. Get a Notebook.

Ok, why is this Rule # 0 ? Why not Rule # 1? Is it important, and should almost go without saying that you should get a notebook?

Yes, exactly! Having a notebook will help you SO much. You won’t remember all your ideas. Especially if you’re very creative and have tons of ideas! Use a notebook! Carry it with you. Have access to it as often as possible. A small notebook is my favorite.

1. Second Job Mentality

This one is sure to lose more readers than anyone… But whatever, if you stick around, chances are you’re one of the more motivated ones reading this, so good for you! J

Now, obviously, I don’t need to tell you why it’s bad to be distracted when you need to get something done, but here’s something else to think about – if you’re too distracted to go to work, what’ll happen? You’ll get fired. So, it’s probably a priority, if you have a job, to go to work and make that money. But what about music? It might not be top priority in your life for obvious reasons, but maybe you should start treating it like a job – or at least… a second job – if you want to really get something out of it.

You might think, “Aw, a second job? What? This is supposed to be fun! I want to get high and have fun!” Ok, so… do you want to get high and feel like a rock star even though you’re not getting anything thing done? Or do you want to have something to show for all the time you’ve spent in your studio? You might just find that once you’re able to be productive and start getting things done, there’s a lot of fun that can come out of that, too. A much more rewarding type of fun, too. And it lasts a lot longer than just hanging out for awhile getting high for an hour or two… Plus, you’ll join the ranks of all the musicians who ACTUALLY MAKE music, instead of all the musicians who never accomplish anything… which is, to be fair, most musicians.

2. Set Specific Deadlines for Specific Goals

This might seem like two points, but I would make the argument that they’re really very connected… It’s all about specificity and timing.

What are you trying to do? Write an album? A 4 track EP? A single? A new track to put into your mix? Is it a live DJ set you’re practicing for? I don’t feel the need to add too much to this point beyond saying, “Set Deadlines, and know exactly what the hell you’re specifically trying to do.”

And also, keep in mind, it might seem daunting to write an entire album, but once you get it done the first time, it’ll be far easier the second time, because you know what you’re doing. Writing a whole album may seem like a large task (and, when you think about it, it is) but writing one track? Not nearly as hard! Now, just do that twelve times.

What’s the difference between one huge task of writing a twelve-track album with a central theme… and writing single tracks, twelve times, each track keeping a consistent theme going? Well, the second option seems a lot less intimidating, especially if you’re new to the game.

3. Unplug

Disconnect your internet. Do it. You won’t need to check it while making music. Your synthesizers and drumboxes aren’t online (or… wait, are they? They shouldn’t be… Hmm…. I think I just got an idea for a new internet company…) The point is, nothing more needs to be said beyond just saying that you NEED to separate yourself from everything you know will eat up your time, and get to work.

Now, before we get to the 4th point, I thought I’d give you another cat pick title-graphic.. (yes, it’s a distraction. The whole post is a lie, I’m secretly just trying to get you to look at cat picz…)

4. Prepare Before Working / Have some coffee

Coffee works for me, might not for you. I like the energy I get from it. If it’s not your thing, then, hey – you just saved some time not having to get coffee, and you’re further along than I am! Nice! Are you going to need to smoke some cigarettes? Have them ready BEFORE starting your mix. Plan ahead. You don’t want to get halfway through a project and realize you’re out of Redbull or whatever it is you need to help you keep going, if you need anything at all.

5. Marijuana as a Distraction

Now I’m not going to be all anti-weed on you; except during the start of your mix, and POSSIBLY during the entire process of working on your music. Now, maybe it’s fine, and it works for you, but be honest with yourself. Be REALLY honest about it: Does it work for you when you’re trying to get music done?

I know that if I’m really high, I’m less likely to finish something. Sure, I might have some interesting ideas in the studio, but I’m probably going to stop working way before I would’ve, had I not smoked. I do get really meticulous about a ten second portion of a song, but might not finish the song, so what good is it?

Now, again, maybe that’s not you. Or maybe it is? My personal suggestion is to wait until you’ve at LEAST gotten into the workflow before you start smokin’, if you start smoking at all. Do you know how many musicians wanted to finish a track but didn’t because they got high before finishing? …I don’t know, either; the exact figures are unknown, because it’s hard to track something that never came into existence…

By the way, I know some people get really paranoid when you tell them they shouldn’t be smoking. Some will point out that I JUST said to get your cigarettes (if you smoke) but now I’m “all against weed?” Well… let’s be clear – cigarettes, in the short term, probably aren’t going to stop someone from being productive the way a weed break will. I’m not encouraging cigarettes, btw but I’m just saying… Do you want to get something done, or get high and feel like a rock star for a little while and then forget that you never got anything done on your album, and now you’re just like every other lazy person in the world who has a cool/creative idea but is too lazy or stoned to accomplish it? J

6. Stay Organized

This will mean different things to different folks, but the bottom line is, you need to know what works best for you personally, and stick to that. I always like working in a clean studio. I also like to have my folders on my computer very organized (or, as much as possible) when I’m starting a new album or project.

That means that each song gets it’s own folder, even if, at the start, it might be, ‘Track 01.’ You can always change the name after you finish your first track. Also, samples should be in a minimal number of folders, or as much as possible. Also, general ‘samples’ and ‘song’ folders are two different sets of folders! I personally like to keep samples as organized as possible, too. Here’s just one way you can do it:

Samples>

…………..>Beats

……………………….>Kicks

……………………….>Snares

……………………….>Cymbals

……………………….>Claps

……………………….>Hats

…………..>Non-Synth-Instruments

……………………….>Flute

……………………….>Guitar

……………………….>Misc. Instruments…

…………..>Synth-Instruments

……………………….> Booming Basses

……………………….>Wobbles

……………………….>Guitar-Synth

……………………….>Pads

……………………….>Misc. Instruments

…………..>FX

……………………….>Risers

……………………….>Dub echo sounds

……………………….>Lazer sounds

……………………….>Cow Sounds

…………..>Bass

……………………….>Real

……………………………………>Strat Guitar

……………………….>Synth

……………………………………>808 Basses

……………………………………>Hip Hop Basses

……………………………………>Moog Subbasses

……………………………………>Juno Basses

……………………………………>etc… misc…

Ok, so that’s just one theoretical setup, obviously yours will likely be a little different. You might not have a set of cow sounds… but… it’s just an example. I like to tend to keep my drums separate from instrument samples.

Try to stay organized with your samples throughout mixing! If you record a new bass, make sure to put it in the bass folder, wherever you’ve decided to put that (in your synth folder?) not just a temporary folder because it’s easier and you think you’ll remember where it is. It’s also great to have a MISC folder for things you’re not sure how to organize… like maybe you have some sample of Billy Maze talking about some carpet cleaner, and you just HAVE to use it at the end of the first track. Alright, have a folder that’s either set for ‘miscellaneous’ samples, or, if you think you might have a bunch of vocal samples, obviously set up a ‘vocal samples,’ or ‘various samples,’ folder. Whatever works for you… there are different ways to do it, but make sure to stick with it consistently, and understand where things are supposed to go. You’ll be SO happy you did. Your mixes will get done a lot quicker, I guarantee.

7. Be Realistic

Ok, so this might sound familiar to a lot of you… I know a guy who has every piece of musical equipment you could possibly name. He has so many old vintage synthesizers from the 70s, the 80s, the 90s, and some newer stuff from the last five or ten years. He’s super proud of his collection, and upon first glance, it’s pretty enviable. Plus he wants to make music. Should be a breeze!

But he can’t make music… Why? Well, beyond getting high all the time, he sucks at utilizing his equipment. Getting a sound out of each machine and sending it to his DAW and then being creative with it and then recording it… and then figuring out how that sound might go with the sound of some other piece of equipment… and then having to reroute this with that and that with this, plugging three things in together, then mixing that with some other sound from another machine… Damn, it takes so long… Sounds like a nightmare of technicalities. How’s he going to do that for every track?

He doesn’t. He messes around for a little while, gets high, messes around a little while longer, probably thinks about how cool electronic music was way back when (when this synth came out, or when that synth came out…) and then, eventually, he wanders off. No track completed. Big surprise?

You have to be realistic. Maybe you like messing around with old equipment for fun, and there’s nothing wrong with a bit of fun… but if you’re thinking about making a full-length album, you’re going to need to decide how you’re going to use the equipment, and then do it. Maybe fucking around with equipment (or, to put it nicely, ‘experimenting’) should be a separate task… with a goal of thinking up concepts for songs, and then, later, writing a track?

More equipment is not better if you don’t do anything with it, young padawan.

I don’t have one tenth the physical musical hardware that the guy I just mentioned does, but I guarantee I’ll be ten times as productive, and make the kind of sounds I want to, and have ten times as many people listen to my tracks, and feel ten times as accomplished. That’s not even bragging, that’s universal for anyone in this situation. And, in case this needs clarification, I’m NOT saying that you shouldn’t have ANY hardware. But, like I said before, you have to figure out exactly what you want, and then do it. Maybe you need to write it out in your notebook; draw a diagram, figure out how everything connects, just for reference, if you need. There’s no shame in that – especially if you have a lot of equipment to deal with! It’s smart to plan things out.

8. Consider the Outcome of Laziness

Or, to be all poetic about it, consider the outcome… later… The Daily Show just came on… I’ll Mix later, maybe…

I don’t mean to sound too harsh, but you have to understand I’m speaking from experience. I’ve been lazy before, we all have, and I’ve seen people get lazy. I think it really stuck in my head how irritating it was when I tried to work on a project with a musician I know, and we both had separate tasks to complete, according to each of our skillsets… So, I began making sounds, beats, track layouts, and he didn’t do anything… A week later, I had even more sounds, even more beats and layouts, and he had the same thing he had the week before: nothing. A few weeks in, he decided he wanted the album to have an entirely different sound, suddenly. What?! But he hadn’t done a damn thing, and now he wanted to change it up dramatically? Fine, whatever… But after the seachange in genre ideas, I waited for him, and still, he did nothing.

I was so frustrated. His laziness had ensured that our incredible, mind-blowing album would never get made… Laziness is one thing, but laziness that you’re forcing someone else to sit through is even worse, and it’ll really make you realize how overwhelmingly frustrating it can be.

So, consider this. Consider how laziness can be a burden to someone else, but if you’re just working on your own personal track, think about how it affects you, personally. You could be making something dope as hell right now, and you know it; but by putting it off, you’re doing yourself a real disservice. You should try to impress yourself by seeing how much decent music you can make, and by doing it as efficiently as possible. You could have a top track (or maybe just something really fun to play in your studio, at very least) but really, if you don’t make a conscious effort to focus, you might not get very far.

So go on, be as productive as fucking possible, you know it’s in you. Once you get something done, like a track or an album, showcase it! Display it proudly, you deserve recognizing such an achievement! Make a poster for it and hang that shit in your room!

You’re an accomplished musician, now! And hey, since you finished that album, you’ve got some good music to listen to, so now’s the time to get stoned, if there ever was one!

-Will (StrangeFlow)

wub · Post by **wub** » Sun Nov 25, 2012 4:39 pm

http://bassadelic.com/2012/08/20/779/

So, every so often, the term ‘purple’ gets thrown into music. What does it mean? What is this ‘purple’ thing about? There’s a few different styles that have incorporated the ‘purple,’ sound or mindset, and I’ll do my best to explain them to you…

Purple used to be associated as sort of a ‘royal’ color, but there are lots of uses of purple in history… For a lot of people, consciously or subconsciously, it’s a color of mystery. Prince wore a lot of purple. Hendrix wore a lot of purple. It’s an intriguing color, and some of the musicians of the last fifty years to wear it seem to have a certain exciting intrigue to them… Is it because they’re wearing purple, or because their mysterious persona gravitates towards it? I would guess it’s not the former – because if it were, that would be a prime example of faking the funk, as funk goes right along with making purple. I’ll get into that a little later.

Let’s discuss the music aspect of it. Though I did mention Jimi Hendrix, for the purposes of this article, I would instead like to point out specific styles or genres that incorporate purple, rather than individual musicians, and I think there are three main instances of ‘purple’ sounds in modern music (especially electronic music) of the last few decades –

1.) funk / ‘old-style’ electro
2.) hip hop (especially chopped ‘n screwed)
3.) wonky purple edm

Alright. So first let’s address the funky electro…

Well, basically, you can find a lot of this stuff coming from the very late 70s, and up until the early or mid 80s. It’s synthy as hell, and often employs the use of vocoders and talkboxes.

Purple is a swagger, it’s an attitude, and a lot of this music has a big dose of funk smeared all over it – and funk is an attitude and swagger as well. So, at first, you might guess there is an overlap, but in fact, I would make the argument that purple comes right out of funk. It might be seen as a subgenre, but really I think what creates the purple funk, more than anything else, is having a confident and funky outlook on things, which could, in turn, lead to a purple demeanor. Confused yet? Well, it’s not so easy making purple music, is it? Don’t worry, I’ll explain it some more. But first here’s a great example of some old electro funk, to keep you going…

The second instance of purple I want to talk about comes ten years later, in hip hop. Before I go any further, though, I should point out that a lot of hip hop in the early 80s was married to electro funk. It makes sense when you consider that hip hop, as well as purple, come right out of funk (funk spreads its seeds all over the place). That being said, hip hop in the 90s sounded quite a bit different than most of the electro funk of the 80s – especially the chopped ‘n screwed hip hop from Houston, Texas.

So, when you hear talk of purple, in reference to chopped ‘n screwed, people are usually referring to codeine / syrup / ‘lean’ / purple drank, etc; and also to chopped ‘n’ screwed music, which is kind of like a soundtrack for purple drank. It’s a sound created by DJ Screw, a DJ from Texas who made TONS of rap mixes with a heavy, heavy purple influence… Anyone who’s drank lean and then listened to DJ Screw will likely agree with me on that… The music is so slow that it’s almost scary. It really has one of the most unique sounds of any genre or subgenre I’ve ever heard, and I’ve heard a great deal of music in my time. Here’s an example, if you’re not familar…

Ok, so, the third instance of purple takes place in more modern times, and in edm/rave music. Actually, I’d like to point out an article I read about ‘purple-wow,’ a phrase which I’ve never heard anyone use in real life, but just the same, it’s a relevant article, and yo might want to check it out here: http://generationbass.com/2009/08/17/th ... s-dubstep/ Their definition of this sounds is, basically, “G-Funk meets Dubstep = Purple Wow Sound!” .. personally, I think you can easily go beyond dubstep with it, and also, “Purple Wow,” is a really cumbersome and wonky name for anything.. And also, I think something’s to be said for the wonkiness of the sound.. I think it has a lot to do with making funky music, with it’s unique style of wonky / off / almost dissonant melody.

For example, if you start playing a melody (and wonky melodies often employ the use of square waves, btw) people might think your melody is going in a certain direction – but then, all of a sudden, one of the notes just rises an extra octave or two, and the next note clashes! Then the melody goes back to normal, then it drops an extra octave or two, just for a note, and then raises up in pitch to normal, and repeats that cycle, over and over. That’s just one of a few ways to incorporate a wonky / purple melody. Killing the expectation goes along way here, musically. You can really create a wonky off-type of sound by leading people on and then going in a decidedly different, weirder direction. Sometimes it even sounds ugly. This also goes along with funk. ‘Funk’ was originally a term used to describe jazz music, as in, ‘smear some funk on that melody,’ etc.

Exactly! Smear some nasty, funky purple all over your melody!

Also, don’t forget about the rhythm. I know I’ve mentioned this before, and one of my very first video tutorials was about it. Wonky / off-beat rhythms have gone into a lot of interesting songs that hail the label of ‘purple’ as their weird and funky flag. I like artists such as Joker, Ginz, some Joy Orbison, and the tune, ‘Drippin’ by Mimosa is also pretty purple and crunky.
(I have also seen the term, ‘wonky’ used to describe specific techno and trance tracks, like the one by Paul Van Dyke or whomever… the track is called ‘wonky,’ and I think it basically just means high-pitched or ugly, or something like that. I hate what techno has tried to do with wonky, it’s boring, and they use the term in the blandest and most boring ways imaginable, and I refuse to write about it anymore than I am right now.)

Anyway, here’s a good wonky purple tune for ya, from Joker…

So, in conclusion, incorporating elements from any of these styles can help you create a nice, funky, purplish sound. There’s obviously overlap, stylistically, as you could go right ahead and create a chopped ‘n screwed type of wonky beat, with vocodor and electro funk influences, if you wanted to. No reason to stifle yourself creatively, when going for the purple! Another example of overlap could be how you might see the word ‘crunk’ a lot more in electronic music now, even though that style came directly out of from hip hop.

So, as far as the last few decades of purple go, there’s the purple electro funkishness, the purple drank chopped ‘n screwed stuff, and the modern ravey dubstep or post-dubstep square wave / wonky funk stuff, which often incorporates the hip hop and electro funk stuff, too. Really, any of the influences I described can be taken and smeared in any direction you might want to take them. If you find yourself gravitating towards purple, perhaps you’re in a good position to purple-up some new styles of funk that the world hasn’t even heard, yet! I’d be down to listen to some new purple, any damn day.

wub · Post by **wub** » Sun Nov 25, 2012 6:08 pm

http://bassadelic.com/2012/10/17/5-thin ... ing-music/

Some of these might seem fairly obvious, some of them might not… But I thought I would write up this post as a basic reference… So here you go…

1.) A Good Night’s Rest

This seems like a pretty obvious point, so I won’t go into a terribly long analysis of why it’s important to get a good night’s rest. Of course you need your sleep!

I have an especially hard time getting my sleep, as I have to get up early, so to get a full night’s rest, I try to get to bed around 9.30 at night. That’s the hard part. Getting up early isn’t as difficult as getting to bed early. But, luckily, most people don’t have that problem. But whatever your schedule is, if you get the proper amount of rest, you should wake up feeling refreshed… Or, perhaps you need some coffee to wake you up. I know I certainly do.

Alright, enough of the ‘good night’s rest’ point, as I don’t feel I need to elaborate on this one anymore. It’s fairly obvious, so, moving on…

2.) Keep Food and Coffee In your Body

It’s not only important to get a good night’s rest, but it’s also important to eat well. I’m not going to lecture you on the ‘proper diet,’ exactly, but I will say this: make sure you put enough energy into your body that you will be able to put enough energy into your music. It’s really as simple as that.

Like I said earlier, I drink coffee. Some folks will definitely say you should not drink any coffee, as it’s… bad for your…. I don’t know… your soul, or something? Or it’s an addiction, blah, blah, blah. Well, I say, ‘sure, it’s an addiction, and an addiction I’m comfortable with!’ I don’t see why having an addiction to coffee should keep you from making good tracks. The trick is to know your body. If you feel like you’re drinking too much coffee (if you DO drink coffee) well then, sure, stop drinking so much! But if you’re like me, you enjoy a good half a dozen shots of espresso… Now, I’m not recommending you drink THAT much…. I probably shouldn’t be. In fact, I should probably warn against drinking that much, as it’ll probably lead one’s heart to explosions… but that’s really for another article. But I will say that when I drink that much espresso, it certainly doesn’t hinder me from making music, in general.
Wow, got into a coffee rant. Hmm… I suppose that was bound to happen. Ok, moving on…

3.) Set Time Aside

How the hell are you going to make music if you only set aside an hour a week for mixing?
Sorry to curse at you, I’m just trying to make the point that you’re probably going to need more time than that. I would set aside a good afternoon-sized chunk of time for yourself, at LEAST once a week, if you plan to make electronic music. But, I should’ve prefaced that point by saying that, well, if you plan to make music on a regular basis, and learn the ropes of what it means to become a decent musician, you’re really going to need to spend some time at it.

When I say one afternoon a week, I’m talking about a basic amount of time… Obviously, you could do it everyday, and do it for nine hours. There is, of course, the ‘ten thousand hours’ philosophy… the idea that, if you spend ten thousand hours on something, you will become a master at it. Well, I can tell you one thing for sure: if you DO spend that much time on pretty much anything, you’ll probably be somewhat decent at it. But it’s not just about quantity of time, it’s about quality, too. Maybe you don’t need ten thousand hours, you just need ten hours every week for three years… That would be 1560 hours.

The point is, you can’t spend two hours on a Sunday morning doing it, and expect to get decent results. Whenever people say things like, “oh, I don’t have any time at all for THIS or THAT, not EVEN two hours on a Sunday,” then I assume one of two things…. 1.) They clearly don’t have enough interest in it if they’re not able to spend just two hours a week on it, or, 2.) They’re lying. Straight up. They can spend how many hours watching movies and getting drunk or stoned or going shopping for things they don’t need, but they can’t spend at LEAST a couple hours on something they claimed they have an interest in? Nope, not buyin’ it.

So, do yourself a favor and decide whether or not you really do have an interest in making electronic music, or whatever kind of music you’re interested in, and commit time to learning everything you can about it, and commit time to making it. Like I said, it’s good to have a good chunk of the afternoon set aside, but obviously it differs from person to person. But you want multiple hours set aside because you need to get yourself into the music-making mode, and that sometimes takes a little while, especially if you’re new.

4.) Listen. Inundate. Internalize.

Figure out what artists are making music that sound similar to the kind of music you’d want to ideally make. It’s probably not super-hard to do. One you have that figured out, go and listen to their music. That’s it. Listen to their music, listen to music similar to theirs, and inundate yourself with the types of sounds you want to reproduce. Internalize it. Get so familiar with it that you can’t help but make something similar… I don’t mean that you should copy them, I’m just saying that if you’re REALLY into the sounds of Flosstradamus, and want to make music in a reasonably similar vein to Flosstradamus, well, then you should probably listen to as much of their music as possible, eh?

Another important point about internalizing music is this: find out who inspired the artists you’re inspired by. Learn the history of the music, and allow yourself to be influenced by that music, as well. It’s one thing to take influence from the present, but do you really think all the artists out there right now are ONLY taking influence from songs made in 2012? Of course not! They’re taking influence from the great canon of world music of the last ten thousand years! (well, some of them aren’t, but these fly-by-night one-hit-wonders tend to dry up creatively PRETTY quick…)

So learn some history, internalize your favorite sounds until they’re a part of your essence, and listen to your favorite tunes in your selected genre-of-choice to get yourself into a specific music-mindset, and then make the best damn song of the decade!
5.) Skeletal Preparation

Prepare with pencil and paper. Or draw up a rough skeleton of your track in the sequencer. Or, if nothing else, write down a list of ideas you have for your tune(somewhere you’ll see them) and look at it often, as you’re recording your masterpiece. It’s one thing to have notes in your head, but you might find, halfway into your track, that you’re straying from your original vision. What do you do then? You go back to your notes and see what you originally wanted to accomplish.

I do want to point out, however, that sometimes it’s good to let a track stray. Sometimes I’ve started a track and thought, “Ok, I’m going to be working on a junglish glitch hop tune, and then it turns into some kind of weird chopped-n-screwed acid-glitch tune. And sometimes, that’s great! So on this point, I’ll have to leave it up to you to decide what to do, as it’s all about what you want to accomplish as an artist, and one of my rules of respecting Artistic Integrity is to appreciate that an artist can delve into whatever territory they want to. Having said that, if you’re first starting out, it can be helpful (to say the least) to have a few notes (at least) about what you want out of this track.
Your notes could be both vague as well as specific… What I mean by that is that you might have some open-ended statements in your notes, such as, “make it bass heavy,” (a statement which could really lead your track in a thousand different directions) but you could also get incredibly specific, like, “incorporate hi hat triplets at 100-ish BPM,” and, “try to recreate pitched-down short-vocal repetition for the intro, like the one in that ‘Roll-up’ track by Flosstradamus,” etc (I’m using Flosstradamus as an example, because I mentioned them earlier…)

The point is, it’s NEVER a bad idea to have some notes. Even if you decide, halfway through the track, that your notes were great but that you’d like to take the song in a new direction; it might happen this way, but it might not, and having notes still wasn’t a BAD thing to do… So, try to make notes. I’d recommend LOTS of notes.

6.) Think Big, Fuck Haters.

Ok, so I’ve covered all of the essentials, but here’s something else to consider. Think big. Think REALLY FUCKING BIG. If you’re just starting out and don’t think you can conquer the universe with your beats, well, at least you could hope to get there at some point, right? And, why not? There are so many god-awful artists out there who ARE making it, why not pulverize their influence on the club by making something ten thousand times as good as the shit they’re upto? Why not? You can’t give me one good reason why you shouldn’t. Nobody can. Decide to make the best fucking Flosstradamus-influenced bass-trappin’ or neuro-glitchin’ or electro-stompin’ tune you possibly fucking can! (Again, the Flosstradamus reference… lol. Insert whatever artist name you want, though…) If it’s dope as fuck, I’d love to hear it, and so would everyone else. Don’t try to be good enough, try to be the best.

Modesty is overrated, and you deserve to make the best track you possibly can. Don’t let haters influence you, either. What are the haters up to, when they’re not hating? Working boring jobs, dating some lame boyfriend or girlfriend who sucks, and getting their teeth pulled next week? (woah, got pretty specific, there, didn’t I?) Maybe they’re hating because you get to spend your time making awesome beats, and they’re stuck in their dead-end life, going to youtube or facebook and hatin’ is their only means of having a good time.

Whatever the reason, don’t let them get you down, and don’t let them keep you from being your best… because with enough motivation and practice, you CAN become an amazing musician. It’s not just wishful thinking, its mathematics. It’s logic. How do you think the Beatles got so good? Were they just insane geniuses on acid? (Well, that’s part of it, I suppose…) No, that’s not really it. They played hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of shows, and fine-tuned their craft and their sounds for years before they got big. I mention the Beatles because to a lot of folks, they’re the pinnacle of modern music… (Wait, is pinnacle the right word? Or cornerstone? Yea, that sounds better, I guess…) They’re the cornerstone of truly great music, to a lot of folks… and they were around for about seven years before they were on the Ed Sullivan Show and electrified audiences by singing about holding underage girl’s hands.

My point is: give it time, but set out to be as incredible as possible. It won’t happen overnight, and it’s a good thing it won’t too; because if it does, people will soon find out that you JUST started, and that you likely have no idea what you’re doing! If you spend time with it, you, too, can do some truly great work.

wub · Post by **wub** » Mon Nov 26, 2012 11:31 am

http://chuuchmuzak.blogspot.fr/2012/05/ ... rview.html

Sunday Morning: Name your 3 biggest life influences... why?

Wizdumb: Well the biggest inspiration to me is probably vinyl records. There is something so
special about music on vinyl, like a weird aura or pureness in the warm
open sound. The grooves are real sound waves etched into a surface
giving it a very organic sound. Also there is so much music that is only
available on vinyl that hasn't been discovered. There is not a day that
goes by that i don't include records in my life, whether its
purchasing, listening, or just looking at the cover art or reading the
backs. Word. Secondly
i'de have to say the artists around me that have not only inspired me
but have also mentored me, Namely the guy who first got me into beats,
Ezraw. He put me on to alot of the hip hop first got into and as i
watched him in his lab doing work i developed my own techniques branched
off of what i saw. Another cat to name is Specs-One. I remember when i
first picked up his album "NUMEROLOGY" back in 06, i was wildin off the
shit i heard, whole album was recorded on a tascam. I was like.....THIS
IS IT! THISIS WHAT I WANNA DO! He showed me that you don't need to make
music in "professional" standards. You can make music out of your
bedroom with the most minimal means of production and still put these
protools cats to shame, he really opened my eyes in terms of not being
afraid to make somthing different, in example quantization isnt always
dope, crunchy snares, vinyl static, and tape hiss can add character to a
composition..... dude is a seattle legend, i will always look up to
him. Thirdly my friends and family that support me and encourage me to
push harder and strive for somthing great. My father for always putting
me up on a brighter note when i feel discouraged and always showing me
new music. My mom for helping me put together merchandise for my label
and shows. All my musician friends who i work with and build with you
know who you are. Big up Lurksquad!!

SM: Verbally portray your sound....

W: Uh I like to call it "Nerd rap"...........I geuss you could consider my
stuff bedroom boom bap, like nineties throwback hip hop. back when hip
hop meant somthing and it wasnt all about your money, diamonds, and
women. I try to be Olive Oils number one sailor.

SM: Now describe Wizdumb in tweet format (less than 140 characters, twitter-related abbreviations)

W: WIZDUMB "the wax molesta" 206s finest beatsmith #LURKHARD

SM: If you were given the opportunity to collaborate with any artisan
(visual, audible, edible).... who? .... why?

W: Man thats hard. As for emcees......damn........I would do anything to
rock with Rakim back in the paid in full days. Kevroc of Darc Mind no
doubt indeed, A-Butta and L-Swift of Natural Elements. Also been a big
fan of Metal fingers, so a joint with doom would be ill. Ide love to
just sit down and have a recording session with Gil Scott-Heron,
Thelonious Monk, Art Blakey, Freddie Hubbard, Wes Montgomery, and
Rahsaan Roland Kirk. Or just to be able to sit in a room with Jay Dee
back in the slum village fantastic vol. one days and watch him chop up
beats. the list is endless my friend. I'de astral travel with Sun Ra and
make space beats with him whilst doing so.

SM: If you could teach listeners one thing through inspiration drawn from your music what would it be?

W: Let the music speak for itself. Find Beauty in simplicity. Don't just
listen to it, HEAR IT!!! Realize that music can be raw and Lo-Fi and
still be dope. Then pass it on to your compadres.

SM: Somewhere you draw much inspiration from...

W: Everyday life, people watching, riding the bus, riding my bicycle, music, love,
hate, feeding my tree frogs, keyboard cat, fellow beat smiths, film, stress, happiness,
food, traveling, just about everything. Anything i find visually
interesting, piano rolls, guitar licks, and bass hits on vinyl. Searchin
for the perfect beat.

SM: Fondest musical memory....

W: Meeting Bootsy Collins and Ahmad Jamal

SM: Fill in the blanks: ____________ is __________
and ____________
W: Real music IS gonna last, all that other bullshit is here today AND gone tomorrow.

SM: 24 hours to kill in Seattle, WA...

W: Wake up turn the drum machine use your instincts to make a dope song, lace
up the boots, head to beths cafe for an omellette, then DIG DIG DIG!!!
everyday music discount bin, bop street, dearborn goodwill, and all the
secret locations i can not disclose. then head to dicks drive in for a
gutbomb and some sliders. After that, head home chop up your latest digs
till around 5ish. Then hit up specswizard to get a brew at vermillion,
or check out whats going on at shortys pinball bar, maybe catch a show
at chop suey. Go to a BBQ at KEL and Jolas house.....haha

SM: Define Success...

W: happiness is success, success is happiness.
Music makes me happy, and thats more than i could bargain for. I'll be
doing this till the day i croak, career or not, it keeps me level
headed. Ill see where it takes me, if money comes in...GREAT! even
better!!!!

Soundcloud

http://discodroppings.com/2011/02/13/wi ... he-nw-pow/

Local Hip-hop artists land on Disco Droppings. Wizdumb has become a buddy of mine, and tonight I’ll be reppin’ his debut album with Grief 78. Pick it up on their bandcamp for a small bit o’ cash, and download these 3 unreleased tracks by Wizdumb!

DD: Whatsup wizdumb? Nice to spread out a bit from my usual electronic fueled blog. how you feeling about your debut album?

WIZ: Man……it was a long time coming..3 years almost…gotta give my respect to Grief for stickin’ with me thru the whole process and staying dedicated, if it weren’t for him it would have never happened. But yes, all in all I feel great about it. It’s nice to finally have an album under my belt.

DD: It is very, very smooth. How did you two get together and decide on making “Dope Definite”?

WIZ: Well, I’d love to say we met in the NY yards bombing train cars and trying to avoid the third rail…..hahaha…I actually stumbled upon Grief78′s myspace page one day when I was surfin’ thru my dude Pacoe The Illiterates comments. Noticed he was from Brooklyn, New York, so I took the time to give him a listen, not expecting what I was going to find. I heard his first track on there, and instantly fell in love with his music. I proceeded to hit him up via message, this was in 05 i think..told him I would love to do a song with him and sent him a track.

Few weeks later he returned my email with some lyrics he recorded over my joint. For the first time ever in my life I felt like I had found the perfect fit emcee to compliment my beats..I had never worked with someone before and was sooo happy with the final product, his flow and my production seemed to go hand in hand.

As the years past we did more tracks spread out in time, none of the beats on “Dope Def’” were made together, they were all different stages on production from me. “Dope Def’” was originally supposed to just be a 4 song E.P, but I managed to convince Grief to create an full album with me. And that pretty much sums it up.

DD: So you two have a deep connection- this being the first artist to really compliment your style and bring it all out well yah?

WIZ: Yes, we stay in touch a lot. We call each other on a regular basis, you know brothers from another. Sharrieff (Grief 78) is a good dude. I got mad respect for him, not only for his dedication to music, but also his dedication to his family..it’s hard to stay true to music when your a family man. He has an impressive discography as well. I’m honored to have had the opportunity to work with him.

DD: Very cool. You choose them well! what artists inspired you to get started with producing?

WIZ: Oh man…Well when it comes to beats I could name all the generics, Dilla, Madlib, Showbiz, Primo, Pete Rock, Metal Face Doom…etc. But more realistically I gotta give props to Specswizard (http://soundcloud.com/specswizard) & Ezraw (http://www.reverbnation.com/ezraw) , the first 2 doods who really turned me on to beats and hip hop production. Both local cats, please check em out they are very sick……but yeah in the bigger picture..

I’m a jazz freak, nothing can really top a good jazz composition to me, so I gotta be real and say when it comes to music in general, I thank all the amazing jazz musicians on vinyl who have blessed my speakers and my ears with the best grooves of sound I’ve personally ever heard. Namely, cats like Sun Ra, Ahmad Jamal, Bill Evans, Thelonious Monk, Miles, Wes Montgomery, Herbie….I mean the list goes on and on…Gil Scott Heron has definitively had a major influence on me as well.

DD: Very well said. With the jazz influence, are you into the beat scene explosion happening around low end theory in LA and Flying Lotus?

WIZ: I dipped my toes in a little bit when I was down there, I know Mr. Dibiase thru the SP forums and from linkin’ online with him, also have some connects with Samiyam, cant say I have really became part of it tho. I really feel those cats are the future of hip-hop production tho, they are living proof that quantization isn’t always dope.

DD: Cool cool. Do you have any plans for live shows soon? If people are in the NW area?

WIZ: Yess got one on March 3rd @ Tony V’s in Everett. Also got a radio spot on Feb. 13th on 90.7 kser

DD: Well I hope they all go very well. Very nice talking with you. Hope all you blog readers check out Wizdumbs debut album w/ Grief 78! Any last words?

WIZ: Yes I wanna send love out to all the homies, Lurkmusic, Abom, Gamin, TMS, Gabre, gotta give a shout out to my good friend Pacoe The Illiterate and all the Zay cats, you know who you are, big shouts to Grandgood.com, yellowdog.com, kser.org, Sp-forums.com, Clout Magazine. Gotta give love to all my EVT heads, Madshroom and the BMN fam! Moth, Noc, Ara, Corndogg, T11, Jonnybeats, Brynn Eden, Alaina z and all the rest. Love you all. Oh yeah, and anyone who listens to what I have to say and create.

wub · Post by **wub** » Sat Dec 01, 2012 7:41 am

Accidental 'Live' Techno in FL Studio 8

So last night I settled down to make some 8bar grime with a distorted kick after an afternoon of listening to stuff like Percy/Oi/Pow etc. Didn't work out too well, couldn't get the kicks to sound right so started doing some experimenting so did my usual thing of messing around with loops etc. Fed one old dusty break I found into Slicex at the wrong BPM, then a few clicks later within the piano roll and I'd accidentally flipped the arrangement of the notes but maintained their starting position.

Further messing, adjusted the kick pattern I had to a 4x4 beat, toned down the distortion on it and it had morphed into something resembling techno. The break was run through a seperate mixer channel with a few effects on it;

Parametric EQ 2 (primarily to cut below 80hz to stop interfering with the kick and to roll off some of the higher frequencies)
Beat trigger VST for some pattern variation
Panning
LovePhilter (left it in default for some swirly effects)
Reverb (um...for reverb?)
Delay (for builds etc)

So I had all these effects that were drastically altering the sound of the break when it was running, depending on how they were interplaying with each other. Took it a step further and started linking to my controller keyboard;

M-Audio Oxygen8

The first six rotaries from L-to-R on the top row and then the bottom row were controlling the wet dry for the above listed elements in the effects chain. Rotary seven was assigned to an individual slice control within the beat trigger to jack up the retrigger pattern whenever required. After getting this all running smoothly, I then linked the volume of the 4x4 kick loop to the single slider the Oxygen has to control those.

I hit play and then 'played' a single two bar loop for about an hour or so whilst twisting the rotaries/moving the slider to create a 'live' jam of the the output. It needs some fine tuning/expansion on the 4x4 loop to keep things interesting but reckon with a bit of practice I'll be able to use load an instance of Edison onto the master and record one of the jams.

Also just had the idea of loading up different beat programs in patterns 2 and 3 (the above is all done in pattern 1), so that if I need I can use the numerical keypad to switch between the patterns for the drum beat variation, without having to sacrifice any rotary control away from the break manipulation.

Will post some screenshots and examples of what the fuck I'm talking about once I've honed this a little bit, but in essence this experiment (a happy accident in itself) is about turning FL8 into a live jam tool with a bit of creative MIDI control linking and some pattern switching.

nowaysj · Post by **nowaysj** » Sat Dec 01, 2012 10:12 am

Some thoughts on this type of workflow wub: consider separating outputs of various elements onto separate mixer channels, throw Edison's on those. At the very least can keep your kicks separate for side chaining, but will also allow a second layer of edits to refine the movements, do dropouts etc. can still capture the master w an Edison, but nice to have the components/stems (or like prestems). In a lot of my projects, they start where you're about to go into, but then get a sort of second life in audio, for further fuckery. S'why my beats more closely resemble aeronautical wreckage than actual orchestrated beats, but that is just my preference.

wub · Post by **wub** » Sat Dec 01, 2012 10:16 am

That is another option - assuming I can sync all the instances of Edison that would appear on the individual mixer channels?

nowaysj · Post by **nowaysj** » Sat Dec 01, 2012 10:53 am

Not a problem, set them to rec on play, will be synced, as well will get song markers if fl's transport is looping. I honestly feel like you have just landed on the tip of a very fun and rewarding iceberg.

wub · Post by **wub** » Tue Dec 04, 2012 10:38 am

http://www.strictlycassette.com/2012/12 ... .html#more

Recently we heard about a producer by the name of ONEOFUS from our fam DJ Remode. Hailing from Texas, this producer is known to take his portable studio out into the woods and get busy. Fortunately we were able to catch up with him and talk about his new tape called Forgotten Relics. Take a listen!

(SC) Tell us about yourself. How long you've been making music, where you're from, etc...

I'm just oneofus...a beat maker, crate digger, and mic messenger residing in Dallas, Texas. Originally from Peoria, Illinois. I feel like I've had a connection with music my whole life. Like most kids, I think it started with the discovery of my parent's record collection. Growing up I joined the school band and after a brief stint with the alto sax I switched to percussion before eventually quitting. I went on to play drums in a couple different punk and hardcore bands, then in the mid 90's I went over to a friend's house and watched him mix records. I said "I gotta get some of those." So I saved up and eventually purchased a pair of Technics 1200s. I really got into DJing hip hop from listening to the mixtapes put out by Eddie Ill and DL. After several years of DJing I eventually grew tired of playing other people's music and wanted to really create something of my own. I had already been digging up jazz records for years and I decided it was time to start investing in some equipment. I'd say it was around 2002-2003 when I became more serious about making beats and wanted to contribute to the classic boom bap sound that inspired me. Music is just something that I have to do. It is the best way that I can express myself and inform people about things that are going on around them they might not be aware of.

(SC) What was the deciding factor to make a tape in 2012

There were a few, but I'd have to say the main one was my love for the cassette tape. Growing up it was the main format that I purchased and listened to. I didn't get an allowance or anything, so I would save my lunch money all week and try to get a new tape every Friday. When I started DJing I would make mad mixtapes all the time. I've always wanted to make a tape that was all my own original production. Also, I kind of wanted to remind people of the important role that cassettes have played in the history of hip hop. As the sample in the Forgotten Relics intro from Fab 5 Freddy states "In the beginnings of hip hop, the way the music was spread around the city was by cassette tape." DJs would record tapes right out of the mixing board at parties or somebody in the crowd would record straight to their boombox, and those cassettes would make their way around. A few other things I considered...it seems that people aren't really even interested in CDs anymore so I decided to just put it up for download and release physical copies on cassette. I want people to listen to it more as one entire piece instead of skipping around from track to track. I feel that listening to a whole album has been lost in the era of digital downloading. That's why I left the download version in tape form...side A, and side B. I wanted to take hip hop back to its purest form and I felt that the cassette tape was the best way to achieve that.

(SC) What has been the reaction to your cassette?

There has been an overwhelmingly positive response to the project so far. People seem to dig that it has continuous sound from beginning to end and that I am releasing it on cassette. I have just begun the distribution so physical copies are starting to get into people's hands. Some of them are pretty stoked to go find a tape deck and start jamming cassettes again, so I think that's cool. Every once in a while I meet a true tapehead who gets big-eyed and starts describing their collection to me- they almost seem grateful that new tapes are being released. I plan on doing some more cassette releases in the future.

(SC) Walk us thru the process of making "Forgotten Relics."

The process starts like most other projects. Many hours spent in record spots and odd shops, mining out dusty, forgotten vinyl samples. Digging is a very important part of the process for me, one that I feel has been somewhat lost with the times. I pretty much do everything on samplers- the computer doesn't enter the picture until it is time to put everything together. My main weapon of choice is the Roland mv8800. I also dig the rugged sound of the asr10 and the battery powered portability of the sp404. I make beats in the woods, in the middle of downtown, wherever... When I first envisioned this project my goal was mainly to just put out a beat tape. I had lots of stuff that never got used or released, so I just kinda wanted to clear everything out and get on with new beats. Then I decided I wanted to get some emcees on it as well as some songs that I made and never really put out. I think that everyone really delivered and I'm happy about the way it turned out. It was like a giant puzzle that I had to piece together. Spent lots of time going through spoken word records, finding bits and pieces and rearranging until I liked the flow of everything. From there it is all done by hand... the cutting, folding, and getting the tapes ready to distribute. It truly is a labor of love.

(SC) Last comments/shouts?

I gotta give a shout out to all the emcees involved with the project: Gumbo Styles, Poindex, S. Good, F.t. Dub, B. Swift, Toby Brock, Ill Factors, Heir Max, Ko49, and Drew Bullets, as well as the DJs Metronome and Furious. I couldn't have done it without them. Thanks to Mr. Earbuckets for helping me out with everything. Shout out to Hologram Dagger and Grimp with Waxtooth Records. Definitely check those dudes out- oneofus 7" coming soon! Props to DJ Remode for hooking me up with phat wax and telling me about you guys. I also gotta give a shout out to all the crews working hard in the D/FW scene. Big shout to Strictly Cassette for what you guys are doing and all the tapeheads worldwide!

You can listen/download the album at oneofus1210.bandcamp.com. Physical copies available online at Waxtooth.com and Flippedbeats.com...stay analog!

wub · Post by **wub** » Tue Dec 04, 2012 10:46 am

http://www.attackmagazine.com/technique ... e-au-seve/

The Breakdown is a series in which we deconstruct well-known tracks, showing what makes them so effective. Unlike our Passing Notes series, the emphasis isn’t on practical tips. We’re not trying to show you how to copy these tracks, but simply examining them to find out what makes them so special.

This time around we’re looking at Julio Bashmore’s ‘Au Seve’ – a flexing, bass-heavy roller of an underground house track which has been virtually inescapable throughout 2012.

Call and Response

One of the most immediately recognisable features of ‘Au Seve’ is the call and response structure employed in the riffs.

Call and response is a technique employed in many genres of music, perhaps most noticeably gospel. For a great example of how it usually works, check out Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s fantastic version of ‘Down By The Riverside’, in which the choir responds at the end of each of Tharpe’s phrases:

The similarities between Sister Rosetta and Julio Bashmore may not be immediately obvious, but things become a bit clearer when we consider what’s going on with the main bass part in ‘Au Seve’. Call and response describes a song structure where non-overlapping phrases alternate with each other. Traditionally this usually meant two instruments trading melodies, but in electronic music the definition is slightly looser. Call and response in dance music can mean alternating between different synth sounds, different processing effects (such as one clean phrase then one distorted) or even just different styles of playing (staccato then legato, for example).

We can quite clearly break ‘Au Seve”s bassline down and think of it as two distinct sections. The first is the ‘call’ :

http://www.attackmagazine.com/wp-conten ... e-Call.png

And the second is the ‘response’, which operates in a higher octave and plays a slightly busier pattern, especially at the end of the four bar section:

http://www.attackmagazine.com/wp-conten ... sponse.png

Note that the descending synth melody only plays at the same time as the call part of the bassline. As such, it could also be seen as part of the call and response.

Call and response is one of the most simple structural techniques to employ, but it can be hugely effective. ‘Au Seve’ perfectly demonstrates how it can add movement and continuity to dance music.

Phrygian Mode

The second most notable aspect of the composition of ‘Au Seve’ is the harmonic interaction between the bassline and the synth melody.

The synth melody which comes in at 0:31 is in the key of F# minor. It is, in fact, just the notes of an F# minor 7 chord (see Passing Notes – Deep House Chords). Here’s how it looks and sounds:

http://www.attackmagazine.com/wp-conten ... Melody.png

However, when the bass line comes in at 1:18, it uses a flattened 2nd (highlighted below in red) – in this case, that’s a G.

http://www.attackmagazine.com/wp-conten ... ssline.png

This puts the bassline in the Phrygian mode (see Passing Notes – Understanding Modes), which gives the bassline its slightly darker sound.

Importantly, it also means that the G in the bassline plays under the E in the synth part. This very brief harmony creates an inverted minor 3rd interval. If the bassline was in the natural minor scale (Aeolian mode), the bass would instead be playing a G#, creating an inverted major 3rd interval.

The flattened 2nd also means that when the bassline descends in the third bar, the G sounds underneath the A in the melody, thus avoiding the dissonance of the A in the synth melody playing over a G# in the bass.

The interaction between the descending synth melody and the rising bassline is also a great example of contrary motion, as was astutely noted in the comments section of this recent Passing Notes.

White Noise

Finally, let’s examine a clever sound design technique employed in ‘Au Seve’: the percussive white noise bursts which follow the synth melody in places. Are they percussion sounds triggered in time with the synth or part of the synth patch? It’s not entirely clear, but it also doesn’t matter – they link the synth melody to the percussion rhythm and help to propel the rhythm of the track, especially as they interact with the snare/clap and hi-hat patterns.

his is particularly prominent throughout the intro, during the second and fourth bars of each repetition of the synth melody. A more stripped-down example occurs at 2:40, showing how the white noise and the four-to-the-floor kick pattern work together.

In the piano roll below, the hats are on the top line, the clap/snare in red, and the white noise in purple.

http://www.attackmagazine.com/wp-conten ... eNoise.png

The interaction between the clap/snare, hi-hats and noise creates an incredible rolling percussion pattern. In combination with the kick, the synth and the bassline it’s a simple but devastatingly effective groove.

fv2k · Post by **fv2k** » Tue Dec 04, 2012 11:17 pm

Tips from a writer, definitely relevant to music as well.

http://www.theparisreview.org/interview ... -steinbeck

It is usual that the moment you write for publication—I mean one of course—one stiffens in exactly the same way one does when one is being photographed. The simplest way to overcome this is to write it to someone, like me. Write it as a letter aimed at one person. This removes the vague terror of addressing the large and faceless audience and it also, you will find, will give a sense of freedom and a lack of self-consciousness.

Now let me give you the benefit of my experience in facing 400 pages of blank stock—the appalling stuff that must be filled. I know that no one really wants the benefit of anyone's experience which is probably why it is so freely offered. But the following are some of the things I have had to do to keep from going nuts.

1. Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page for each day, it helps. Then when it gets finished, you are always surprised.

2. Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on. It also interferes with flow and rhythm which can only come from a kind of unconscious association with the material.

3. Forget your generalized audience. In the first place, the nameless, faceless audience will scare you to death and in the second place, unlike the theater, it doesn't exist. In writing, your audience is one single reader. I have found that sometimes it helps to pick out one person—a real person you know, or an imagined person and write to that one.

4. If a scene or a section gets the better of you and you still think you want it—bypass it and go on. When you have finished the whole you can come back to it and then you may find that the reason it gave trouble is because it didn't belong there.

5. Beware of a scene that becomes too dear to you, dearer than the rest. It will usually be found that it is out of drawing.

6. If you are using dialogue—say it aloud as you write it. Only then will it have the sound of speech.

wub · Post by **wub** » Fri Dec 07, 2012 7:13 pm

^^ Interesting. Reminiscent of Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules Of Writing;

Never open a book with weather.

Avoid prologues.

Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue.

Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said”…he admonished gravely.

Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.

Never use the words "suddenly" or "all hell broke loose."

Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.

Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.

Don't go into great detail describing places and things.

Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip

Slightly looser adaptations to carry over into music but still with an air of relevance.

wub · Post by **wub** » Tue Dec 18, 2012 11:25 am

http://www.xlr8r.com/gear/2012/12/downl ... it-mike-hu

The veteran Detroit DJ/producer and noted music-gear specialist Mike Huckaby recently put together a custom sample kit for the German website Groove, which is now available to download for free. Consisting of samples culled from his brother playing percussion in a noisy Ohio cafe, a handful of vintage synths which Huckaby used in Vancouver, and sounds from a few of the man's own Reaktor patches, the sample collection comes in the form of high-quality AIFF files or pre-formatted projects for Maschine and Ableton Live. You can download the 16-sample kit hereand read up on the origins of each sound over on Groove.

http://www.groove.de/2012/12/10/downloa ... ample-kit/

The Groove Sample Kit by Mike Huckaby

Samples 1-3: „I sampled my brother, Craig Huckaby playing percussion in a noisy cafe in Toledo, Ohio. I used iMaschine by Native Instruments to capture the recording. After listening to the recordings, we were really interested in the dirty sound that was captured within the samples from being within this environment. I then proceeded to transfer the samples to my computer. Then I was able to warp the samples into perfection using Ableton Live. This was a win-win situation because my brother’s percussive playing was completely undetermined at the time of recording the samples.“

Sample 4: „This sound was recorded and created in the Waldorf Studio of Vancouver, Canada, using the Alesis Andromeda synthesizer.“

Samples 5,6 & 11: „Both samples were created by using the Waldorf Wave as a starting point. The samples became finalized by using the Blofeld by Waldorf Electronics for the final sounds.“

Sample 7: „This sound was recorded and created in the Waldorf Studio of Vancouver Canada using a Rhodes Chroma synthesizer.“

Sample 8: „This sound was also recorded and created in the Waldorf Studio, this time using a Rhodes Polaris synthesizer.“

Samples 9-10: „Both samples were created using a Korg Triton workstation.“

Samples 12-13: „These sounds were recorded and created in the Waldorf Studio of Vancouver, Canada, using a Yamaha CS 80 synthesizer.“

Sample 14: „This sound was recorded and created in the Waldorf Studio using a Roland SH-101 Synthesizer.“

Sample 15: „This sample was created by using a granular synthesis ensemble I created within Reaktor by Native Instruments. I sampled the end of a vinyl record which contained pops and clicks. Through granular sampling techniques found within Reaktor, I was able to extract harmonics from the sample which you can hear after the initial sample is played.“

Sample 16: „This is another sample created by using the granular synthesis ensemble I created within Reaktor. I recorded myself typing the words Deep Transportation on a typewriter. The results of these two samples using Reaktor are mindblowing!“

http://www.factmag.com/2012/12/12/mike- ... -producer/

Mike Huckaby’s five essential tips for a good producer

Mike Huckaby isn’t just one of Detroit’s most beloved producers and DJs, he’s one of its most dedicated teachers and irrepressible enthusiasts.

Since he first made his name in 1995, the house music stalwart has released classic records on labels such as Third Ear, Rick Wade’s Harmonie Park and most recently Tresor, as well as on his own Deep Transportation and S Y N T H imprints. He worked for years behind the counter at the legendary Record Time store. He has remixed the likes of Model 500, Pole, DeepChord, Vladislav Delay and Terrence Dixon, and released two volumes of reel-to-reel edits of Sun Ra (“Jazz is the umbrella under which deep house music resides,” he once told FACT). Meanwhile his ever-evolving understanding and appreciation of synthesis and studio processes, and his voracious appetite for new technology, has earned him a reputation as something of a producer’s producer.

To his infinite credit, Huckaby is also someone who takes pleasure in sharing what he’s learned, and encouraging others to bring their own ideas to fruition. He can be founding regularly coaching students at Detroit’s Youthville Centre in Ableton Live, Reaktor and other music production technologies, and he has led many workshops worldwide. Just today it was announced that he has compiled a free sample pack for Groove, featuring sounds culled from such disparate sources as the Alesis Andromeda synthesizer and his brother playing live percussion in a noisy café in Toledo, Ohio.

Mike Huckaby will be playing at the Holic NYE 2013 party in London, which takes place at Cafe 1001 and the Old Truman Brewery Warehouse on, of course, December 31. But this is no ordinary NYE party: it’s an 18-hour marathon, kicking off at 8pm and going hard until midday on New Year’s Day. The Huck will be joined by Kate Simko (live), DJ Steaw, Tomoki Tamura and many more; find more information and tickets here.

Ahead of the event, he apprised FACT of his five key tips for producers looking to establish themselves and their sound. “Weak producers die,” he concedes. “Strong ones continue on…”

ALWAYS DO WHAT YOUR PEERS CANNOT DO, OR WILL NOT DO.

Mike Huckaby: “This has been my motto, or work ethic, for more than 15 years now. If you adhere to or adopt this work ethic, it will lead to many
promising things, and positions that you could never have dreamed of. The two things that come immediately to my mind that all producers will not do, or cannot do, is study music theory, and learn Reaktor.

“These are definitely two things that most producers will not, or cannot, commit themselves to. Learning music theory is crucial to developing the proper orientation in relation to the creative process. It is the fundamental component in terms of creating new ideas, harmony, melody, and rhythm. It helps you to identify which key you are in, and helps you to create compatible melodies.

“Have you ever wondered why you are stuck, or cannot finish a project, or a particular track? The lack of understanding of music theory is the key.”

“Have you ever wondered why you are stuck, or cannot finish a project, or a particular track? The lack of understanding of music theory is the key. It is the fundamental science that manages or governs all of your ideas. In my opinion, Reaktor is equally as important in this regard: Reaktor can teach you or show you reciprocal relationships between hardware and software. Reaktor can show you how to master hardware, and vice versa. Reaktor is everything that concerns synthesis, midi, effects, and developing new hybrid methods of sound creation. I’d be dead without music theory, and learning Reaktor. This was evident to me in the early ’90s when the whole sampling arena change. I had to change and grow in order to create more music. I was faced with that, and these two elements have facilitated me with an endless amount of creativity to continue on in the far future.”

STUDY MUSIC THEORY.

MH: “I repeat: study music theory. You will open many doors within your mind that will remain closed without learning it. Sampling is an art indeed, and you can’t deny that. But the art of sampling is defined by the fact that someone’s else’s career has to take place before yours can. Nothing has to be terribly wrong with that, but if you solely stick to sampling, this will always be the case. Sometimes you may want to break free from this fixed domain, in which you say you derive all of your ideas from. Learning music theory will definitely give you more options.”

LEARN DIFFICULT OR CHALLENGING THINGS.

MH: “Music is forever changing, and requires anyone who creates it to grow musically as well. This cannot be done by using simplistic tools that are not challenging you. In the short term, yes, this is possible. Every time you create a track, you are learning something different. But commit to a long term method of learning. This can be done simultaneously, or subconsciously too. You don’t want to be in the same position musically that you are in 10 years later. In order to avoid that, you must challenge yourself by learning production methods and applications that require time. I cant say enough that Reaktor has has paved the way for me in this regard. Learn the science of synthesis.”

DEFINE YOUR SOUND.

MH: “What is your sound? Define the elements or attributes of the music that you are trying to create. What is your musical intent? Go even as far as to describing the type of person that you are trying to communicate your musical ideas to. Envision the environment as well. This does not need to remain fixed. This can continuously change. If you can partially define your sound, you will have greater chances of achieving it. But once you define your sound, that’s when the real work comes it to play.

“If you find that creating the type of music you want requires you to use certain types of equipment, or certain pieces of gear, don’t try to bypass this, or cheat it! You will never achieve creating the sound you are looking for by doing this. Right now I’m experimenting with an SP-12 drum machine by E-Mu. There are certain things I want to include or hear within my sound, and I am told that this particular drum machine will contribute to that sound. So this is the road I must choose if this is the case.”

LEARN THE RULES OF SURVIVAL, THEN DOMINATE.

MH: “If you align yourself with the right components I have listed within these five tips, you will become successful with your music at some point in time. It is inevitable. So have faith that your day will come. But when that day comes you will probably need to say no to more things that you will need to say yes to.

“When your music becomes popular, many people will have their own vision of what your music means to them. You will be asked to do remixes, EPs, podcasts, interviews, and to play in many clubs. Pick the best. Align yourself with the original concept of your music. Do not compromise your sound for money or popularity. Many people will want to associate themselves with you solely on the basis of your popularity. As I said, you will find yourself in a position of having to say ‘no’ to more things than you say ‘yes’ to. And when you do that, people will try to make things hard for you. You must overcome these hurdles by the strength of your music, and by how well you have equipped yourself as a producer. Weak producers die, strong ones continue on. That’s just the nature of this business.

Weak producers die, strong ones continue on. That’s just the nature of this business.
“I’ll never forget what Todd Terry said in an interview I once read about him. He said that, “It’s all about me against any other motherfucker in any of these five different boroughs trying to do what I am doing with a drum machine and creating music.” At first I thought, wow, what an asshole this guy is. Now I see what he means. Learn the rules of survival, then dominate.”

wub · Post by **wub** » Tue Dec 18, 2012 12:35 pm

wub · Post by **wub** » Mon Dec 24, 2012 8:43 am

TechTalk is a series of videos from the Slices DVD, where producers/hardware manufacturers are interviewed about what they do. Well worth a watch, approx. 15-20mins per video. If you're only going to watch one, check out the one with Sherman (creator of the Filterbank);

Tech Talk: Sherman (Slices DVD) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... 37hCdB86BM
Tech Talk: Thomas P. Heckmann (Slices DVD) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8hCQWI9WJ0
Tech Talk: Transistors Of Mercy (Slices DVD) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDUCw-IW4qU
Tech Talk: Tobi Neumann (Slices DVD Feature) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc3uByeuSdg
Tech Talk: Funktion One (Slices DVD) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9mfwYhBIrg
Tech Talk: Mouse On Mars (Slices DVD Feature) - Tech Talk: Mouse On Mars (Slices DVD Feature)
Tech Talk: Jomox (Slices DVD) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVUW1VqkGMw
Tech Talk: Thomas Fehlmann (Slices DVD Feature) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv9xA_eng1Q
Tech Talk: Pole (Slices DVD Feature) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2_9W95iUP4

Green Velvet Interview - Slices Magazine - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEJegDOqoAw
Minus Records (Slices DVD) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrIwrGgs7Pw
Cocoon Recordings (Slices DVD Feature) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoPRZjS0FK0
UNKLE (Slices DVD Feature) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yP1ALVKaWuI
DJ Sneak (Slices DVD) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOxh34c5ijs
Theo Parrish (Slices DVD Feature) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5USZQ97l9s
Trentemøller (Slices DVD Feature) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZY_iIrKLKM

wub · Post by **wub** » Thu Dec 27, 2012 8:53 am

http://99u.com/articles/7192/Are-You-Tr ... The-Addict

A few months ago, a colleague of mine told me about meeting a young woman who was "passionate" about writing. He asked her what she had written recently, and she said nothing. In recounting the story to me, he said, "How can you say you're passionate about something if you're not doing anything about it?" Good question.

And yet, this is a common affliction. Many of us feel passionate about a particular job or creative project or cause, but we don't take action on it. Why? Are we addicted to failure? Addicted to distraction? Addicted to money?

Novelist and War of Art author Steven Pressfield gets at the crux of this conundrum in his excellent new book, Turning Pro: Tap Your Inner Power and Create Your Life's Work. I was particularly struck by his distinction between "the artist" and "the addict," wherein the former is living out a productive, creative career, while the latter is caught in an endless loop of aspiration and yearning that never gets backed up with meaningful action.

In short, Pressfield calls bullshit on those of us who are passionate about our ideas, but aren't acting on them. It's bracing stuff:

Many artists are addicts, and vice versa. Many are artists in one breath and addicts in another.

What's the difference?

The addict is the amateur; the artist is the professional.

Both addict and artist are dealing with the same material, which is the pain of being human and the struggle against self-sabotage. But the addict/amateur and the artist/professional deal with these elements in fundamentally different ways.

(When I say "addiction," by the way, I'm not referring only to the serious, clinical maladies of alcoholism, drug dependence, domestic abuse and so forth. Web-surfing counts too. So do compulsive texting, sexting, twittering and Facebooking.)

Distractions.

Displacement activities.

When we're living as amateurs, we're running away from our calling - meaning our work, our destiny, the obligation to become our truest and highest selves.

Addiction becomes a surrogate for our calling. We enact the addiction instead of the calling. Why? Because to follow a calling requires work. It's hard. It hurts. It demands entering the pain-zone of effort, risk, and exposure.

So we take the amateur route instead. Instead of composing our symphony, we create a "shadow symphony," of which we ourselves are the orchestra, the composer, and the audience. Our life becomes a shadow drama, a shadow start-up company, a shadow philanthropic venture.

…

My life used to be a shadow novel. It had plot, characters, sex scenes, action scenes. It had mood, atmosphere, texture. It was scary, it was weird, it was exciting. I had friends who were living out shadow movies, or creating shadow art, or initiating shadow industries. These were our addictions, and we worked them for all they were worth. There was only one problem: none of us was writing a real novel, or painting a real painting, or starting a real business. We were amateurs living in the past or dreaming of the future, while failing utterly to do the work necessary to progress in the present.

When you turn pro, your life gets very simple.

The Zen monk, the artist, the entrepreneur often lead lives so plain they're practically invisible. Miyamoto Musashi's dojo was smaller than my living room. Things became superfluous for him. In the end he didn't even need a sword.

The amateur is an egotist. He takes the material of his personal pain and uses it to draw attention to himself. He creates a "life," a "character," a "personality."

The artist and the professional, on the other hand, have turned a corner in their minds. They have grown so bored with themselves and so sick of their petty bullshit that they can manipulate those elements the way a HazMat technician handles weapons-grade plutonium.

They manipulate them for the good of others. What were once their shadow symphonies become real symphonies. The color and drama that were once outside now move inside.

Turning pro is an act of self-abnegation. Not Self with a capital-S, but little-s self. Ego. Distraction. Displacement. Addiction.

When we turn pro, the energy that once went into the Shadow Novel goes into the real novel. What we once thought was real - "the world," including its epicenter, ourselves - turns out to be only a shadow. And what had seemed to be only a dream, now, the reality of our lives.

wub · Post by **wub** » Fri Dec 28, 2012 9:22 pm

http://bassadelic.com/2012/12/18/making ... lf-hungry/

There’s an old phrase that goes back hundreds of years – panem et circenses. It translates, from Latin, to, ‘bread and circuses.’ It basically refers to frivolous distractions, and was used to describe the diversion process that political leaders can use (and definitely still do today) to keep their people opiated. Give the people trivial pleasures and useless, shortsighted distractions, and you’ll be amazed at how fast a populace is willing to pre-divide and pre-conquer itself.

It’s so easy to not get things done; we invest in apathy all the time. Apathy can come in many forms – social apathy, civic or political apathy, financial apathy, – but, seeing as this site is about reaching your creative goals, I’m going to talk a little bit about that kind.

When I read about the big ‘movers and shakers’ from ‘yesteryear,’ either Thomas Edison or Leonardo da Vinci… (or that character Marky Mark played in Boogie Nights… ) I always noticed how they never seemed to have a ton of distractions in their lives, materially (at least in the beginning). They would work hard, conquer adversity, and become world famous. They’d win. Then, after I finished the book, or the biographical movie, or whatever the format, I would reflect on my own life and think about how spoiled I was compared to these old champions – all the easy access I have to tools that make my life more fun – all the episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm and Boardwalk Empire I’ve downloaded and could easily watch, at the click of a mouse – and I’ll look around and notice that most of my friends are in a similar boat.

It’s not like you have to be rich to have distractions, either, which… probably makes the whole thing worse, if you think about it… It’s as if we’re constantly being invited to live in some weird post-success landscape of mediocre passtimes with no ultimate value…

“Of course the folks from decades or centuries ago could get themselves off their feet and find success,” you might say, “there was literally nothing else to do!”

Fair enough..

Ok, I’m not saying that you should throw away every DVD you have or cancel Netflix, but what I am saying is that, at least for a time, it can be EXTREMELY productive to unplug from the world of distractions, so that you might be more productive and creative when you’re forced to fill your time with your own thoughts and ideas. I know, for many, this can be difficult, if you have a job that you come home from and only have a couple of hours before bed… But if you prioritize and set a goal to manage your time, you’ll find that there’s probably SOME free time you can readily devote to this ‘unplugging.’
Now, when I say unplugging, I want to be clear that I’m not talking about going into a forest for a year; or chanting ohms in a cave, or eliminating modern technology from your life altogether. I’m not asking that you necessarily become an monk or a hippie. I’m just pointing out that it can be a good practice to eliminate (at least, temporarily) the bread and circuses in your life, and force yourself to get some of the things you wrote down on your to-do list this from morning.

You might feel strange, cutting yourself off (I know I felt strange when I first start trying to avoid TV) but you need to think about it in the long run, not just the short run. Here’s an exercise – next time you’re committed to becoming productive and want to really get going on one of your goals, and something else comes up – a fun (but possibly trivial) distraction, ask yourself – out loud – the following phrase (it can help to verbalize your ideas whenever possible, as it subconsciously makes them seem more ‘real’): “If I do X Activity, will it help me out with my long term goals, or just help me pass the time TODAY?”

Now, when I say, ‘long term,’ I’m not necessarily talking about 50 years from now, but I’m certainly trying to help steer you away from the ol’ TMFN (“ten minutes from now”) style of thinking that many (myself included) have gotten used to in this panem et circenses society that we find ourselves in.

Turn off distractions, consider the long term, and make yourself hungry. Stop merely consuming, and start producing. How are you going to get hungry enough to create anything of value if you have dozens of immediate-satisfaction-inducing experiences all around you, all the time, forever? It’s no way to create passion for a hobby, goal, business, or even basic fulfillment, that’s for damn sure. You need to make yourself hungry, insanely hungry; it’s a mental state you want to foster in yourself.

Ok, so after you take in all the previous ideas laid out concerning why it is good to get away from distractions, let me go back and contradict myself a tiny bit for a moment and say that distractions CAN be a good thing, if used right. As with most things in life, it is all about context. Using short term pleasures can be a good reward after a productive day/session. In fact, if you can discipline yourself enough, I completely recommend using trivial passtimes as a carrot on a string (even though I hate the phrase, ‘carrot on a string’) to get you to finish that last un-fun task on your list that you’ve been putting off the whole day.

wub · Post by **wub** » Mon Dec 31, 2012 8:49 am

Ableton Tutorial - The Making of LSB - Overthinking - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6oDKHMX-JM
Emperor - How I Made 'Monolith' - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0urGYabdZR4

Nothing much g'warning today so take 90mins out of your day and have a watch...

Thinking out loud...

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Mike Huckaby - free sample pack, stories & tips

10 Detroit techno documentaries

[VIDEO] Slices Tech/Interview series

The Artist vs The Addict

Making Yourself Hungry

[VIDEOS] Couple of production videos...

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