Thinking out loud...

[hurlingdervish]

I've mused on the guitar. I would completely leave it out of electronic music. It just brings way to much baggage with it. People just start listening to the guitar. Then you've got ANOTHER guitar song on your hands.

I think sampling riffs for hip hop beat production still works though. And you don't really need to practice much, just practice that phrase for a bit, then lay it down.

I'm not worried about the genre part of it at the moment. I have faith that if I get good at noodling over chord progressions again, something good will come out of it.

[JTMMusicuk]

Looked over this thread last night at home for a bit of inspiration, didnt realise how many decent video links have been posted ( i usually just come on here while at work and videos are disabled)
That Mr Scruff CM masterclass is wicked, i didnt really like the tune they were making but the way they recorded the parts was really interesting. The funny thing is that the sound of the stapler in the coridor sounded far better recorded thorough the video camera than with the mic they used..might actually sample that from the video myself if i can get audacity to fucking work.
Are you still going to be knocking around these parts when you move Wub? This thread is probably the only place i know at the moment which is actually giving me a different take on production

[wub]

Are you still going to be knocking around these parts when you move Wub? This thread is probably the only place i know at the moment which is actually giving me a different take on production

Of course mate...if anything I think a change of country/city will give me a fresh perspective on things to put in here anyway.

[JTMMusicuk]

Are you still going to be knocking around these parts when you move Wub? This thread is probably the only place i know at the moment which is actually giving me a different take on production

Of course mate...if anything I think a change of country/city will give me a fresh perspective on things to put in here anyway.

Deffinitly, even just moving house to some dank shithole gives fresh vibes for inspiration nevermind hot sun and sea..im expecting big things like
How is the EDM scene in madrid anyways??? cant say iv heard much from that way

[wub]

Are you still going to be knocking around these parts when you move Wub? This thread is probably the only place i know at the moment which is actually giving me a different take on production

Of course mate...if anything I think a change of country/city will give me a fresh perspective on things to put in here anyway.

Deffinitly, even just moving house to some dank shithole gives fresh vibes for inspiration nevermind hot sun and sea..im expecting big things like
How is the EDM scene in madrid anyways??? cant say iv heard much from that way

Madrid is nowhere near the sea, mate

Scene wise, I've been to a few DnB nights with the missus when I've been out there, couple of festivals. Have started sniffing out a few promoters and parties that I want to check out...one I actually hit up in proper broken Spanglish and he emailed back turns out he's an ex-pat

I was bouncing a few ideas off Kay over the weekend in terms of how I want the sound/scene for me personally to develop, and a few things in terms of promotional/delivery mediums that I want to see whether they will be more conducive to a European environment than they would be in the UK...London specifically is very saturated and it's hard to have that head above the parapet moment.

The missus and I have discussed putting on our own night for a while, and the late night bar culture of Madrid (and Spain in general) could prove a decent bedding place for this.

[JTMMusicuk]

Madrid is nowhere near the sea, mate

Scene wise, I've been to a few DnB nights with the missus when I've been out there, couple of festivals. Have started sniffing out a few promoters and parties that I want to check out...one I actually hit up in proper broken Spanglish and he emailed back turns out he's an ex-pat

I was bouncing a few ideas off Kay over the weekend in terms of how I want the sound/scene for me personally to develop, and a few things in terms of promotional/delivery mediums that I want to see whether they will be more conducive to a European environment than they would be in the UK...London specifically is very saturated and it's hard to have that head above the parapet moment.

The missus and I have discussed putting on our own night for a while, and the late night bar culture of Madrid (and Spain in general) could prove a decent bedding place for this.

My geography knowledge is terrible to be quite honest with you but im sure you knew that part already

Im guessing its going to be alot cheaper having a night on over that way so it should be fairly straight forward and if its a touristy area then the night will pretty much promote itself but you may be expected to drop some 'club classics' at the same time just for the crowd pulling, maybe but maybe not if you find the right people.

Also Im interested to know how you've already managed to flag some promoters down already, i am terrible at finding them in my own city... but i guess thats another matter

[wub]

Im guessing its going to be alot cheaper having a night on over that way so it should be fairly straight forward and if its a touristy area then the night will pretty much promote itself but you may be expected to drop some 'club classics' at the same time just for the crowd pulling, maybe but maybe not if you find the right people.

Also Im interested to know how you've already managed to flag some promoters down already, i am terrible at finding them in my own city... but i guess thats another matter

Did a Facebook/Google/Soundcloud search on Madrid and the sorts of music I was interested in. Came up with a load of links, followed those, listened to tracks, checked out Facebook event pages, then expanded/refined the search based on what was thrown up.

For example, came up with this mix;

Soundcloud

And I'm seeing these guys on the 6th July (my first Friday living in Madrid).

[nowaysj]

Hey wub, how do you do geographic searches on SC. I've taken a few cracks at it, and feel like I'm doing it wrong.

[wub]

i'm sure the concept of percussive synthesis isn't new to al ot of you and it wasn't to me either and i'm sure there's been threads before on this but i decided to give it a shot a day or two ago and i've been getting great results so far so i thought i'd share the techniques i've discovered because it's solved a lot of my kick/snare sourcing problems which i know must bother a lot of you guys as well!

i had just had enough of crappy sample packs with noisy, distorted and just unusable samples and i was looking to get a nice, big clean kick and snare going for my new tune. i'm not at my production PC right now but i'll do my best to give a good overview of what i'm doing so far to produce some basic, punchy kicks and some standard, big 200hz snares.

(i'm doing this all in massive but the principles are the same for any decent synth)

kicks:
1. one osc set to a sine wave. get it to hit a note in the sub region (about 30-100hz or so) as the basis of the kick.
2. set the master envelope (4 on massive by default) so there is no attack. the decay will control the length of the kick; by allowing a longer decay you get a more 808'y sound, the shorter it is the more punchy it will be. right now you just have a plain sine.
3. get an envelope on the pitch of this sine and set it to +48 semitones. now adjust the envelope so the pitch starts at 48 and drops very rapidly. this creates your basic "click" or attack. again, the decay should be set short for a punchier sound.
4. enable the noise generator and set it to "white" or "bright" noise. turn the color almost all the way up and put an envelope on the amp so that it basically follows the pitch envelope on the sine. this adds the definite "click" to the attack.
5. add some classic tube on the master effects to fatten it up a bit.

that's your basic kick. the key is to get those decays on the pitch and white noise generator really tight for punchiness. you can then further compress/distort/whatever to make it fatter. i'm still experimenting myself but so far, i'm getting a good sound.

snares (200hz snares):
1. basically the same deal but a bit higher. get a note that sites around 200-400hz (to your taste).
2. set the master envelope similar to the way you did with the kick to get the body of the snare at the right kind of sound. short decay = punchier and snappier.
3. do the same pitch envelope thing. you don't necessarily need to set it to +48, just experiment.
4. do the same noise generator with envelope trick and play around with the settings. don't be afraid to add quite a bit of noise, just keep the decays in check and make sure it sounds "snare-y". i'm not a fan of huge, saturated white noise snares but you need that fast noise snap on top to make it sound good.
5. add some classic tube to taste.

that is the basic formula for kick and snare. if you tighten up all the decays (master, pitch and noise) on the snare you can get ridiculously punchy and tight sounding samples. from here, saturate more, compress, EQ, whatever. also definitely look into layering some high-passed snare samples on top, especially acoustic ones to fully flesh out the sound and make it sound better/more realistic. don't just settle for that big, booming basketball-on-concrete sound, you can get a wide range of sounds from this formula; a short decay and more emphasis on the noise generator will give you more snap as opposed to that pendu-snare.

also remember that these methods i've described are also the basic methods to create 808 sounding snares and kicks etc. you can get a multitude of different sounds by just playing with decays.

i've also been making some decent hi hatt-y sounds in massive. i've just been using the noise generator for these. basically, it's just bright or white noise and then it's just adjusting the master envelope (little bit of attack and nice, short decays). obviously, these are harder to convincingly synthesise but synthetic hi hat sounds make GREAT layerings under or over real hi hat samples to add speed and snappiness.

the best thing about synthesising sounds is that you have full control at all times; pitch shifting and awkward transient shaping of audio files is gone!

the hardest thing is to manage your kick's low-end with the sub. i never really sidechain sub to my kick, i instead just EQ really carefully around the kick to make sure it's not clashing. the snare isn't that hard, just cut off below about 200hz (but don't lose the low-end of it) and maybe sharply notch out the 200hz (or whatever your snare's sinewave is hitting at) of your synths to make room for the snare.

http://www.fm8tutorials.com/tutorials/d ... synthesis/

[wub]

On an Autechre tip today...




I've mentioned these before, but both the Sound on Sound articles about them have been awesome reads;

1) http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/apr04/a ... techre.htm

2) http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1997_ar ... echre.html

Check their mad crazy screenshots too

<3 those SOS interviews. It's a shame that they haven't interviewed them recently given how their sound has progressed so much in the last decade.

I found a couple of more recent interviews;

Dazed Digital (2010) - http://www.dazeddigital.com/music/artic ... hre-return (bit short)
The Quietus (2010) - http://thequietus.com/articles/04018-au ... -oversteps
Clash Music (2010) - http://www.clashmusic.com/feature/autechre-interview
Tiny Mix Tapes (2010) - http://www.tinymixtapes.com/features/autechre

And some older ones;

Pitchfork (2008) - http://pitchfork.com/features/interviews/6788-autechre/
BBC - http://pitchfork.com/features/interviews/6788-autechre/
Barcodezine (2008) - http://www.barcodezine.com/Autechre%20Interview.htm

[wub]

[OfficialDAPT]

so.......many..........videos..........

[hutyluty]

this one is the best one

felt proper inspired after watchign this- made like three tunes that afternoon

[wub]

ellipsis mite not be groundbreaking but i still think its a really good tune.

and i also think glut is a good tune - when tracks like wut, work them and glut came out it gave the dubstep scene a kick up the arse as there was nothing around like it at 140bpm at the time imo. its not really girl unit or ramadanmans fault that everyone started copying that sound.

at the same time i def agree the whole 'bass' scene aping house/techno/whatever and the 808 stuff is starting to get very oversaturated and i think the dubstep/techno crossover stuff from 2007-2009 was better (as shown by allstars 6-7, round black ghost compilations/skull disco soundboy punishment/grave etc.)

did you have this opinion about those tracks at the time wub?

Of course...but this is less about examining a piece of work as an individual, and more at the overall effect it had on the scene around it in terms of shaping & influencing other tracks and producers.

We could call this the 'Footcrab Effect'. Same fucking thing happened about the time that FACT mix came out and suddenly the whole world seemed to collectively shit out an 808 sample pack onto YouTube.

maybe it was too different to what was about at the time, so everyone thought "wow this is mental" and copied it

AND IT'S VOLCANOGEORGE BY TEN LENGTHS! Seriously, this is part of the issue. Chicago House had a similar issue waaaaaaaay back in the dusty past. Compare these two tracks;



Both came out around the same time, both seminal pieces of work. But whereas Your Love is an achingly beautiful piece of electronic music that still stands up against many modern productions, On & On is quite low quality (and IMO more than a little bit shit) in comparison.

So, they both massively influence the scene they were a part of. Your Love sets the bar amazingly high in terms of what can be done, whereas On & On acts as a flood relief channel, showing people that whatever is done, it doesn't have to be all that good.

You've got both sides of a demonstrative argument. The upper echelons of beauty and the bottom end quick job that throws the gates open and announces ANYONE CAN DO THIS if they're so inclined.

It's like a yin yang setup. The scene needs both elements to drive it forward.

wut started this whole trap/bass fusion thing that mightve been fun for a few months when it started, but has just become one of the worst, most obnoxious music trends since brostep. NOT that i dont like wut or girl unit in general, it was a big tune then and its still a big tune - it's just that it's inadvertently started something terrible.

glut/sicko cell started this whole house-y & techno-ish sort of throwback thing, which i dont mind at all tbh, cause it's bringing that sort of shit back with a dubstep way of approaching it - dark, subby, minimal, etc. they're taking elements and recycling them, and putting them in a new context. there's enough fresh sounds coming out of that spectrum imo to not really complain about it

Which brings us nicely to Phigure's comparison, which in itself proves the above yin yang theory. In this example, Sicko Cell/Glut take the place of Your Love and Wut is On & On. Both big tunes in terms of driving things forward, but for entirely different reasons.

But it's not just electronic music... how many grunge bands started after Nirvana. Or how many punk bands after Velvet Underground/Ramones? I think part of it is that everything is so in our faces now with Internet and such. It doesn't take 6 months or a year to find out about a new EP or band or whatever, it takes closer to 6 seconds of opening a browser.

Exactly. Listen to any post 1991 Seattle indie label compilations (obscure sub genre, but trust there are more than you'd believe) and the Nirvana influence is HUGE. The problem is that with the grunge scene (and this is only a snapshot, this applies to all recorded in a recording studio music) is that they were chasing the tail far too late. They all rushed out with their $606.17 to record THE NEXT BIG THING only to find the train not so much having left the station as reaching the next terminal altogether.

Electronic music by it's very nature does not have this. I could less than five metres in front of me right now, turn on the computer and knock out a tune which could be up & onto YouTube within a couple of hours, even with a shitty upload rate.

So we have the issue of that cycle factor again, only this time lets drill down into it and look at actual proper fucking nitty gritty tune level interactions';

Good tune > Inspires poorer tune > poorer tune lowers expectations > 'bedroom' producers collectively think I can make that > glut(HA!) of tunes

You get this almost disposable nature cycle kicking in where everything is being turned around faster and faster and the quality of the 'good' tune in the first stage is gradually watered down over and over again until it's rendered practically worthless and then BANG you have knee jerk reactions like this fucking thread, and the scene as a whole suffers from a paradigm shift and suddenly something else is touted as the next big thing and the emphasis moves to that.

[Taken from here - http://www.dubstepforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=249731]

[alphacat]

^ Also, IMO this cycle is tied in to presets in software/hardware as well: first somebody "underground" comes up with a fairly distinctive sound that becomes easily recognizable; next, some developer/engineer decides to take that sound and make it a preset in their product; then some half-assed so-called 'producers' or musicians who are creatively bankrupt (see: most Nu Metal bands, indietronica acts, etc.) come along and use that preset without really knowing/caring anything about the sound or its history and just slap it into their typically shitty track - the listeners hear this sound [that's new to them] and say what is this? Latecoming creatively-bankrupt turd says, "I've been deep into this sound for a long time and just thought I'd take it to another level, yo"; the listeners then think that this person either invented or perfected the sound, causing all of the people into the original underground form to flee in reactivity and try and find something that hasn't been shit all over yet. Rinse and repeat.

[hurlingdervish]

You bring up the nirvana grunge copycats, which is fair, but I find instrument based music/rock, to be far more lenient in terms of the end result of copy-cat intentions.

Think about it like this, if the guitarist wants to be like omar rodriguez, the bassist is in love with victor wooten, and the drummer listens to a ton of DnB, the end result will be unique at the very least, even though individually if they produced their own shit it might possibly be bland and unoriginal

[wub]

Not all of them. Just the ones that you downloaded and have never used and/or are just taking up space. Declutter the drive. Storage space is cheap and plentiful these days, but that doesn't necessarily mean that "PHAT KIKZ!!!" needs to stay. Unless they are actually phat, of course.

Sort through my folders little by little, maybe order by date accessed and check the ones at the very bottom of the lists. Have a listen through to them, are the samples actually any good or did I grab them from a forum way back and then never touch the things as they're shit? The latter? Then they go. Or else burn them to a DVD-R and give them to a friend or something, then delete them.

Not advocating the last point for paid sample packs, just for the record.

But less is more, or at least less facilities more (thinking), if you get me.

i know what i am after usually, and even though i have more than i'll probbably ever need, it doesnt stop me as i know which folders contain the stuff i want... then if i feel like doing a bit of exploring, i got all those other folders that i know contain usable stuff, but that i have never used, so i can take a little dive into that and bring up a little bit of new fresh sounds to use

tend to stick to what i know is good though, but dont want to get too comfortable and having a whole bunchy of extra and more or less unexplored sounds can be great for that imo, but i am not forced to use everything i have just because i have them.. same with hardware or other tools

can personally only see 2 negative sides, which is if you really dont have the space and/or if you are unorganised where having extra sounds makes it hard to keep track on what you have already confirmed to be good for what you do, but that is easily fixed unless you for a long time have just dumped everything into a big folder

For those of you that don't know Ibunshi;

Soundcloud

But I disgress. Too much of anything is a bad thing, nature teaches us this much. One of the issues I have with production, or at least starting production is the fact that there is too much of something at times, not others. It's basically this;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analysis_paralysis

The term "analysis paralysis" or "paralysis of analysis" refers to over-analyzing (or over-thinking) a situation, so that a decision or action is never taken, in effect paralyzing the outcome. A decision can be treated as over-complicated, with too many detailed options, so that a choice is never made, rather than try something and change if a major problem arises. A person might be seeking the optimal or "perfect" solution upfront, and fear making any decision which could lead to erroneous results, when on the way to a better solution.

When you have too many choices, you fail to make a decision at all. See also next time you want to watch a DVD from your collection on a slow Sunday night. How fucking long does it take to find something you want to watch? They're all good titles, you wouldn't have them otherwise. But when they're all good how do you pick just one? A man cannot survive on Korean war based horror themes alone.

Ibunshi again;

you dont have to use things just because you have them? you got to atleast have a slight idea of what you want to do? ..why force stuff into anything just because it is available or because you can.. even if i were limited in choice of samples, i still have loads of choice in what to do with them.. then what? should i try to do everything that is possible to do just because i can, or should i try to stick to one idea? same thing..

i am pretty sure that most producers these days has tools or features on tools that they dont use even though they have them.. if i were to attempt to use every tool in cubase for example just because they are there, then i'd never get anywhere.. same thinking applies for everything else imo, i'm not forced to use them and so i'll stick to what i need, then i stray if i want to have a taste of something new.. shouldnt be much difference there compared to sample libraries or plugins

kid in a candy shop whithout aim has no clue of what to taste or where to start, but a kid that atleast knows what candy he wants can more easily go straight to it.. shouldnt take all that much diciplin to avoid liquorice if chocolate is the goal

when you cook a meal, do you use every grocery available and pour all available different kinds of spices into it just because it is there, both fry and cook because you can? or do you have a goal of what you want to do? even without a goal, most likely you'd let your sense of taste and knowledge decide here.. you can do the same with music imo, i honestly cant see a difference there

"less is more" can simply be a matter of choice, you dont have to throw away everything in your kitchen just because you want to boil an egg.. and the day you decide to do something else than boiling eggs, you still have all your spices and foods left and can get to it right away!

The candy shop analogy works best for this example. If you have the choice of everything but don't know what everything is, find out...and then avoid/remove/delete if it's not to your liking.

Having Tb's of samples is pointless if you're only using a few hundred on the regular. This also has the benefit of allowing a sound to be developed. Got a percussion folder that is shit hot and makes it into nearly every tune? Fairly damn sure I have, in fact I could point to a folder of 20 samples that I know have made it into 90% of all the tunes I've made in the last couple of years.

Definition and repetition to allow the crafting of a vibe. Or something like that, it's been a while since I ate and I'm starting to flake, hence the need to type.

[wub]

In case you forget why we're here...

[wub]

Inspiring video interview with DJ Muggs about his vinyl collection and how he looks at music + influences. Thinking a cheap 1210 might need to be added to the collection sometime soon


More from the same channel





Does make me wonder...I've yet to start really digging for sounds since I moved cities...the impact that a change in culture so diverse as London to Madrid will have on what I find.

My GF has mentioned that I need to check out El Rastro which takes up several city blocks and has something like 3500 stalls on it at any one time, so that'll be a good place to go digging.

Hate to say it, but one advantage of the financial situation being what it is here is that the spare change for 2nd hand stuff will go much further and there is more to choose from. Spanish eBay is a world apart from the .com and .co.uk brethren from what I've seen, and open street selling is a more preferred way of doing things so hopefully bargains to be had.

[jrisreal]

Can't believe I haven't been in this thread yet :O