Dubstepforum.com

anyone here listen to, or write alot of techno? anyone willing to get on aim and give me some pointers on some techno im writing?

hitting a bit of a wall as i havent listened to much techno, all the youtube results i can find are a bit too cheesy

I'm stuck in my office, otherwise I'd love to chat about techno

the harder-edged 909 hat techno is my bag

You know I do all of the above. On AIM atm...

drokkr wrote:You know I do all of the above. On AIM atm...

^^^Drokkr in for the win

Echoi wrote:anyone here listen to, or write alot of techno? anyone willing to get on aim and give me some pointers on some techno im writing?

hitting a bit of a wall as i havent listened to much techno, all the youtube results i can find are a bit too cheesy

Sure. What's your AIM?

You talking about the early Techno stuff...?

nitz wrote:You talking about the early Techno stuff...?

really im just looking for some tips on mine. im getting good tracks off the ground quite well, then after a certain point hit a wall as to how to go about finishing it off, new genre to e really

Check out torrent tech, if you need an invite hit me up.

some techno is really really good. most of it is fucking dull (tbh like most genres) but when they get it right its fucking incredible. not a fan of the harder sound though, just reminds me of slowed down gabber, more into the mininimal bleepy stuff or atmospheric sort of stuff.

i recommend you listen to trentemoller - the last resort. its straying a bit towards idm but still sounds like techno to me. tommy four seven & speedy j are worth checking out too.

production wise it tends to be fairly simple in essence, but its the quality of the execution that makes it special. lots of subtle movement, interesting grooves, etc. lots of hands on/real time automation and what have you - its a bit like dub in that respect.

gravity wrote:some techno is really really good. most of it is fucking dull (tbh like most genres) but when they get it right its fucking incredible. not a fan of the harder sound though, just reminds me of slowed down gabber, more into the mininimal bleepy stuff or atmospheric sort of stuff.

i recommend you listen to trentemoller - the last resort. its straying a bit towards idm but still sounds like techno to me. tommy four seven & speedy j are worth checking out too.

production wise it tends to be fairly simple in essence, but its the quality of the execution that makes it special. lots of subtle movement, interesting grooves, etc. lots of hands on/real time automation and what have you - its a bit like dub in that respect.

Hehe, it's clearly all down to taste at the end of the day since I thought Speedy J was one of the most boring DJs I'd ever seen. Trentemoeller is more ambient electronic pop than techno, but that's not a dig at him.

I'd disagree with the production being fairly simple in essence. It's the ideas that are simple, not the production. The production has to be spot on in order to string out one or two ideas over 6 or 7 minutes. Lots of techno is fucking dull -- living in Berlin has pretty much destroyed any desire I may ever have had to go out and listen to minimal or clubby deep house -- but there's some amazing stuff out there that has the power to suck you in and wrap itself around you in a way that most dubstep can't. (My opinion, of course... )

sometimes i listen to this and cry tears of pain for the lost times of shaker madness



what went wrong, marco carola? boo hoo

damagedgoods wrote:I'd disagree with the production being fairly simple in essence. It's the ideas that are simple, not the production. The production has to be spot on in order to string out one or two ideas over 6 or 7 minutes. Lots of techno is fucking dull -- living in Berlin has pretty much destroyed any desire I may ever have had to go out and listen to minimal or clubby deep house -- but there's some amazing stuff out there that has the power to suck you in and wrap itself around you in a way that most dubstep can't. (My opinion, of course... )

s'funny you say that. i was in berlin a couple of years back, and went to some cool kids club in Kreuzberg where they played minimal all night. Even a load of quality MDMA couldn't stop me noticing how formulaic it all was; the mixing was dull, the same tricks were in every tune and the DJ was in no hurry to mash things up. A shame because I quite like minimal at home.

Still rate Valentino Kanzyani circa 2003 as being the pinnacle of techno DJing for me though

setspeed wrote:

damagedgoods wrote:I'd disagree with the production being fairly simple in essence. It's the ideas that are simple, not the production. The production has to be spot on in order to string out one or two ideas over 6 or 7 minutes. Lots of techno is fucking dull -- living in Berlin has pretty much destroyed any desire I may ever have had to go out and listen to minimal or clubby deep house -- but there's some amazing stuff out there that has the power to suck you in and wrap itself around you in a way that most dubstep can't. (My opinion, of course... )

s'funny you say that. i was in berlin a couple of years back, and went to some cool kids club in Kreuzberg where they played minimal all night. Even a load of quality MDMA couldn't stop me noticing how formulaic it all was; the mixing was dull, the same tricks were in every tune and the DJ was in no hurry to mash things up. A shame because I quite like minimal at home.

Still rate Valentino Kanzyani circa 2003 as being the pinnacle of techno DJing for me though

Yeah, 90% of the parties in the quote-unquote "city of techno" are pretty lame on the music front. It's the remaining 10% that make it worthwhile.

(Before I came here I had it in my head that this "Berlin sound" was something like, I dunno, dark, dubby warehouse techno. Not at all. The quintessential Berlin sound is the bland, plodding deep house to which kids in cool clothes party for 48 hours at a time and never break into a sweat.)

damagedgoods wrote:

gravity wrote:some techno is really really good. most of it is fucking dull (tbh like most genres) but when they get it right its fucking incredible. not a fan of the harder sound though, just reminds me of slowed down gabber, more into the mininimal bleepy stuff or atmospheric sort of stuff.

i recommend you listen to trentemoller - the last resort. its straying a bit towards idm but still sounds like techno to me. tommy four seven & speedy j are worth checking out too.

production wise it tends to be fairly simple in essence, but its the quality of the execution that makes it special. lots of subtle movement, interesting grooves, etc. lots of hands on/real time automation and what have you - its a bit like dub in that respect.

Hehe, it's clearly all down to taste at the end of the day since I thought Speedy J was one of the most boring DJs I'd ever seen. Trentemoeller is more ambient electronic pop than techno, but that's not a dig at him.

I'd disagree with the production being fairly simple in essence. It's the ideas that are simple, not the production. The production has to be spot on in order to string out one or two ideas over 6 or 7 minutes. Lots of techno is fucking dull -- living in Berlin has pretty much destroyed any desire I may ever have had to go out and listen to minimal or clubby deep house -- but there's some amazing stuff out there that has the power to suck you in and wrap itself around you in a way that most dubstep can't. (My opinion, of course... )

i think we are kind of talking about the same thing when you say the ideas are simple and i say the essence of the production... the underlying concepts are straightforward (be it groove, melody, sound design, etc) but pulled off with an awful lot of panache.

its definitely very subjective! e.g. all those tunes you posted bar the last struck me as typical dull techno! and imo trentemoller defo does techno (although to be fair his album strays into more electronica territory, still with that techno influence): e.g.
<iframe src="/forum/video.php?url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kndidJajjRQ" frameborder="0" style="overflow:hidden; height:auto; max-width:540px"></iframe>

certainly not ambient if you hear it on a system!

anyway, im certainly no authority on techno! just hear bits and bobs that i like. another example:
<iframe src="/forum/video.php?url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luqx0Gke-W0" frameborder="0" style="overflow:hidden; height:auto; max-width:540px"></iframe>

also i gotta say nathan fake live was fucking sick, but most of his tracks that i have found have been rather cack. so i dunno what to make of that one...

2 tips

1. sidechaining, not just sidechain compression, sidechain-anything.
2. stay away from a scranz sound - it's shit.

it's all about detroit

setspeed wrote:

damagedgoods wrote:I'd disagree with the production being fairly simple in essence. It's the ideas that are simple, not the production. The production has to be spot on in order to string out one or two ideas over 6 or 7 minutes. Lots of techno is fucking dull -- living in Berlin has pretty much destroyed any desire I may ever have had to go out and listen to minimal or clubby deep house -- but there's some amazing stuff out there that has the power to suck you in and wrap itself around you in a way that most dubstep can't. (My opinion, of course... )

s'funny you say that. i was in berlin a couple of years back, and went to some cool kids club in Kreuzberg where they played minimal all night. Even a load of quality MDMA couldn't stop me noticing how formulaic it all was; the mixing was dull, the same tricks were in every tune and the DJ was in no hurry to mash things up. A shame because I quite like minimal at home.

Still rate Valentino Kanzyani circa 2003 as being the pinnacle of techno DJing for me though

I am like the opposite. I really enjoy it on a nice system out at a party but when I am at home or in the car it is just too boring for me. People talk about dubstep or dnb getting samey... next too techno and minimal it really isn't. I got into Swedish techno back in like 97/98 for a few years was collecting records, still have them but I find it amazing that you can listen to those same labels current offerings and it's almost the same shit 15 years later. I think I would go insane if I was a producer / dj of those genres, just not enough progression. On the other hand dubstep or dnb you can listen to a tune you have never heard before and guess the year it was made. Being a casual fan of it keeps it fresh for me. I have started to write techno tunes on many occasions but I usually end up throwing some dubstep ethos into the production.

abZ wrote: People talk about dubstep or dnb getting samey... next too techno and minimal it really isn't.

I would have to disagree with you there...something like Planet E or any of Basic Channel's labels, or Spectral, or M_nus even, have incredibly varied catalogs. And what constitutes as "techno" is incredibly varied compared to dubstep (nowadays) or dnb, and a lot of DJs take advantage of this. It's not uncommon to hear incredibly varied sounds, beat patterns, and vibes throughout one techno DJs set - after all, they've got decades of constant innovation, numerous subgenres, and thousands of DJ tools at their disposal.

Didn't mean to go off on a rant, but I just had to disagree with you on that point. Now if a shitty techno DJ just spins minimal all night, then he's just not a very good DJ.


Comparing it to dubstep again for a second, I feel that dubstep up until a few years ago had just as much variety, but has become pretty formulaic by now...but the whole "bass music" thing going on between 130-140 (with dubstep included) has totally kept that going. Don't get me started on dnb though...