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I've been trying to get some chord progressions on a similar vibe as these guys going, but I'm not sure where to start really. Could anyone guide me into the right direction (what kind of chords they are playing etc)
There's obviously a Detroit influence in them and I know that a lot of Detroit producers just ued to pitch single chords up and down, but doing that doesn't really give the desired results

Posting just to keep updated with this thread, really want to up my chord game

well, i dont really know, but like detroit guys used like more jazzy feeling chords right? I spose really what you need to do is get that one good chord, and then pitch it around, if you are pitching around a naff chord or one not in the style you want it wont work. But the thing that does make them sound nice and sometimes off if becuase you are pitching the one chord shape around, you can come up with progressions you wouldnt normally think of doing if playing the actual chords out each time.

jus look up a bill evans tune and sample 1 chord then play it at diff. intervals

This is not really an answer to your question, maybe I'll do that in a sec, but for strange chord progressions do this:

Pick a key and scale. The scale is important, pick one that has the right flavor your are looking for.

Okay, now go into the piano roll and draw a 8 bar note on the root of your key/scale, and draw a note for each note in the scale. Go up an octave and do the same, go down an octave and do the same. You've now got a shit tun of really long notes. Like the biggest superchord ever. Play it once, turn your speakers down first. Then mute all those notes. Like in your piano roll editor mute all of those notes.

Okay, now with a beat playing in the background so you get the right timing/beat happening cut vertically all those notes where the beat is happening, where the chords should be hitting. Do it for 8 bars, or 4 bars if you prefer, or 2 bars if you're a bitch.

Okay, so now you've got the super long notes chopped up on the beat. Now go and start unmuting notes. First start at 1:1 and unmute the root of the key, like if you are playing A minor, unmute the A set a two bar loop playing and just start unmuting other notes around A, and then move on to the next hit/slice and figure out if you wanna go up or down from that first chord, if down, move down a note or two from the A and unmute that and then start unmuting notes around that note.

There are easier ways to do this, but I've found I get different results doing this. Yes you could learn your shit, or just play your shit, or just pencil in your shit, but something about choosing from all possible options gets different results and weird chord progressions.

But yeah, find a chord you like that is rooty. Sample it. And then put that chord in a sampler, and play that chord up and down a bit to the beat, I think you'll find what you are looking for.

Have you tried using a chord generator, there's loads online, pick a chord find out the notes, use the corresponding chords in the scale. The chords on these tracks are probably Augmented/Diminshed, there's probably some 7th and 9th chords in there too.

is it music theory you're having trouble with or writing harmonic material? NWJ that's a really interesting method. sorta reminds me of the way people chop up resampled reeses lol.

if it's music theory you're having difficulty with, there are plenty of resources for that. if it's just creatively writing progressions, it just comes down to practice man. there are plenty of tips out there but at the end of the day you can learn all the music theory you want but you gotta practice creatively executing that music theory knowledge.

Thanks for the replies guys. Will defo try your suggestions out.

@dubunked

I'm familiar with the basics of music theory (like finding chords and scales), not extremely advanced though. I think that the process of creatively writing progressions is mainly the problem for me, always takes me a lot of work. Also haven't been really able to ID the chords used in the tunes I posted, so I wasn't sure what type of chords (rockonin suggested augmented/diminished) I should be looking at

I could give it a shot but you'd probably benefit more from it if you did it yourself. Download the songs and open them up in your DAW or whatever software you use that has a spectral analyzer. Then loop it around the chords that you are looking for and depending on the song and how complicated it is, you may be able to see which chord is being used. At the very least you will probably be able to determine the root note (the sub tone).

Note that augmented chords are not used nearly as often as major/minor/diminished chords. Every major/minor scale has a diminished chord in it so these particular tunes may be using diminished chords. They are probably using minor scales so that would mean the supertonic (note above tonic/root) forms a diminished chord.

A suggestion a few up, rockonin, use a chord generator. Even just to find chords. Chord generators are sick. Like instant insane jazz shit that you'd never come up with yourself (absent years at Julliard) that just works.

Don't overlook that suggestion if you're looking to get all chordy.

Are you just asking about, like, techno chords?

With this kind of stuff, I think getting the groove right is as important as anything. I'd probably bounce a few chords as audio, then play about sequencing them creating a groove with the drums, maybe pitch shifting/subtly modulating them as well. AMUS/2562 does a lot of sample based stuff.

just 7ths up and down the keyboard broski

^ bigup the chord maestro, i was curious what they were, im shit at telling what anything is other than major / minor

Lumi, as dubu said, it involves a lot of playing around until you get a nice progression, especially when ur fisrt learning. if ur feeling glum abkout not being able to make any stonkers then its probs worth remembering that #professional producers can sit for hours just derping around on their keyboards until they get a nice sounding progression.

also building on what he said about taking the tunes into your DAW:
obv put the tune in ur daw
Find a bit of the tune that has as little as possible playing with the chord progressiobn
loop it
use band pass filter to isolate the frequencies the chords are playing in
aaaand if u use fruity loops (dno what u use)
bounce the looped chords to audio
take it back into DAW
open it with an audio editor vst like edison
then in edison highlight the full clip
right click
convert to score and dump to piano roll
hey presto, u can now see, nicely plotted out for u in ur sampler, all of the notes that are played in the sample

fookin voodoo magic man


chord generators are sick tho for when ur not using sampled chords





^percy actress tune for good measure, this chord is apparently from the start of jacob creek (i dno cos i dont watch it)

jacob's creek is a wine? lol

loll yheaa.... did i mean dawsons creek?

its the theme song for someones creek anyway

bennyfroobs wrote:loll yheaa.... did i mean dawsons creek?

its the theme song for someones creek anyway

I lol'd

what i did is just try and get a nice clear and consistent note from a sample- like i dunno any jazzy chord with some brass in.

Then basically just try 7ths in different keys until you get a nice sound. It will sound terribly 19 times out of 20 but then you strike gold and it'll sound miles better than anything you can make on a synth imo

I reckon this is what 2562 does (and i know he did on fever cos he says so in an interview).

A lot of Actress ones sound like reversed chords to me: from synths either ripped from somewhere or self-created then sampled and messed about with but then i could be wrong

Fever was made entirely from sampling disco records wasnt it?

Yeah all from the year of his birth too, i mean tbh it sounds like there is no way that it should sound any good but it's one of my favourite records ever

like the chords in this:

he just finds amazing chord progressions you wouldn't imo be able find playing about with a synth.

why shouldnt it sound any good? you can get sounds out of anything these days haha