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Let's Make Electronic Music!
Podly
you unzipped me! it's all coming back! i don't like it!Registered User regular
you unzipped me! it's all coming back! i don't like it!Registered User regular
Electronic music and the making thereof!
So what exactly is electronic music? Well, it's kind of ambiguous. Some might say that electronic music dates back to the first experiments with voltage back in the turn of the 20th century, whereas others would say that it really only goes back to Switched on Bach, Tangerine Dream, and Kraftwerk. I tend to think that electronic music began with the Allied forces discovery of abandoned Nazi tape in WWII and Pierre Schaeffer's experiments with it, but really in this thread we are probably not going to be talking much about Stockhausen and Xenakis, so let's say that this thread is really just about beets and bloops that you want to make.
So lets say that the electronic music that we are going to be talking about here is the kind that sprung from the loins of Giorgio Moroder, Kraftwerk, 808 State, Aphex Twin, etc. House, Techno, Acid, Dubstep, all those goodies.
But, more imporantly, all those goodies THAT YOU WANT TO MAKE!
So how do you make electronic music? This is the thread where all you electronic producers out there can discuss your music, how you make it, what inspires you, what you would like to accomplish, how you would like to accomplish, what you have learned, and what you would like to learn. And for those of you out there who haven't got a clue but would like to learn, this is the thread for you to ask questions, and hopefully receive answers.
Personally, I work under the moniker of Apres Garde. I'm primarily a synthesist, and I've even got a remix on Itunes! {Dangerous Muse -- I Want It All (Apres Garde Remix)} I'm trying to get to a point where I can produce my own music from start to scratch and get paid to produce other people's music. My home studio setup is a Macbook Pro running Logic with a bunch of plugins, a MOTU 828 D/A interface, KRK Rokit 5 monitors, a Dave Smith Mono-Evolver Keyboard (my baby), an M-Audio Oxygen 8 25 key midi controller, a Yamaha TX81Z tone generator, and a yamaha spx-1000 (on loan) for DSP.
I just spent a few hours clocking everything in my environment correctly, and now everything sounds beeeeaaaaautiful
(this track is just an electribe drum machine I borrowed and my synth getting a midi arpeggio from Logic and sending to the SPX-1000)
http://soundcloud.com/apres-garde/march-13-2011
So post who you are and a bit about your music, or start asking questions, or even just posting some music clips / youtube videos to get the discussion started!
So what exactly is electronic music? Well, it's kind of ambiguous. Some might say that electronic music dates back to the first experiments with voltage back in the turn of the 20th century, whereas others would say that it really only goes back to Switched on Bach, Tangerine Dream, and Kraftwerk. I tend to think that electronic music began with the Allied forces discovery of abandoned Nazi tape in WWII and Pierre Schaeffer's experiments with it, but really in this thread we are probably not going to be talking much about Stockhausen and Xenakis, so let's say that this thread is really just about beets and bloops that you want to make.
So lets say that the electronic music that we are going to be talking about here is the kind that sprung from the loins of Giorgio Moroder, Kraftwerk, 808 State, Aphex Twin, etc. House, Techno, Acid, Dubstep, all those goodies.
But, more imporantly, all those goodies THAT YOU WANT TO MAKE!
So how do you make electronic music? This is the thread where all you electronic producers out there can discuss your music, how you make it, what inspires you, what you would like to accomplish, how you would like to accomplish, what you have learned, and what you would like to learn. And for those of you out there who haven't got a clue but would like to learn, this is the thread for you to ask questions, and hopefully receive answers.
Personally, I work under the moniker of Apres Garde. I'm primarily a synthesist, and I've even got a remix on Itunes! {Dangerous Muse -- I Want It All (Apres Garde Remix)} I'm trying to get to a point where I can produce my own music from start to scratch and get paid to produce other people's music. My home studio setup is a Macbook Pro running Logic with a bunch of plugins, a MOTU 828 D/A interface, KRK Rokit 5 monitors, a Dave Smith Mono-Evolver Keyboard (my baby), an M-Audio Oxygen 8 25 key midi controller, a Yamaha TX81Z tone generator, and a yamaha spx-1000 (on loan) for DSP.
I just spent a few hours clocking everything in my environment correctly, and now everything sounds beeeeaaaaautiful
(this track is just an electribe drum machine I borrowed and my synth getting a midi arpeggio from Logic and sending to the SPX-1000)
http://soundcloud.com/apres-garde/march-13-2011
So post who you are and a bit about your music, or start asking questions, or even just posting some music clips / youtube videos to get the discussion started!
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I can make ridiculous noises with it though. Which is pretty cool I suppose.
http://www.korgds10synthesizer.com/htm/tutorials.htm
well the cheapest way to get into electronic music is a digital audio workstation, or a DAW. Do you have a mac? Then you already have a DAW -- garageband! However, garageband is pretty limited. While I've never used it, I've heard rave reviews about Reaper, which only costs a few hundred dollars. (think of it as, at the VERY least, a video game you will play for the next few years. Sounds like a good bang for buck ratio, right?) So a DAW is generally a combination of three things -- a sequencer, a playback imager, and a mixer. A sequencer is a MIDI sequencer (a digital music language that sends messages to parameters that range from 0-128) that sends notes to something. MIDI itself does not make notes. However, your DAW probably comes with a few plugin synths and there are a number of great free softsynths out there (I use crystal a lot.) So you send the notes from the sequencer to the synth, and it will play them back. And then the mixer mixes all your channels together and outputs them in mono or stereo (or 5.1 if you fancy huh?)
Besides that, if you want to take it to the next level, you will probably want a midi controller so that you don't have to manually click in the notes. I use the oldish school M-Audio Oxygen 8, but midi controllers range from the korg nano-key to full scale alesis 88 key controllers. You'll also want an interface. This will mainly allow you to do two important things: (1) hook up nice monitors so you can hear what you music ACTUALLY sounds like, and (2) an interface acts as a Audio-to-Digital and Digital-to-Audio converter so that you can record your guitar -- which emits a continuous, analog signal -- to a digital signal -- which is scaled down to a numerical approximation of that continuous signal, which, depending on the quality of your converters, can sound like shit or can sound really really close to your guitar. Then you might want to get a synth, or maybe a drum machine or sample player. And then it gets crazy fun and just plain crazy. (My producer buddies keep telling me what I should get next is acoustic room treatments and I'm like MAN THAT IS THE MOST BORING LAME THING TO SPEND MONEY ON EVERRR)
And I would also advise that you check out electronic music production sites. There are so many good ones out there that I really can't keep up with them. Also, constantly try to listen to new electronic music. Electronic musicians are generally good at pushing the boundaries, so new interesting sounds / production methods are always popping up. I would suggest checking out
http://www.synthtopia.com/
http://createdigitalmusic.com/
http://trashaudio.com/
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=74
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/newbie-audio-engineering-production-question-zone-trial-beta-forum/
http://www.soundonsound.com/forum/postlist.php?Cat=&Board=NEWBIES
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDA2A-lDdLI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xT905UDgQZU
If you are curious I use software synths only. Sometimes I hook up my Yamaha keyboard, but for the most part I either compose in Anvil Studios (a midi program) and bring them over to FL, or fool around in FL until I get something I like.
I've been making music on a sporatic basis since I was 15 , fooling around in Anvil. (23 now)
What inspires me? Mostly other music. I do lots of other things with my creative energy too.. so I usually have to jump on any inspiration I come across.
I tend to start many tracks, and then wait a long time for them to be finished. It takes a great deal of effort for me to finish a song off properly. Of perhaps 100 ideas, probably only 5 or so get to be finished tracks by the end of 6 months.
I would like to put together an album eventually, though I'm not concerned about money. The first album, because of the way I write music, will probably not fit together well, but as you can sort of see, I am entitling each track after a TM. The name of the album will be Technical Machine.
I'm currently trying to finish up Zap Cannon while working on others, such as Razor Leaf, and others I've yet to name.
Also, one of the people that run the trash_audio blog I posted record music under the nome de guerre of surachai, so for a second I thought you were him!
I go by Anattenuan when it comes to music, so yes, I'm not that person! I haven't really put my music out there for the most part. I am waiting until I have a large body of decent quality work to show off before I try and make any sort of splash.
Edit: of your work, Podly, I really like this one: http://soundcloud.com/apres-garde/maria-nette-1
I tend to prefer "things I haven't heard before". Unconventionality for the win!.
Also, it *sounds* like the Slayer plugin in the beginning. Am I correct?
My setup is, well, non-existent. I've dicked around in Reaper (that crystal synth has come in handy quite a few times, thank you sir), but that's about it. Eventually I'll need to get a keyboard and some proper monitors. I've got an AD/DA setup that's currently sitting on a shelf, screaming to be incorporated into a setup. There's also a laundry list of analog equipment I want to get my hands on, but that's neither here nor there.
Here's my question for you. I don't know if this counts for this thread, but I suspect it might. What's your knowledge on ambient music? I've always wanted to dip my toe into that water, but I've never been sure how. I'd love to do something where I combine sounds I've recorded outside of a studio space with sounds from synths (be they real or virtual). Have you any experience with this? Is this even relevant to this thread?
tis why I love it so much. lots of resonant filter sweeping and feedback re-routing going on
@gim: well the main thing about ambient music is whether it is rhythmic or not. Eno and Aphex Twin kinda rock the whole rhythmic ambient thing. But if you just want to do pure ambience, without a synth, I suggest getting something that can analyze your audio granularly. Google around for granular synthesis. Soundhack have some free plugins that give you an idea. Basically, you are stretching out a micro snippet of audio, which could never be heard in real time without DSP (digital signal processing.)
My rig right now is a decent pc with PT8, 003 Factory, Reason/Record, a Big Ben, FS Project for small portable applications, a Lexicon MX400, a Liquid Mix (on loan, but I may buy it), plus an old Edirol controller keyboard and a Korg X3.
That's a cool drum/synth track Podly. It's got a nice groove to it. I like the sense of motion I got from it.
:^: Thanks, man.
That is all.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Anyways, I've messed around with making music and also DJing in many points in the past, however, I've always felt that I never really 'got' it.
The most I've messed around with recently was the KORG-DS game for the Nintendo DS. Yes, I understand that's no true synth. However, spending $20 to mess around with it to see if I was interested felt like a sounder judgment than laying down a ton of money in capital costs only to find out I wasn't interested.
While messing around on that was pretty fun, everything I make, just didn't seem good enough. Say, if I was trying to make a dark song, I'd finish and go 'hmm not dark enough.' At that point, I'd just have no idea of where to go to fix what was wrong with it. I kind of felt that I was flailing around in the dark and if I made anything cool at all, it wouldn't be from any sort of plan or actual skill, but more of the 'thousand monkeys on a thousand typewriter' style success.
Do you guys ever feel like that when you're making stuff, or do you just go ahead and plow through it?
Do you think part of those feelings had to do with the limited tools I was using?
Is throw shit at the wall and see what sticks a valid method of music development?
All my music making is instinctual, which is usually why it takes so long.. but hey, I dont mind so much.
Like I mentioned, I started making music by "fooling around". After a year or so of fooling around I was making decent MIDI songs for people's pet project video games.
I try to encourage others around me to try the same thing, but they all think I have an exceptional brain or something. I think that's crap, anyone can make music, you just have to keep making mistakes until you dont make as many anymore.
The biggest obstacle I had was learning a different set of tools. I used Anvil for many, many years. Finally, I figured out that no one will really want to listen to MIDI music, so I had to switch to the more conventional "realistic" sounding synths. Learning FL basically stopped me dead in my tracks, but I'm slowly but surely getting used to it.
Honestly, there is no "valid" form of music making. You can do it however you choose to do it, as long as in the end, you are having fun and eventually producing something you can be proud of.
Edit: The sentence about "Not dark enough"... well, this is an interesting facet of electronic music. Not only does a producer of electronic music have to worry about the actual content of the song.. the notes, the actual composition.. but we also have to worry about engineering the instruments to sound how we like.
Think of a classical composer. They know that they are able to work with violins, trumpets, oboes etc etc.
Think of a modern composer. The instruments available to us are infinite. It can be frustrating at times, being given so much choice.
This is why I generally go about it in two separate stages. In one stage, separate from a song, I fool around and create cool sounds and progressions. In the second stage, I take some of these sounds and progressions and make a song out of them.. use them as inspiration, sort of.
Its important to separate the two... else you will become frustrated by the fact that you need an instrument and you have *no idea what you need*. Unless of course you have mastery over the synths and can get a particular sound by twisting a few nobs *intentionally*. I havent mastered that skill yet.
Knowing a bit about music theory, composition, and arrangement can cut down on the dead-end experiments in terms of creating new music. Learning how synths work is generally worth the time too, but you can just twiddle knobs (virtual or otherwise) until you like what you hear. You just might wind up twiddling a really long time before you get that cool sound.
Propellerheads have a bunch of good Reason/Record tutorials on YouTube for their stuff specifically, but the principals hold true. They also have a bunch of text articles on their website as well.
My last band to put out any material was a psych band, but we had one jam that we considered an "electronica" song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSdGPKwoqDs
http://listen.grooveshark.com/s/Beat+1/3B0OBY?src=5
That's the best game from Nintendo in a while.
Okay, so I guess soundcloud goes down as soon as I type up this post. More on this later.
EDIT: Yeah soundcloud is fucked, so here is my solomusic facebook page!
The tracks I was going to post were Snowed In, Right Speech and Sundowning since they're most indicative of what I'm doing lately. I've finished two totally new songs that have some (wordless) vocals in them, but I'm waiting until I'm done with like six of them before uploading for CLIMACTIC EFFECT.
However I might go back on that since this thread will probably be gone by then and I enjoy attention
DOUBLE EDIT: Well I guess Soundcloud's back now. http://soundcloud.com/thirdsecond that's my shit. I ended up putting the two more recent songs up there WORLD PREMIERE
Also, Visti...just to reiterate, PropHeads have a great YouTube channel with vid tutorials on the how and why of things. If you're not using it now....give it a look!
You misread; I can not recommend it enough means I think very highly of it.
I have a long history dabbling in electronic music production. In '96 I was playing with trackers, which are pattern sequencers, and made some dreary tracks. Fun, but trackers aren't known for their fidelity or mixing capabilities (esp. in the 90s). Tried to play with some hardware and software, having quite a bit of fun with a Nord Modular (the Micro for a few years, then went up to the full). In general, I found two things:
Messing with settings, drivers, and other "non-music" setup is lame as hell, and pushed me towards Apple after OS X introduced Core Audio
It's easy to make sound, but it's much less frustrating if you do know a little bit about music theory AND mixing/production.
I was mostly experimenting with different sounds; I didn't want to be like Autechre or Aphex Twin, and in many ways was more interested in figuring out the best working method for me. I found that I didn't like note sequencers because I didn't really know music theory -- I liked pattern sequencers. And most large "DAW" software like Logic, Cubase, and other programs that worked with MIDI is that they were based on note sequencing. These are set up in a way that primarily is for recording an input and then allowing you to change it. It's much different from a pattern-based sequencer like an old drum machine or an MPC, where you care more about the rhythmic structure than the note structure.
If you play synths, obviously note sequencers are better. If you don't, and generally don't want to click around on a piano roll, pattern sequencers will make more sense.
Anyway, I ended up going through a fair number of hardware synths, typically getting one, seeing what the deal was, deciding I didn't really like it and selling it on eBay to buy another one. Often I made a slight profit, so it worked out pretty well, but as time marched on a lot of the older gear ended up being consolidated into my computer. Now I do everything via my iMac, for this reason:
I realized my stumbling block was not computer software or music hardware. My problem was that I had no knowledge of music theory and had no "investment" in the sounds I was making. I'd just dial up a patch, modify it (Nord Modulars are great for getting you away from a preset mentality), see how it sounds, et voila, 8 bars of something cool. And they never went anywhere because it was just another synth line and beats, and I had no idea for structure because I liked fiddling with the sounds, not committing and making a full song.
So I realized that the best way for me to get over that step was to actually learn to play an instrument. I had been gradually falling in love with double bass (upright bass) and after looking into the practical aspects of learning an instrument, I picked one up and got a teacher.
Ultimately? I'd love to make music that's like Prefuse 73, or Bonobo, or Flying Lotus, or The Books. Uses real instruments, perhaps sampled or altered, but since I'd be making the music myself I wouldn't have to rely solely on what's already available. The catch with that method is that learning to play an instrument well takes a fair amount of time!
I recently acquired Reason and was wondering if anyone else used it here?
I don't know much about it and was wondering if anyone could point me in the direction of some
good beginners FAQs or tutorials
I'm taking an Electronic Music class where we use a program called Digital Performer and most
of the stuff I've been making there has largely been electronic as opposed to the scores we're supposed
to be writing.
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Taking the time to learn about all the things you can do with Reason/Record will take a LONG time. It will also teach a stupendous amount about synths and sequencing.
Eggy made a great point about learning about music. Theory is a weak point for me, which is to say I get the basics, but now I want more because I see how even grasping basic time and keys speeds things up and gives me a better starting point almost all the time.
I've been working on 3 Complete Idiot's books because they're quick and dirty for getting into theory, composition, and arrangement. They'll eventually lead me to other, more detailed books on all three subjects I expect.
"But Eggy, we're talking about electronic music, not this rock music stuff."
The same holds true -- you're going to have a melody, a bass, perhaps a part that harmonizes with the melody. You're going to have rhythm. All that needs to fit together.
OK, enough talking about music -- here's a good example, from '97.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsBBE23FfJY
If you listen to the sounds in the track, there really aren't that many -- it's all about how they're arranged. Similarly, there's a single "lead" melody tone, a swelling bass/pad sound, and as the song develops a few almost "background" sounds come in -- but they don't take the lead. Of course, it's Autechre, so they're thing is about tracks developing and changing. But the song develops primarily by rhythm -- the actual melody is sparse. This track is all about the pattern programming -- most of the sounds are the same tone and pitch throughout the track, and because of that they make sure they're occupying different sonic space as well -- higher, lower, etc. It's not all the same clicky noise throughout.
In other words, listen to music that's similar to what you want to emulate, and really listen to what's in there. Break down the parts (even use a piece of paper to write down the different parts that you hear) and use it as a guide for building something similar. Getting started writing electronic music is easy, but following through on tracks, especially if you don't just want to release generic stuff, can be a challenge.
Those of you who are into industrial sounding stuff (though not only that...) are all using the parallel compression method on your bass drums at least right? Right?
recent works:
http://soundcloud.com/kaseius/eightseffort
http://soundcloud.com/kaseius/p-kal
http://soundcloud.com/kaseius/chainy-strollin
http://soundcloud.com/kaseius/sawed4
i started banging my head into electronic music a couple of months ago
this is my most current sound, and although i've fooled around with a lot of stuff like that since then but i feel like i'm stagnating in that style
so I guess my question is, what do you bros do when you're trying to reach out of your novice comfort zone? how do you set challenges for yourselves? i feel like i keep hitting brick walls
On the black screen
Reaktor is GREAT, especially if you are a coder and can really get into the nitty gritty of it.
The only downside is that if I am working with a modular synth like that, I just need that physical interface to truly work with it. Thus, I was never really able to sink my teeth into reaktor.
Mixing has been the hardest thing for me to learn, by far. For some reason, programming synths has always clicked more with me than mixing. And there's just so much to learn with mixing. Reading Sound on Sound regularly has definitely helped me.
@tarr: for me, it almost always comes from fooling around with synthesizers or production methods. When I really started getting into the MEK, I realized how much feedback loops there were in the architecture that allowed it to get a really howling, noisey sound. Since I had been listening to a lot of How to Destroy Angels, that pushed me to make music that was a little bit more aggressive than I usually make.
Likewise, reclocking my environment allowed me to get a really synced sound, so I could make that really spacey arpeggiation that I posted in the OP. Combined with me listening to Cut Copy's Zonoscope on repeat, it might have me making really spacey groovey stuff.