The 'Techniques for making minimal/melodic tracks' thread.

[provaznik]

i have started sequencing within every bar. without ever really stepping back and looking at the whole thing until i feel that i am done sequencing the track. it has yielded a lot of really cool, nonrepetitive and abstract sequencing in my tracks. i will only correct what sounds really wack. sure it is a big pain in my ass to do, and takes for fucking ever but i really enjoy the end result. when i feel like starting a breakdown i start a breakdown. when i feel like building back up i build back up. it's a bitch, but it's fun.

[leecurtiss]

i have started sequencing within every bar. without ever really stepping back and looking at the whole thing until i feel that i am done sequencing the track. it has yielded a lot of really cool, nonrepetitive and abstract sequencing in my tracks. i will only correct what sounds really wack. sure it is a big pain in my ass to do, and takes for fucking ever but i really enjoy the end result. when i feel like starting a breakdown i start a breakdown. when i feel like building back up i build back up. it's a bitch, but it's fun.

i use this theory with every track as well. if you feel like you want to take it down, up or sideways....do it! if it soounds like sh_t, change it, your ear will always tell you the truth and if you use enough change throughout your production, the repetition that we rely on can become a tool itself. after a lot of changes and one offs, letting the track "ride" can be the perfect next section.

as far as what torque is saying, there are plenty of producing techniques that are used in making any kind of music. eqing, panning, limiting and compression are all things that most the artists of most genres leave to the producer of the track. in our genre we need to have a basic knowledge of these things to make our tracks functional, yes we do have ppl that do our final mastering but if we don't have an understaning of dynamics and music theory, our tracks will suffer. these are not rules but rather things that have been tested and proven by ppl that have dedicated their whole lives to the production end of the music. i have been fortunate enough to have a freind that went to school for music production and i listen to every word he tells me what he has learned and try to apply these things in my production.

as for the writing process, i feel you should stay as creative as possible, get wierd and then get wierder, that's what keeps this music moving forward at such an incredible rate.

[Nic Synaes]

i have started sequencing within every bar. without ever really stepping back and looking at the whole thing until i feel that i am done sequencing the track. it has yielded a lot of really cool, nonrepetitive and abstract sequencing in my tracks. i will only correct what sounds really wack. sure it is a big pain in my ass to do, and takes for fucking ever but i really enjoy the end result. when i feel like starting a breakdown i start a breakdown. when i feel like building back up i build back up. it's a bitch, but it's fun.

Sorry - not sure I understand this, what is the other option?
By the way, as a full on noob, I found this thread really interesting as a concept, although the execution was a little spoiled in places!

[steevio]

i have to agree with some of the sentiments here about keeping your sound original by developing your own techniques, it applies to minimal music just as it applies to all music.
dont worry about what everybody else is doing !
heres a couple of general tips that might help beginners,
i'm mostly an analogue musician, but these are equally relevant to software producers with enough processing power.
Get off the grid !!!
when i started out (using cubase) i used to quantise everything to some shuffle, usually one which matched my two favourite shuffles on my TR909, but then i began using different shuffles on different sounds, and this makes everything more funky. but it takes a bit of practice to get it sounding tight.
later i began creating my own assymetric shuffles by using groove quantising in cubase. i would anylise old funk records and recreate similar grooves.
but now i'm off the grid altogether. i just place the sounds where they sound right to me. this makes my grooves my own. and each track totally different. of course you have to be aware of the possibilty that they may be hard to mix. i get round this by making sure the beginnings and ends of my tunes are very minimal.
this echoes what Torque says about playing your sounds in with a keyboard, its expressive in a similar way, and i totally agree that
using swing in ableton is way too basic.
Multiple Pathways
most of my sounds go through lots of different routes through my desk, this thickens the sound up and adds organic, evolving textures. using auxilliary sends i may have one sound split through three or four different filters each with a different envelope or LFO adding slight variations, so when you put them all back together the sound is fat and keeps moving so your brain doesnt tire of any repetition.
Analogue Filters
if youve never used them before, you wont know the difference these make to your sound. even just putting a sound through a wide open Moog filter will make it sound so sweet, theres no going back.
if theres anyway you can incorporate a couple of analogue filters into your digital set up. do it !! if youre making minimal music you dont need much gear, and it may be the best investment you could ever make.

peace
steevio

http://www.mindtours.co.uk
http://www.myspace.com/steevio

[532nm]

^--- hear hear ---^

[oblioblioblio]

Get off the grid !!!
when i started out (using cubase) i used to quantise everything to some shuffle, usually one which matched my two favourite shuffles on my TR909, but then i began using different shuffles on different sounds, and this makes everything more funky. but it takes a bit of practice to get it sounding tight.
later i began creating my own assymetric shuffles by using groove quantising in cubase. i would anylise old funk records and recreate similar grooves.
but now i'm off the grid altogether. i just place the sounds where they sound right to me. this makes my grooves my own. and each track totally different. of course you have to be aware of the possibilty that they may be hard to mix. i get round this by making sure the beginnings and ends of my tunes are very minimal.
this echoes what Torque says about playing your sounds in with a keyboard, its expressive in a similar way, and i totally agree that
using swing in ableton is way too basic.

I can't profess to know enough to give set in stone information like some people can (some of you guys really know your stuff and I've picked up some great advice here, many thanks), but these are some of the things I have found.

I do all my beats in a step sequencer and I find it quite fun challenge to add groove to them. As steevio says, stay away from the swing feature unless you wanna make hip hop (or shaffel?), but the ways I have found to add human funk to quite a rigid way of creating percussion is delay and lfos. I use ableton and a drum machine with multiple outs (microtonic, fucking great device). In ableton you can use a simple delay, and set it to non sync mode to delay 1 particular element as many microseconds as you feel necessary. Other delays are also good, grain delay has shuffle written all over it. To me it sounds like the Wighnomy Bros, which I consider to be a good thing. A delay follwed by an lfo works very good for certain sounds, like a lone hi hat in a bar. (eg Bahah hihi by Mr Ricy V does this if I'm not mistaken). Also attacks and decays are good.

Dunno if any of this helps or not, everyone has their own style and methods, but I guess my best advice however is to play everything like an instrument, there are ways of being expressive with even the most mechanical of devices. Also, don't be afraid to copy your favourite sounds, the best producing advices and tips are in the records you love, and the chances are, once you've worked out how it's done you won't stop there and think 'oh good, I've worked out how he/she did that, clever stuff... I'll just copy it', you'll dig deeper and work out how you can play it. Oh, and it's real fun to turn organic sounds into mechanical ones and vice verse.

Hmm, I dunno how qualified I am to give out advice, and probably sound like a bit of a twat, but there you go. Some of my take on music makering. mark.

[Torque]

Don't rely on delays to swing your beats because they can end up in some cases sounding washed out because alot of delays tend to dither down the signal. If you absolutely have to use delays on drum programming i would suggest using midi delays instead of audio ones because the sound will be more crisp. Since we're talking about drums and midi try this: Drummers when they play never hit at exactly the same velosity on anything all the time. Take your drums in midi and fiddle fck around with the velocities making them random as you can with them sounding right. Just make sure that your hardest hit comes on the one because that's where the funk hides.
as for synth work etc....
Like i said before, just play the god damn thing. If you can't play it then sit there and move notes around in the midi view till they sound right no matter how long it takes.

The difference between the regular start up "so so" producer and the one who makes a decent living only really comes down to one thing. The one that sits there and does the boring sh!t for as long as it takes to get it right is the pro. Computers and machines are not capable of adding soul to anything, let alone music. Making electronic music is straight up warfare with machines. It's at its very best when the producer fights as hard as he can to bend the machines to his own will. Therefor the very best at it are breathing souls into lifeless machines.

[steevio]

The difference between the regular start up "so so" producer and the one who makes a decent living only really comes down to one thing. The one that sits there and does the boring sht for as long as it takes to get it right is the pro. Computers and machines are not capable of adding soul to anything, let alone music. Making electronic music is straight up warfare with machines. It's at its very best when the producer fights as hard as he can to bend the machines to his own will. Therefor the very best at it are breathing souls into lifeless machines.

man never was there truer words spoken !!
i know some people who work increadibly fast, and can bang a tune out in an afternoon, and get good results, but they are a rarity, you have to see yourself as a composer, and put in the time and detail if you want your music to stand the test of time.
all that effort is perceived subliminally by the listener.
all musical instruments are machines, you have to learn to make them sing, it can take years.
i worry that because everyone has access to almost any type of instrument via software, that they never learn to play any of them properly. i've had a old Nord Lead since 1995, and i swear i'm only beginning to get the best results out of it now.

when human beings play together in a band, they dont keep a constant tempo, they tend to slow down and speed up in a cyclical fashion, or they put emphasis ahead of the beat in some bars and behind in others, in other words there are other 'swings' going on other than 16 and 8th note swings, there could be halfbar / bar or 2 bar swings, its natural human behavior, we run on sinewaves.
its worth experimenting with these things, it can make your music more human. it doesnt have to be obvious, even minute variations like this will bring your music to life.
peace
s

http://www.mindtours.co.uk
http://www.myspace.com/steevio
http://www.myspace.com/mindtours