i have one piece of advice i can give that i tell all my friends which is to let the technology work for you in the music making process
what i mean by that is if you are listening to tracks that have all this crazy stuff going on and you're then trying to program each little thing in your own productions to get it to sound the same, you will get nowhere fast and probably drive yourself crazy in the process.
learn the technology, learn proper sidechain, groove templates, reaktor, build cool effects chains... make the software work for you instead of against you.
alot of established artists i have talked to have less technical know-how than most of the people posting on this site but thats the exact reason they excel in what they do. Production boards are fun and all but it also can implant all these "rules" in your head from what other people write that really dont even exist. the faster you forget the rules and start having fun with technology the better your sh!t will get
as far as tools, i can say with confidence that ableton live and the built in stuff is all you need to create 100% professional sounding tracks
Breaking my head!!
You remind me of myself a couple years ago.
Believe me, it all comes with time and practice.
Drums are one of the hardest parts, specially when one doesn't have any musical nor rythmical education.
I can give you some advice that have helped me a lot:
- Drum on the table, on your legs, on everything, at any time, find your own grooves, the one you like the most, it doesnt mater just practice rythm and count in your mind 1,2,3,4...
- Read a lot on drumming, there is info out there, read about paradiddles and stuff. I found this book particularly interesting:
http://www.amazon.com/Drum-Programming- ... 0931759544
- Build a very basic drum loop as a foundation then create a couple more loops on it, being very carefully about placement, i always imagine i have 3 to 4 drummers / percussionists at my disposal.
- Learn about syncopation, swing and specially learn to recognize strong steps and weak steps, variation on placing this stuff is what makes a good rythm.
- Import your favorite track into sequencer and set those markers around a section u like, then analyze 16th by 16th what is going on there, try to break the loops down and understand how dynamic was created... at the end is just a mater of contrast between hits, some of this is wired into your brain and you should detect that:
- Every placed percussion will "accelerate" or "slowdown" the track... so learn where to place them in order to get a rushy feeling, or to make them sound groovy.
- Keep it simple, although it might seem that a million sounds are flying around in your favorite tracks, they might not be that much but very well placed and sequenced... brain likes variation, each on its own step but different hits it's what will give your loop texture and bring interest from the audience.
- Never work too much on a short loop, always extend those bars, get something working and just copypaste so you have 2 then 4 then 8 then 16 bars and create little variations at the end of each, this way you'll have interesting drum loops in no time.
- Use interesting sounds besides electronic percussion like congas, tablas, woodblock, maracas, shakers, etc. Get some plastic bag recording, some bubbling sounds from real water or anything else, be creative and always introduce a personal new element into your tracks for inspiration.
Frustration is a natural process, just don't give up.
cheers.
Believe me, it all comes with time and practice.
Drums are one of the hardest parts, specially when one doesn't have any musical nor rythmical education.
I can give you some advice that have helped me a lot:
- Drum on the table, on your legs, on everything, at any time, find your own grooves, the one you like the most, it doesnt mater just practice rythm and count in your mind 1,2,3,4...
- Read a lot on drumming, there is info out there, read about paradiddles and stuff. I found this book particularly interesting:
http://www.amazon.com/Drum-Programming- ... 0931759544
- Build a very basic drum loop as a foundation then create a couple more loops on it, being very carefully about placement, i always imagine i have 3 to 4 drummers / percussionists at my disposal.
- Learn about syncopation, swing and specially learn to recognize strong steps and weak steps, variation on placing this stuff is what makes a good rythm.
- Import your favorite track into sequencer and set those markers around a section u like, then analyze 16th by 16th what is going on there, try to break the loops down and understand how dynamic was created... at the end is just a mater of contrast between hits, some of this is wired into your brain and you should detect that:
- Every placed percussion will "accelerate" or "slowdown" the track... so learn where to place them in order to get a rushy feeling, or to make them sound groovy.
- Keep it simple, although it might seem that a million sounds are flying around in your favorite tracks, they might not be that much but very well placed and sequenced... brain likes variation, each on its own step but different hits it's what will give your loop texture and bring interest from the audience.
- Never work too much on a short loop, always extend those bars, get something working and just copypaste so you have 2 then 4 then 8 then 16 bars and create little variations at the end of each, this way you'll have interesting drum loops in no time.
- Use interesting sounds besides electronic percussion like congas, tablas, woodblock, maracas, shakers, etc. Get some plastic bag recording, some bubbling sounds from real water or anything else, be creative and always introduce a personal new element into your tracks for inspiration.
Frustration is a natural process, just don't give up.
cheers.
Re: Breaking my head!!
its like you say theres no magic tool,Raddler wrote:Okay I must be missing something...I've been listening to some top notch minimal tracks and I just feel lost as to how these guys pull it off. I mean there's percussion sounds flying around everywhere in perfect order all tuned perfectly, some sounds suddenly appear in reverse and somehow perfectly align with the other million sounds around them!! I feel it would take me a hundred years putting it together!! This post isn't so much about how they specifically do it, but rather what tools they might use.I know there's no magic tool, but I sure could use some advice. I know nothing about being a drummer, so i'm usually very mechanical in writing my loops. I do have Fxpansion guru with some cool swing settings, but even at that .....Maybe i gotta start using my hands and start hitting some pads! Frustrated.
i cant see why you have a problem tuning percussion, you dont need to be a drummer to do that, its the same as having any sound in your track in tune.
good percussion should play some sort of melody.
rhythm is another matter, you dont have to be able to play drums to do that either, i'm a drummer, but i dont play my rhythms in by hand, i program them like everything else but either method is totally valid.
if youre hearing sounds flying around, youre probably hearing polyrhythms. polyrhythms are the secret to good percussion. they are the basis of african drumming, latin-american rhythm, funk, everything that makes your ass move. anyone can program a basic 4/4 percussion loop, my son made some great loops when he was 7 years old, but polyrhythm is more difficult to get right, it takes experimentation and practice, just like it would if you were learning to drum those same patterns.
dont give up bro.
Hey, thanx alot for all the feedback. In the end I suppose it comes down to good old fashion practicing . I can get discouraged pretty fast and give up on my tracks, and that sucks cause i never see the end result of something that had potential. Nice to hear that being a drummer ain;t that necessary also, i guess that makes sense when I think about it. Thanx aciduss for the usefull tips, gonna give them a try.
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someonelikeyou
- mnml newbie
- Posts: 99
- Joined: Thu Dec 20, 2007 1:49 pm
aciduss wrote:
- Read a lot on drumming, there is info out there, read about paradiddles and stuff. I found this book particularly interesting:
http://www.amazon.com/Drum-Programming- ... 0931759544
Started to read this last night and enter some patterns into my Maschine - great resource/book - even if it is more rock-oriented, it gives some solid explanations on how different elements play off of each other to create movement / interest / speed / etc.
I generally found that my drum loops would sound really static - or not transition from one to the other very well, and if they did it felt more like "dumb luck" than anything.
This book gives a better sense of whats going on - even if it does seem pretty basic. But for someone with no musical training, its been handy.
tone-def wrote:if you think their good try listening to Autechre.
if you want to sound like that you need to spend hours working on your beats and not just looping things.
This is what becomes sooo frustrating for me, I am totally on par with the OP. The tools we are offered (from my perspective) seemed to be designed to make you loop til you die!!! Like you Tone, I use electribes (I also you LIVE). I am comming to a wall where I think I have to pour more time into each little detail that I'm going for (which is fine, seems like that is what the megastars do too) But when You read constantly on the blogs, the forums, the sites that this or that is "on the fly" I get so frustrated and wonder "How the fark did they do that"
I hear this loop going on and over a short sequence, the smallest little detail it is changing, very subtle, but these little details is what makes the music so amazing despite it being repetitive... I'm stuck exactly where the OP is, been there for a long time actually and not sure how to get out unless either:
1) Buckle down and figure out how to apply these detail changes on the fly
or
2) Ditch the computer and knob turn with gear like electribes, monomachines, etc...
I dunno if I'm making sense, I tired of being stuck however...
don't ditch the computer. editing with software makes this kind of stuff so much easier. i only use the electribe sequencer for knocking up basic ideas then i do all the fancy stuff in my DAW.
you can get software that randomizes stuff for you but it's hard to make it do exactly what you want and for me it's unusable.
you can get software that randomizes stuff for you but it's hard to make it do exactly what you want and for me it's unusable.