it's a typical problem with many minimal releases because people don't have the will or knowlede to learn basic principles of arrangement. i would sudgest you to stop building tracks solely on one loop, it's very hard to arrange . imagine you decided to paint a picture, you got yourself the best colour palette there is, you draw a neat outline of your soon to be masterpiece, but kind of failed to apply the right order of colour to your elements. get it what i'm aiming at? arranging is an art for itself, which means...you can pretty much have the best loop with the best theme and samples, but if you get lost in it, everything falls in water. i think all of us drove on that road many times. i sure did...countless hours on building a grooving loop which went watery after i decided to arrange it into a whole. so, you need to sit down and invest more time in learning/listening. i do it like this. usually make a 8 bar drum loop for a start, drop a pad to set the mood on which the other melodies will follow. play the first melody (say, calvinet), but not thru the whole loop, rather at bar 1 and bar 3 which leaves me the space between for other instruments to interact with eachother. the thing i'm aiming is playfulness and interaction between the sound arsenal you decided to use. every element you put in a track has to be in some kind of relation to your drum programming, bassline, lead theme or other sounds. that's the basic, otherwise your track will sound pointless. so, it's really hard to explain with words so you get the right picture. once i recorded the first melody, i'll go on and drop another instrument and play another melody to fill the rest of the space in my 8 bar loop. bar 1 and 3 are reserved for clavinet, maybe i could fill 2 and 6 with kalimba and play another melody...when that's over i'll go and drop a third instrument and repeat the process untill the loop sounds interactive, if you know what i mean. all 3 instruments including the bassline and drums interact with eachother to make a whole piece. when i'm done with it, i just go on and arrange stuff, which gives me 3 different melody themes on my disposal, so i can easily make an intro by deleting some notes from melody A, B, C or just rearrange the progression order to make things interresting and build a verse, chorus or a bridge. at the end of the day you could have 1, 4, 8 or 32 bar loop, but if you don't have enuff varied themes to work with, your track will sound like a loop. another good tip is to never make loops with pair numbers such as 2, 4, 6, 8 because they give that end feeling, like something is in cycles. i tried my best to shed some light on how i do things, it might sound vague...if my usb port suddenly fixes i'll post some clips to accompany this nonsence.
Drop the idea of becoming someone else, because you are already a masterpiece.
I follow the basics of what you're saying, especially about staying focused on the big picture and the importance interactions and interplay of all the elements with each other.
I'll give the technique you described a try and see where it takes me.
On a side note - I'm currently studying " A Practical Guide to Musical Composition", which you posted a link to back in march. I'm finding it really helpful.
I'm starting to realize that there's a huge difference between rockin' a groove and creating a full-blown arrangement....I'm tired of drawing on the walls with crayon. I'm ready to start painting masterpieces!
If you're talking about out-of-the-can-sample-CD collections, I generally try to use them as accents and ambiance, not as the meat & potatos of my work.
Most of what I create is MIDI based using a number of VST synths and drum kits within Ableton Live -- my favorites are Absynth 4 (synth) and Battery 3 (drum machine), both by Native Instruments. After hammering out the basic components either on the grid or using my Oxygen 8 keyboard / controller, I tweak the soundscape using any number of filters and add-ons in Live.
If you are just referring in general to "that which loops", I'm a bit perplexed as to how one goes about creating music (especiall minimal electronic) without repetetion.
i uploaded a little tutorial file on how to prepare stuff, its the whole story about instrumental interaction and arranging i wrote one post above. to cut it short, i sudgest you listen to both of the files. first the separate parts then the mixdown. the levels might sound unbalanced, its cuz i used headphones, sorry for that. okay, so the first file
(separate parts) consist of several parts including a bassline, i was bored to render the main lead, so we'll go on without it. we got 4 melodic parts in interaction with one another, followed with a light vocal stab and a bassline which is an edit from the clavius sequence...come to think of it, it could be a substitute for the lead synth. i played the clavius first and created the rest of the melodies around it. when ur done listening to separate parts check the mixdown to get the whole picture on interaction. this is pretty much the basis for a track. once i start arranging, the melodies might vary on theme, because i know to change stuff on the fly to fit certain parts...like verse 1 or bridge, so on. some people know to record variuos takes of one theme, some do it on the fly with just one theme which they shift as they arrange. it all goes down on how you feel comfortable, there are no rules. i wouldn't know how to explain this if it wasnt for the melody...some probably don't like to use the melody and that's okay, but the point to this is to show how stuff needs to interact to make a compact whole. the same can be applied with clicks and cuts, i choosen melodies cuz i feel better with them. hope this will help to overcome the wall of middle theme and start building proper material from head to toe with intros, verses, bridges and choruses. have fun.
