Whats the best path to enlightenment?

[New Guy]

Going to prison, and taking a time out from everything around you!

[plaster]

harmony in minimal is not about 'playing chords' on a synth. its about incorporating progressions into the track-bed - the kick/bass.

interresting...i never thought about what you wrote, altho i noticed that phenomenon in music. the exchange of bass and kickdrum with chords. right now i have way too many theories running in my mind to put them in exact sentence, but i get your point. it happens every time when i do music. its not enuff to just play a melody and drop just any bass pattern....argh, i'm sitting here and trying to find the best explanation to it, but i cant find the right words

example: a very popular opinion is that a kick-drum's essence is a rapidly decaying pitch envelope. veeery wrong.

care to explain a bit more, i want to know.

[MINIMALTECHNOHOUSE]

I do think a very basic understanding of music theory underpins any type of production / creation, regardless of how 'experimental' it is.....

For me, the most rewarding part of music / sound creation is sitting back and listening to something ive made which is original, in terms of timbre, tonality & arangement (hardest to achive i think), and sounds... 'correct,' in its context.

I dont use forums much, i find they confuse me rather than help me, but this one seems to have a few very helpfull users.....

I agree with many points raised, especially about manipulating samples, i will definately see what i can come up with...

Thanks for the feedback...

[hydrogen]

Definitely want to use a healthy combination of both. I think building your own loop and sound library is really useful. I'm starting to do this, it makes track writing faster and less frustrating. After you've created like 10 awesome bass kicks sometimes you don't need to go through the trouble of creating another from scratch.

This goes the same with patches, particularly for sounds that are used quite frequently.

I've found since I've started doing this my sound quality and style has been more consistent. which is what I'm going for.

Ableton has really good resampling tools, which make it real easy to do what I'm taking about.

[gmschroeder]

b could be an option, but it won't hold the water if you don't have a basic knowledge of chords and progressions, like 90% of minimal techno nowdays...you won't hear any harmony or chord progression.


if you don't mind i'll add up:

- chord progression
- arrangement

Isn't a fair bit of electronic music intentionally ambient, or even atonal?
I mean, how do you make a overarching 1-4-7-1 progression in loop-based music?

I'd love to hear someone use strict counterpoint in a minimal track, but that's a lot to ask.
(Leaving the strictly minimal discussion) Ceephax's Prelude in 303 major must have taken forever to program, but figure in that plus making waveforms from scratch . . .(/returning to minimal music)

Are most of you writing linear stuff?

[plaster]

Isn't a fair bit of electronic music intentionally ambient, or even atonal?

ofcourse, but that doesn't justify the lack of musical knowledge in todays minimal techno. i mean, some of the high praised artists which i won't mention now, don't have a clue about harmony. yet i don't believe they did that intentionally, because it's clearly obvious they are sequencing samples only. so, that leaves us to proper pitch correction, which fails aswell. call me an ass for always nagging about harmony, but that's what fuels your listener with emotion. music was always about creating a certain emotion within your audience.
alot of people think if they have a home built studio with expencive soundcard makes them a producer or whatever. man, that's such crap..the fact that worries me is the huge ammount of people in minimal techno biz who actually sat infront of a program like half year ago and now they release on labels. what's up with that...it's a clear sign that crap sells. i don't understand why can't they be patient and finetune their skills then release something which might be timeless...this way we have alot of hyperproduction which doesn't cut after two to three months. thats a worrying fact for me.

I mean, how do you make a overarching 1-4-7-1 progression in loop-based music?

my music skill hasn't arrived to that point of understanding this, but maybe you could explain what does an overarching 1-4-7-1 term mean. sounds interresting and i'm really open to learning cuz we can't say many people know such terms here.

Ceephax's Prelude in 303 major must have taken forever to program, but figure in that plus making waveforms from scratch . . .(/returning to minimal music)

out of curiosity, what makes you think it takes forever to program such piece. it's a midi sheet with beats programmed over it. nothing hard to achive. if we were to discuss autechre, that would probably take forever to program. then again, maybe not.


please don't get me wrong, i'm not here just to rant about nonsence for the sake of just saying something.

[s.k.]

so everyone is looking for the mixdown button again... but when they hear the answer, they refuse to understand it.. it never occurs to people that the answer is more complex, that you need to go through a number of steps until you realise the importance and meaning of some things.

a kick drum is a chord-progression by itself. and you're asking how can it be done in a loop? ...


edit: plaster check ur pm

[deRoland]

since I've been on this forum I haven't seen a single person who knows what "minimal" really is....

the people you should look for are those that know what MUSIC is really. these kind of remarks are useless/elitist if you ask me.