Thought of the day: Keeping things interesting.

[TechnoMusic]

imo the secret is subliminal modulation and missplaces.
if i have a hat sitting between every kick, ill take it back by just a few ms. sometimes ill try a few places all 1-2ms difference, but it makes a big impact on the groove.
i also always use a modulated filter. not something obvious to the everyday listener, but when you listen carefully, you can hear the changes. when applied on all tracks (different filter for each, not a group) it makes the drums less boring.

I find that applying a subtly modulating groove tempate to hats & some of the percussion on a track works wonders.

[steevio]

i hope i'm not being cheeky, but make interesting music in the first place.
we shouldnt have to 'keep things interesting' that suggests there's something lacking in the music to me.
some of the greatest tunes of all time (and i dont just mean electronic) have been very simple but good repetetive riffs with just a few syncopations here and there.

its too easy to settle on a loop which seems to be doing the business, but we should always question 'is it that good really ?...' 'has that same loop not been used thousands of times before because its one of the first things you come up with in 4/4 ?'...is it cliche'd and tired ?'

i hate to say it, but thats what i hear when i scroll through the weekly releases, and no amount of tarting up is going to make it good music.

it's that initial phase when writing a tune that is so important, and that seems to be skimmed over in the rush to add effects etc, and 'make it interesting'

just my 2 cents

[Robot Criminal]

i hope i'm not being cheeky, but make interesting music in the first place.
we shouldnt have to 'keep things interesting' that suggests there's something lacking in the music to me.
some of the greatest tunes of all time (and i dont just mean electronic) have been very simple but good repetetive riffs with just a few syncopations here and there.

its too easy to settle on a loop which seems to be doing the business, but we should always question 'is it that good really ?...' 'has that same loop not been used thousands of times before because its one of the first things you come up with in 4/4 ?'...is it cliche'd and tired ?'

i hate to say it, but thats what i hear when i scroll through the weekly releases, and no amount of tarting up is going to make it good music.

it's that initial phase when writing a tune that is so important, and that seems to be skimmed over in the rush to add effects etc, and 'make it interesting'

just my 2 cents

fckin nailed it.

[Stomper]

i hope i'm not being cheeky, but make interesting music in the first place.
we shouldnt have to 'keep things interesting' that suggests there's something lacking in the music to me.
some of the greatest tunes of all time (and i dont just mean electronic) have been very simple but good repetetive riffs with just a few syncopations here and there

I did not mean that if the loop is boring you should just make some subliminal modulation to make it interesting. the loop should sound good on its own regardless of the modulation. but over time, those small changes makes a big difference. even the best loop will be boring if there wont be any changes to it. its just the way our subconscious mind works.

ts too easy to settle on a loop which seems to be doing the business, but we should always question 'is it that good really ?...' 'has that same loop not been used thousands of times before because its one of the first things you come up with in 4/4 ?'...is it cliche'd and tired ?'

i think thats a very big question. is there a loop that havent been done before and CAN work? after all, we do respond to familiar stuff. if it 100% new and unheard before, will we respond well to it? will it make someone want to move (that is if were still talking about dance music)?
personally, when i first wanted to have my own sound, i spent so many hours trying to do stuff that are different, new. i wouldnt say i came out with bad stuff, but i definitely did not came up with stuff that makes you move. i later realized that my decision making and chosen tools gives me my sound. but what i look for in my and others music is just something that makes me move. who cares if the pattern was used before or not?

[steevio]

@stomper,

i know what you are saying mate, yes we have to have modulations, polyrhythms, syncopations, but those things are just normal things common to all music.

who cares if the pattern was used before or not?

well i care.
you wouldnt get away with it in virtually any other form of music, it would be considered pure plagarism. you cant just take a Beatles, Coldplay or whoever riff and use it unaltered and tried to pretend its your music, it would be so obvious.
just think about all the popular music that has been made in the last 50 years, and howmany hundreds of thousands of riffs, licks, catchy tunes that have been made that all have their own identity, ok there will be some similarities here and there, but largely most of it is original.

this is what is lacking in EDM. dont tell me its all been done.

the fact is that in a 4/4 bar, you have very few options to create something totally original, but thats a good enough reason to look beyond the 4/4 loop. i still use 4/4 loops occasionally in my music, but i would never base an entire tune around a 4/4 loop, because if did that i wouldnt even be trying, i owe it to myself as a musician to try a bit harder than that.

[Stomper]

@stomper,

i know what you are saying mate, yes we have to have modulations, polyrhythms, syncopations, but those things are just normal things common to all music.

yes, but i think the op wasnt aware of those and i think that what his missing.

well i care.
you wouldnt get away with it in virtually any other form of music, it would be considered pure plagarism. you cant just take a Beatles, Coldplay or whoever riff and use it unaltered and tried to pretend its your music, it would be so obvious.
just think about all the popular music that has been made in the last 50 years, and howmany hundreds of thousands of riffs, licks, catchy tunes that have been made that all have their own identity, ok there will be some similarities here and there, but largely most of it is original.

this is what is lacking in EDM. dont tell me its all been done.

the fact is that in a 4/4 bar, you have very few options to create something totally original, but thats a good enough reason to look beyond the 4/4 loop. i still use 4/4 loops occasionally in my music, but i would never base an entire tune around a 4/4 loop, because if did that i wouldnt even be trying, i owe it to myself as a musician to try a bit harder than that.

i dont think its a right or wrong thing. but different prospective.
i wouldnt say i cant get away with doing similar patterns in other styles. i think many rock bands use similar patterns for drums. of course there some variation in the drums in any song, but the basic loop is not that different (dont listen that much to rock though).
you can also take reageton which is a genre that is based on having the exact same drum loop playing. different sounds, but always same pattern. rap, hip hop or any genre that considered to be popular music uses similar patterns.

were just looking for different things in our music. though i do think anyone who makes music want to do something sophisticated and unique. i just dont look for it in dance music.
my english aint that good to put my thoughts into words, but ill give it a try.
a song cannot be made for both brain and body. you can either have a song that is simple and makes you move your body or have a song that is sophisticated and fun to listen two. it cant be both by 100% but you can mix it.
but the more you add stuff for the brain, the less the song will be for the body and vise versa.
so what im saying is, if your purpose is a song to make people dance, it cant be too sophisticated. so using new patterns and different time signatures is good in small amounts. but i wouldnt rely only on these kind of things to make things interesting.

[steevio]

@stomper,

i know what you are saying mate, yes we have to have modulations, polyrhythms, syncopations, but those things are just normal things common to all music.

yes, but i think the op wasnt aware of those and i think that what his missing.

well i care.
you wouldnt get away with it in virtually any other form of music, it would be considered pure plagarism. you cant just take a Beatles, Coldplay or whoever riff and use it unaltered and tried to pretend its your music, it would be so obvious.
just think about all the popular music that has been made in the last 50 years, and howmany hundreds of thousands of riffs, licks, catchy tunes that have been made that all have their own identity, ok there will be some similarities here and there, but largely most of it is original.

this is what is lacking in EDM. dont tell me its all been done.

the fact is that in a 4/4 bar, you have very few options to create something totally original, but thats a good enough reason to look beyond the 4/4 loop. i still use 4/4 loops occasionally in my music, but i would never base an entire tune around a 4/4 loop, because if did that i wouldnt even be trying, i owe it to myself as a musician to try a bit harder than that.

i dont think its a right or wrong thing. but different prospective.
i wouldnt say i cant get away with doing similar patterns in other styles. i think many rock bands use similar patterns for drums. of course there some variation in the drums in any song, but the basic loop is not that different (dont listen that much to rock though).
you can also take reageton which is a genre that is based on having the exact same drum loop playing. different sounds, but always same pattern. rap, hip hop or any genre that considered to be popular music uses similar patterns.

were just looking for different things in our music. though i do think anyone who makes music want to do something sophisticated and unique. i just dont look for it in dance music.
my english aint that good to put my thoughts into words, but ill give it a try.
a song cannot be made for both brain and body. you can either have a song that is simple and makes you move your body or have a song that is sophisticated and fun to listen two. it cant be both by 100% but you can mix it.
but the more you add stuff for the brain, the less the song will be for the body and vise versa.
so what im saying is, if your purpose is a song to make people dance, it cant be too sophisticated. so using new patterns and different time signatures is good in small amounts. but i wouldnt rely only on these kind of things to make things interesting.

but i'm not just talking about rhythm, i'm talking about the tune as a whole.

i dont necessarily agree that rhythms have to be simple to dance to, thats a western rock and roll thing.
when i was in Morocco recently i was checking out the Gnawa music of the Berbers, and their rhythms were quite bizarre, and there's 50 young guys standing round each bunch of musicians in the square in Marrakesh, all grooving to something i couldnt at first get my head around, theyre all clapping in weird places and i found myself incapable of clapping in the right place. then after 5 minutes i got it, my western conditioning didnt allow me to get into the groove at first, then once i'd broken through it was easy.
its all just conditioning mate. everything to do with music is purely conditioning.

dont get me wrong though i'm not advocating everyone starts using bizarre rhythms, underlying everything i do is a basic 4/4 identity.
but theres a big difference between working to a basic 4/4 structure, and just using a straight 4/4 loop as the entire musical content of your track.

[Stomper]

haha
man, im from israel. we have here so many ethnic groups here and that stuff you saw all around here. Yemen, Marocco, Iraq, India and so many more. so i kinda know what you mean.

i was talking about more about the typical minimal, techno, house stuff. you can only add a bit of what you heard there to a techno track before it starts to sound off.
but dont forget, what you heard there might be different than what you are used to, so it was unique for you. but it had one time signature and wasnt sophisticated or anything. so it kinda was simple