Making electronic music is hard!

[PanicProne]

So, those of you who do make actual songs (I'm all for the FUN that coldbright mentioned btw!), how do you go about it. To use a word I really dislike (cause it's so overused and I still probably don't get anyway), what does your WORKFLOW look like? Do you have a general way of writing music that works for the synth/electronic based stuff too or a specific one? Let me know. I'm curious!

[coldbrightsunlight]

By jamming, same as guitar just with a different instrument

EDIT:

Sorry that was a shit answer as a basis for ideas that's true, but what I'll typically do then is one of two ways, broadly: do the usual thing of figuring out sections, melodies, etc etc. and then if it's possible, record a whole performance into the DAW. If an entire performance can't be done due to limitations of skill or technology, I'll record each section separately. Then it's just adding extra layers and mixing. Alternatively, if I have one thing I really like but can't quite see how it becomes a song, I'll just record a take of the bit I have. Then I'll either sleep on it and come back to layer things, or edit it in the DAW to actually create a track through looping, chopping, trying software instruments for extra parts as a demo before (usually) going back to hardware to record "proper versions" of those.

This is also exactly how I make guitar music!

[D.o.S.]

Riffs innit

[dubkitty]

going back to the start of the thread, for me the best way of learning how to program beats was by following the principle that, like a live drummer, you should never have more than four things happening at once and by copying some typical electric music snare/bass combinations. once you get how to make a simple beat you can extrapolate that to more complex stuff. isn't most of d&b fractalized versions of the "Amen" break?

[coldbrightsunlight]

Yeah learning actual drum beats and famous breaks is a great way to figure out writing beats.

[PanicProne]

Back at it. Pulled out my synths last weekend after not playing them for a loooong time and I still don't understand how to work the DFAM. It's like once I learn I forget again. I really lack the mathematical understanding in many ways. Mother 32 works better, as seems more (for lack of a better word) "melody-based" and has an actual keyboard, which brings it closer to what I'm used to, I guess. But yeah. Synths just seem so much more difficult than I initially though and hoped and I've yet to really find an approach to them that suit me. It's made mer respect people who make electronic music a lot more, for sure, but yeah. Very frustrating.

[PanicProne]

Yeah learning actual drum beats and famous breaks is a great way to figure out writing beats.

Also, still haven't got round to this. I'm nowhere near understanding even the simplest of beats

[dubkitty]

i just discovered the joys of running the HR-16 in stereo through the MUZA 9000 reverb/delay. all of a sudden i'm King Tubby's lame cousin. now i'm thinking about running the drums through the entire pedalboard to see what kind of fucked-up stuff i come up with. the pre-processing board should have all kinds of possibilities for doing interesting shit to drum samples between its multiple fidelity-reducers and the So High So Low filter pedal.

yesterday i figured out how to get dub-style fx applied only to, say, the snare and kick without having to futz with knobs or turn anything on/off...the HR-16 is stereo, and you can place each individual voice 3 notches to left/right. you can also assign different voices to each pad than it says on the can. so what i can do is assign a couple of the unused pads--say, Claps or Perc 1-4--to the snare and kick, pan those hard right, pan everything else hard left, run the right channel only through the MUZA, write the hits i want to echo (echo) ((echo)) to the auxiliary pads, and sum to mono when going into the recorder/desk/etc. i love figuring out kludgy ways to make electronics do more than they're strictly meant to do. that's where the fun comes in, and the art. i already use the extra pads for sneaky stuff like tuning snare/kick samples -1 to the main sample to lend realism to rolls and fills, adding tiny bits of ride cymbal bell to individual notes to give a pattern a more realistic texture, and adding rimshot snare to snare hits i want to particularly POP.

i'm thinking about getting a synthesizer...i have a huge Casio sample-playback general-purpose keyboard that's good for pianos, organ, sax, and other stuff but has no real synthesis capablilties and a lot of the post-1990 music i like that's not "electronic music" per se uses synths for atmosphere and world-building. Rozi Plain works with a synth player called Danalogue who does lovely stuff, and the whole Beta Band/Steve Mason/Lone Pigeon/The Aliens ecosystem is rife with burbly analog synth goodness. given my enjoyment of Danalogue's stuff, i'd like to check his main synth out, but he uses Roland Juno 60s which are long out of print and go for $2500+ used. Behringer is supposed to have a Juno 60 clone in the pipeline, but that's down the road. he also uses a Moog Grandmother, which is more reasonably priced and quite appealing. i don't know if it'd do everything i want, but then i really don't know exactly what i want to do. i'm also thinking about the Behringer re-rub of the Pearl Syncussion, which seems like an interesting addendum to the HR-16 which could talk to it via MIDI. sync those up and things could get dense.

[D.o.S.]

Back at it. Pulled out my synths last weekend after not playing them for a loooong time and I still don't understand how to work the DFAM. It's like once I learn I forget again. I really lack the mathematical understanding in many ways. Mother 32 works better, as seems more (for lack of a better word) "melody-based" and has an actual keyboard, which brings it closer to what I'm used to, I guess. But yeah. Synths just seem so much more difficult than I initially though and hoped and I've yet to really find an approach to them that suit me. It's made mer respect people who make electronic music a lot more, for sure, but yeah. Very frustrating.

Do you think - maybe - that beyond the workflow differences it may also be a goal thing, and you might work better trying to go further (back and faster) by doing something like a cover of a song you enjoy?