From loops to songs - help me break my mental block

moodles · Post by **moodles** » Sat Feb 21, 2009 8:50 pm

I've been using Live for several weeks. I've mostly been working in Session view creating loops.

I usually labor over a loop until I'm happy with it and then move on to a completely new loop in a new set.

I'm having a very hard time taking these loops and turning them into full songs. For some reason, I have a real mental block working with electronic tracks where I can't visualize how a static loop becomes a song that progresses from one point to the next.

Has anyone else run into this problem? Any suggestions for how to get around this?

Zygi · Post by **Zygi** » Sat Feb 21, 2009 9:00 pm

same problem here.... I guess I'll try starting from listening to different genres of EDM to get some ideas.

Where a loop becomes a song? Speaking for myself: when I leave sound-tweaking and start playing the piano. Even the most stupid melody can be reworked later.

Still - I cant really get through that without having melodies sound cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesy...

moodles · Post by **moodles** » Sat Feb 21, 2009 9:08 pm

Yeah, I think for me melodies and chords can turn into a bit of a crutch.

Even though I've been a fan of techno and dance music for a long time, my background as a musician is playing in more traditional rock bands.

When I try to create dance music, I have a very strong urge to play piano melodies and chords or plug in a bass or guitar and start playing. But I end up disappointing myself because it doesn't sound "electronic" enough.

DJMillsy · Post by **DJMillsy** » Sat Feb 21, 2009 9:30 pm

Hi Guys,

Ableton is clearly an excellent looping sequencer but I have now migrated fully from Cubase and briefly Sonar because of the excellent and fluid arrange page options.

As an initial suggestion for you, find a track in your music collection you like and is similar to the loop you have created. Drag the track into the session view and set the warp markers in the clip. Now drag the track to the first track in your arrange page. Now set locators at every change in the track and name them for you benefit ie (when new purcussion is introduced or the bass line or break down).

With this in place you can drag and drop the clips that create your loop from the session view into the relevant places on the arrange page. This will provide you with an excellent skeleton to start with and should highlight new elements you might need. Of course you can add your own twist to this but its an excellent start and if you use this process regularly you will soon come to understand how to arrange tracks in your chosen genre.

Hope this will be of use.

Nokatus · Post by **Nokatus** » Sun Feb 22, 2009 1:45 am

moodles wrote:When I try to create dance music, I have a very strong urge to play piano melodies and chords or plug in a bass or guitar and start playing. But I end up disappointing myself because it doesn't sound "electronic" enough.

Don't let this stop you too severely. While it's good to strive for a particular sound, I think you might benefit from turning that "weakness" into a strength. That is, use your own strong points as a musician to create something interesting instead of worrying wether it's "electronic enough" or not.

Voodu · Post by **Voodu** » Sun Feb 22, 2009 4:29 am

Nokatus offers great advice. Why worry about sounding as electronic as everyone else? We have all heard that and yaaaaawn.

With your rock background and dance music enthusiasm you have the potential to tap into something fresh and unique. My advice is plug that bass in. Throw in some funky slaps. Give an organic feel with electronic beats. Collab with some people you used to play with. Get some live percussion on top of some 808 beats..etc.

It's very easy when working on a particular genre to set down and already start your project with a mental block. "It must sound like house or no one will like it."

Let's face it bands that are "hot" right now are incorporating live and electronic elements. Bands like Chromeo, Hyper crush..etc. It's even all over pop music. Listen to a lot of Katy Perry's tracks there are some subtle synth workings in there.

Also, think about what you want your song to "say". Is it happy or sad? Has it been mistreated or wronged? Does it just wanna move the dancefloor? Think about the message and how you want it to get there. Think about a catchy lyric hook and try to play it on your keyboard. Should the melody ascend or descend for dramatic play?

Now if I can just get myself to do all those things....

NoiseTracker · Post by **NoiseTracker** » Sun Feb 22, 2009 6:59 am

Making catchy loops is something I could personally do all day! Beats, hits, polyrhythms, whatever your flavor.

A good working knowledge of melody and structure are essential for crafting solid listenable songs. I would suggest looking up in your local library or bookstore about musical structure to really get a handle on what goes on in any piece of music. Not to say you should feel obliged to follow any of it, but having the idea of what you can say and where you want to take your ideas over the course of the song will make you a lethal writer.

Even listening to some of your favorite electronic artist and paying attention to how they layer their own sounds to form their own personal builds, breaks etc.

Best of luck to your music making!

Zygi · Post by **Zygi** » Sun Feb 22, 2009 1:10 pm

Nokatus wrote:
moodles wrote:When I try to create dance music, I have a very strong urge to play piano melodies and chords or plug in a bass or guitar and start playing. But I end up disappointing myself because it doesn't sound "electronic" enough.
Don't let this stop you too severely. While it's good to strive for a particular sound, I think you might benefit from turning that "weakness" into a strength. That is, use your own strong points as a musician to create something interesting instead of worrying wether it's "electronic enough" or not.

+1 to that - I have the same problem but I recently realise, how simple is EDM, and that comparing to classical music, it's musical features are close to none.

its like me and my friend making music "hey let's throw some synth and make a melody" "fu** that, lets insert impulse and make some glitchy tom then transpose it"

Freekster · Post by **Freekster** » Sun Feb 22, 2009 2:40 pm

My music relies heavily in incorporating live instruments with dance beats. I don't ever think that I will do some particular genre or style, I just do music. I ask my friends to come in and play live bass or guitar over my beats and synths.

Does it sound electronic enough? Who really cares? It's just music

You can listen my tracks here: http://www.myspace.com/bubblescum

Tracks are done with Live and Logic combining live stuff with sequences and loops. Every track has at least live bass. I love groovy live basslines

moodles · Post by **moodles** » Fri Mar 20, 2009 9:01 pm

Thanks for all the helpful replies. I've made some good progress since I posted this thread: I now have a couple tracks recorded out into arrangement view that just need some tweaking and mixing to finish them up.

Here's what really helped me make progress:
Once I had one solid scene, I took the clips in that scene and made lots of copies of them and made tweaks to the various copies. This allowed me to see how a track might proceed from one version of a clip to another.

Then I started jamming out on my various clips to see what combinations sounded good together and what order I liked to hear them in. This helped me to arrange them into lots of different scenes that follow a natural progression.

Once all my scenes were in place, I hit master record and jammed out right through all my scenes to get my Arrangement in place.

Now I'm switching over to Arrangement view and going through bit by bit making tweaks and improvements.

moodles · Post by **moodles** » Fri Mar 20, 2009 9:05 pm

About my "electronic" comment:

I don't want my music to immitate anyone else, but I want to make tracks that would fit well in certain DJ sets, so it does have to at least fit within the genre in which I am trying to work.

dubgil · Post by **dubgil** » Fri Mar 20, 2009 9:58 pm

DJMillsy wrote:Hi Guys,

Ableton is clearly an excellent looping sequencer but I have now migrated fully from Cubase and briefly Sonar because of the excellent and fluid arrange page options.

As an initial suggestion for you, find a track in your music collection you like and is similar to the loop you have created. Drag the track into the session view and set the warp markers in the clip. Now drag the track to the first track in your arrange page. Now set locators at every change in the track and name them for you benefit ie (when new purcussion is introduced or the bass line or break down).

With this in place you can drag and drop the clips that create your loop from the session view into the relevant places on the arrange page. This will provide you with an excellent skeleton to start with and should highlight new elements you might need. Of course you can add your own twist to this but its an excellent start and if you use this process regularly you will soon come to understand how to arrange tracks in your chosen genre.

Hope this will be of use.

fANTASTIC tip!
I will be taking this approach as a pathway from beg to end.
I've been doing something "similar" I usually load up an mp3 in Foobar and listen to it for a few bars and then work in Ableton and mimic what I hear to a degree, like a garage cover band does I guess. In the end it becomes my song, but I just the other person's song a guideline. Never thought of bringing the song into Arrangement view, - duh! (second "Oh - duh" moment of the day )

thanks

Adam Nicholas · Post by **Adam Nicholas** » Fri Mar 20, 2009 10:16 pm

DJMillsy wrote:Hi Guys,

Ableton is clearly an excellent looping sequencer but I have now migrated fully from Cubase and briefly Sonar because of the excellent and fluid arrange page options.

As an initial suggestion for you, find a track in your music collection you like and is similar to the loop you have created. Drag the track into the session view and set the warp markers in the clip. Now drag the track to the first track in your arrange page. Now set locators at every change in the track and name them for you benefit ie (when new purcussion is introduced or the bass line or break down).

With this in place you can drag and drop the clips that create your loop from the session view into the relevant places on the arrange page. This will provide you with an excellent skeleton to start with and should highlight new elements you might need. Of course you can add your own twist to this but its an excellent start and if you use this process regularly you will soon come to understand how to arrange tracks in your chosen genre.

Hope this will be of use.

Ya this is a great way to learn how to arrange imo. I been doing this for awhile now and it helps get a finished song done when you get stuck in a loop.

danmcb · Post by **danmcb** » Sun Mar 22, 2009 4:52 pm

study songs and recordings you like, that are in the direction you want to go.

Map out the arrangement structure on paper - count bars, figure out the form and construction.

Learn to play bits or all on your instrument.

Figure out what makes it work.

Then reuse in your own work.

If only do it to one tune the tendency is to "copy". But if you do it on a lot, the general patterns emerge in your work and it becomes "influence".

Imaulle · Post by **Imaulle** » Mon Mar 23, 2009 4:26 am

I asked this question to a top selling producer on beatport. and his exact words to me were:

"steal ideas, the greatest songs have already been created"

From loops to songs - help me break my mental block

From loops to songs - help me break my mental block

Melody and Structure

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