Any good tips on tutorials on the structure of dance music

[Jeroen]

Hi,

I am mainly looking for good tutorials on the structure of dance songs, not on synths, samples, compression, etc.
but on the overall structure of the song. Any tips?

[cotdagoo]

Take some of your favourite tracks and load them into arrangement view, warp them and get them playing at the right tempo (global tempo).
Next listen to these tracks and for when sounds start to come in or drop out, or there's changes (typically changes happen after 4, 8, 16, 32 or 64 bars, etc..)
Using 'Locators' - mark out the changes when they happen and you'll begin to see how these producers organize their tracks, when sounds are removed from the mix or added, etc..

Try this with a couple tracks and you'll have a better idea of how things are structured.

What you could also do is remove the clips from arrangement view but leave the 'Locators' in place and start building your own track around that structure. It's not a habit you'd want to get into, but initially I believe it can be beneficial to gain a better understanding.

[Tarekith]

http://tarekith.com/assets/arranging.html

[Emerah]

+1

[futuremoves]

Two offline solutions if you can't find what you are after:

This book has some tips on arranging various styles of music (inc house, trance, UK garage, techno, hip hop, trip hop, ambient/chill out and drum'n'bass). http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dance-Music-Man ... b_title_bk


This Computer Music magazine special has much the same, but a little more up to date
http://www.musicradar.com/computermusic ... sic-255576

[grunzlaut]

Two offline solutions if you can't find what you are after:

This book has some tips on arranging various styles of music (inc house, trance, UK garage, techno, hip hop, trip hop, ambient/chill out and drum'n'bass). http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dance-Music-Man ... b_title_bk


This Computer Music magazine special has much the same, but a little more up to date
http://www.musicradar.com/computermusic ... sic-255576

That book is pretty useful for newbies who want to learn the basics of sound design and mixing music. for arrangement its not that helpful (imho). Im pretty new in making electronic music via a computer and so this book was a very good start-off for me. since I play the guitar and various percussion instruments for quite a while and used to play in lots of jam-projects my recommendation about arranging with ableton is just keep messing around with the session view. keep in mind that changes usually happen after 4,8,16,32(and so on) beats. After a while you wont count the beats anymore.

[oddstep]

If you dj think about what parts of tracks have an effect on people, what parts of tracks are needed for cross fading into other tracks.
If you're not djing think about the structure of tracks you love, how long sections last, how they change into the next section, how long those changes take. Listen to how the number of patterns in a track varies over time and what sort of sounds are used.
Listening to music and thinking about how its organised will teach you how to review your own tracks and make them better.

[timothyallan]

doing! -> http://www.groove3.com/str/producing-ho ... nt-fx.html

[Nevulus]

Hi,

I am mainly looking for good tutorials on the structure of dance songs, not on synths, samples, compression, etc.
but on the overall structure of the song. Any tips?

Study the classics, study your favorite producers, then study musical theory to get the basics of song structure. Sorry there is no special Youtube tutorial on instant song structure magic, just different methods.

[oddstep]

+lots

[jallan99]

Here is a tip from D.Ramirez that appears somewhere in his Masterclass series


Use a "Ghost Track". The "ghost track" is a tune you really like and you know works on the dancefloor. You load it into your arrangement but leave it muted except when you are checking your own tune against it, checking your structure against it or checking your sounds against it. If its got a 32 bar intro - you use a 32 bar intro. If its got 2 breakdowns, you use 2 breadkdowns. You can use the markers in Ableton's arrangement view to map out the sections of the Ghost Track and then build your own one with the same structure.


- here is one of the masterclass videos in You Tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ny4q2I3z44 they are easy to find with google and they are also on his website.

[2beats]

Here is a video I put together that goes through basic electronic music song structure. I also wrote an article that goes over song arrangement

Song Structure in Electronic Music and Dubstep - Arrangement in electronic music - YouTube