How to change style

gerard · Post by **gerard** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 12:52 am

I come from a metal background and I grew up with a guitar. But a few years ago I got introduced to a certain drug that makes you jumpy and dance all night long. So soon I learned to like techno and electronic music. Just take that as a background setting.

Now I have no problem composing a "normal" song with a classic structure, but my problem starts when I try to write a loop-oriented song. Usually I build everything up from my guitar, but when I do so, somehow it always ends in industrial-techno-metal as it is what I'm used to do, but I never finish a song, because I stop as it is not what I want to do for my solo project.

What I'd like to do is write something more mellow yet punchy like Trentemollers "Vamp" for example. So I've tried to start with some pads and keys, but then again I put on some distortion for the punch and again after one hour it's Manson-ish or NIN-esque style again.

Does someone have a similar problem? How did you resolve it?
Can someone give me tips on how to stay focused on what I wanted to do initially?!

j2j · Post by **j2j** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 1:31 am

I come from a rock, hard blues, metal background myself. Actually, tons of dance musicians, come from these types of background. Producing takes practice. Spent four - ten years learning to play guitar? Great. Spend four - ten years learning to produce. Cause depending on what you are going for, that is what it takes.

You can't flick a switch and say, "Hey, I've spent five years perfecting my perfect 5ths, circle of fifths, and ABABAB. Suppose now I'll write an E track."

You can totally incorporate all you have learned about music, and become a better musician, and a producer.

* At least it seems that way to me.

Who knows, maybe some people can flick a mental switch and have instant dance music.

gerard · Post by **gerard** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 1:43 am

I see your point and I agree that practice and endeavor make all the difference.
Let me add this to my first post then:

Do you mostly ( I said mostly, NOT always) start with drums or a melody?
Do you filter your sounds while playing (sort of live-style) or do you lay down all your tracks and add the filters afterwards. By filters I mean cutoff/resonance/morphing/pitch/detune...

Grappadura · Post by **Grappadura** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 1:59 am

I think one can get good at producing pretty fast, faster than with a regular instrument, because you don´t need to practice playing tonescales.

I´d suggest buy yourself a mike, start strumming your guitar chords, and make a loop out of what you record. Later you can replace the strumming with midi notes & synth.

funky shit · Post by **funky shit** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 2:01 am

Well at least you know your theory.

gerard · Post by **gerard** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 2:05 am

I already record my guitar through audio kontrol and guitar rig. I just seem to miss the right feeling for this kind of music.

I was always surprised when people who were good at their instruments told me they didn't compose own songs. Now I understand them better. Some people play covers others compose and some can do both in different styles

j2j · Post by **j2j** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 2:08 am

Grappadura wrote:I think one can get good at producing pretty fast, faster than with a regular instrument, because you don´t need to practice playing tonescales.

I think it depends on how far you want to go. Obviously, your not going to speed through sound design.

gerard wrote: Do you mostly ( I said mostly, NOT always) start with drums or a melody?
Do you filter your sounds while playing (sort of live-style) or do you lay down all your tracks and add the filters afterwards. By filters I mean cutoff/resonance/morphing/pitch/detune...

I think it is different for everybody. The only true answer is, "experiment and find your sound, style and vibe."

Perhaps start with drums. A synth melody.

Filters, morphing, resonance, pitch, detune??? A little meaningless without a solid foundation.

I've been experimenting with sound design about three years..

I mostly start all my tracks by making a kick drum, and sound designing a bass to go with.....

nbinder · Post by **nbinder** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 2:26 am

Try to make rules for yourself like "no distortion". Don't be discouraged by the first results... remember that in your usual genre you had to listen, learn and improve, too.

Don't copy anyone's style, but listen to music you like carefully and try to find out what's different to the piece you just made.

If you always go with your usual flow you'll end up with your usual style in most of the cases... so... break the flow and don't give up too soon.

gerard · Post by **gerard** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 2:31 am

nbinder wrote:Try to make rules for yourself like "no distortion". Don't be discouraged by the first results... remember that in your usual genre you had to listen, learn and improve, too.

Don't copy anyone's style, but listen to music you like carefully and try to find out what's different to the piece you just made.

If you always go with your usual flow you'll end up with your usual style in most of the cases... so... break the flow and don't give up too soon.

Sounds good. I'll try that. It's true that routine is a hard thing to break.

Grappadura · Post by **Grappadura** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 2:36 am

My point is you don´t need to practice physically. You can rush through sound design at your speed of your brain, and also you don´t need to be good in everything, with a bit of profficiency on some vsts you can already have everything you need.

Kent_in_CO · Post by **Kent_in_CO** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 2:56 am

This post really resonates with me; I've made a similar jump over the past three years. Having been in a metal/hard-rock band as a guitarist, I got sick of the genre and its limitations. But on the same token, I also got sick of just playing the guitar. Producing music and its endless possibilities is where it's at!

It sounds like one thing you might want to do is step completely away from the scales and general darker vibe of what you used to play. If your tunes are still sounding industrial and dark, try switching to a major or exotic key. And maybe less distortion and other effects to make synth/pads standout (CamelSpace is awesome for this).

Guitar-wise, spend awhle playing stuff that's completely unrelated to your old style. It took me several months to break out of that hard-rock mold. Sometimes I still bring these influences into my songwriting, but it's essential to be able to step outside the box and broaden your horizons - especially if you're aiming to write tunes that are more chilled out.

As for structure, I've had a lot of success in using a more traditional intro/verse/chorus/verse/bridge/chrous type type of format. Since this is less common in electronic generes, it's actually a good way to make your music stand out from the pack.

How long have you been at it with production? There's a very steep learning curve with producing, but it's a fun journey and it won't take long before you start writing stuff that sounds at least halfway decent.

And one final thing - if you're writing dancy-ass stuff, try to focus a lot of energy on coming up with a good beat/groove/bassline. In rock and metal, the allmighty riff is your god. With dance stuff, it's the groove. This almost goes without saying, but I often find myself forgetting this basic rule; I'll focus so much on melody that I lose sight of the groove. So with that said, and as j2j suggested, try starting out with a kick (or simple drum pattern) and bassline. That'll provide a solid foundation for you to base a track on.

j2j · Post by **j2j** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 3:21 am

Kent_in_CO wrote:This post really resonates with me; I've made a similar jump over the past three years. Having been in a metal/hard-rock band as a guitarist, I got sick of the genre and its limitations. But on the same token, I also got sick of just playing the guitar. Producing music and its endless possibilities is where it's at!.

'

Everybody in america used to play guitar, now we're all starting with dance music.

Its a good thing too, cause dance music in Europe has just gotten so formula nowadays.

Needs some good old rebel ingenuity.

gerard · Post by **gerard** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 4:13 pm

j2j wrote:
I think it is different for everybody. The only true answer is, "experiment and find your sound, style and vibe."

Perhaps start with drums. A synth melody.

Filters, morphing, resonance, pitch, detune??? A little meaningless without a solid foundation.

I've been experimenting with sound design about three years..

I mostly start all my tracks by making a kick drum, and sound designing a bass to go with.....

I'll try this right away. When I start with drums I usually want to make a complete beat from the start. So only kick drum and bass designed for each other; sounds good for starters.

I started 4 years ago with production with a Pod XT and an Mbox with the included software Pro Tools LE and Reason 2.5 adapted. I already took me a few years to find a production environment that really suits me, namely Live and Kore including Guitar Rig and Massive.

I have one slightly electronic song that I finished with a classic structure. I'll try to post it a bit later so you guys can give me some feedback. Thx for your input Kent!

gerard · Post by **gerard** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 10:32 pm

My God what a pain in the ass to put up a music player in Myspace at the moment

So here's that song I was talking about: www.myspace.com/understuff

The vocals were recorded in 2 takes as we didn't have much time and it was recorded in my room that's absolutely not suited for that. There's also no bass, because I simply don't know what to play

Anyway comments are appreciated!

gerard · Post by **gerard** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 10:49 pm

Haha, is it really that cheesy

A friend of mine already told me that.