I'm hugely inspired by the likes of Deadmau5, or rather some songs in particular. I have a tendancy to prefer some of the darker sounding tracks like Imaginary Friends, SOFI Needs a Ladder, One Trick Pony, Cthulu Dreams, A City in Florida etc.

I'm just wondering if anybody can point me towards any tips, tutorials, vids etc that can aid with that style of production. Until now I have been mainly making indie/rock music (being a guitarist as my chosen instrument) but want to get into this kind of music. I am familiar with DAWs and synths etc, but in the indie setting, and wondering whether there are any specific tricks.

Any pointers hugely appreciated!

Some examples....

Imaginary Friends:

SOFI Needs a Ladder:

Cthulu Dreams:

A City in Florida:

One Trick Pony:

 

I love dark. To me dark is minimalism. It's about space. As in the space for the sounds to exist in so they are not crowded. You can hear each sound and it has its place. It is well engineered in the sense that the sounds are well chosen and fit together well. The clarity shines through because of the minimalism.

For me it's easy to go crazy adding layers and layers of stuff but what is more difficult is adding just a few layers that work together and sound good. That is an art. To me the kick drum on its own should pretty good (in electronic dance music). As I said one of my biggest challenges is to strip what I do down to bare bones and ask myself honestly do I actually like how that sounds?

I have been searching for the key to golden kick drum in the ether for a large part of my life. I haven't found it YET!

Excuse my rambling. I just thought I would add my thoughts.

 

Here's me thinking this is dark progressive from the daddy
(well when I was into it maybe) of the genre

 

Minor key. Sparse arrangement. Scooped out mids.

 

I was assuming that until I looked up the tracks on Beatport etc and seems like the majority of them are in major keys.

 

Beatport sometimes gets it wrong. I think it's some kind of automation, that doesn't get good results all the time. I looked up keys for remixes there and they are definitely wrong sometimes.

 

How to get that darker prog house/trance sound:

I just close the window shades...

 

If those examples are dark prog house/trance, what the hell are we gonna name this?

No offense but, the definition of genres are pretty f***ed up nowadays...
In my book those examples are some of the most commercial edm tunes around, not so hard to make. Just grab any edm sample packs here, put the samples together, max out the master channel with izotope and thats all. I can guarantee that you ll get at least 95 percent same sound.

 

had something like this in mind though

only tune i like by the mouse is actually the one with/by kaskade

 

Honestly, the fastes way is to watch some of his many streams he does.
https://www.youtube.com/user/Max2s91v3

then you can virtually sit in the studio with him as he work on his stuff.
theres alot of them. enjoy

 

Yeah, i do watch him live on Twitch, his official Deadmau5TV channel. However, he got super paranoid about people thieving his tracks and in conjunction with building a monster studio filled with awesome synths, you cannot really see what he is doing any more. I suppose YouTube still have older streams to check out though....

 

@Bunford you are right. i whent back and watched abit on some of his newer streams and its nothing like the old ones i remembered.
you know what, i recall there was another thread on this forum where some guys linked some of the old deadmause streams, together with other nice streams and tutorials. that thread made me watch some of the old and better ones atleast.

- anyway i had some thoughts about your question to beginwith,
If you aim to explore new music grounds, "edm/dark techno" for instance then you want to incoporated as much of "you" into it as posible, so you dont end up "sounding (too much) like" or "another clone of..."

by "you" i mean, you say come from a rockband'ish background and the guitar is your main instrument. Then use your guitar as much as posible in this new music-teritory.

 

Last edited: Mar 23, 2016