I forgot one thing, probably the most important part about a EDM track is the kick. The kick is the focus. Get the right kick, tweak it the best you can, you can't fail.

 

Listen to Madeon...

Some of his songs have amazing arrangements, key changes, tempo changes etc...

He keeps it interesting yet has a definable structure and groove...

or listen to Burial and rip up the rule book altogether...

 

AGREED! Madeon! Man! Dude is nuts!

 

This right here is the problem.

You don't have the fundamentals down, much less any advanced techniques.

You keep looking for shortcuts and prescriptions. I've already told you many times that anyone can understand theory, it's all logic and basic maths... BUT, if you don't connect that to the actual music, you've got nothing. You're as good musician right now as anyone who just bought a Casio keyboard. You know so much about music as someone who only read about football rules is good at that sport.

How long will you insist in chasing your tail?

 

Agreed. There are no shortcuts. Especially if you want your music to be your own. Creative and unique. If anybody looking for a shortcut, download a template, use presets and loops. Lol

 

I usually try whatever ideas I have and go with what sounds good. If I lack ideas, I try to work on something else instead.

 

I am so glad your first comments are on this topic. Thanks so much!
The sound designing is so important factor in Electronica and maybe distinguishing best musicians of this genre but please accept that it's the second step. First an idea should be formed in mind and polished then structured. In the final step, choosing the sounds and effecting them. This is the logical paradigm. I want to fall more in love with the formation and structuring. Are you a good lover of those too?

 

I agree with KOUROS. Do some research, and take some notes about the topic you're interested in, and then YOU HAVE TO EXPERIMENT through trial and error, to see where you initially end up. Somje newbies wind up having a knack for it, others it takes a bit of time. Too many variables now adays with daw, vst, sampling, chopping, blah blah. You just have to do SOMETHING to assess your next step moving forward- experiment and flex that muscle - it's one thing to talk, but if you're not putting it into practice, you'll always just be dreaming.

 

Thanks. I am, but I'm more of a, "If it sounds good and feels good, then it is good." type of guy. Music is life man. And just like life, it changes. One day, you're having a good day, the next, depressed. Music has that tension and release factor. The only thing that makes logical sense in terms of rules is balance and clarity. And if you have a solid understanding on engineering, everything else is subjective. I can't walk around and say "First, an idea should be formed in mind." Sometimes, music isn't about an idea, it's pure feeling. You have left sided thinkers in the studio, and right sided thinkers. Right sided thinkers tend to base their production on how they feel. I'll load up a sound, place my hands on the midi controller and just play what I'm feeling. Left sided thinkers tend to be more critical, using logic, numbers and reasoning. Scientific fact. Nothing wrong with either or, it conflicts my thinking process. Maybe you're one of those guys that are critical thinkers. The only problem with that is that left brain musicians tend to use their mouse more than actually playing an instrument. I come from a musicial background of musicians. Uncle was in a band when I was growing up in Detroit. He even worked with Motown. But to me man, all that structure, formatting and stuff? just a bunch of bologna to me. It gets in the way of the creative process.

 

foster911 wants to condense the musical journey into taking a pill.

You'll only gain musical awareness and expertise to analyze the music you like and be in command of the music you do after a long time. Sure, you can make music now but not to meet the high standards that you're looking for.

Your intentions are good, your process sucks. Get real, buy a keyboard or some other instrument and start learning, developing your aural skills and all that. It's not a bunch of pdf's on music theory that will get you there, I've said this many times but for some reason you don't belive it and you keep coming back to ask questions that you would answer yourself if you stopped the madness and started to actually learn something.

 

@kouros Yup. That's it in a nut-shell. Trial and Error and there's no shortcut for this. Electronic music is a lot more complex than your average "Grab a piano and guitar bass with drums" song. It requires intuitive sound design, corrective eq, compression, side-chaining, automation, TRIAL AND ERROR etc etc. I remember when I made my first successful dubstep beat. I felt like I should have won an award for the work I put into that wobble bass. It's a lot of work. Fun, but a lot of work.

 

Is there any standard one allocated to the electronic musics? <<

Each sub-genre have it's on characteristic. If you are here asking for help, it's safe to assume that you don't see the differences just yet. If I'd were you, I'd take a good track (obviously in the same sub-genre), put it on the project besides my work in progress and start deconstructing that track with markers. Then I'd try to adjust my track to those markers (breakdowns, buildups, drops etc.). In time, you will be able to come up with your own structure, but for the start this is how many producers do. Everyone has a weak point: for some is sound design, for some is composing melodies, for some is the arrangement. Deconstructing will help you with at least two of the aforementioned aspects.

 

"Normal" music has all that too if you want. That's not exclusive to electronic music.

Sound design makes up a lot of the meat in the electronic genre but structure and motific development is something that one should be aware off in any style, including electronic.

 

We are not living in an era that every thing is ambiguous and a person like Newton would be needed to suggest the basic ideas. Millions of ideas have been suggested previously by the geniuses. Our big effort is just using them knowingly.
When you'd enter a big super market without knowing what you're going to buy is a disaster because with even a good budget you'd loose all of your money soon. Relying on the human feelings in the music production is important but what about the thinking. Feelings are controlled by brain of course.

 

Oh, I never said it was. I was indicating that the majority of electronic music is more complex than your average grab a piano and bass guitar track. Keyword: "Average"... lol

 

Make music your own. That is all man. Those people are geniuses/great/legends because they are distinctive. Because their music has feeling, power and soul. If that's how you truly believe music should be like, then look up things that reciprocate your way of thinking. But for the rest of the universe, we'll do it this way, you do it your way. Nothing wrong with that. That shouldn't be up for debate. Probably the reason why people are responding this way to this post is because of the frustration of it. I and many others have been musically inclined since we were kids. I been producing for 12 years. Everything I ever learned was on my own. When I wanted to learn something online, GOOGLE and YOUTUBE is your absolute best friend. I'm sure there's another guy out there that thinks like you, but just because we don't, doesn't mean we should convince you to think like us or you convince us to think like you. #Cheers

 

It's a good thing that you want to learn about music BUT what you've been doing isn't learning music.

If you want to compose things intelectually, just look for the theoretical analysis of what you want to emulate. Given your experience it will probably sound like crap or just a watered down copy of something else.

It's not information that will give you the knowledge. You insist on not linking the intelectual side to the practical one, that's why you're stuck in that rut. There's no magical info that will turn your music into gold. Your work will do that.. but you have to start on that by admitting that at this point you don't know shit about music, just a bunch of info.. no real knowledge yet.

Amy kid who's been playing guitar for 2 years just by ear has already more "tact" and awareness for music even without using any formal theory than you with your Gigabytes of theory and a piano roll to make 30 second snippets.

Deal with it.

 

I just want to know other peoples workflow for getting the ideas.
When the topic is about the sound designing, everyone has bunch of ideas, but when a question is about composing, everyone is acting conservatively and surreptitiously. Do you really know why? Is all of the talent in the composing side not shareable or what?

 

Last edited by a moderator: Nov 7, 2015

Nothing worng with the answers so far.

The problem is that you're looking for a type of answer that doesn't exist because it varies a lot. You want intelectualized recipes and, just like I told you, you wouldn't be able to do anything useful with those even if you used them.

You insist in being the guy that asks/confronts everyone's opinion on something but for some reason never experiences that thing for himself to be able to have his own opinion.

 

Because nobody wants to just give away the long hard work it took to get to that point in their career. It took YEARS to get where I'm at. Nobody helped me either. I met a few people. A friend of mine broke down what a compressor does and how it works. Blew my mind at the time. And it's probably because you can't explain it in a easy context. There's no shortcuts to it. You can explain what a filter does, but you can't explain when to use it. You can explain what a compressor does, but you can't explain how much or when you should use it. It's so many different variations to this topic, there will never be a unified solid answer that defies all. Just can't. You literally have to learn every aspect to this type of music, and things outside of it in order to incorporate all of these elements into a solid project. It's a lot of work man. It's not gonna be easy. But with patience, time and a drive for it, you can achieve anything. The only thing I can tell you is how things work, but I can't tell you when to use them. I can only tell you how I use them, but my way is not the way. Hope that sheds some insight to it bro.