I am interested in making music in the style of EDM with a bit of dubstep-inspired synths, think Knife Party, Zomboy, Porter Robinson etc.

Anyway, I have been designing sound and effects for TV, games, films etc so have a good idea on synths etc and regularly use Massive and Reaktor. However, not in the musical style, more in a sound design way. I am also a guitarist and been playing guitar for several years and am competent.

Now, back to the point of my question. I am looking for advice, tutorial, tips etc on the actual writing and arrangement for this style of music. All tutorials I have come across are more about the creation of synth sounds etc rather than how to write lines to utilise them synth sounds well and the musicality behind it.

Anyone got any pointers?

 

OK, am going to try and help. This could be a VERY long answer .. but I am going to try and keep is as short as i can.....

If you do not know the following things .. you will need to get the books to learn them ... if you do .. then listen to / study the progressions, bass, counter point and melodic lines by listening to your favorite music in the genera of your choice ... ok, here we go.

1. Music notation .. bass and treble clef / the keyboard / the range of different instruments that you use.
2. Diatonic (key related) and minor harmony.
3. Modal interchange (harmony)
4. Counter point
5. Chord progression and melodic construction and constructs
6. Basic Arranging ( melody, harmony, bass lines, reharmonization, guide tone lines
7. The above is good for the basics .. now you need to know the range of the various instruments you use, and what the areas (range) they sound the best in.

Keeping in mind that a good tune sounds good because it is well written, well arranged, and well mixed / recorded.

8. If you haven't as yet .. get the pdf of the Mixing Engineers Handbook (it is everywhere on the internet), read it, and understand how the different instruments live in their own and various frequency ranges. Understand frequency surge and frequency masking .... and the frequencies that define each instrument that need to shine through in a mix ( and it is not the entire range of the instrument).

9. Study signal processors .. delay, reverb, compression, and eq are your most important ones, although, there are a lot of other effects that can color an instrument / mix.

I know it sounds like a lot of stuff to know, but that is what we who write and produce music in a DAW do. Matter a fact, a large amount of music you hear in movies and tv is produced with digital tools and not real instruments.

Hope this helps you.

 

You should check out Dance Music Production Fundamental Series!!!

They are one of the best online tutorials I have come across

They cover stuff like how to program your drums, bass and music theory stuff like counterpoint and harmony, and in good detail too.

 

I'm a little confused by the request -- I can't tell if you're asking for advice regarding writing EDM (which I know nothing about) or just writing and arranging music in general -- but the best possible advice I can give you is to listen to as much of whatever genre of music you're hoping to write yourself as you can. It sounds like you have a decent grasp of generating sounds and playing music. Those are basics, so you're already ahead of the curve there. The rest is studying and understanding how the music you want to make is put together, and the best way to do that is to study it as close as possible.

I did a lot of music for low-budget films, and when I started, there wasn't any DAWs or VIs, and anything more complex than a cassette four-track cost too much money to justify buying. You were kind of stuck with whatever keyboards, modules and drum machines you could get your hands on to create complex arrangements, and then, you usually dumped them live in one shot to a two-track recorder (often, hi-fi VHS). And because you couldn't hire or even record extra musicians (unless you had them play live while dumping your keyboards' audio), you sort of had to figure out how to make stuff like drums or guitars or sampled basses sound as close as possible to the real thing. A lot of it is trial and error -- try fitting together basic drums, bass (or synth bass) and guitars (chord synths) together until you understand their relationship, or at least until it sounds "right" to you. Read up on what type of instruments and effects the musicians playing your type of music are using. Finally, just focus on making something sound good to you. Most of these guys are just sticking pieces together and seeing what fits in the studio, and they're basically doing the same thing.

 

Check out AudioSex Academy and check out the Dance Music Production Series as well as The Dance Music Manual. For Dubstep you're not going to really need any complex theory because it usually relies on static harmony like a lot of contemporary music. Dubstep is only complex production wise not musically. Listen to the bands you like and map out what happens every certain number of bars.

 

In the last year or so I have been looking for definitive information on how to arrange. through my searching I came accross "The illmethodology" This producer illgates has a lot of really good information. I paid for 1 of his courses, best money I spent in a long while ($50) so well worth it. ANYWAYS......through all this great info is his advice to transcribe. He uses a book to do his transcriptions, lucky with todays music doing transcriptions is fairly blocklike. SO there are a couple of pre existing free programs out there to do this type of thing.




https://soundcloud.com/kaytranada/k-os-crucial-kaytranada-remix

I have included the picture of the google doc's spreadsheet and a I was using to transcribe this tune. link to the soundcloud tune is included.

so the basics: in terms of sections

A. (4-16 Bars) - Capture + Engage the Listener’s Attention – Make a Promise

B. (8-32 Bars) – Peak Out! - Deliver on the Promise of the A. Section

C. (4-32 Bars) – Departure from Main Theme



There is a shit tone of other things to include. BUT that's for you to find out by yourself. basically if you were to transcribe out several tunes in this fashion you WILL get the form the artist used for that particular track....clear as day.

 

I'm sure there's MIDI available of Dubstep songs being that we can't escape from the more horrid elements of this genre such as Skrillex no matter how hard we may try.

 

Read kim lajoie blog, and then experiment a lot. You will get what you are looking for

Most update version at Jan 7 2014
http://www.errepici.it/web/download/KLBD.asp