Hi guys,

recently i had to write a short electro piece for an equally short film, however, i am not so familiar in this "genre" yet and
had some trouble to create interesting voicings. I was wondering - is there a general working technique ?
How is your individual approach (do you care at all ? :P ) ?
In this case the harmonic instrumentation was bass, pad1, pad2 (partially melody), another key/synth, short seq-synth.
There wasn't much time, so it ended up with quite cheap sounding voicings, like root position chords in one pad

I'll attach a short example ...thanks for any hints and ideas !

 

counterpoint will take a lot of practice. I usually snub music theory cause I have decent ear, but I used to find that although voicing sounds good in my head, once it is in piano roll, it clashes horribly. Cant recommend studying the basics of counter enough. There is an excellent free book https://archive.org/details/counterpointpoly00jepp , or find Fux Gradus. I have pdf I can send you if you want. Its less than 100 pages. Theory is not too complicated, but for modern music you need to experiment otherwise it will sound like Ave Maria if you only do it by the rules. However, you will find theory helpfull especially when the clash happens

 

is there a general working technique ?

- Keep it simple and rythmic. : one note or two with the right groove will often work better than a complicated melody only you will notice.
- Avoid at all cost the accordion-sounding synth.
- Treble is the most important part of a kick drum or a bass.
- Kick matters.

 

The rules are; there are no rules. Well OK, of course there are some that you have to stick with but...

It's important to know something about the genre you're trying to fit into. Listen to 10 of the best in that field, then go and make something like that... but BETTER.

That's my working technique. People making most Electronic styles don't care about voicing techniques, they just know what they want to hear. Same as the general public listening.

 

Counterpoint, call and response, syncopations, arps, etc etc

yeah, it was a bland/boring musically, but maybe it fit the video. That's usually what matters. If the music and moving images goes hand in hand it usually works perfectly.

 

nice one . I love listening to stacked pads

 

Hi guys,

thanks for the tips ! Although they're not quite what i had expected ;)
I guess it's because the term voicing is not quite clear;
i was thinking about the building of harmonic texture/ how to spread a chord over the given instruments.
Counterpoint is nice and sweet (and i have some training there), tho i'ts rather uncommon to find
counter-melodies (in terms of classical counterpoint) in electronic music (at least that i know of)...and i highly doubt many electro producers would use it all.
Of course it's knowledge is helpful in any style of music, no question.
But - i'm not asking about counterpoint, but voicings; that's a different pair of shoes.
Also the accordion-sounding pad is not a matter of harmony, but taste (it's mine - despite the voicing, i agree *yes* ), and it fits well to the video :D
KingSchlongs tip, try analyzing, is after all certainly the most effective way...

edit: as i see now, the thread has been mistakenly moved to "sound-creation"...but it's music theory...good morning :P

 

is it Vanguard by any chance?

 

no, it's the Oberheim OBXD...hope at least you like it ;)

 

its not bad. I used to get those kind of timbres by accident on vanguard though. one of the knobs on my midi controller was fucked and for some reason it would change the midi value even when not turned. So this knob was somehow automatically assigned to select waveform. I would try to make a string patch, then all of a sudden it would turn into accordion. I thought for a veeery long time that Jbridge was doing it, cause it was around time when I moved to 64x

 

the voicing is almost the same in electronic music as well (I don't hear many 7ths, 9ths or sus chords), it's preference. there are many artists that go with the spread out 1st or 2nd inversions. just do it if it feels right ;)

I'm not sure, but maybe because you don't get the energy/feel you want out of what you've made you start to pick around theory. I know that has happened to me, only later realized I was sticking around the weak sounds. in electronic music (no matter the genre) SOUNDS DO MATTER MORE THAN YOU CAN IMAGINE <--- IF THIS IS THE CASE !!!!

 

completely right as i've realized...don't know what i thought that day :D
Also agree about the sound (or sound-aesthetics), this pad was a bit boring sound-wise, but also because of the the poor chord progression/inversions.

For anybody having same troubles: I've found some useful theory in this tutorial: "Bassgorilla - Electronic Music Composition With HAYWYRE".