Need some advice - (off topic)

The Moog Forum Moog Music General Topics Forum
1

I am really frustrated at the moment! I want badly to produce my own tracks. I’ve had a bit of money to play with and so invested in lots of gear. Nothing like a lot of you gurus I have seen on the forums, but for me a substantial amount of money has gone in to my home studio. Admittedly, I need to be investing more time in to it as well. But the time I do invest seems to not produce any satisfaction.

To begin with, creating drum beats is giving me fits. I have no problem with the easy stuff (boom boom, chak, boom boom, chak, crash). But, my stuff has no feel to it, no groove or something. It’s so boring. I’ve grown to admire in a big way drum programming done on Bjork, Radiohead, and various other artists; even hardcore electronica. I know, it’s a tall order to fill those kinds of beats. But, even something remotely resembling them would be cool. Something not so ordinary and bland. Perhaps I just plain suck. I know in my head exactly what I’d like to hear, or at least a good idea, I just can’t seem to make it happen.

I keep blaming my gear for it. I keep wanting to toss more money at it. Most likely that is a horrible idea. It’s all about one’s ability and creativity, or mostly I should say.

BTW for drum programming I am using a Boss DR770 and the Cubase sequencer. Honestly, I just do not enjoy programming things with the Cubase sequencer. But, then again I do enjoy it more than the Boss interface. With those pieces of gear can I expect with any luck to get some satisfactory beats going? Is there gear that would better suit my needs? An interface that perhaps I would feel more comfortable with? Maybe I just need to spend more time with Cubase.

Next, my synths. I have a mini AE, a Nord Lead 3, as well as a filterbank (version 2). Man, I can get some really great sounds out of those 3 pieces of equipment. Sounds that really satisfy me. Getting those sounds in to a structured piece is a different story. I have plenty of melodies and such that I really dig as I’m playing along with a not-so-stellar beat crafted on my Boss via Cubase. Some of my creations I just know would fall right in to place if I had the right drum programming. Others, I just do not have the ability to play by hand and so I sequence those too (sequencing my synth stuff in Cubase is not nearly as bad as drums but still not satisfactory either).

Mayhaps none of you have been in my situation before. I don’t really know. I ask for any suggestions that might help. Again, maybe I just plain suck and this stuff is better off in the hands of someone else. But, I am stubborn and do not want to give up just yet :slight_smile:

What about a sequencer that I can see and touch? A Doepfer or a Frostwave? Take a look at my list of gear and give me your thoughts! Should I invest in books? Training? More gear?!

Mini AE, Nord 3, FB2, Boss DR770, computer with cubase,

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I have been in your situation - and still am!!! :frowning:

Last night I got so fed up I tried to see how many 50 Cent riffs I could learn in 30 minutes.

I have a few of my own riffs to work with, not many. I was advised by a friend not to put them all in one song.

Classical training may be the solution here.

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Hey there Ticker…
Don’t really know how to exactly respond to your comments but I do think there are some things you can try.

Firstly I don’t think your gear is your problem. I’ve got a shitload of gear and play mostly all the instruments myself (for recordings) as well as write/compose all of their seperate parts. But to write (and I’m sure this differs for everyone), I stick almost primarily to my beat-up ol’ acoustic guitar and my grandmother’s out of tune standup piano.
To make complex songs, I start as understated & simple as possible to get my own head around what I’m trying to relay. The complexity comes from starting to figure out (feedback loop) where all this is taking you, what sounds good, what should be where when and finally what exact sound you want. You can put crazy nutzo beats to Mary Had a Little Lamb but could you get Mary Had a Little Lamb out of crazy,chaotic beats?
As far as I’m concerned, John Lennon, Thom Yorke, whoev can blow your mind with 2 chords and one instrument. It starts with feeling not math.
The second major thing I recommend is to get out of your own head. Get feedback from others, get loaded, stoned, whatever your pleasure (note I’m not trying to endorse anything except free thought) and jam it out with a few of the ol’ boys. Toys with some stuff , share it and change it up…give yourself a palette/ range to feed from when you are alone and composing…istead of beating a dead stagnent horse that will just frustrate you.
If your gear really is bugging you, start doing more research on the gear ya got, what is gonna best suit your musical taste and user style…it really isn’t about the gear until you have a home for every sound.
Anyodd…these are the things that I find really help the creative process for me…hope I don’t sound like an ass, and I know it differs for everyone…but hey…you asked!!! Cheers and hope this helps-HIMMM

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You could also try loosening up the beats. Some echo may help to give a bit of spring to them - and/or layer two rhythms together.

Or try playing the beats from a keyboard by hand. You don’t need much technique to add a few extra beats around an existing drum pattern. In time your technique may allow you to play the whole thing manually (and you could always play it slow and then speed it up when you loop it). I’ve done complete drum solos this way. It’s possible.

That should give you rhythms as tight or as loose as you like.

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The first thing is not to blame your gear, I own and play tons of insturments but always find myself going back the few pieces of gear I got first. When I write songs I always start with one instrument’s parts (usually either keys or guitar) and then write the rest around it. Later, I’ll losen up that original part to fit in the mix better. This is a system for playing with a band, but I’ve composed songs by multitracking and I use pretty much the same system. First of all, it would be nice to know what kind of music you are trying to make, but I’ll tell you about synth/drum-machine driven music I make the most, New Wave and neoNew Wave. For drum parts, I usually use old analog drums machines relatively generic beats, and that works fine. Try playing two similar beat over eachother, or playing the same beat at the same time and heavily modifying one of them with filters, flangers, envelopes filters, etc. Thats how I do most my sounds. As far as all synth pieces go, I like to do the bass line first and then work up from there. Wow, that’s an original idea. Basically, just write the song one part at a time. Try writing a different song for al the parts you’ve written, instead of trying to compose one or two Frankensongs. I hope that was helpful.

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Yeah…sometimes it’s just how DEEP you do get into the things you have. You already have more gear then the band Suicide or early Kraftwerk.

An playing with others does get you out of your own head.

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One more thing you have to learn to love the process and not worry about what you ARE or NOT getting.

If you don’t enjoy the process of “learning to have good groves” or whatever you are having trouble it’s gonna break your spirit. Turning on the studio is going to be less interesting/comfortable than watching a TV show then you’ll sell everything and watch DVD’s all the time.

Try(or don’t give up if you do) to do at least a little everyday. Make it a habit and eventually you’ll have a breakthrough.

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Thank you all for your comments :slight_smile:

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Percussion. It’s all about the dynamics and syncopation to bring rhythm to your beats. I have no problem programming beats. But like you said it didn’t have ‘feel’ until I started doing the above and experimenting. For example, say you have 4 kicks per bar. Try a strong-weak-medium-weak emaphasis. Or say the hi-hat, try changing the pitch/decay settings for certain hits. I use Elektron’s MachineDrum for beat programming. But with any modern drum machine the above shouldn’t be a problem. I just cannot stress enough the above. It really will change the feel of your tracks.

monad

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As silly and possibly insulting as it might sound, you’ve learned your gear and you know what you like. Now it’s time to learn music theory and why things sound pleasing musically. Timbre and sound quality only go so far. Theory and practice bridge the gap between the music you like and the ability to play it.

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I’m a bit of a latecomer here (first post to the forum), but I may have some suggestions that could help.

It’s not entirely your gear. (More on that “entirely” in a bit.) There are people (drummers) who can get great beats off of $2 pieces of sheet metal, or $1 buckets. As others have said here, now that you have the gear, it’s time to look into how it can be used musically. Some people soak this information right up and don’t have to think about it at all, but the rest of us have to find ways of making musical information make sense to us. There are many, many different ways of educating yourself musically, and no one lives long enough to try them all. But you have ears and eyes, and they can help you.

You know what you like to listen to, and you’ve been listening for enjoyment, I’m sure. The next step is to hook up that listening to some kind of analysis. It can be difficult with electronica to determine what the “drummer” is doing, as the beats are often very complex. But you can tease out the beats into separate parts. For example, in a lot of Aphex Twin stuff, while there are a lot of percussive sounds going on, there is often a fairly simple pulse (boom, chick. boom, chick.) that is made complex by ornamentation of different sounds going on around it. Listen for the pulse–once you have that, you can build complex stuff that relates to it. Another way of complicating the beat is in addition to varying the ornamentation around the pulse is playing with the pulse itself (boom chick, boom chick, boom, boom boom, chick). As for the ornamentation, I recall once reading on some forum (so it MUST be true :wink: ) that Aphex and Squarepusher generated a lot of complex rhythms by drawing pictures in their MIDI editors. An amusing thought, and impossible to verify unless you know them personally, which I don’t.

One way of studying this stuff is to listen to some good drummers, and think about what someone with four limbs can do. For example, even the great drummers can’t hit the snare, high tom, low tom, crash, and high hat on the same beat–there aren’t enough arms. Generally, they’re keeping the pulse on the bass and snare (or bass and high hat, or bass and tom), leaving a lot of time to do other things around that pulse. What they choose to do is highly individual, and maybe a “favorite drummer” thread would be instructive if you’re not sure what drummers to listen to.

Another method for studying: surely Cubase has a .wav editor, which would let you see the waveforms of a sound sample. I’m sure you have a collection of .wavs of beats you like–load a few up and look at their waveforms. Not so much the shapes, but where the peaks lie in relation to each other. it’s probably not a steady set of peaks, but varies. Sure, maybe the bass drum is always on certain beats, but you’ll see some variation there–maybe the snare is always on one beat, except for one part of the loop where it’s a little late, and the “hole” left by its absence at the expected time adds some dramatic tension.

Getting back to the gear, I should mention that not every drum machine or piece of software has a good user interface, and you might also benefit by trying out different drum boxes or programs (Ableton Live comes to mind–I bought Live based on my experiences with its free, save-limited demo) until you find the one that works for you. (That is to say, don’t just run out and buy something because you read it was good, but try it out in the store, or download the manufacturer’s demo, if they offer one.)

Just some things to think about, but I’d say the most important thing you can do right now is listen with an ear toward analyzing what’s going on in the beats you like, and don’t overlook what you can learn by inspecting the beat visually.

Best of luck!

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Not sure if my comments would be of any help, here. Over the last few years, I’ve been experimenting with Sibelius composition software. Since Sibelius only uses general MIDI, it’s not meant for customized drum and synth sounds. But, if you know how to write with sheet music and basic MIDI implamentation, it’s immensely beneficial for programiming from a compositional standpoint.

Aside from composing and arranging, I’ve used it for programming drum, percussion and bass lines, as well as programming drum solos, one note at a time. Sure, that kind of programming / sequencing can be tedious, but the rewards are just that: rewarding. :slight_smile: I wouldn’t be surprised if Cubase featured a staff-paper-type writing tool.