Input on my Beats/Production?

[PadsDialsKnobs]

Hey, I've been making beats for a while now, and I've recently started to put a few online.
Here's the link:

http://youtu.be/yzCn6GR84JI

Check me out, listen for a few minutes, then come back here with any suggestions on how to improve! That would be GREATLY appreciated, thanks a lot.

[Jerome]

Hey, I've been making beats for a while now, and I've recently started to put a few online.
Here's the link:

http://youtu.be/yzCn6GR84JI

Check me out, listen for a few minutes, then come back here with any suggestions on how to improve! That would be GREATLY appreciated, thanks a lot.

There is no variation to this at all. Don't compose music with Ctrl C & Ctrl V. PLAY the instruments.

[Music Head]

and why the hell do they call it beats?

[Jerome]

and why the hell do they call it beats?

Because they decide how many beats per minute the 'song' is going to be. That dictates everything else. It's as a result of portastudios, groove synths & electronic drum machines etc. where someone sets the BPM and then puts other sounds on top of it. There are even groups who will only use one fixed BPM for all their material. Talk about painting yourself into a corner! Most of the other instruments are samples that are repeated over and over ad nauseum which ultimately results in a lifeless sound. If you look at the audio waveforms of these tracks they all flatline at some point, so there are no real dynamics (or any variation in the dyanmics). Usually the sound is compressed beyond repair - a result of the loudness wars. This music will go the same way as disco - just a matter of time. One of the reasons it's so popular is that it costs practically nothing to create this sort of stuff. Which in turn makes it accessible to everyone. Copy and paste music as opposed to organic electronica which still maintains a 'feel' - al la Tangerine Dream. Even though the sounds might even originate from the same synth or device, the organic stuff manages to maintain a human performance element to it, whether via midi or analogue synths, whereas this stuff is emotionally 'dead'. Amen......(as you always say - preach it brother) - End of sermon!

[Music Head]

thanks Jerome

leave it to you to take some nonsensical term and make sense out of it

consider me educated

[CRAZY-HORSE]

10/10 for your explanation Jerome....well done mate!

[Keef Rob]

Because they decide how many beats per minute the 'song' is going to be. That dictates everything else. It's as a result of portastudios, groove synths & electronic drum machines etc. where someone sets the BPM and then puts other sounds on top of it. There are even groups who will only use one fixed BPM for all their material. Talk about painting yourself into a corner! Most of the other instruments are samples that are repeated over and over ad nauseum which ultimately results in a lifeless sound. If you look at the audio waveforms of these tracks they all flatline at some point, so there are no real dynamics (or any variation in the dyanmics). Usually the sound is compressed beyond repair - a result of the loudness wars. This music will go the same way as disco - just a matter of time. One of the reasons it's so popular is that it costs practically nothing to create this sort of stuff. Which in turn makes it accessible to everyone. Copy and paste music as opposed to organic electronica which still maintains a 'feel' - al la Tangerine Dream. Even though the sounds might even originate from the same synth or device, the organic stuff manages to maintain a human performance element to it, whether via midi or analogue synths, whereas this stuff is emotionally 'dead'. Amen......(as you always say - preach it brother) - End of sermon!

Sermon is an apt description -- reminds me of those crazy preachers on American television in the late 80's and early 90's.

Jerome: Basically, if that's your picture of it, you're either listening to it wrong, or you're not even listening at all. My experience has been that people who would say this sort of thing have chosen option B. Or maybe a more charitable way to put it is that you don't know HOW to listen to it. I'm not going to be like a Radiohead fan and try to convert you, but I will say you've got it wrong. I read this and it strikes me more that you're bitching because bitching's fun, rather than being descriptive.

Pads, it's alright and it does have space and shape to it, but it would make far more of an impression on me if you created the interest out of movement of the filters. You've got a good start but it does just sort of sit there.


The best example I can think of of a track like that is Modifiers "Take Me Higher", the full 12-minute version.

http://youtu.be/hC174_KgJXs

Very very minimal but once you really hit the groove of the track and start listening to how the filters work on the different cells in the song, this one progresses fast .... In fact it was in the middle of a mix the first time I heard it and I didn't realise it were 12 minutes long. I thought it were less than half that.

Another great track that does this is this one:

http://youtu.be/V2D2w6KreFE

[Jerome]

Sermon is an apt description -- reminds me of those crazy preachers on American television in the late 80's and early 90's.

Jerome: Basically, if that's your picture of it, you're either listening to it wrong, or you're not even listening at all. My experience has been that people who would say this sort of thing have chosen option B. Or maybe a more charitable way to put it is that you don't know HOW to listen to it. I'm not going to be like a Radiohead fan and try to convert you, but I will say you've got it wrong. I read this and it strikes me more that you're bitching because bitching's fun, rather than being descriptive.

Pads, it's alright and it does have space and shape to it, but it would make far more of an impression on me if you created the interest out of movement of the filters. You've got a good start but it does just sort of sit there.


The best example I can think of of a track like that is Modifiers "Take Me Higher", the full 12-minute version.

http://youtu.be/hC174_KgJXs

Very very minimal but once you really hit the groove of the track and start listening to how the filters work on the different cells in the song, this one progresses fast .... In fact it was in the middle of a mix the first time I heard it and I didn't realise it were 12 minutes long. I thought it were less than half that.

Another great track that does this is this one:

http://youtu.be/V2D2w6KreFE

I'm not going to get into an argument about this but here's my take on your comments and the first piece you posted. (Take me higher). I found it boring beyond belief. Music has to breathe and this just simply does not for me. I listen to all forms of music (world/ethnic/classical/ambient/electronica as well as the old standards) so if you think I am locked into a particular frame of mind you are wrong. As for HOW I listen to it - with my ears & my mind. And I am not bitching - I am telling the forum my point of view. Take it or leave it. You don't have to be charitable with me. And as for your first comment - I am agnostic.

Take me higher (could they not have come up with more lyrics?) is a repetitive stale kick, snare and hi-hat accompanied by a repetitive vocal (copied and pasted relentlessly) phrase underpinned by a repetitive bass line - all of which are tweaked by a phaser from time to time to give the illusion of movement but without ever really moving anywhere or reaching a peak or resolving into a meaningful structure. And the effect of filters on the cells are just artifacts from badly manipulated reverb. As I said before copy and paste music. It will be gone soon.

[Keef Rob]

I'm not going to get into an argument about this but here's my take on your comments and the first piece you posted. (Take me higher). I found it boring beyond belief. Music has to breathe and this just simply does not for me. I listen to all forms of music (world/ethnic/classical/ambient/electronica as well as the old standards) so if you think I am locked into a particular frame of mind you are wrong. As for HOW I listen to it - with my ears & my mind. And I am not bitching - I am telling the forum my point of view. Take it or leave it. You don't have to be charitable with me. And as for your first comment - I am agnostic.

Take me higher (could they not have come up with more lyrics?) is a repetitive stale kick, snare and hi-hat accompanied by a repetitive vocal (copied and pasted relentlessly) phrase underpinned by a repetitive bass line - all of which are tweaked by a phaser from time to time to give the illusion of movement but without ever really moving anywhere or reaching a peak or resolving into a meaningful structure. And the effect of filters on the cells are just artifacts from badly manipulated reverb. As I said before copy and paste music. It will be gone soon.

Funny that because the song still pops up from time to time in mixes on the radio, despite being from 1996. I heard it constantly that year. I hear it from time to time in mixes on the radio. In case you hadn't quite figured it out this song is an instrumental. I guess you were fooled that it has words in the vocal hook, but the two vocal hooks are samples. This was actually put out at least three times with three different project names (DJ Lace, Modifiers, & Hardy Heller) but it's the same track on all three. This is common with dance tracks.

Since you obviously didn't listen all the way through, here's the structure (for anyone else who wants to hear it)

0-1:58 = mix in, vocal hook brightens and darkens, very effective mixing with an outro.
1:58 - main groove, vocal hook continues to brighten and darken
3:58 - break (kick snare hat drop out), vocal darkens, bass brightens to double as an acidy sawtooth 2 octaves higher
4:56 - "second verse" vocal hook suddenly brightens and sawtooth rises higher and higher.
6:24 - 2nd break, sawtooth suddenly dips and rises, increasingly tenser until it builds to a climax.
7:23 - release, introduction of new vocal hook
8:21 - 3rd break (kick snare hat drop out), increasingly tenser, same in percussion as 2nd break.
9:22 - final climax
9:51 - wind-down, return to first vocal hook, mixout.

In short, my playtime lasts several hours. This is musical edging as far as I'm concerned. When it was on top and mixed everywhere the joke was that it needed to be about 15 minutes longer so that everyone would get to climax.

And it is an absolutely beautiful track, one of my favourites of all time. Lace nailed it. Whoever his partner is must be glowing all the time.

Yet Jerome, I'm not trying to convert you. May I recommend instead Hawkwind "You Shouldn't Do That", King Crimson "Discipline", Robert Fripp's entire "God Save The King / Under Heavy Manners" album, Miles Davis "Directions", "Spanish Key", "Great Expectations", "Ife", "Pharoah Dance", Philip Glass's entire oeuvre, Mike Oldfield "Hergest Ridge" or Soft Machine "We Did It Again" as things that I would guess you might know and love, despite those all being variations on a structure such as this.

[Jerome]

Funny that because the song still pops up from time to time in mixes on the radio, despite being from 1996. I heard it constantly that year. I hear it from time to time in mixes on the radio. In case you hadn't quite figured it out this song is an instrumental. I guess you were fooled that it has words in the vocal hook, but the two vocal hooks are samples. This was actually put out at least three times with three different project names (DJ Lace, Modifiers, & Hardy Heller) but it's the same track on all three. This is common with dance tracks.

Since you obviously didn't listen all the way through, here's the structure (for anyone else who wants to hear it)

0-1:58 = mix in, vocal hook brightens and darkens, very effective mixing with an outro.
1:58 - main groove, vocal hook continues to brighten and darken
3:58 - break (kick snare hat drop out), vocal darkens, bass brightens to double as an acidy sawtooth 2 octaves higher
4:56 - "second verse" vocal hook suddenly brightens and sawtooth rises higher and higher.
6:24 - 2nd break, sawtooth suddenly dips and rises, increasingly tenser until it builds to a climax.
7:23 - release, introduction of new vocal hook
8:21 - 3rd break (kick snare hat drop out), increasingly tenser, same in percussion as 2nd break.
9:22 - final climax
9:51 - wind-down, return to first vocal hook, mixout.

In short, my playtime lasts several hours. This is musical edging as far as I'm concerned. When it was on top and mixed everywhere the joke was that it needed to be about 15 minutes longer so that everyone would get to climax.

And it is an absolutely beautiful track, one of my favourites of all time. Lace nailed it. Whoever his partner is must be glowing all the time.

Yet Jerome, I'm not trying to convert you. May I recommend instead Hawkwind "You Shouldn't Do That", King Crimson "Discipline", Robert Fripp's entire "God Save The King / Under Heavy Manners" album, Miles Davis "Directions", "Spanish Key", "Great Expectations", "Ife", "Pharoah Dance", Philip Glass's entire oeuvre, Mike Oldfield "Hergest Ridge" or Soft Machine "We Did It Again" as things that I would guess you might know and love, despite those all being variations on a structure such as this.

Do you really think I don't know what a vocal sample is? Everything on the track is a sample. That's my whole point. It's static. It's just samples copied over and over and manipulated with a basic filter. Copy and Paste music - like I said.