Bringing the energy to your music

G

Ghost2424

Guest
I just wanted to know how you go about putting more energy into your music. I'm looking for something along the lines of what Liam Howlett from Prodigy does. If anyone has any techniques or articles to give me an idea on how to do it it would be much appreciated.
 
Ghost2424 said:
I just wanted to know how you go about putting more energy into your music. I'm looking for something along the lines of what Liam Howlett from Prodigy does. If anyone has any techniques or articles to give me an idea on how to do it it would be much appreciated.
Click to expand...

I don't know.. I mean if u have an track with Energy in your Mind lay the **** down..

Either you have it or you dont

you ever study the Music that u considered Energetic and Sit and Pay attention to how the sounds are used? i mean that pretty much tells u want to do right there

Ears Man use em
 
you could try to use alotta grungy effects on already wild sounds ??
i get a lotta freaded out sounds from
distortion and phase effects.
 
what is it in your track that is lacking in energy? like what sounds wrong? what needs the energy..? thats a good place to start looking at details that can be fixed....




peace.
 
highkoo said:
what is it in your track that is lacking in energy? like what sounds wrong? what needs the energy..? thats a good place to start looking at details that can be fixed....




peace.
Click to expand...

He wants to sound like Prodigy in a sense.Have the power in his beats and energy in his synths to rival a Prodigy track in a way.What most Prodigy fans/turned bedroom producers want to achieve.

All in all he's looking for tips and hints into how he can make his beats heavier and his synths sound harder.

From what I gathered before in another thread he's got his melodies and beats down to the best of his ability,but they just arent hitting as hard and loud as Liam of Prodigy gets his sounds to be.
 
You hit it right on the nose "TheOracle". My synths and stuff are'nt a problem anymore...it's my bets that i'm having issues with. Liam is a god with the drum loops. That's what attracted me to Prodigy in the first place. I'm mainly lookin for "Fat of the Land" style beats. That raw, gritty sound...I just wanted a starting point so that I can innovate from there.
 
A good starting point..find some old funk and hip-hop tracks.Sample some beats you like.Chop them up into segments.Then start layering your sounds over them to pump up the beat.EQ,compress,distort,whatever it takes to pump up the energy to your enjoyment.

Then sit back load up a favourite Prodigy tune of yours,listen to it's beats.Compare with yours,pump or drop in areas you feel you must.It will get very tricky after a bit,loudness doesn't necessarily represent thickness.You'll get it :)
 
^^ werd.

are you making your own drum tracks or using loops? if your making all your own drums and they sound too clean for ya, ya just gotta start laying some harsh effects on em if ya want a gritty sound. like was said, use heavy eqs, heavy compression. use some 'overdrive' or 'distortion' fx, or whatever you have that adds dirt to sound. try ohmforces predatohm. that thing will dirty up anything. add some subtle hematohm over top and you got straight grimey! but make sure you got the basics of eq and compression down first.

and it always helps to start with the best possible source material you can, even if youre goal is to degrade it in the end.....




peace.
 
Originally I was making my own beats then sticking in a break on top. I have tried the distortion and the EQ's you mentioned and it works really well on my snares and some of my perc I use. I don't really like it on the bass drum or the sub so much...I don't know thats one the fun parts about this is experimenting with everything. I appreciate all the help, this finally gives me a starting point to go off of. Ohh and where would be a good place to get those old funk type beats...there's a remix contest for the "Girls" track and I have some good ideas.
 
highkoo said:
^^ werd.

are you making your own drum tracks or using loops? if your making all your own drums and they sound too clean for ya, ya just gotta start laying some harsh effects on em if ya want a gritty sound. like was said, use heavy eqs, heavy compression. use some 'overdrive' or 'distortion' fx, or whatever you have that adds dirt to sound. try ohmforces predatohm. that thing will dirty up anything. add some subtle hematohm over top and you got straight grimey! but make sure you got the basics of eq and compression down first.

and it always helps to start with the best possible source material you can, even if youre goal is to degrade it in the end.....




peace.
Click to expand...

I do a bit of both.Load up some one shots if I got an idea and pound out some beats.If I want to do something but don't have anything in my head for an idea I'll go through some loops.Find something I think it hot at the time,chop it up..load up some one shot drum hit and layer and chop,rearrange..etc..I like to use Scream4 in Reason for distortion and the MClass Compressor they have. Good for pumping everything up
 
i dont get into premade loops too much, but a while back futuremusic gave out a disc that was a ton of funk loops. and it was surprisingly good. it made me wanna use em just so i didnt feel like i was wasting them.....haha.

now that i think about it....thats prolly not the 'funk' you were lookin for huh? im talkin real funk here....





peace.
 
I like to take stock loops and chop them up,then layer stuff over them.Not uncommon as people would think,even with big time producers.

Alot of the loops I use are classic jungle loops.Amen,Funky Drummer,etc.Stuff that had been abused by nearly every hip-hop and jungle producer out there.
 
i gotta say this----i THINK its eastwests adrenaline thing, the intakt rompler thing...., in the advertising for that it says all kinds of sh1t about 'ingecting your rythms with primal energy' or some bullsh1t like that.....

man that thing is CRAP! maybe if youre some cheeseball who doesnt care if his whole track was premade.....

i have recently gotten the chance to work with a few of those big-name, intakt things, and i gotta say on the whole i am SUPER disappointed by them..... the sounds are pretty much all cheese, and half of them are just loops, chopped up with the half the keyboard mapped out.....

i dunno, there was one, i think it was called nujoints.... that one was okay, it was at least interesting. but damn, those things are expensive, and they are dont seem that useful AT ALL.....




peace.
 
I use Zero-G sounds when it comes to sample cds.From there I process and edit them until they work for me not the other way around you know.Alot of producers get by with just laying down a loop barely doing anything to it if anything.That's where I feel it's not very original.

I don't mind taking something and mangling it into my own tasteful art form if I wasn't full of ideas that day :)
 
IMHO, the key to energy in your music is pause and attack. Classical music is a good example of something that is lacking energy. The music seams to flow like a slow stream and everything mixes into one big harmony. Not very exciting... Every song that I can think of that has some energy to it has a small bit of dely in between notes. One of my favorites from Prodigy is Fire starter, which show cases a good use of pause and attack. The guitar in the front gives a good strong riff and sits still for a while before bringing it back to keep you crunk. Another good example is almost any beat made by Mannie Fresh. He is very good at pausing some instrument in his break downs and giving a killer snare attack to hype his songs more before he goes back to what he was doing before. Hope this helps.... just my $0.02.
 
To degrade ur beats u could also find an old analog tape player and ethier run ur sample through the machine and resample, or for a more lofi effect u could record to tape and sample. Also to fatten up ur drums try layering the same sounds and transpose + or - 3, this to me makes the artifical drums sound more live and realistic.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top