Trance
I made trance for a while ..... was fun but have moved on to just straight elecronica + pop, pop in an attempt to maybe make a living at this, wel I have to dream ya know.
1) The groove is everything, if you have a good groove all that other stuff compression eq.... means nothing. Forget about that for now. you need to focus on creating a killer groove.
2) Trance, good trance uses very basic grooves such as kick drum, snare or clap or anything in that frequency and HH. The HH's are where you will get your variation from.
3)Kick for now just leave it on 1 2 3 4
4) Start of with an open HH on the 'and' beats just for now
5) put the snare clap frequency on 2 and 4
6)Move the snare to the left 2 ticks
7)keep everything else quantized to a swing that equals 2 ticks this is important and a lot of trance is utilizing this subliminal swing. to keep things rolling.
8)Now for some variation with 2 or 3 closed hh sounds to supplement the open hat on the and beats, I like to use broken 16th notes. What you do is lay out a closed hat on every 16th division start with one sound for now, including the e's and a's (every 16th note division.)
Then start from left to right and mute one note at a time so start with the farthest left note and mute that see if it works if it does copy the whole MIDI Pattern and move it away. Then start from the every 16th note again and unmute the next note, if it works copy again and save. After you have tried every note (just one note to start, find the one you like best, and start from there.
You can leave it like it is or you can do the same thing again only this time keep the note you like muted and then mute from left to right until you find a second note based on the first muted note that you like leave it or keep going. This will show you almost every variation of closed 16th hats you can use and allows you to choose one or two or three to combine together. It also lets you start from somthing that works instead of just trying things and getting lost. you can also work backwards and add one note at a time just throw a note in there that works and start from there trying out every variation that you can think of (you will have tons of new grooves this way) (there are people who would hate me sharing this but it will alow you to always create a groove that works on the dance floor)
Next the Lead= Once you have a good groove the lead should not be as hard, you can write a straight lead or an aprpegiated lead, Try to add a more loose feel to the lead by moving notes a tick or two to the left or right or playing it in and then quantizing 97%. I usually just input notes and then move the whole pattern to the left1- 3 ticks it pushes the track along. Also you can turn off the snap to grid and just input notes where they sound good instead of snapping first and then moving around, I love doing that + some percentage quantize it works some of the time.
The entire groove should be "danceable fully quantized though" That is a common mistake thinking that the reason you can't dance to a groove is that it is fully quantized that is not true it should at least work fully quantized.
The hats,
After you have the placement of one sound with the open hat how you like it, try to replace some of them with a slightly different sound this will get you started with dynamics. At first only use very slight dynamic changes untill you get real good at it. Try no more than 10 difference between each note. the different HH sound works real good on the e's and a's assuming you picked the right sound. You can also add a straight 16th note shaker and move it to the left 4 ticks it will push the hh's along make it real low in the mix though.
Sounds:
When you are first starting out, use presets and other people sound and tweak from there, buy a synth programming book and study the presets on synths you like, that will get you startd with timbres.
Run white noise through and EQ and Sweep the frequencis do this 4 or 5 times a day it will really start to make sense when you start programming your own sounds.
You can also do this with raw wave forms from your synths....
You may ask, do I have to do all this just to make trance, How long and how much practice does it take to rock at the guitar? it is the same thing for programming.
Study rock beat midi files BFD has amazing MIDI files, Start from one of those beats and try to add one BD in the right spot to vary it or try to add 2 high hats in the right spot + one BD. You will fine that there may only be 1 or 2 right spots in a groove.
The main reason why tracks don't groove is the actual note placement, not the dynamics. Where you place each note comes first then make it better with velocity/timbre changes, don't expect dynamics to take a not so good groove and make it work. With trance the HH's should be the main area that you add velocity and timbre dynamics don't do it to the bass drum.
It takes away from the lead with can go crazy with automation LFO's velocity to cutoff all that great stuff that makes a sound move. Remember the reason why certain grooves are used so much, is that there is not a limitless variation to get that feel. For example for some rock beats, 2 bar beats, there is only one variation to that specific first bar of the beat that will keep the first bar riding along.
Sort of like fills, why is that rolling snare used so much (or used to be used so much, now it is FX fills) because certain fills just work for driving dance music. Depending on your lead and broken 16th note hats there may only be certain fills or variation that will keep to the same groove, the difficulty is finding them.
I use the one note a time/ multiple variation technique 1)it works every time you will never be without a groove that way
2)You will find other great grooves for other tracks at the smae time as writing the current track.
After you have the basics above you can add incidentals with HH like sounds to layer on the hats and push the beat a long+ Ghost notes, try not to add ghost notes before the lead this way they will fit perfectly with the track. You can add ghost notes at the start though it is just my own techniqu to add them to various patterns after the basic stuff is complete. Again you don't have to hear these sound but they will push micro air I call it. Yes I have great words for things.
Good luck and don't get up untill you've got the groove, just stay there try every variation you can untill you get it or your eyeballs pop out of your head or you have been listening to the same loop you made that sucks for so long that you hate music for a month. hahah...
ModularJack said:
I thought the hook was the melody. Not the cliche, but rather the unique part of the song that makes it different than all the other tracks.
I tend to agree with Lodger the most-- understanding the building blocks of a genre is an important part of creating your own sound. Before you can create your own language, you must first speak a language that others can identify with, and then take it in a different direction. Without a frame of reference, all you're left with is experimental music that nobody understands or wants to listen to.
It can also be very helpful to learn how to simulate a sound because it helps train your ears, and gives you a better understanding of your instrument/equipment. It is much easier to learn the ins and outs of something when you have a particular goal in mind. Just look at young rock bands, they almost always start out playing covers, before they gain the maturity and technique to move on to writing original material.
Of course you need to let your emotion and original vision come through in the music you write, but first you have to be comfortable with your tools. I used to write with a given genre in mind, but now I find that if I think "I'm going to write a trance track" I always come up with some gawd awful ****e and delete it immediately, but if I sit down with an open mind and start experimenting I usually come up with something inspired. It took me a couple years to get to this point though, and I realise that learning to speak within a given musical language has helped me find my own unique voice.
-mj-
It took me 6 or 7 years to be able to write great ryhtym tracks every time I am in the studio. I used to spend a week trying to get good rythym tracks untill I realized that I was spending to much time thinking about velocity and ticks movements and not enough on where each sound I am using is placed in the context of the groove.
I know I sound mathmatical but trust me starting from the point I said in my earlier post will breed creativity, it will also boost your confidence because of the wuick results you will get, which will in turn make you work longer. get excited and inspired. After a while you wont need excitement or inspiration, just time.....
