Experimentation, new ideas, avoiding tropes.

[Lost to the Void]

So techno is very very long in the tooth now. And we are seeing a lack of ideas turn into the same cycles that other genres suffer from.
Retrospection basically, regurgitation.
Currently it`s either 90`s kick drum and monosynth tools, or trance influence.
The majority of techno coming out sounds like someone else, it`s lacking uniquity.


I`m always bashing on about trying new things, and finding your own voice.

So I thought about a thread where we propose, discuss, and explain new ideas and techniques that might lead somewhere or help inspire.


Let me start.


One of things I have been doing a bit recently is finding new drum patterns by abusing delays.
Pattern delays are great, but any delay will do. Set it 100% wet, send a kickdrum to it, and then start constructing a rhythm, maybe using more than 1 kick for tonal variation. I like to really push the delay, if it has diffusion, then push it, saturation, push it, really using the internal workings of the delay to not only create a rhythmic pattern, but to transform the sound. Echoboy is great, for example, because you have so much control inside it. The pattern delay opens up all kinds of rhythmic joy, the saturation network and diffusion can really transform the sound, almost like a granular reverb.
I find nice beats and then resample, maybe clean up, as transients often smear out too much, so a transient designer will pull it all back.

I like to record the tails of delays of sounds and then resample them, as the delay can add nice textures, whatever delay you use (I have a lot).
resample, play with the loop inside abeltons engine to adjust the groove again.

Getting varying kick textures is nice, it makes a change from the same kick just plodding away all the time, makes it more organic.

Maybe also sidechaining the delay back to the kick itself, or use internal ducking to keep it out of the way of itself.

I`ve also used this to make interesting rhythmic sub rumbles, as an alternative to the standard rumbles, that are....boring. Again, varying pitch with kicks, lot`s of delay, lots of saturation, filter out the highs (all best done inside the delay if possible), maybe diffuse or reverb it, keep pushing it until the transients soften out and a bassline emerges. A mushy, subby bass texture with rhythmic interest. resample, reloop, hey presto, interesting sub bed to go under your kicks.

[Divjak]

Okay I sometimes do this, I usually feel pretty stupid doing it, but isn't that the point of making music... : I put on some weird you tube or film or documentary to play on telly in the background (bonus points if the video itself is sped up or slowed) then I take a recorder put it in interesting place and start recording. Then I mumble or talk (louder than telly) shout make weird noises with mouth while I hit some objects with hands or stick. Also kick something. Point is to make some kind of pauses between talking, shouting and background telly (bonus points if you stop and start the video on telly with remote). Then I take the recording and put it in simpler and make """"chords"""" with it. Its ultra messy, uncontrolled. Its also best time ever. And you can take it as far as you want with processing and resampling.

[Evert]

Nothing groundbreaking, but I've had some great fun with corpus and resonator lately by sending Porc hits through different instances.
I ended up with some cool sounding stabs that had a metallic quality.

[Críoch]

I'm usually only happy when I'm down a rabbit hole of my own making. I have fun / enjoy drilling into one particular sound or technique & go to great lengths to find out whatever I can. Focused on the micro, rather than the macro. That's my cycle.

Recent stuff:

Synths in drumracks. I've been enjoying putting operator into a drumrack with the rest of the drums. Tune the synth the way you want. Place the notes whre needed. It's an all in one job for syncopation & you can tweak the pattern & change the patch where needed. Channel can be extracted when required & proper notes added. One benefit to doing it in drum rack is that you are a bit limited & therefore automate more in clip = more interesting.

Modulation fx. Phasers , flangers & chorus. I'll never forget the flanging , whirling Leslie sound that ruined Status Quo's ' pictures of matchstick men & you'. Not a major fan of wild fx. I do / have used them, but probably never fully appreciated how useful they are. A nice chorus on the init operator patch is a tune. Chorus, when pushed, gets noisy & can make a really boring sound quite tonal & interesting. Almost like a noise modulated unsynced / ms delay. I've almost been using (rightly or wrongly) an unmodulated phaser as a type of EQ / tone shaper. When used right, without too much modulation, phasers imo make things sound almost unnatural (in a good way) & hate to say this; futuristic.

Loops. I've been enjoying slicing random loops on my HD with the 'to midi' settings in ableton. Theres some limited macros available that shorten or stretch the grains etc. You can get quite glitchy & sometimes a Melody or tonal idea will pop out. Even tough these no longer sound like dnb breaks as such after this is done, I might duplicate recorded loops to audio & put the loop start point in different places / shorten the loop length / odd lengths etc.. and assign a number from the pc keypad to each clip 1 - 2 - 3 etc.. and just vibe out something that sounds interesting..

Distortion. Im trying to lay off distortion a little. I tend to probably use too much & don't want everything to sound too WRAAAGGH all the time.

Projects. I usually make something, close it & rarely open it again .. however, if I'm struggling to make something I'm happy with before I wrap it up (one last try), I'll usually resample a bounce of the main musical idea or even the full loop (+ or . the kick. Depends). This will get thrown into a simpler. Sliced. Arped with different note distances. Usually takes things somewhere else or let's me replace something that I'm bored of.

Making music? I'm probably making something closer to electro or something generally in that vein. I really try not to do 4/4, which is just as shit as you end up with the cliche drum patterns. If it's sounding too broken up or fractured, it usually does need a 4/4 kick underneath. In an attempt to break away from the mono bass / trance pad virus equivalent, I tend to do my best to come up with several different distinct parts. This can be same instrument but riff has changed or the midi pattern gets transposed etc. Often I will keep messing around & come up with other patches & ideas. Maybe some resampling of a synth patch with mad fx & filtering. Eventually when the screen if too full, I'll start pruning & could use what's there as section A, B & C etc. All this would be too much to play simultaneously, so it can be great fun muting & unmuting channels in a call & response type way. It tends to keep things moving a bit more, having a larger pile to choose from.

Spoke about it at the start, but I've been putting 5 or 6 operators into a Drumrack & making a long, 8 -16 bar clip. I'll make a sound with the first on a particular note in whatever key (tune the synth coarse). Might drag a copy of that operator to the next cell, add a note in the clip & change it in some way. This can develop nicely & focuses more on interesting sounds than Melody. Can be cool doing the mute/unmute jamming & catching the midi clip at different points.

You can sometimes make any part sound like 2 different parts depending on whether you unmute at the beginning of the bar, or somewhere at the end of the phrase. Sometimes I get sick & bored of my lack of variation & progression, so this helps a bit.

[Kromasome]

This is definitely something that can be difficult to put your finger on - making something interesting, but not so far removed from the norm that it is not good to listen to. I think it's this balance that we all strive for - something interesting and fresh but still also aesthetically pleasing to our ears, or even just something that can elicit some sort of emotional response from the listener.

In terms of trying to do something interesting and original, I have set up some reaktor sequencers that can go into whatever synth I feel like at the time. The sequencers normally have a fair bit of randomisation available so I just play with the settings while recording both audio and midi the whole time. If I get something good then I go back and pull it out and continue working on it - the new scale function in the midi editor in Ableton is very helpful for fine-tuning rough ideas into something more slightly coherent. But I guess this is less related to sound design and more related to generating musical ideas (something I always get stuck on).

I'm also working on trying to build my own sound & effects palette by saving a lot more of my own sounds and racks etc to use at a later time. It's been quite refreshing not putting pressure on myself to write another track and instead just playing with sounds that can be saved for tracks in the future. Again, not a new concept (separating sound design from song writing) but just something that I've been doing lately.

I've also recently been taking samples from heavy-ish bands and then tweaking them beyond recognition (eg sampling reverb tails and reversing them and then mangling further in various ways). Also not a new concept but it's helping to build up the library of my own sounds that hopefully will lead to my own basic sound that is not too generic when I'm putting "techno" tracks together in the future.

[timc3]

Yeah it's hard to step out, but too be honest I don't sweat it much - if I am happy and having fun I really couldn't care less... To me the journey is more important than the destination, and I can be quite happy with 909 sounds and a 303 over the top with a delay some evenings. Totally un-original, but who cares when I am having fun.

I also use lots of delays, on anything and everything. Perhaps too much. In my modular I just got a Rainmaker which is insane, and I should have waited until after I have finished the studio build as I keep playing with it. I have 8 modules that can do delay in my modular alone (and my modular is not huge - but that is more delays than I have VCAs). I also have a Korg DL8000R which is interesting. One thing I have been experimenting with recently is take snippets or even just one note of a sequence into one delay, and then into another delay and perhaps to feed them into each other. So you have the sequence running but then suddenly every X note it will also go through this other chain - it's the same sound so it feels somewhat related but adds to the interest. In the box in Bitwig it's possible to put other devices in the delay line - like bitcrushers, reverbs, resonators, other delays etc.. That can lead to some weirdness.

Another thing I am becoming a fan of is taking a sound and then putting it through a filter and doing different things with the high/low or bandpass outputs of that filter - so perhaps the bandpass goes into a delay, but the high goes to through another effect or filter and then merge the result back together - then modulate the filter cut-off with a sequencer.

A lot of modular artists that I find interesting (which isn't a large amount to be honest, and perhaps it just snippets of overall work) are often doing really interesting things with very few sound sources - but because of the modulation and the interesting chaining it can sound great. Add in a healthy dose of random but not too random modulation and it gets interesting.

[Duffdeal]

I’ve made some rhythmic, evolving atmospheric parts recently by putting wavesfactory trackspacer on a track (audio can be almost anything, e.g. bounce of another tune), side chaining it to the master and cranking the knob to max. Fuck knows what’s really going on there, as I suppose the sidechain is reacting to itself to some degree. Can sound good though.

[buffered]

Im into sequencing filterbank bands as though they were synths. Have a bark filter and rhythmically sequence this with a gate sequencer. Modulating the spectral tilt in sync. Also sequencing the sound via masking with spectral tools such as specops. The usuals like delays on kick drum and open lead into chain of fuzz pedals but i feel like these techniques have been caned by semantica, hypnus etc guys for a while now. Super simple audio rate sequencing with the phasor object in max detecting peaks and zeros to spit out bangs can also give nice results for weird sequences. Then shoot the trigger to a synth and resample.
I dunno, i reckon the new stuff is found within the sound. Lots of new shaping and spectral based cleaning tools out there that are ripe to be exploited. Most are now realtime and modulatable so you can sequence the actual makeup of a sound.

[Críoch]

Lots got great ideas here..

Agree with new sounds being found within. I'm looking forward to messing around with some of the spectral stuff in L11 for that reason. It's good to tweak & listen. Resampling a long passage of whatever is key for me.

Those cold & glassy tones that you sometimes hear in FM & in spectral & also in vocoders on different bw settings; are so alien & strange. Though I like that vibe, but I always find it hard to make a sound that i can use. Im looking forward to some more controls / options with L11.

[buffered]

Okay I sometimes do this, I usually feel pretty stupid doing it, but isn't that the point of making music... : I put on some weird you tube or film or documentary to play on telly in the background (bonus points if the video itself is sped up or slowed) then I take a recorder put it in interesting place and start recording. Then I mumble or talk (louder than telly) shout make weird noises with mouth while I hit some objects with hands or stick. Also kick something. Point is to make some kind of pauses between talking, shouting and background telly (bonus points if you stop and start the video on telly with remote). Then I take the recording and put it in simpler and make """"chords"""" with it. Its ultra messy, uncontrolled. Its also best time ever. And you can take it as far as you want with processing and resampling.

Hey this isn't stupid at all. I used to turn on audiohijack while browsing asmr and bushwalking vids on youtube haha. Just going from one vid to the next. You end up with this textured recording that loads into a sampler. Chop it up and sit it under other percussion. Add delays and stuff. You get a nice bed sometimes.

[Lost to the Void]

I’ve made some rhythmic, evolving atmospheric parts recently by putting wavesfactory trackspacer on a track (audio can be almost anything, e.g. bounce of another tune), side chaining it to the master and cranking the knob to max. Fuck knows what’s really going on there, as I suppose the sidechain is reacting to itself to some degree. Can sound good though.

I only ever use it as a mixing tool, I really should try some creative shenanigans with it. I've just had an idea about using it as a kind of frequency based gate in a feedback network.

See now, you've inspired me.

[Lost to the Void]

Okay I sometimes do this, I usually feel pretty stupid doing it, but isn't that the point of making music... : I put on some weird you tube or film or documentary to play on telly in the background (bonus points if the video itself is sped up or slowed) then I take a recorder put it in interesting place and start recording. Then I mumble or talk (louder than telly) shout make weird noises with mouth while I hit some objects with hands or stick. Also kick something. Point is to make some kind of pauses between talking, shouting and background telly (bonus points if you stop and start the video on telly with remote). Then I take the recording and put it in simpler and make """"chords"""" with it. Its ultra messy, uncontrolled. Its also best time ever. And you can take it as far as you want with processing and resampling.

Hey this isn't stupid at all. I used to turn on audiohijack while browsing asmr and bushwalking vids on youtube haha. Just going from one vid to the next. You end up with this textured recording that loads into a sampler. Chop it up and sit it under other percussion. Add delays and stuff. You get a nice bed sometimes.

All sounds reasonable to me.
I take my field recorder everywhere.
I'm always sampling weird shit from YouTube and Vimeo and processing it. Films and games and documentaries too.
It's a nightmare for my missus if we are watching a film or something and an interesting sound happens. I pause it and write down the timestamp.

[over9000]

I also try to use alot of the delay tails, then pitch them up, with the various ableton algorhythms and settings can lead to interesting textures. Also using eq really unsubtle can be interesting. Eg push a reverb/delay tail really hard in the freq area where you want your tone to be later.
Crystalizer is also very fun.
But i think iam just of the beginning of this stuff.
I can make interesting sounds with experimentation, but i struggle to make them work in a mix. Especially with lowend sounds.
Could someone give more insight to this? Eg how and when do you use your transient designers, how do you use compression to make a sound punchy again?

[over9000]

Im into sequencing filterbank bands as though they were synths. Have a bark filter and rhythmically sequence this with a gate sequencer. Modulating the spectral tilt in sync. Also sequencing the sound via masking with spectral tools such as specops. The usuals like delays on kick drum and open lead into chain of fuzz pedals but i feel like these techniques have been caned by semantica, hypnus etc guys for a while now. Super simple audio rate sequencing with the phasor object in max detecting peaks and zeros to spit out bangs can also give nice results for weird sequences. Then shoot the trigger to a synth and resample.
I dunno, i reckon the new stuff is found within the sound. Lots of new shaping and spectral based cleaning tools out there that are ripe to be exploited. Most are now realtime and modulatable so you can sequence the actual makeup of a sound.

This sounds really interesting and new to me
Could you elaborate a bit more, eg how do you extract a trigger (midi i suppose?) Out of a source signal?
Sorry for the noobish way of asking, but it sounds really interesting and i cant try it out atm

[Críoch]

Depending on what it is, I'll probably add some gentle compression if it's dynamic. If its mostly even / consistent, or quiet; ill use a limiter to bring it up a bit.

Id probably slightly smash everything with a limiter anyway, especially if theres some moving notch-y filtering or pitch modulation / phasey drop outs. Squashing stuff can be good for bringing interesting stuff up from the depths.

[Críoch]

Look up some vids on how dnb guys process reece basses. Same principles.

[borg]

Im into sequencing filterbank bands as though they were synths...

This sounds really interesting and new to me
Could you elaborate a bit more, eg how do you extract a trigger (midi i suppose?) Out of a source signal?

look for 'art of pinging' or something like that on YT. it's like New Midi for Organic People. Of course best in analog world, but had some nice things going in software as well. source can be anything, target works best if it can self oscillate (filters are the obvious ones).


Not to piss on anyone's parade, but almost anything mentioned here (if not all) has been done. And since very long... (Pierre Henry, Radiophonic Workshop, Industrial, ...) Instead of discussing techniques, I think it would be more interesting to talk about mindset. Do you want to make Techno Art or have a good time and party? I seldom saw people doing more than nodding heads at concerts with more engaging stuff. If it was really good, some torso was moving left and right, but almost never moving feet, unless to get drinks... Which is fine of course! Just something to take into consideration.

Find a technique you like, and start perfecting it (I could have a go at something new every day if I want, but we all know you'll never get out the maximum potential from something without putting in the hours). Maybe it's just for one project, maybe it will be the base of your new style.

The way things are interconnectable these days open up a lot of possibilities. Routing/side chaining/triggering has never been easier. (but again, this even predates MIDI).
The spectral devices in Live11 are really something! Learn these well and they could be your next secret weapon.

[over9000]

Im into sequencing filterbank bands as though they were synths...

This sounds really interesting and new to me
Could you elaborate a bit more, eg how do you extract a trigger (midi i suppose?) Out of a source signal?

look for 'art of pinging' or something like that on YT. it's like New Midi for Organic People. Of course best in analog world, but had some nice things going in software as well. source can be anything, target works best if it can self oscillate (filters are the obvious ones).


Not to piss on anyone's parade, but almost anything mentioned here (if not all) has been done. And since very long... (Pierre Henry, Radiophonic Workshop, Industrial, ...) Instead of discussing techniques, I think it would be more interesting to talk about mindset. Do you want to make Techno Art or have a good time and party? I seldom saw people doing more than nodding heads at concerts with more engaging stuff. If it was really good, some torso was moving left and right, but almost never moving feet, unless to get drinks... Which is fine of course! Just something to take into consideration.

Find a technique you like, and start perfecting it (I could have a go at something new every day if I want, but we all know you'll never get out the maximum potential from something without putting in the hours). Maybe it's just for one project, maybe it will be the base of your new style.

The way things are interconnectable these days open up a lot of possibilities. Routing/side chaining/triggering has never been easier. (but again, this even predates MIDI).
The spectral devices in Live11 are really something! Learn these well and they could be your next secret weapon.

Thx will check it out!

Iam totally with you about the mind set thing.

I have seen no dancefloor go crazy for a 4 hour semantica/ auxilary / hey listen to my textures kinda set. NONE

Iam totally for exploring new techniques and territories with music and in life in general.

But techno is functional music for me.
The joy comes from the simplicity & limitations
I mean what is a club? Awareness is narrowed, light is sparse, its loud, the groove pumps, talking is more or less obsolete
Its these limitations and repetitions that make it work for me. Theres only the body and the sound and the connection to the other strangers through dance
One of the best sensations in life for me

And a good techno set brings me to that place in more cases, than a sophisticated music exploration does

Of course theres also really good groovy techno that has a crazy sound design. But it has to make me dance. And the super sophisticated sound like grey area mostly doesent

All a matter of taste too ofc

And i think its the same difficulty or someone needs to be inspired in the same way to make a great tune, be it a 909 kick driven techno tool or a leftfield track with crazy rhythms and textures
There are not many awesome tunes in either category for me

[borg]

yeah, exactly my sentiments...

some nice pinging:
youtu.be/qJRXxkswXdg

[dubdub]

Perhaps not new to others but I've been playing around with audio rate modulation a lot recently.. not so much for the typical bloops and noises but more as a way to add grit and texture to sounds ...