Creating Drive

Electronic Music Production // Dark Arts
Alume
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Creating Drive

Post by Alume »

Hey guys,

I'm trying to get some more dancefloor orientated grooves into my arsenal but I'm havind a hard time. I usually make dreamy tracks, who are more.. well I guess listening techno. I use alot of atmosphere and pads as well, they tend to slower the pace.

Its not that I want to make party bombs, but I want to know how to make them and use elements if I feel like it. I know there is not an ultimate way or method, but im sure there are some tricks.

So what do you think is dance material of how do you approach such a track?

Or is it just a way making music?

I dont know, I'd like to hear your opinions on leads, grooves, pads.. all elements.

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krypt
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Re: Creating Drive

Post by krypt »

Hi man,
before i tell you my tips&tricks i'd like to share interesting observation with you. Recently it struck me, that my friends who use session view in ableton make better groove/drive in their tracks than those, who use arrangement view. second ones make more developing and dreamy tracks (to my mind interesting, but less dancefloor oriented). i leave conclusion up to you, but it's interesting, how only your DAW environment and view affect productions' groove.

if i am looking for better drive i have to plug my midi keyboard, play some notes (by deafult a use laptop keyboard). then use some choruses, resonators and bunch of effects provided by ableton which affect the harmonic and richness. i like appregiators, it's great way to create groove. but the funny thing is, often groove/drive stands opposite to arrangement, so you can't be to imaginative - the simpler, the better. if you really can't, take your currently used kickdrum as a sample, take first effect that comes into your mind and try to make groove out of it. step by step, by enriching it and adding more elements, you have to end up with some drive in the track.

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Ttinga
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Re: Creating Drive

Post by Ttinga »

If you don't know about these already, using sidechain compression (to the kick) and parallel compression are two pretty common techniques.

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Lag
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Re: Creating Drive

Post by Lag »

Make percussion elements late for between 5-40ms. Or make them hit earler for the same amount.
And play with velocity. :)
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willemb
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Re: Creating Drive

Post by willemb »

some points:
-As Lag says, a little bit early or a little bit late hits.
-More as per Lag, velocity, on a simple level, if you have 16th hihats, try 64 32 48 16 for example, or 48 16 64 32
-Mixing elements with a slight swing with elements without swing.
-Small delays with no/low feedback (say a 16th note delay, with some lfo/swing is creating little bit early/late hits)
-ghost hits
-little precursors (i.e. a small short high sound before a heavy kick, it will sort of suck you into the kick and will also make the kick sound heavier)
-Mixing different short delays, i.e. a short stereo triplet delay on hihats, mixed with a 16th note delay on kick
-As per Ttinga, all of the above, and then sidechained

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Lost to the Void
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Re: Creating Drive

Post by Lost to the Void »

Melody isn`t so important here, you really want to look at the drums if you want to drive the groove forwards.
Watch some drum videos, lessons on dragging or pushing the beat.

Techno is pretty much drum music, even melodic elements are treated as percussion really.

It`s worth looking at the melodic work of Steve Reich (A drummer originally) to see the way he takes melody and drives it rhythmically. (He is the progenitor of techno, he was making techno waaaay before the detroit peeps).


In the same way that melody has call and response, so should your drums if you want drive.

A low hit required a high hit in response to create balance and movement (which is why...kick -> snare)

Simple methods to create forward drive are to simply take the kick and mirror it, but stagger it. Put your percussion on the same points as the kick. Then shift that percussion forwards or backwards in the bar by a 16th, or an 8th or whatever. So instead of 1-5-9-13 the percussion is say..... 3-7-11-15.

Another way is to drive the percussion IN to the kick, so late notes that slip in to the kicks (by going off grid).

Call and response can also be done with velocity, (loud note is mirrored by soft note in the bar by the same sound)

There`s a lot more I can say about this (I been playing drums since I was 11 so I did a lot of theory of percussion in my life), but I`m a little busy today.
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willemb
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Re: Creating Drive

Post by willemb »

Also, varying lengths of hits. For an example, listen to the open hat in my track Spiraal which drops at 3:04, its straight on the upbeat, but the 1st is short, 2nd is long.

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Re: Creating Drive

Post by innovine »

Make sure you are stretching things out in time... just listening to a 1bar or 4bar loop gets dull. Arrange so you have something different happening at 16 and 32 bars. There's a greater sense of anticipation and reward when your longer cycles complete (and the song enters new territory). Use risers, little bongo fills, swooshes and one shot fx here and there to keep it rolling. Subtle lfo's slowly (several bars) and gently modulating things can help it breathe and not sound dull, yet you don't hear it as a change really. Also, like mentioned, move your snare a tiny bit early and push or pull a few other elements.

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penumbra
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Re: Creating Drive

Post by penumbra »

I don't quite follow exactly what you mean here...
Lost to the Void wrote:Simple methods to create forward drive are to simply take the kick and (mirror it) :?: , but (stagger it) :?: . (Put your percussion on the same points as the kick) :?: .
because a track with a kick on every quarter is completely different than verb bass... the former is creative... latter is not.

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Hades
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Re: Creating Drive

Post by Hades »

innovine wrote:Make sure you are stretching things out in time... just listening to a 1bar or 4bar loop gets dull. Arrange so you have something different happening at 16 and 32 bars. There's a greater sense of anticipation and reward when your longer cycles complete (and the song enters new territory). Use risers, little bongo fills, swooshes and one shot fx here and there to keep it rolling. Subtle lfo's slowly (several bars) and gently modulating things can help it breathe and not sound dull, yet you don't hear it as a change really. Also, like mentioned, move your snare a tiny bit early and push or pull a few other elements.
I think there's a difference between putting variation in your track (as to not make it sound dull) and trying to creative drive/groove.
Alume is asking about groove/drive.

I don't have a problem with putting in variation in my tracks, but I find it very hard to put groove/drive in my tracks.
But then I make more listening techno anyway, so maybe I should just embrace my faults and use them instead of being annoyed by them.
so in any case, I'm not a person to be of much help to him. :)
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Re: Creating Drive

Post by innovine »

I am the opposite.. lots of drive, but too little variation. Maybe I'm a bit towards arrangement with my suggestions here, but moving hits off-grid and sidechaining has already been mentioned, so what the hell, maybe it helps. I get stuck listening to 1bar loops a lot. I notice that if I play the same 1bar loop over and over 16 times and add a small fill on the very end of that 16th bar only, my brain automatically starts tracking this longer loop length, and, I dunno, I get an expectation when it's coming around soon. This adds a certain, hmm, momentum lets call it, to the track that is entirely absent if the same loop never has a long term variation. So, at least for me, there is extra information during the 1bar that is changing and counting down (the distance to the 16th bar), even if the 1bar itself is identical. That provides a great deal of drive in otherwise minimial compositions, or maybe that's just me, who knows. If you study something that does the opposite (Burial springs to mind) it can be very nice to loose yourself completely in the track and not really know or care where you are and which phrase is next, but if you want dancy stuff that has groove/drive/momentum/pace/energy whatever, anticipating the changes is a big part of what I enjoy in that kind of thing. The risers and drumfills are highlighting such structure and guiding (and sometimes tricking) the audience expectation of the changes. Keeps everything moving forward, IMHO. YMMV of course.
Last edited by innovine on Wed Jan 21, 2015 9:50 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Creating Drive

Post by innovine »

As an exercise, try making a track with only 808 and 908 percussion, keeping things on the grid, and get it banging by altering the arrangement only. It'll be cheesy acid techno, but I've learned lots by doing this and concentrating on the fills, variations and arrangement to power the track along. In the end, I think that's what the OP is asking for..

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Lost to the Void
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Re: Creating Drive

Post by Lost to the Void »

A rigid lifeless beat with fills won't drive the track forward though.
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Re: Creating Drive

Post by innovine »

Neither will the same 1bar loop for 5mins, even if all the hits are off-grid.

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Re: Creating Drive

Post by willemb »

yes it will, like a train.

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Re: Creating Drive

Post by Planar »

Hades wrote: I think there's a difference between putting variation in your track (as to not make it sound dull) and trying to creative drive/groove.
Alume is asking about groove/drive.
This. I think some wires are being crossed here.

Alume, I reckon you make a track with no pads, drones or long melodic elements and you'll be halfway there. These kind of elements do reduce energy as you rightly point out. If you have them, make them sit lower in the mix and let the drums be the main element of the track. Everyone else's advice is solid, but I'll add to apply the off grid approach to bass, use of delays and using Abletons groove pool.

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Lost to the Void
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Re: Creating Drive

Post by Lost to the Void »

innovine wrote:Neither will the same 1bar loop for 5mins, even if all the hits are off-grid.
Try telling that to every techno track written in the 90`s
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Re: Creating Drive

Post by Mslwte »

i think groove is fairly easy to achieve, i just keep moving elements around either on/off the grids or loop/start points until i find a groove i like. but ive always struggled to create a drive, i.e. pushing the track forwards.

sometimes ive wondered if a lot of it is how my brain interprets what i am hearing. for example i can listen to a track and im convinced that a snare is tuned differently on each hit like it is going "up down up down" but if i stop and listen again actually it isnt doing anything except playing in the same tune every hit.
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Lost to the Void
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Re: Creating Drive

Post by Lost to the Void »

Mslwte wrote: for example i can listen to a track and im convinced that a snare is tuned differently on each hit like it is going "up down up down" but if i stop and listen again actually it isnt doing anything except playing in the same tune every hit.
That`s one of the great things about techno though right? the repetition allows your mind to focus on the minutiae within sounds, and from them it created melodies.

I`ve been in clubs and heard tunes I own, and sworn there is a mleody in there I`ve not heard before, and then on getting home and listening to the track, nope, no melody there. It`s why techno works at high volume.
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Mslwte
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Re: Creating Drive

Post by Mslwte »

youtu.be/dkV0NWc-pyc

the kick in this is definitely moving up down up down

tune! :twisted:
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