Creating Drive

Electronic Music Production // Dark Arts
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penumbra
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Re: Creating Drive

Post by penumbra »

Lost to the Void wrote:A rigid lifeless beat with fills won't drive the track forward though.
did you see my quote of yours on the first page?... I was lookin for some clarification on your "mirroring of kick" etc.
because a track with a kick on every quarter is completely different than verb bass... the former is creative... latter is not.

Alume
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Re: Creating Drive

Post by Alume »

So yeah I've read all your comments and I guess as some have stated my question was a bit unclear. I'm not trying to make a "groove". I like to believe that after 2 years I can make a tune. I'm just more interested how to make a track really out there. Though I did listen to all the suggestions and tried to make a loop with these methods. I want to thank eveyone, I cant go into detail and answer each post right now.

Anyway, I gave it a go. A bit different, no pads, ms later/ sooner notes and most of the other tips:)

I think such a regis kind of vocal can also really drive a track. I have to mention that Im not trying to copy anything its just that I'm really interested in what the brain might perceive as highly danceworthy and hypnotic, like when you have to dance when your on amphetamines or other various substances.

Its so hard to explain what Im after, maybe its just a hard hitting track.

The track(well hardly a track its a small jam):

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Lost to the Void
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Re: Creating Drive

Post by Lost to the Void »

penumbra wrote:
Lost to the Void wrote:A rigid lifeless beat with fills won't drive the track forward though.
did you see my quote of yours on the first page?... I was lookin for some clarification on your "mirroring of kick" etc.

I can't make it any clearer, read the part of the paragraph that explains kick placing in numbers, as in kicks on 1-5-9-13 when taking account of the phrase within a 16 step pattern.

If I have time 2morrow I'll post up a screenshot to illustrate.
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Lost to the Void
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Re: Creating Drive

Post by Lost to the Void »

Lost to the Void wrote:
penumbra wrote:
Lost to the Void wrote:A rigid lifeless beat with fills won't drive the track forward though.
did you see my quote of yours on the first page?... I was lookin for some clarification on your "mirroring of kick" etc.

I can't make it any clearer, read the part of the paragraph that explains kick placing in numbers, as in kicks on 1-5-9-13 when taking account of the phrase within a 16 step pattern.

If I have time 2morrow I'll post up a screenshot to illustrate.
I'll definitely post up some images 2morro, I made a mistake in the timing description, it will be easier to illustrate the point. Once you see it I'm pretty sure it will be an "oh yeah, i do that" moment anyway.
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penumbra
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Re: Creating Drive

Post by penumbra »

Lost to the Void wrote: I can't make it any clearer, read the part of the paragraph that explains kick placing in numbers, as in kicks on 1-5-9-13 when taking account of the phrase within a 16 step pattern.
Definitely appreciate your help... however, I think I got hung-up on the "mirror" term... For years I did mechanical drafting/design stuff, where we used Autocad... and there is a function called "mirror", where you can mirror an entity about a given axis... whether it is the x-axis, y-axis, or any other straight-line... so to mirror a kick (which a pictured happening horizontally) would actually yield a reversed kick... which is were the misunderstanding occurred.

So I was visualizing a left-to-right mirroring; however, now that I go back, I imagine, say in arrangement view, simply copying the kick-midi sequence down to the percussion track... then moving it to left or right by whatever amount... that's probably what you meant.
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 »

you mirror the notes (the blocks you're looking at) on the grid man, or move those forwards or backwards (to the left or to the right)
the notes that trigger the sample/synth/whatever.

obviously, this doesn't make the sample/synth/whatever sound reversed.
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innovine
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Re: Creating Drive

Post by innovine »

It's known as translation. Take the kick or snare pattern and translate it left or right by 16th notes to see if you get something nice.

gedda
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Re: Creating Drive

Post by gedda »

One trick I like to do is use different closed hats instead of using just one closed hat for the closed hat section of the groove.

soulstar606
Re: Creating Drive

Post by soulstar606 »

if you want to make music thats better for the dancefloor, pretend your on a dancefloor whilst yuo listen to your track, or prettend you are playing it live in a club.....you ll notice that at times, you will want the drive to slow down, then speed up, and drop, breakdown etc....so just pretend you are actually in a club in real time.....it's a bit hard to do this at first because it takes alot of patience to get the changes marked down in your song...but if you do this it will be better,

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Lost to the Void
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Re: Creating Drive

Post by Lost to the Void »

soulstar606 wrote:if you want to make music thats better for the dancefloor, pretend your on a dancefloor whilst yuo listen to your track, or prettend you are playing it live in a club.....you ll notice that at times, you will want the drive to slow down, then speed up, and drop, breakdown etc....so just pretend you are actually in a club in real time.....it's a bit hard to do this at first because it takes alot of patience to get the changes marked down in your song...but if you do this it will be better,
Why pretend?
I get up and dance in the studio, if my attention starts to slip I know to add something.
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Re: Creating Drive

Post by soulstar606 »

lol i do that too, i meant pretend your in a club....when it;s really your parents basement ;)

Pelecaras
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Re: Creating Drive

Post by Pelecaras »

Lost to the Void wrote:
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.
This is exactly what meant when I posted in the melody post about little hooks within a track that you can latch onto. I think that when hearing techno at high volume our ears can (for want of a better phrase) play tricks on us, it happens to me all the time. For instance...the bells by jeff mills just comes alive at high volume.

It's one of the reasons I love techno so much, yeah sure you've got the kick and the groove but (in good techno) there are so many more rhythms that grab hold.
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samnatur
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Re: Creating Drive

Post by samnatur »

It's all about the microtiming and velocity. I've gotten good results with "grooves" in Ableton, they often give some life to the rhythm. Variations in general is always good, for example an automated filter on the hi-hats, just a little bit to make it move back and forth. Imagine that you're a drummer, how would you play this beat?

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Wiu
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Re: Creating Drive

Post by Wiu »

Buy Loopmasters latest Hypnotic Basement Techno III release and grin at all these cunts struggling away experimenting and shit. Losers all of you!

Seriously though, all the above advice is good.
Thank you for the laughs, debate, new music found, production tips etc etc over the years. I wish Subsekt and everyone all the best for the future. Wiu.

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Re: Creating Drive

Post by 1nfinitezer0 »

Lost to the Void wrote:
soulstar606 wrote:if you want to make music thats better for the dancefloor, pretend your on a dancefloor ...clipped...
Why pretend?
I get up and dance in the studio, if my attention starts to slip I know to add something.
Based upon Alume's question, this is the best advice. Try to dance to it. And if it's not dancey, sing/hum/yell something dancey and add that.
Does anyone have a standing desk in their studio? I've been wondering if this helps with engaging with the energy of a track.

In regards to Pelecaras' necro-bump: yes, that's one of the most amazing things about techno. It can also be a challenge when producing since you want to add all of those sounds in your head. The real magic of minimalism is being able to imply something that is not.

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winston
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Re: Creating Drive

Post by winston »

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. 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.
i saw a video of someone demonstrating a sequencer and they put the kick on the 3-7-11-15 and i wondered why they done it like that, it's an interesting idea. it's a bit like starting a chord progression on the vi chord and not the i chord so that the elements are out out 'sync' and there's no 'everything starts here' mark. i'll need to try out these methods.

back to the OP, aren't groove and drive different? i would say drive is more like energy, which i also struggle to get to a satisfactory level in my tracks.

it might be a stupid idea, but couldn't you write a track slower, then pitch it up to a new tempo and it would feel faster?
if you write a track in Gsharp at 123bpm, you could speed it up to 130bpm and it would be in A. i don't know if this would have any effect, maybe the drum sounds would be shorter, the transients sharper?

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winston
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Re: Creating Drive

Post by winston »

Pelecaras wrote: This is exactly what meant when I posted in the melody post about little hooks within a track that you can latch onto. I think that when hearing techno at high volume our ears can (for want of a better phrase) play tricks on us, it happens to me all the time. For instance...the bells by jeff mills just comes alive at high volume.
is it not the case that in those 90's techno tunes, the drums would have been tracked out as a continuous 5 minute take from the 909? if it was, then the analogue circuits would, subtly, modulate over time. not enough to hear outright maybe, but here would be a small difference that your subconscious mind would pick up on.

it would be different with many of todays tracks where it is the exact same drum sound/sample that is copied/repeated for the track in the daw, which would lead to Habituation/Selective auditory attention or selective hearing where the brain begins to ignore the identical repeating sound.

i get that this is a slightly different point that you were making about the imagined melodies which we experience in the club, perhaps they are in part created by the alive-ness(?) of the space, i.e. the constantly moving mass of bodies and the bouncing soundwaves plus the eccy-riddled mind.

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Re: Creating Drive

Post by Pelecaras »

winston wrote:
Pelecaras wrote: This is exactly what meant when I posted in the melody post about little hooks within a track that you can latch onto. I think that when hearing techno at high volume our ears can (for want of a better phrase) play tricks on us, it happens to me all the time. For instance...the bells by jeff mills just comes alive at high volume.
is it not the case that in those 90's techno tunes, the drums would have been tracked out as a continuous 5 minute take from the 909? if it was, then the analogue circuits would, subtly, modulate over time. not enough to hear outright maybe, but here would be a small difference that your subconscious mind would pick up on.

it would be different with many of todays tracks where it is the exact same drum sound/sample that is copied/repeated for the track in the daw, which would lead to Habituation/Selective auditory attention or selective hearing where the brain begins to ignore the identical repeating sound.

i get that this is a slightly different point that you were making about the imagined melodies which we experience in the club, perhaps they are in part created by the alive-ness(?) of the space, i.e. the constantly moving mass of bodies and the bouncing soundwaves plus the eccy-riddled mind.
Some really good points buddy.

Whatever it is that causes these "phantom" sounds it is very interesting and I wonder if it happens in other styles of music, personally I've never experienced it in any other genre than techno.
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Post by quest »

I think I may know why krypt's advice on p.1 is on point, it's only a coincidence, but producers working in Session View tend to concentrate more on stacking vertically than stringing things out horizontally, making for a chunkier track that yields low, mid, and high frequency sectionals instead of "token" percussion parts that usually lead to a thinner arrangement.

There is some danger going too far in this direction, as I quickly found out when taking layering to ridiculous extremes - you can get weird phase cancellations and sums especially in the low end, and this will mostly work against you (drowning out the foundation) but sometimes yield interesting effects (half-time and quarter-time composite patterns that create effects that are neither like when the lows are in nor cut, but more like a breakbeat sort of feel).

But I would say there is much more danger in not exploring stacking your rhythm tracks at all. In that case you end up spinning in circles trying all these techniques to "fatten up" this or that, when really you could just start layering to create composite percussion sounds and be done with it (after a little EQ work to straighten things out, another needed polishing step that is often overlooked by the more "raw" producers, myself included).

One thing I do to force myself into this flow is to compose rhythm sections outside of the DAW in a standalone drum machine/workstation, and then to import or print the results into the DAW for further sequencing.

It's a good workflow because it forces you to say "hey, I'm going to focus right now on just coming up with a chunky groove, this has nothing to do with trying to make a finished track".

You could use this approach in any environment including the DAW for your final sequence, if you're on your best behaviour and stop trying to work horizontally for a moment. It could be anything from a composite kick, to a hihat/snare/percussion loop, to a percussive dialogue that plays out over a longer loop period.

After awhile, as Void suggests, you can start integrating the more percussive synth work in this approach as well. For me that tends to happen a bit more midway along the pipeline from loop creation to a finished track, but not always.

Then since I really like the droney kind of arching textures on top, I lay something like an Omnisphere line on top, but that has nothing to do with the topic at hand.

Hope this helps!

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over9000
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Re: Creating Drive

Post by over9000 »

thanks for all the advice here, this is something, that always interested me!
could be moved to classics i guess


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