Going beyond techno

[innovine]

Just wondering if you have any advice on how to expand into genres beyond techno, or beyond what you normally listen to, without your brain jumping in and saying "uh, that chords bad, that riff is too much" etc...

I've been producing techno for many years, and a bit of drum and bass and acid too, none of which are really all that musical of genres. I've developed a good ear for these rhythmic, monotonic genres, but lately I'm feeling that this is a limitation more than anything else.

My problem is that as soon as I add a chord change, or a little riff or something a bit more melodic, my brain jumps in and shuts that idea down as cheesy.

I recently got a few volcas and while learning to use them I just threw together any old shit while jamming, and sounded great, just adding transitions and keeping the mix together and not worried about where I was going. Most lively, colorful and interesting music I've made in 10 years and I had tons of fun. But when I go back to my studio, packed with serious synths and sequencers, I feel so very monotonic and dull. And it IS dull!!

I did take a break, before you recommend that, I played guitar for 6 months while I waited on my cirklon, but now that I've gotten it, I'm not feeling excitement or interest in doing techno or dnb, but everything else sounds cheesy. I hate cheese, but I'm burned out from serious shit. I went surfing around genres I'm not familiar with, like trap, retrowave, hiphop, synthwave, futurebass and wondered if this is a sound I'm interested in doing. it's not, and I also noticed then that I am setting up goals and destinations, and have lost the love of the process, of just making sounds. whwn I first started producing I was very experimental, and loved weird sound. now I just make a kick and a hat and turn it all off again in utter boredom. Any advice would be welcome.

I'm sure it'll come down to what I want to express through music, or something, but tbh I don't know. I like listening to dark, throbbing stuff, and I am always studying it and think sure, I can make that, but actually, I'm discovering that I am bored making it, yet can't get rid of that mindset during actual production. Know what I mean?

[Senko]

You've just conditioned yourself to be set on a particular sound. The only thing that really helps here is experimentation and not trying to sound like "this" or "that". Everyone naturally gravitates to a certain sound. This gives us our unique characteristics that develop over time. The point is to develop your own sound, no matter the genre. While listening to music you can get stuck on wanting to sound a certain way, because sure why not, sounds good so why not try to make it? In reality though, it's best to just sit down and make music you enjoy... actually "enjoy", and not just to fit the bill of "dark, throbbing stuff, etc." that you hear around you - Even if that's what you like.

[innovine]

youemean sit down making music you enjoy listening to, or music you enjoy making. or music you want to listen to but doesn't exist?

I am very genre-focused I notice (I edited my post with a comment on that, if you missed it). messing with the volcas freed me totally for a while, and really got me thinking about everything. 40 year old crisis?

[Senko]

youemean sit down making music you enjoy listening to, or music you enjoy making. or music you want to listen to but doesn't exist?

I am very genre-focused I notice (I edited my post with a comment on that, if you missed it). messing with the volcas freed me totally for a while, and really got me thinking about everything. 40 year old crisis?

Well what's your end-goal with music? Do you produce to relax, to pass the time by, or are you trying to be a recording artist putting out records? There's a lot of roads you can take.

For instance when you add the chord change or riff that you mentioned... Ask yourself why your brain jumps in and says "no". From my experience and knowledge, this is called self-serving bias. I want to sound like Artist "A" or Track "A", but I myself naturally am not making this type of music and when I add in my natural decisions (Chords, riffs, etc.), my brain says "no".

Also, ask yourself why you are considering something as "cheese"? Sure, there are genres and music that you might not like and might seem too uplifting for you, but all that means is that you don't like it. So don't incorporate elements into your tracks that you don't like, but add those that you do like and understand why you like them

[innovine]

I've no idea what my goal is anymore, unfortunately. I've had tracks released, I've played live gigs, I've played in bands, I've held workshops in production, I've made a sample pack. I've done collabs. Nowadays I think I just like keeping my studio neat and tidy.

But there's always a burning passion for music. Or obsession. Can't tell anymore.. I can push myself pretty hard, and have been doing so with little output for a long time. Not gonna give up, but somethings got to change cos I'm unhappy. I spend too much time making tools to make music (presets, sample packs, better studio wiring and workflows) and never really get beyond it anymore.

Self serving bias sounds exactly right... I am out to sound a particular way, or have by habit learned to discard so much.

I need to think about the cheese.

[innovine]

I love being in the flow of it. Live jamming, improv, staying in the groove. Maybe I should get some cdj's :p

[Squill]

The best advice I can give you is to get lost in the music, and just have fun with whatever your making. Right now i'm on the opposite spectrum of you, coming from a progressive/trance background and wanting to make other genres just for the hell of it. Always loved techno and started about 2 years ago just messing around, but now I want to get some work in progresses to be finished productions. What has helped is listening to the genre, using reference tracks, and most importantly just straight up jamming. It's like i'm starting all over again, and having loads of fun just starting out with a simple element and building it up from there. And don't let a genre's wall stop you from your creative process.

[Lost to the Void]

Pick the ideas you like from different genres and mash them together and don't even think about genre.

[Southpaw]

Just wondering if you have any advice on how to expand into genres beyond techno, or beyond what you normally listen to, without your brain jumping in and saying "uh, that chords bad, that riff is too much" etc...

Chords more complex than basic triads, ie: major & minor 7ths, 9ths 11ths, 13ths & sus7th chords and inversions of them are nice if you are looking for a more harmony led track. Throw some non diatonic chords in there too by way of parallel chords or sampled/1 finger style chords for edginess & to avoid sounding too diatonic and song-like.

Even that can sound cheezy too, esp when playing 1 finger chords in a predictable pattern with chord stabs. But there's a lot of uncharted territory when starting a track with a harmonic base, you can even go quite far with just a single chord, like say a 9th chord in 3 different inversions of itself, it can actually come across as though there are 3 different chords and from a compositional perspective, anything melodic comes about pretty easily when there's some sort of harmonic structure underneath.

Diving straight in with a melodic line instead can, for some people ( like me ) seem like a fruitless task with a tendency to get too busy with a single melodic line and then struggle to work anything around that. I personally think a few good, slightly edgy chords going on first helps when building up an idea that contains a lot of musical elements. Then one way to avoid going down cheezy lane, is to build up melodic stuff across a number of different instruments/sounds, so that there's no obvious repeating riff ( unless you want that ) but more of a 'sense of a riff' which comes from cleverly layered and placed contrasting sounds.

Or, do the opposite and actually write a riff with a single synth with an 'init' patch and aim for something that works rhythmically and melodically over the harmony and doesn't sound cliched or cheezy. With an 'init' patch, you will focus more on that side of things rather than succumb to the synth patch and be led by that. Then once you have something you like, break the riff up into 2 or 3 parts with different sounds playing a different part of the riff - you can end up with interesting 'call & response' musical phrases which are far from cheezy and sound quite sophisticated - this works quite well with arpeggios too sometimes and it's a nice way to pull out melodic ideas after some manual adjustments and other decisions.

Another way is to explore counterpoint or simple monophonic lines that could be quite sparse and empty or be busy by themselves but when layered with other similar lines, complex harmonies and rhythms can be created.

That's a few ways off my head I can think of approaching more harmonic/melodic based stuff. My own pref is to find a few chords, even if the chords are removed later, I just find that harmonic bed acts like a framwork on which other ideas can be developed.

[sinesnsnares]

So recently I had a similar problem to you, where i was starting projects, throwing up a kick + hat only to get bored of it and give up in frustration. I decided that since i wasn't really feeling creative I would just focus on one element of a track and try and do that, worry about making a "track" be damned. So I processed kick drums to use later, i worked on hi-hat & percussion patterns for later, went field recording, took a kick+bass+hat failed project and tried to arrange it to be as interesting as possible with so few elements, etc. One of the biggest game changers, for me, was trying to do atmospherics. I actually ended up getting really inspired by starting, rather than with the kick + rhythm section, with field recordings and firing up a few synths to jam. By the time i had something that i could listen to without the drums, adding the drum sounds was easy. Felt like using my left hand to produce, if you know what i mean.

Some of the sounds didn't work as a traditional techno tracks, but then you get the kind of noise/atmospheric/beatless sounds that fit between the bangers on albums. Sure, it's probably the most obvious way to go "beyond techno" but it was a lot of fun and helped break out of the funk.

[arkos]

Some very good point's have been made here already and I can relate to the OP as I went through the same phase when producing d&b, even went so far that I sold everything and thought I was done with producing for good.

I had overloaded myself with equipment and when it came to do something I would just be messing with a synth and maybe a filter for hours and not produce anything didn't even bother to open the Daw and press rec most of the time, what an idiot I was. (or am)

All that equipment was somehow overwhelming and just the thought of turning on everything was a chore.
(It's less so with software I find, but too much is too much regardless)

Funny thing is when all my hardware was gone I only then first noticed how much I missed all that stuff (doah!) and I knew I wanted to continue producing so I started again completely itb with a laptop.

Thing was going from all hardware setup with frigging cables everywhere and having to press record and wait for the actual recording to finish to just dabbling about in Ableton Live making shit tune's with presets I was actually making whole tracks again, it somehow sparked my interest again in producing.

So my point is why not trim down something you don't use all that much instead of adding tools ? And trying to keep it basic for a few months and see where it goes from there?

Also have you tried making ambient ? I find that soothing relaxing strings or as someone once brilliantly put it "sounds you can swim in" works well for me when I'm tired of beats and pounding bass.

Also adrenaline rushes seem to get my creative juices flowing like few other things can. Mostly downhill mountain biking and snowboarding but you know whatever floats your boat. I know d&b producer Dom&Roland is all for mountain biking for inspiration, Stephan Bodzin skydives etc.

Whatever you do for fun just go out and have lot's of it, it'll hopefully ignite something within you.

[Kromasome]

Following this thread because I feel like I'm in a similar position in terms of lack of motivation/inspiration (38 year old crisis in my case). I'm also finding that although I feel reasonably competent in putting tracks together (in a technical sense), I am getting frustrated that I can't make the overall type of track that I want to make (ie the overall sound/feeling). I think of it a bit like golf, should be so damn easy but I think that's the cruel part, it's actually way more complex than it seems. I know there is an argument about less is more, and I'm all for it and I know things don't necessarily need to be complex to make great tracks, but it's just how I'm currently feeling. It might also be that I have low energy and I'm simply not putting in enough effort.

To try and get around this I have just changed my default template and put in some things that I wouldn't normally use. I'm also bouncing a lot of ideas out very early on in the process in an attempt to develop some more life in my tracks (and then processing and bouncing up to 2 or 3 times). I would definitely say that I like my tracks more when I record an instrument (VST in my case) to audio with realtime tweaking (on the filter for instance) then come back and dice it up once I've found all the good bits, then lay the drums and other fruit on at the end.

I find my tracks sound the worst when I deliberately try to program something in (in terms of harmony/melody). Maybe my lack of musical training has something to do with this (but I know it's also a blessing in some other ways).

Sorry for the long post - gotta try to squeeze in as much as I can today. Next week the toe-cutters want to know how my week goes (in 15 minute chunks) and spending time on here during work hours won't look good! (I'll probably still be on here in the evenings though, when I need a break from getting frustrated with my "music")

[terly]

Make a simple riff or chord progression on guitar and then make a track based on it. Try a different tempo. Make some sounds without worrying about their purpose. Make the cheesiest thing you can possibly imagine. Go overboard without worrying about the result. Collab with someone and just focus on the elements you know you can do well. Sample some old records and make something completely different with them. Learn theory, and try to figure out what distinguishes a cheesy riff from a non-cheesy one (hint: it's mostly context & aunthenticity. Diatonic dissonance helps)

[intrusav]

In terms of less is more, I picked up a 13" laptop that's 5 years old and can only handle so much processing. I loaded it up with L9 and core library and treat it purely as a sketchpad. It's great because I'll switch it on knowing it's just for fun and that whatever way it goes for the next half hour or hour it's fine.
There's a psychological thing there where you can beat yourself up for not being 'productive' enough, not finishing tracks, not getting the sound or vibe that you're aiming for, sucking at percussion, fx, melodies etc before you even start (such and such is gonna happen again, like the last time blah, blah) but doing this broke the cycle for me and I look forward to "sketching" again.

Fuck trying to get a masterpiece every time. It's not gonna happen! But if you enjoy the process enough, you'll bring it that bit further each time and you won't even notice ..

[winston]

sketchpad or scratch-track is a good idea. rock bands make demos and then work out the track. a lot of electronic music people talk about making element 1 perfect then moving on to element 2 and repeating and that's not such an enjoyable process for me.

i have started to:
-make tracks with just kick drum, claps, hi-hats all with basic treatment (eq/reverb/delay), piano, bass and a high string, get an idea/arrangment down then sound design
-do the musical parts first, before adding any drums. i think Derrick May said (misquoting him probably) "a house track should be able to stand on its own with no drums"
-steal rhythmical parts from another track which become melodic parts. e.g. x--x-x---x---x-x taken from bass is now used as the rhythm of the melody using different notes.
-steal basic arrangements and make the arrangement in blank midi regions before i start making a track.

usually just spend 4 or 5 hours on one project and only go back to it to listen to it to see what was decent sounding in hindsight. it's a fun process and that's kind of what i am after.

[arkos]

I am getting frustrated that I can't make the overall type of track that I want to make (ie the overall sound/feeling). I think of it a bit like golf, should be so damn easy but I think that's the cruel part, it's actually way more complex than it seems.

Just keep at it mate the frustration part will get easier if you just soldier through it but it will come from time to time. I'm not saying I'm some genius of making Techno but at the moment I'm pretty happy where I've gotten in the last 2 years.

New years eve '14 my resolution to myself was to make lot's of Techno and almost everyday since I have been.
I'd say it was about November/December last year that I started to feel happy with my work.
But before getting there there were lot's of shit tracks, lot's of shit 16 bar loops, 2 ok ones, and lot's of frustration

So just keep at it mate, work hard and you'll get to a point you'll start feeling contempt with you're work eventually. And that post wasn't long, have you seen Hades posts ?

[Kromasome]

I am getting frustrated that I can't make the overall type of track that I want to make (ie the overall sound/feeling). I think of it a bit like golf, should be so damn easy but I think that's the cruel part, it's actually way more complex than it seems.

Just keep at it mate the frustration part will get easier if you just soldier through it but it will come from time to time. I'm not saying I'm some genius of making Techno but at the moment I'm pretty happy where I've gotten in the last 2 years.

New years eve '14 my resolution to myself was to make lot's of Techno and almost everyday since I have been.
I'd say it was about November/December last year that I started to feel happy with my work.
But before getting there there were lot's of shit tracks, lot's of shit 16 bar loops, 2 ok ones, and lot's of frustration

So just keep at it mate, work hard and you'll get to a point you'll start feeling contempt with you're work eventually. And that post wasn't long, have you seen Hades posts ?

Thanks for encouragement arkos! I'll definitely keep at it, but I find that my satisfaction levels fluctuate a fair bit at the moment. Some days I'm happy with what I've done, other days not so much. I am experimenting a lot and fire up the DAW pretty much every night to keep working on things - I know it takes time. Hopefully putting in the hours will pay off one day (in that I'll be happy that it's just a hobby and for fun, or maybe get good enough to get a few tracks signed one day just to experience it)

And yeah, don't think I'll ever reach the same length as Hades (story of my life really...)

[arkos]

Thanks for encouragement arkos! I'll definitely keep at it, but I find that my satisfaction levels fluctuate a fair bit at the moment. Some days I'm happy with what I've done, other days not so much.

And yeah, don't think I'll ever reach the same length as Hades (story of my life really...)

Your'e most welcome sir,

I think we all experience that it's like a roller coaster. I don't know how many times I've went to bed thinking I just made my master piece only to be utterly disappointed the next day

I've quit a few times and every single time I start again I think to myself "why did you give this up you dumb fuck?"

Good luck!

P.s. Hades I have nothing against your long post's, I'm just such a slow reader that sometimes it seem's like too much of a chore to read your "books"