Creative ideas

[chrisshennan]

I'm struggling with writing decent dance music!

I've been trying for a while now but I always get stuck and lose any motivation.

I'd love to try a new approach so I was hoping you guys would give me some advice on the songwriting stage of dance and electronic music production.

I come from a band/guitar background and used to just mess around on a guitar until I found some chords that sounded good and then put some lyrics over the top. The lyrics then formed the mood/tempo of the song and then I went about writing other bits for it.

I'm not saying this is the best way to work but atleast I completed a few songs.

With Logic and dance music though, becuase there's no vocals on the track, I find it hard to develop it into something.

I know you could just say to sing on it but I'm not much of a vocalist. I also can't seem to find any vocal samples that I really like.

My basic work flow is as follows;

- mess around with some presets until I find a sound I like and record a melody of 4/8 bars.

- put a basic drum pattern over the top.

- add some other melodies.

-add some effects/automation etc

This is where I run into trouble!!!!

Once I have those 8 bars, I can't seem to take it anywhere.

I just go round in circles, messing with the same 8 bars until I've spent hours on it & hate it as a result.

The process just doesn't feel natural at all!!

Could this be a lack of instruments/effects?

A lack of dance music knowledge?

How do you guys use your inspiration & bring this into your Productions?

I realise everyone has their own way of working , but just a few examples to get the juices flowing would be appretiated.

I plan to get Komplete 8 in the new year so maybe this will stimulate things a bit more as I'm currently just using a few free plug ins and logic sounds.

I don't however want to use this as an excuse as I'm sure I could get a decent song out of what I already have.

I'll attach a link to my latest effort to give you an example.

Jeez! Long post! .....sorry:s

Thanks everyone

 

Chris

[ObtuseMoose]

I'm struggling with writing decent dance music!

...

Once I have those 8 bars, I can't seem to take it anywhere.

I just go round in circles, messing with the same 8 bars until I've spent hours on it & hate it as a result.

 

Here's something that might help: http://tarekith.com/assets/arranging.html

 

--

Moose

[I_Like_Organs]

You could try forcing it.

 

Create 10 different instruments. Then use them, and make sure you use very one. Then try taking bits out and replacing the melodies you made with different instruments.

[David Nahmani]

I come from a band/guitar background (...) With Logic and dance music though, becuase there's no vocals on the track, I find it hard to develop it into something.

 

Do you listen to a LOT of Dance Music? It's nearly impossible to write in a genre you're not familiar with.

 

Here's an idea you could try: take a dance music track you really like, and you think is well structured to your taste. Bring it in Logic, and analyze it. Use some markers to delimitate the different sections, and name them: intro, build-up, drop down, theme, etc... then study how each section differs from the other and in the Marker list, write more notes for each section:

 

- Intro:

Kick with high-pass filter, main lead synth with high pass filter

 

- Build-up:

Kick (full), hat, snare, main lead (full), rhythm synth

 

.... etc.

 

The more detailed your work, the easier the exercise.

 

In the end, delete the track you imported, and write your own, following the structure and arrangement notes you wrote down in your Markers.

 

Best of luck!

[CarlosUnderground]

Great advice David. Think I'll do this tonight for fun(and rock & roll).

[chrisshennan]

I come from a band/guitar background (...) With Logic and dance music though, becuase there's no vocals on the track, I find it hard to develop it into something.

 

Do you listen to a LOT of Dance Music? It's nearly impossible to write in a genre you're not familiar with.

 

Here's an idea you could try: take a dance music track you really like, and you think is well structured to your taste. Bring it in Logic, and analyze it. Use some markers to delimitate the different sections, and name them: intro, build-up, drop down, theme, etc... then study how each section differs from the other and in the Marker list, write more notes for each section:

 

- Intro:

Kick with high-pass filter, main lead synth with high pass filter

 

- Build-up:

Kick (full), hat, snare, main lead (full), rhythm synth

 

.... etc.

 

The more detailed your work, the easier the exercise.

 

In the end, delete the track you imported, and write your own, following the structure and arrangement notes you wrote down in your Markers.

 

Best of luck!

 

a bit like this?

[David Nahmani]

a bit like this?

 

Exactly like this.

 

My philosophy is that babies learn to talk by listening to and imitating adults. So we can learn music by listening to and imitating musicians. And we can learn arrangement by listening to and imitating other arrangements.

 

Then later you can start making them your own by further modifying them.

 

What do you think - did that technique help you?

[CarlosUnderground]

I don't know about chriss, but I've knocked out ten tunes these last four days using this method. Thanks a 1,000,000 David.

[David Nahmani]

I don't know about chriss, but I've knocked out ten tunes these last four days using this method. Thanks a 1,000,000 David.

 

Awesome, that's great news.

[Darude]

Anybody who says they don't do it, they lie... Or if they really don't, they should. Best way to learn, easiest way to get to some initial good results quickly, which can get your own creative juices flowing. These days I have plenty of old tracks and templates to start from if I want to, but every time I come across an exceptionally great track, I analyze it to bits and try to apply something from it to my own productions.

[Darude]

PS. David, this should be a sticky IMO!

[route-electrique]

For me problem usually is that i can't come up anything fresh (as a tonewise). Everybody's using same software, everybody's got Komplete. It takes a lot of effort to make something fresh! (in electronic genre).

 

So, last session we made things different. We grabbed 3 microphones and recorded all the sounds we used (mouth hihats, you name it). First time we also used bass and guitar in electronic track. We had contact microphone under the basses strings, we made the contact mic overload so hard, but the distortion was the coolest ever!. Nothing like you can achieve with software. Best part is that you're so limited, you record and thats it. You end up working what you got and not spend hours of tweaking sound.

 

I love this approach, and will definitely continue using it.

 

Microphone is the best sound design tool you can have in studio. I think next level is dive deeply into amping.

[JetLab]

Hey David,

This is very excellent advice. I just never thought of using markers and notes for song analysis. I'm really digging this idea and going to incorporate it tonight.

 

I agree this should be a sticky