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Posted : Jan 3, 2013 19:52:15
Hello, I've been wandering around a few psytrance forums today hoping to find some advice regarding the construction of groovy perc lines in the progressive/goa style (I've been looking at tracks by the likes of e-clip and ace ventura). I'm alright at melody writing but I'm constantly bashing my head against a wall when it comes to writing drums or creating kewl atonal synth patterns that support the 'visual' of the track if you get me. I'm using ableton live 8 atm but alot of it's functions are still pretty mysterious to me, at the moment I've just been loading drum rack, dragged in a bunch of samples and wrote random crap in the midi editor. Short of the 10-year journey of learing to play drums asnd getting good, are there any neat programming tricks to take the pain out of it in the meantime?
Here's a rough track I'm hoping to fill with interesting and picturesque rhythms:
My main focus is on getting better at writing perc at the moment but any other criticism ppl think is valid is welcome. I've still got a long way to go >.<
Xsze
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Posted : Jan 3, 2013 23:31
Try to reconstruct the things you hear, strip down some loop and see the ingredients....little imagination and effects can make wonders, try to construct some basic rhythmic pattern than experiment sending it to different effects and panning.
For example I put whole rhythm part through Space Designer's (reverb) warped spaces algorithms, like ghost loop thing just to mix it with original one.
But constructing groove that works is fundamental, there is no processing to make something that don't work better.
Try less is more and spice up the things you have, you will be surprised how many variations of few sounds there is when you start cutting and layering processed results
Something to get your juices flowing
Padmapani
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Posted : Jan 4, 2013 01:11
i also have a bit of difficulty with percussion, but as i'm producing goa, for me the focus lies on the synthwork and melodies anyway most of the time. sometimes a bog standard hat loop is enough. you have some nice goa-ish melodywork going on there and you can use that to your advantage: if you already have a nice melody you already have a groove going and ime you can build on that. you have some notes you will want to accent with percussion and some spaces you'll want to fill out with percussion.
another perfectly fine way is to steal the basis for your groove/percussion from somewhere else. especially if you're taking it from music that has absolutely nothing to do with psytrance. if you like metal, listen to some guitar riffs, try playing variations with your perc patch. i suppose that works with almost any kind of music. after all jungle was almost entierly based on one a few second long sample from an obscure soul track.
making your own percussion sounds is also a source of inspiration. play around with a synth and play those sounds to your track on a midi keyboard.
other criticism: you bass is too loud and the kick is WAY too loud. i hope i didn't wake the neighbours by turning the volume up enough to hear some details of the melodies and hats.
supergroover
IsraTrance Junior Member
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Posted : Jan 4, 2013 10:56
trying to recreate a track is indeed a very good idea. Work only with sounds you really like and go on until you are really happy with the result. Don't accept medium results.. only go for good!
soundcloud.com/supergroover
Myconica
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Posted : Jan 4, 2013 12:26
that video actually exploded my face right off! i'm gonna spend today attempting to replicate what I learned in the video and translating it into what I want. it always seems so bloody simple when it's pointed out. i even got a new all-frills grain delay recently and didn't put two and two together.
And yehah padmapani, I had been trying to come up with new sounds for perc with different synths but what I was doing just sounded like crap or low quality. I have a bunch of junk samples I took in college but I could just never make anything good out of them :/ and yeah thanks for pointing out the problem I have with balance (bwa ha ha!) it's actually nice to hear that my kick and bass is too loud for once, the reverse has usually been my problem XD
supergroover, yeah in the past I've tried recreating various tracks, the one I've showed you here I used e-clip's 'holy spirit' to copy the structure. although your second piece of advice I'm afraid I'll actually have to disregard this time - I've been punching myself in the soul for the last 6 years for not being awesome and right now all I want to do is have fun and do whatever.
Thank you very much for the advice guys, I hope you don't mind if I stick around
