Dark-wave/modern/EDM music creation for dummies?

[summerinstereo]

On 2/23/2023 at 5:46 AM, CyberGene said:

I have a side little "project" with two friends of mine. We're good at drinking beer together, never failed at that since college, on a weekly basis... 🤣 Anyway, we've had this bright idea (maybe we were too drunk) to also try making some music together. Now, I'm an (intermediate amateur) classical pianist with a certain jazz/funk background, the second guy is not a musician but can sing pretty well some Depeche Mode stuff and the third guy plays bass in an amateur church band 😀 So, nothing in common after all. Besides we all love Depeche Mode. And want to make similar music: dark wave, electronica, EDM, etc.

 

Now, the expectations are mostly towards me since I'm most experienced with keys, especially synths (I can program my own analog-style patches, etc.), I know how to record some tracks in Logic Pro X. But that's about it. I tried to create some modern music but simply don't know where to start from. Tried to sequence some drum patterns in Logic but they are rather pathetic, sequenced some tracks but my mind is always working more in the traditional bass-harmony-melody way.

 

Is there any chance a (way too) traditional guy like me to learn making more modern music? What is needed as skills? Which programs to use? Or hardware? What would be the easiest way to make this paradigm shift from traditional harmonic/melodic type of music to more pattern/rhythm/sound/FX oriented one? I'm not even sure I may need my keyboard, I see some videos where some youngsters are using pads to enter notes/scales and the rest is done by the machine 🤪 Maybe I'm just too old for this sh*t after all...

 

I found some interesting suite of generative sequencer/drum/riff apps: https://audiomodern.com

Any experience with it? Any other suggestion for generative apps that can help more easily produce modern music?

 

 

I'm not a professional by any means, but I am a synthwave act - here's a link to my Spotify and Youtube channels.. I'm a small fry.

I still might have some info to share that could help you out - though I'm not "EDM" or "Dark Wave" so keep that in mind - I do love a lot of that stuff though.

 

With drum sequencing - if you listen to any modern acts doing this stuff (check out Gunship for a start).. you'll find the drums are super simple. They just keep the beat. Some songs it's literally just a kick and a snare and that's it. A lot of it doesn't even have hi-hats or toms. A lot does - just saying, super simple.. he's not EDM or Dark Wave but check out Timecop1983 for an idea of just how simple the drums can be, in an adjacent genre.

 

It's absolutely possible to get out there with traditional leanings, and produce modern music - listen to the melodies of acts like I've listed, or Kavinsky or Perturbator - the melodies themselves are stupendously simple. My own melodies are crazy simple. These are hyper-simple genres. Coming from a traditional background, you'll have to strip back what you want to do, and then strip it back some more. And again and again, until your melodies are quite literally 2-3 note lines, and probably repeated over and over throughout the songs.

 

Melody wise, these genres look at things from a more zoomed out level - the songs are basically made up in blocks, you'll have your instruments and melodies coming in and out, they'll all be ridiculously simple, and you're looking at it more as an overall start-to-finish vibe sorta thing rather than anything too specific and full of technique or intricacy.

 

For programs, whatever you're comfortable with. There's people all around these scenes doing everything in all DAWs, nothing stands out as a hands-down favourite, although my understanding is FL Studio is great for it and so is Ableton. I've asked on Twitter what DAW people are using (though do remember I'm a synthwave act, and getting responses from mostly other synthwave acts) and it's a bit of everything, really.

 

My preference is for Bitwig, but I'm exploring other options.

 

You can definitely just click the notes in on PC in the piano roll, and perhaps you should - these genres feel super robotic for the most part, everything is to the grid and dead-on. My own stuff isn't, neither is a lot of other acts that would fall within these genres, but seriously *most* of it is bang on, grid-style stuff.

 

A couple of things I've picked up - sidechaining the bass to the kick drum is crazy common, it's so common that when you're starting out (like I am! I'm only 3 songs deep!) that you might as well just always do it at first. Just to get into the swing of things.

 

Typically, it's kick on 1 and 3, and snare on 2 and 4. The sidechained bass will sound like it's pulsing in-between kicks, either 8th notes or 16th notes.

Probably a synth bass.

 

You can do whatever you want with sculpting sounds, but lots of acts layer their kicks and snares and pads and everything, really, so many ultra-simple melodies get layered so even a single note can sound and even feel massive.

 

Most of it doesn't have real instruments anywhere. Your friend being a bassist doesn't mean much - the basslines are usually synth-bass, clicked into a piano roll.. so not even played at all.. lol.. but he might have some ideas. Thing is those ideas are probably not relevant initially because it's pretty much all root notes.

 

I can only speak personally from a synthwave perspective, I haven't made any heavier stuff yet - and I'm also an amateur, as well - the above is just my opinions and thoughts based on what I've been learning and picking up as I go.

 

 

[CyberGene]

@summerinstereo that's a lot of interesting and useful info, thanks for all these hints 👍🏻 BTW, the bassist also plays guitar, apparently not on the uber-shredder level but I think in the genres I'm interested in the guitar can be used mostly for its specific sound with various effects and for short riffs. I'm still thinking how I can actually integrate some of my keyboard skills into such type of music because I would quickly become bored if I am to program something and not play at all. I think we may also broaden into more genres after all, not just the the various wave subtypes and EDM, but also any experimental/alternative type of music, including stuff like David Bowie, or even heavier music such as Rammstein, etc. I guess we will eventually settle on what works best.

 

BTW, following some advice from the previous posters, I started listening to where Depeche Mode are coming from, namely their first albums which I've never considered so far, I only like what they do after Violator. Their early attempts are almost what you describe, pretty simple rhythm from a drum machine, some childish synth lines/riffs and you call it a song 😀 It's funny how they progressed into their later work which is very well crafted in every possible way, including with a rich harmonic language and non-standard progressions, string arrangements, etc.