Do you often go clubbing? How does this affect your music?

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Hi

Sorry for the abrupt couple of questions in the title (space restrictions stopped me from giving a slightly less jarring version!)

And I know that there are many DJs and also music producers here who release tracks to be played out in clubs (of varying genres).

I'm interested to hear from you good people at KVR, either if you make tunes for the dancefloor or not, to see what opinions you have about the connection between going nightclubbing and music production.

And so:
How often do you (or did you used to) go clubbing?
What sort of music do you dance to or listen to in nightclubs?

And to what extent do you think night clubs (as opposed to other places) still represent a fresh, healthy market and target for dance music creation?


I'm 35 years old, from the UK and my clubbing heyday (house, techno and happy hardcore) was back in the 90s.
I now occasionally go to a tidy underground techno club in Sendai (where, for name-dropping purposes and by means of illustration, I was lucky to witness Derrick May Dj-ing last summer).

But even though I've read a few well-received dance music manuals (eg the House Production book by Sample Magic), and I can probably arrange a fairly good dance track if pushed... tbh, my heart's not really into making dance music and I don't visit enough clubs now to convincingly know about all the new genres and musical directions that are being created.
(I'm also getting old and prefer to make melodic dub reggae...).

But I know that many of you professional and also hobby producers and DJs enjoy making tracks for the dancefloor.
And you'd certainly be able to give a good perspective about this:

How difficult is it to create dance tunes to suit current tastes, or to create tunes that push the boundaries and directions of club music, if you don't go dancing in nightclubs regularly?

Cheers.
Doug

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Well, I'm certainly not a big club music producer but if some record label would push me to the wall and threaten to shoot me, I'd make some mainstream club tracks, too... :lol:

I've always tried to make funny, strange, yet dance-able music which doesn't fit into any genre... Music where people can laugh about because our world is serious enough...

I'm seriously ( :o )thinking about going more mainstream but I don't want to make boring EDM tracks! (So if there's the name "Tricky Loops", you can always expect something crazy...)

So my few cents:

If you want to make mainstream club music, it surely helps to work as DJ regularly in a club. On the other hand, there were people who weren't great clubbers (for example Calvin Harris) but made great dance music, nevertheless. Calvin Harris once said he rather works alone in his studio than going into clubs every week. (Now he HAS TO go because of the gigs...)

I'm a similar kind of person. I prefer working in silence in my small home studio instead of going to the club and party every night. I don't have anything against going to a club on the weekend but I HATE most over-30 parties (because they always play the same crap from the 70ies and 80ies).

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nope, wont do concerts either...I'm lucky to have ears in pretty good shape and I aint pushing my luck...not planning on performing in clubs but if I did hearing protection would be a no-brainer...I guess I'm too old because there is such a thing as too loud (says the man with more than a handful of tube amps :hihi: ) :shrug:
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Sometimes I do. Not that often, about once oper month, as when I party, it takes days to recover :P

It certainly changed my taste a bit, since in Poland tech sound dominates, varying from fat acid basslines and psy-tech to senseless bang-bang-fart sound. Still, it's good to know what people enjoy and what works well in the mix.
Spending months composing epic, instrumental track makes no sense if you can never play it in a club, since people give up in a middle of break. Trying to find a balance between sophisticated and banging, groovy sounds.

Also, it's nice to see how different tracks sound in a club, both due to room acoustics and extreme volume levels. Bass is obliterating, details vanish, clean sounds become diffused and painful to listen to. hat's why most of club tracks are heaviliy detuned. Need to find a good balance again.
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I club baby seals every morning, I gotta eat!

:clown: -his name is Joe

:? - his name is Steve
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In the early 90's my girlfriend (at the time) gave me an E and took me clubbing for the first time. I started producing techno almost immediatly afterwards. That period lasted 2-3 years until I discovered Jungle ... was going to clubs/parties most weeks by then. I still find seeing electronic acts inspiring.

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I go almost weekly... The kind of music that I listen is normally House, Techno, Tech House, Deep House. Last week Agoria played there. This week was Finnenbassen.

As I'm not a DJ, but like to try things, I try to learn and understand how a DJ can keep the audience interested in a DJ set. Things like that.

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Clubbing? What's that...?

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used to do megadogs in manc with mick/glassback and several other friends.
while i enjoyed collaborating with mick on some more dancey numbers its not something i can do alone, i lack rhythm and attention span or so it seems. still occasionally enjoy gigs by some of those acts.
but nowadays im the weird old hippy that everyone avoids in an actual club :hihi:
im not even a hippy :x

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I am a big fan of a lot of "electronic" music, but the "Cult of The DJ"/DJ culture just bores the sh*t out of me. As such, I don't ever go "clubbing." Then again, I'm even older than you.

I do not condemn the worshipers--if that's their thing, more power to them. Enjoy! However,while I admit some skill is required to be a *cutting edge* "DJ" (or is it Producer-with-a-big-P now? I don't even know), too many of these bozos do *not* have the requisite talent to say that they are anything more than a button pusher. Of course, that's just my opinion. I know it's "wrong" to some people.

To answer your question in a roundabout way, I'd say most new musical ideas that I hear, live or through some broadcast/web media, affects my music. I try to imitate what I like until I assimilate it. I believe this is a good thing for anyone, so I hope your clubbing experience does affect your music--by helping you explore new directions, or abandon old ones because they've become cliche.

The progression to be hoped for (by a composer/musician anyway): imitate-->assimilate-->innovate-->repeat. I'm not anywhere near "innovate" yet. :shrug:

If music is more of a "business proposition" for you, trying to play to the market is going to require the appropriate market research, i.e. clubbing.

Oh, and when I'm out I'll listen to any live music played by actual human beings: from dance to jazz to bluegrass to metal.

-u
"I guess one person can make a difference, but most of the time they probably shouldn't." -M. Simpson

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I've been clubbing an amount of times you could count on two hands. What got me into dance music (mostly jungle and to a lesser extent house) was going to house parties in the early/mid 90's. Sadly the few times I've gone to a party recently it's been all about cliques of people talking about stuff and hogging the games console. Really shitty vibe. The old parties were just all about music and dancing, a bit of chit-chat and some nosh for when you have the munchies, but mainly just goofing around to beats. Good times that are sadly yet to be repeated. Around here pub DJ nights are very standoffish, everyone concerned about dancing the "right" way and a sort of war going on about who is the "coolest". Personally I'd rather be a shutin nerd with my machines all night than that crap :hihi:
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I used to go clubbing a few years ago almost twice per week. Mainly at house/techno parties.
I was also producing this kind of music until recently and I can definetely say that going out
helps you stay in tune with what this music kind should sound like.

In my opinion club culture and music is directly linked to eating stuff that makes you want to dance.
I remember coming from the club at 8 in the morning and producing, I got some awesome results.
Also the effect that a certain substance has on your brain actually lasts for more than a few hours.
I can swear that my music skills somehow got upgraded with every thing i ingested.

As for the state of the clubbing industry nowadays, I can say i'm dissapointed. It has certainly
become a multi-million dollar thing and tunes are now out like baked peas cans out of a cheap
can factory.

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I'm 46 and haven't been clubbing much in the last few years. Actually, I didn't even do much clubbing in my younger college days because my bands were usually gigging, and if we weren't gigging, I was doing sound for other bands and/or studying or trying to catch up on sleep. That hasn't stopped me from making club music and I've actually had more success with it than I've ever expected, even though I don't put much effort into getting my music "out there." But, I do feel like I don't really "get" the club scene the way people who live the club lifestyle do, and I'm not really into a lot of the non-vocal dance music, unless it has really strong melodic elements to it. I used to collaborate a lot with a few other guys who are much more into the club scene and the music we've released under other aliases have done much better, partly because it fits better into their respective genres and partly because the other guys are much more active in pursuing labels (something that doesn't really matter much to me).
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