Are You Dated?

[Klemperer]

back on topic,

my idea, which i don't have time to develop now, is that more you rely on the production side of things (sounds, effects) more your music risks to be dated one day or another. for instance, some music of the 70's don't sound dated at all, because the production is not the goal in itself, but the servant of real musical ideas.

Nice statement. I very much agree. And with all the technical possibilities we have around us today, it's sometimes a good thing to remind yourself of this...

On the other side: Some techno-music sounds to my ears like 3billions of times repeated, utterly uninspiring. But then it IS 3 billions of times nearly the same, and people don't care and enjoy it. So for others the music won't be dated soon, even if you can read in interviews with those guys 90% about production and how uncool XXX is in comparison to themselves, and 10% about musical ideas.

It seems a fact that those genres who feared to be dated soon were the genres with the most "fashion rulez"-sentences. If you aren't sure you're doing good music, you seem to start bashing your neighbour . To me it is like they knew how some of their music lacked musicality, but well, that's just my guess.
Then philosophy behind it (in some scenes) that said "everything is quoting from quoting from quoting" may have led and may lead to music that is, well, just a quotation from another one. Not a bad thing, but possibly sooner dated?

[soulata]

for instance, some music of the 70's don't sound dated at all, because the production is not the goal in itself, but the servant of real musical ideas.

really well said.

I've always felt reeses were at the fore-front of technically advanced yet musical, requiring hours of work for a single bar... which is why I love them so much.

And how many glitch artists spent 3-5 months on a single tune, like noisia or Teebee... just on the bass alone?

no offence but: what does the time spent on a bass line have to do with quality of music or anything. Understandable, some things might be complicated to do but I don't find myself listenig to a song/production and saying "yeah, that's fabulous, they spent half a year on that bass lick alone".

call vic wooten!

edit: admittedly - I'm dated, I do pop and porno-jazz.

[dover666]

Yeah. I make DHC, punk rock and grindcore. I'm working on combining them all with grain synthesis and extraTone style. But my music is for my tribe. Don't like to share it outside my home. So i'm making synths for this type of lean. I don't know about spending months or a year working on a song. Most "melodies" and chords are dated. It's time for the new thing. new music. new way. can i get an "Amen"?

[Bonteburg]

as long as it isn't the (dated) amen BREAK....

[foosnark]

In terms of D&B, what is considered D&B, rather than some offshoot like Drill N' Bass, Ragga Jungle, or Nu Skool Breaks (which is really just a slightly modified techstep slowed down to 130-140ish BPM) is fairly narrow. As a result, there is this greater feeling of a niche scene rather than a wider meshing that you find in eclectic sub-genres like Deep House, or Broken Beat.

I have no idea what any of those genres actually sound like. They're just words, and they don't matter because next month somebody will invent a new genre to distinguish that their particular offshoot of Intelligent Nu-Retro Jungle Trancemetal Gabbabreakcore uses a particular Casio kick drum sample.

To 95% of the world, all of this is still "Techno". For that matter, Skinny Puppy, Boards of Canada, and Venetian Snares are all "Techno" to my former roommate

I'm not her, but I still couldn't tell you whether some random track I've never heard before sounds like 1995 or 2005. It's become a bullshit fashion thing, and the people who follow fashion look very silly to people who don't, and vise versa.


P.S. Bring back Afrika Bambaata.

[Barf]

I only listen to 20th century music

[nibbzious]

Some good points Nibbzious, but to follow up a little bit I do believe that the whole DJ-centric aspect of some electronic music sub-genres are somewhat holding the artists back.

But we are powerless at this time... I would love to see electronic music as a whole move away from the DJ focus... but we can't at this point because Vinyl is still the main format around.

Hopefully when Vinyl dies we'll finally be able to do something other than 2:00 minute intro with some sort of tempo-synced percussion track for a DJ to mix. This has always pissed be off, but we can't change it yet... the DJ's are the people who buy vinyl, and they don't want to learn new mixing techniques. They can't risk falling off, there's no money in underground dance music, and everyone needs it.

Alot of "big guys" bitch about it too, that they can't do certain things because it won't make sense on the dancefloor, which to me, is a damn shame. Just gotta live with it I guess.

But to close yourself off, to say that only this narrow range of ideas is the kind music I will allow myself to play as a musician, producer, or DJ is counterproductive and limits the full expression of one’s creativity. Even worse are punters (sorry for using the same term again, but it's the best one to use in this case), who so fetishes one single musical space that they end up missing a whole world of sounds around them.

Oh man, I'm such a punter then. I don't close myself off because I want to, I close myself off because everything else is shit. I'm serious, I hate everything else. I've give up all hope.

Now, I'm still a young kid, so maybe when I'm older HOPEFULLY this will all change. And I'll take all the killer "6 month bassline" production tips with me to whatever else I might do when my huge balls stop flooding my body with manly testosterone and my hair falls out.

Or it could be alot worse. I'll be 40 years old preaching about a long forgotten and long dead dance music genre to people. I'll be right at home here on KvR!

no offence but: what does the time spent on a bass line have to do with quality of music or anything. Understandable, some things might be complicated to do but I don't find myself listenig to a song/production and saying "yeah, that's fabulous, they spent half a year on that bass lick alone".

I do!

Life really is beautiful, isn't it?

This isn't applicable to any other genre... for DnB this is a must because DnB literally just a break and a bassline. But this is more just me, I don't think most people have the same thinking as me.

I just love the complex textures that some people can think up of, in a musical sense. I like to hear alot of effort done. I'm a freaking nerd, dude. Shouldn't that explain it enough?

I listened, and thought ot myself "Yep, sounds like more of the same."

Yeah, I'm not arguing with that point. Reeses in general sound like reeses. But my argument is not whether they sound the same or not, it's whether or not they're dated. Or DnB as a whole is dated. Seriously, you guys are expanding this way beyond what I intended it to be. This is just about those reesey noises, between me and Hunter!

You're missing the forest for the trees here. It isn't about whether people can make a unique bassline for a DnB song.

Yes, it is! This is exactly what my point is! YOU GUYS are trying to TAKE THIS beyond the extent of the thread. If we're gonna talk about DnB, why stop at DnB? There are many of electronic genres we can start nit-picking. Let's just starting drilling Trance! Everybody loves trance! Let's DESTROY IT!

And hell, it don't have to be electronic. Let's start ripping apart that crazy chaotic jazz shit. And it's moot, because people will love it no matter how many terrible things you can say about it. Which applies to everything, in life, ever.

An interesting read, but you do realize how incredibly microscopic this subject is ? The nuances being discussed here apply to such a tiny sliver of music that it's almost comic.

It's like two eskimos discussing the qualities of a certain snowfall around a particular rock from November 1948.

LOL, but I didn't start this. I didn't want to jack this topic, I'm just responding to these guys who are broadening the scope of this microscopic topic. I just wanted to know why Hunter finds reeses, or maybe DnB as a whole, dated.

It's all perspective anyway... and personally I have gained new perspective just from this little thread... Although I will continue to make my "dated" form of music with my "dated" beats and my "dated" basslines and I won't love it any less. I love this shit, and that's why I make it. If it falls of the edge of the earth (it's already pretty damn close) I'll continue to make it.

And isn't KvR supposed to bitch about the tiniest little details? Let's go start an analog oscillator thread? I THINK THE VIRUS ALIAS LOL BIG NEWS, SERIOUS BUSINESS

as long as it isn't the (dated) amen BREAK....

Co-sign.

my idea, which i don't have time to develop now, is that more you rely on the production side of things (sounds, effects) more your music risks to be dated one day or another. for instance, some music of the 70's don't sound dated at all, because the production is not the goal in itself, but the servant of real musical ideas.

Yes, next year all the amazing production techniques WILL be dated, but by that time, we'll all be doing something new. But you're opening a whole new can of worms here... IDM applies to this too... Genres like this focus very deeply on production aspects and I've always wondered why.

This is what excites me... new sounds will continue to be discovered yet will live in a musical context... as simple as a 3 note bassline. I won't be interested in just 3 notes, but when these 3 notes are masked by morphing and evolving texture I don't really care how simplisitic the actually melody is.

I'm just hardcore I guess. Whenever I listen to ther forms of music I immediately become bored because I don't hear sounds I have no idea how to make... and I love that feeling. "Holy crap, how did they do that!??! I gotta figure that out!"

Music has many definitions, as we can see. How one form of music can be so focused on just production almost ignoring things that are well, musical. And yet people continue to do and more importantly, love it.

I'm not her, but I still couldn't tell you whether some random track I've never heard before sounds like 1995 or 2005. It's become a bullshit fashion thing, and the people who follow fashion look very silly to people who don't, and vise versa.

It's all bullshit. Like I said, it's KvR, right?

Many not be on-topic, but some excellent points have been made from everybody.










I still think reeses are the shit. Seriously, screw you all.

[soulata]

no offence but: what does the time spent on a bass line have to do with quality of music or anything. Understandable, some things might be complicated to do but I don't find myself listenig to a song/production and saying "yeah, that's fabulous, they spent half a year on that bass lick alone".

I do!

Life really is beautiful, isn't it?

This isn't applicable to any other genre... for DnB this is a must because DnB literally just a break and a bassline. But this is more just me, I don't think most people have the same thinking as me.

I just love the complex textures that some people can think up of, in a musical sense. I like to hear alot of effort done. I'm a freaking nerd, dude. Shouldn't that explain it enough?

ok. got it.

[Amberience]

see... some things are good things to talk about. They're productive and inspire people to create.

This topic is not one of them!

[deastman]

Let's just starting drilling Trance! Everybody loves trance! Let's DESTROY IT!

Now you're talking. Trance is VERY dated. There was some interesting trance made in the mid to late 90s. Then everyone jumped on the bandwagon, and we ended up with crappy, lifeless trance renditions of everything under the sun. Its just like the "switched-on" music of the 70s which Carlos invented and everyone else emulated until they ran it into the ground. We have an "NRG" radio station here which exclusively plays cheesy, copycat trance songs with vapid, simplistic lyrics sung by the latest dance divas. It truly turns my stomach.

Like DnB, trance started as a vague, freeform new direction for electronic music, but somewhere along the way it began to develop a set of stylistic rules. Once you have rules for what defines a genre, stagnation quickly sets in. At that point, any new artists who come along are basically saying something along the lines of "Yeah, that new song by xxx is the shit! I want to make some of my own badass songs like that song!"

It is possible for a genre to pull itself out of a rut. VNV Nation managed to revive both trance and EBM, and branded it "Futurepop". Aphex Twin singlehandedly liberated DnB with "Drill&Bass". Of course, everyone quickly jumped on the bandwagon, and those sub-genres are starting to sound dated as well.

As already noted, so much of electronic music is about the quest for a fresh, innovative new sound, and less about traditional songwriting. Its inevitable that fresh sounds rapidly become stale from overuse. Its just the nature of the beast.

[ross g]

Yeah. I make DHC, punk rock and grindcore. I'm working on combining them all with grain synthesis and extraTone style. But my music is for my tribe. Don't like to share it outside my home. So i'm making synths for this type of lean. I don't know about spending months or a year working on a song. Most "melodies" and chords are dated. It's time for the new thing. new music. new way. can i get an "Amen"?

not from me...

what exactly is "reese"

i don't know who said it, but i agree with "there are two kinds of music: good and bad"....i imagine "reese" includes both and so does "extraTone style", but beyond the descriptions, seems like the terms are more about exclusion rather than inclusion...if i don't get it, it doesn't mean i'm necessarily too old, it might mean that someone has produced yet another short-shelf-life genre, more on the way...

seriously, please explain the terms....



rg

[Hunter]

what exactly is "reese"

A reese is the term that dnb people use to describe a/the bass sound used in dnb. Basically the distorted growling bass sound that almost all dnb tunes use, often with the filter rising up throughout the note, WAAAAAAAAAP WUUUUUUUUUP kinda thing. It was named after the person that 'invented' it, I think.

I just wanted to know why Hunter finds reeses, or maybe DnB as a whole, dated.

As I said, everyone using the same dozen breaks chopped up, the same WAAAAAAAP basslines, sorry reeces, dropping down an octave etc. Don't get me wrong I love drum n bass, and write it myself, and I too have used a couple of breaks, and I make basslines that are probably classifiable as reeces. Its just that, for example, I've downloaded quite a few mixes from DOA to see what s going down at the moment, and seriously, skipping randomly through a 1 hour mix, you can hear the same break chopped and eq'd differently, very similair reeces et etc. Just a bit of a lack of diversity.

DnB producers are, as you have already admitted, and i have witnessed lurking at DOA Grid, are uber-production-obsessed. One of the most (sadly) entertaining things I've read online was a thread where people were bitching about people using the wrong break for techstep or whatever. I mean, in my opinion, even if my granny played the original break, if it sounds good, then why not use it.

no offence but: what does the time spent on a bass line have to do with quality of music or anything.

I guess that in the same way that you might go, "Ooh, what a lovely melody that is" in a tune you like to listen too, Dnb folks are so into the production aspect of it, that thats what they pick up on. Its kind of appreciating music in a different way than most others would. I suppose in the same way I've just been in awe at Hans Zimmer and Lisa Gerrards Gladiator soundtrack tonight, dnb folks listen to the latest chopped up break and go "Ooooh I really like what they've done there".

Mind you I seem to be stuck in the middle between the two, perhaps why I rate Pendulum's DnB production over most of the Wuuuup Waaaaap reecey tramen stuff you hear in a club etc, and perhaps why so many DnB gurus diss Pendulums sound.

see... some things are good things to talk about. They're productive and inspire people to create.

This topic is not one of them!

Don't read it then.

Aaaaaaaaaanyway. Once you all hear my mighty DnB sounds you'll understand what I was talking about. I've got this top secret break I'm using that no one knows about from this Winstons tune, called Hey men Brother or something...

[ross g]

what exactly is "reese"

A reese is the term that dnb people use to describe a/the bass sound used in dnb. Basically the distorted growling bass sound that almost all dnb tunes use, often with the filter rising up throughout the note, WAAAAAAAAAP WUUUUUUUUUP kinda thing. It was named after the person that 'invented' it, I think.

I just wanted to know why Hunter finds reeses, or maybe DnB as a whole, dated.

As I said, everyone using the same dozen breaks chopped up, the same WAAAAAAAP basslines, sorry reeces, dropping down an octave etc. Don't get me wrong I love drum n bass, and write it myself, and I too have used a couple of breaks, and I make basslines that are probably classifiable as reeces. Its just that, for example, I've downloaded quite a few mixes from DOA to see what s going down at the moment, and seriously, skipping randomly through a 1 hour mix, you can hear the same break chopped and eq'd differently, very similair reeces et etc. Just a bit of a lack of diversity.

DnB producers are, as you have already admitted, and i have witnessed lurking at DOA Grid, are uber-production-obsessed. One of the most (sadly) entertaining things I've read online was a thread where people were bitching about people using the wrong break for techstep or whatever. I mean, in my opinion, even if my granny played the original break, if it sounds good, then why not use it.

no offence but: what does the time spent on a bass line have to do with quality of music or anything.

I guess that in the same way that you might go, "Ooh, what a lovely melody that is" in a tune you like to listen too, Dnb folks are so into the production aspect of it, that thats what they pick up on. Its kind of appreciating music in a different way than most others would. I suppose in the same way I've just been in awe at Hans Zimmer and Lisa Gerrards Gladiator soundtrack tonight, dnb folks listen to the latest chopped up break and go "Ooooh I really like what they've done there".

Mind you I seem to be stuck in the middle between the two, perhaps why I rate Pendulum's DnB production over most of the Wuuuup Waaaaap reecey tramen stuff you hear in a club etc, and perhaps why so many DnB gurus diss Pendulums sound.

see... some things are good things to talk about. They're productive and inspire people to create.

This topic is not one of them!

Don't read it then.

Aaaaaaaaaanyway. Once you all hear my mighty DnB sounds you'll understand what I was talking about. I've got this top secret break I'm using that no one knows about from this Winstons tune, called Hey men Brother or something...

when you say everyone uses the same dozen or so breaks, what does that exactly mean? does it mean there a few songs that dnb producers sample the drum "breaks" from like how rap music used the james brown "yeah, woo" part over and over, and i guess what's called "funky drummer" (might even be the same song)...if so, what are the songs the breaks come from?

i've asked this before, but does anyone know of a website with a comprehensive breakdown of electronic music styles and the terminology used? i get lost when these things are tossed about...



rg

[shamann]

back on topic,

my idea, which i don't have time to develop now, is that more you rely on the production side of things (sounds, effects) more your music risks to be dated one day or another. for instance, some music of the 70's don't sound dated at all, because the production is not the goal in itself, but the servant of real musical ideas.

I'm not sure I believe that. For example, I've been listening to a lot of dub from the 70s (King Tubby, Augustus Pablo, Keith Hudson, Scientist, Tapper Zukie, etc) and there is very little within it that screams dated, and yet the effects and production are the musical ideas.

I think fads/trends/ephemeral cliches are what make things dated. Listen to the Thompson Twins or Tears for Fears for those dreadful brass synth patches and digital drums. You can date those things down to the near second they were recorded.

An interesting side effect of this - the Mutt Lange effect: every thing Shania Twain records sounds strangely like it is from 1988, circa Def Leppard's Pour Some Sugar On Me.

[ross g]

back on topic,

my idea, which i don't have time to develop now, is that more you rely on the production side of things (sounds, effects) more your music risks to be dated one day or another. for instance, some music of the 70's don't sound dated at all, because the production is not the goal in itself, but the servant of real musical ideas.

I'm not sure I believe that. For example, I've been listening to a lot of dub from the 70s (King Tubby, Augustus Pablo, Keith Hudson, Scientist, Tapper Zukie, etc) and there is very little within it that screams dated, and yet the effects and production are the musical ideas.

I think fads/trends/ephemeral cliches are what make things dated. Listen to the Thompson Twins or Tears for Fears for those dreadful brass synth patches and digital drums. You can date those things down to the near second they were recorded.

An interesting side effect of this - the Mutt Lange effect: every thing Shania Twain records sounds strangely like it is from 1988, circa Def Leppard's Pour Some Sugar On Me.

dated meaning "old fashioned", i agree, i don't think dub is dated either...the music was fresh and inovative then and it still sounds that way when i listen to it today ...i feel the same about some rockabilly, the way they used room (or grain silo) verb and tape echo, and lots of songs had a futuristic vibe to them...i think that the production techniques did serve the music as they were an integral part, it would just be a recorded document and presentaion of a song rather than one of the formal elements...les paul's work is the same in that sense...


i still think lots of design from the 50's and earlier were way more "modern", we've gone backwards in many respects...shouldn't i have a flying car by now?



rg