KVR Audio

acYm · Post by **acYm** » Mon Mar 21, 2016 3:11 pm

I remember fondly the days back when I still had new styles of electronic music (with dance drums, not into ambient or experimental) to try and make. Figure out new drum patterns, how to make a certain synth, etc. However I'm under the impression that every single new genre that people came up with since (and including) Brostep, roughly 7 years ago, sucks without exception. Anyone to prove me wrong? Something decent happening underground somewhere? (god knows it's not here in MTL)

Doug1978 · Post by **Doug1978** » Mon Mar 21, 2016 3:24 pm

Check out MingNBass.

thecontrolcentre · Post by **thecontrolcentre** » Mon Mar 21, 2016 3:26 pm

Doug1978 wrote:Check out MingNBass.

Googly Smythe · Post by **Googly Smythe** » Mon Mar 21, 2016 3:29 pm

I fondly remember the days when it was pop, jazz and classical...

nineofkings · Post by **nineofkings** » Mon Mar 21, 2016 3:43 pm

The most fun electronic music happens when you use genres for inspiration rather than as templates. And there are certainly enough around already to mess with - in fact, that's generally how new genres come about.

Take this wild drum-n-bass-wonky-glitch-garage-hop or whatever this is: http://soundcloud.com/iglooghost/chinch ... e-download

ghettosynth · Post by **ghettosynth** » Mon Mar 21, 2016 4:49 pm

nineofkings wrote:The most fun electronic music happens when you use genres for inspiration rather than as templates. And there are certainly enough around already to mess with - in fact, that's generally how new genres come about.

Take this wild drum-n-bass-wonky-glitch-garage-hop or whatever this is: http://soundcloud.com/iglooghost/chinch ... e-download

While I take your point, that seems way more like what the OP is talking about. It's quaint, maybe it's difficult to produce, but it has no staying power on the dance floor. I think that DnB in general is the quintessential example of a new style that emerged from the dance scene. There plenty of subgenres across the board and I'm sure that there is still room to define new ones, but I think that it's a mistake to look at what's happened over the last, say, ten years, and expect that it should be anything like the previous ten , or twenty or, more specifically, to change in the same ways.

I think that part of the reason that we had the style/microgenre explosion in the 90s was related to the evolution of technology and how it manifested in music products. Styles emerged as people discovered how to exploit particular features in interesting ways.

You know, it's just dead easy to explore new technology today at a surface level, you can just download whatever you want. In the 90s, you typically needed hundreds, or sometimes thousands, of dollars to add different tools to your kit. I think the computer production generation has led to the explosion of glitchy overproduced stuff, like your example, and plenty of others, black midi, whatever. In our copy paste save as template culture it's easy to reproduce and multiply different effects. This means we don't discover what happens when we play our breakbeat reacords at 45RPM instead of 33RPM. It doesn't get a chance to sink in because, instead, we warp our sample and go all the way up or all the way down, we go for extremes and discover that sound instead.

I'm not griping, don't take this the wrong way. I just think that the way technology has changed means that how genres are, not only produced, but even recognized, or have any ability to gain traction has also changed.

sqigls · Post by **sqigls** » Mon Mar 21, 2016 5:19 pm

not sure what genre this is, but it seems to borrow from a few places…
https://amrecs.bandcamp.com/releases

nineofkings · Post by **nineofkings** » Mon Mar 21, 2016 5:48 pm

@ghettosynth, I don't think that's new. I think that it's certainly more prevalent now that technology is so capable and accessible, but certainly with the advent of glitch and IDM (God I hate that term) in the 90s, it became all about pushing the technology to extremes, often in an even more maximal, less structured way.

In fact, I would argue that stagnancy is in some ways more common. With the accessibility of technology, we have a whole new wave of dilletantes, who ape the cool new style completely, usually a rehashing of an older one with some small changes (deep house anyone?).

ghettosynth · Post by **ghettosynth** » Mon Mar 21, 2016 6:24 pm

nineofkings wrote:@ghettosynth, I don't think that's new. I think that it's certainly more prevalent now that technology is so capable and accessible, but certainly with the advent of glitch and IDM (God I hate that term) in the 90s, it became all about pushing the technology to extremes, often in an even more maximal, less structured way.

Yeah, I'm not saying anything is new, I'm saying that the extent that they are different and the extent to which the culture is different matters. IDM was not universally about pushing technology to the extreme, in fact, far from it really. It was just about creating dance music that could also be viewed as valid from a music composition point of view. Also, I think that we have this common theme happening here where we lump things into decades that sort of bridged decade boundaries. So, to be clear, I'm talking about how computers and plugins changed music production. That didn't all happen at once either. Glitch was largely about how managing audio on the PC became easier, plugin impact came later.

In fact, I would argue that stagnancy is in some ways more common.

I probably am not being clear, because I agree. Technology doesn't impact music in the same way. It's not all about the gear, it's also about the culture. The conversations that people have about music and about the scene and about how they interact just aren't the same.

Even some big name DJs back in the day didn't have piles of gear. Well, they don't now either, but they can pretty much have all the piles of virtual gear that they want.

With the accessibility of technology, we have a whole new wave of dilletantes, who ape the cool new style completely, usually a rehashing of an older one with some small changes (deep house anyone?).

Right, and there's no impetus to pursue deeply in some direction. You aren't going to discover a unique sound/style that comes from using certain difficult to use gear when you can just download something else that's easier to use.

That said, microgenres were never that interesting then either. I guess we should ask the OP what he means?

Algorithm for new genre:

repeat until new(C)
Select at random two genres A and B
C = rhythm(A) + sounds(B)

I mean speed garage? Cmon, what really worthy of an entire genre and "movement?"

nineofkings · Post by **nineofkings** » Mon Mar 21, 2016 7:15 pm

I think I see now. It's not simply that the technology and culture of today provide a different impetus for creativity, but the actual role of technology and culture themselves as an impetus has changed. Interesting.

Anyway, not too many cool genres as far as I'm aware, even if that is more and more an artificial distinction.

acYm · Post by **acYm** » Mon Mar 21, 2016 8:04 pm

I mean, there's no way we filled up the danceable tempo range completely already. Someone somewhere mashed up 2 styles that no one had thought of before and something can be built out of that, surely. Ideally, something where there won't be a grand total of 1 track like what happened with glitch hop, for example. The new genres are out there, I just don't know any good ones. 8 new styles of house in 5 years, not one of them worth a damn. It's the contest of who can come up with the stupidest noises out of their synths. Trap probably takes the cake when it comes to that.

nineofkings man that's just ghastly, what are you supposed to be doing while that thing plays? I don't think I use the drugs needed to enjoy that.

the last time that there was a huge wave of corporate posers in the scene (mid-90s), several genres that we still love to this day emerged as a movement of protest. today the landscape is arguably a lot worse, it's rock bottom yet it seems nobody is taking advantage of the tremendous advances of technology to make a statement, that's what I'm coming to on a deeper level I guess

is this it? just house techno dnb and breaks forever?

Doug1978 · Post by **Doug1978** » Mon Mar 21, 2016 8:49 pm

What a load of bollocks.

Also, what's with the crazy concern about genres (and a very limited range of examples at that)?

There's a load of great and exciting music being made currently, inside or outside of genres.

Concentrate on making music that reflects you, not fretting about pigeon-holing it before it exists.

Googly Smythe · Post by **Googly Smythe** » Tue Mar 22, 2016 1:08 am

Doug1978 wrote:What a load of bollocks.

Also, what's with the crazy concern about genres (and a very limited range of examples at that)?

There's a load of great and exciting music being made currently, inside or outside of genres.

Concentrate on making music that reflects you, not fretting about pigeon-holing it before it exists.

+1
Forget genre - just make music.

acYm · Post by **acYm** » Tue Mar 22, 2016 2:07 pm

Have to respectfully disagree - just pretended genres didn't exist, browsed Beatport irregardless of anything; 200 out of the 200 tracks I heard were atrocious festival dung. If anything I'm now more convinced than ever of the need for musical barriers. If I wanted to hear good mixes on internet radio I'd have to make a beeline for one of the 4 genres I listed.

Doug1978 wrote:There's a load of great and exciting music being made currently, inside or outside of genres.

Care to send me in the right direction then? Who has been pushing good sounds forward?

badpioneer · Post by **badpioneer** » Tue Mar 22, 2016 3:47 pm

The most exciting newish genre in terms of rhythm is perhaps digital cumbia. Here's a mix but it's a varied genre so this is just one example:

https://soundcloud.com/inimovement/13-m ... ix-el-b-ho

are there any interesting new genres?