Complete guide to producing music in 5 brief points

[Dúnedain]

I am an amateur producer of electronic dance music who started in 1998. I obviously haven't dedicated all my time since then and now to producing but still enough to share my experience and views on it. So I'll try to give you (the beginning / intermediate) producer a complete (yes I claim it is complete) guide to producing electronic dance music which might help you practicing your hobby.

Here we go ...

1. Decide to which extend you want to rely on samples from others. Example: DJ Shadow his work consists of samples for 100%. Chemical Brothers, FSOL, The Prodigy is about 50%. Leftfield is something around 25%. Underworld is close to 0%. However even Underworld uses drum loops now and then, cleverly hidden of course. Want to know what samples are used in your fav tracks, have a look at https://www.whosampled.com. When I started I sat behind my computer wondering why I didn't sound like the Chemical Brothers, well clearly because I did not use samples. If you do not want to use music samples you can still decide to use drum samples mixed with a 909 kick.
2. Aware of the several synthesizer techniques. 3 prominent synthesis techniques which you might want to dig in:
   1. Subtractive synthesizes. I leave it to you to find your way into it. However I can say all subtractive synths out there do exactly the same: sending waveforms with the shape of saws and pulses trough a filter. Different sound mainly occurs because of different envelope / filter behavior. So in my opinion you only need 2 of them. One you just like, another one which covers a wide range of parameters and therefore sounds to tweak without being over complicated. To be honest, I haven't found the latter yet in the market. Also good to know: unison / supersaw. A clever trick to get great sounds by detuning several oscillators and play them together. Not every synth has it / needs it and you definitely can do without but good to know it is an option for you and your music. It already works well when you detune just 2 oscillators.
   2. Sample based synthesis. Also called romplers sometimes. Similar to subtractive synthesis. However now the waveform can be everything you want: a piano, a sampled church choir or the sawtooth from the subtractive synth. My favorite kind of synthesis. A lot of dance music from the 90s relied on sample based synthesis and not on subtractive synthesis. House classics like Don't you want me by Felix and Plastic Dreams by Jaydee rely on it for almost 100%. Faithless uses this synth technique as well.
   3. FM synthesis. Pretty complicated. If you use this you might want to use the presets only. Underworld is a big user of this synth technique. Note you can sample FM sytnhs and put them in a sample based synth.
   Be free to use it in any way you want, however there is nothing wrong with sticking to only one technique.
3. Dry / wet. By definition synths deliver dry sounds and they need to be made wet by applying effects (FX) like reverb, flangers, delays, distortion. All the cool sounds you hear in your favorite Prodigy songs from Music from the Jilted generation are very poor sounding dry synths turned into fantastic sounds by wetting them. So when you consider to buy a synth you can leave the amount of FX it has out of the equation because a synth does not need FX, it needs to be dry, FX are intended to be applied in your mixing desk / DAW. I want to go as far to say that synths should sound bad and the first step to live them up is by applying some reverb. To reflect on 2b: your samples are allowed to be wet of course, no law which prohibits that.
4. Decide how complicated you want to make things. You can layer 20 sounds to get the latest EDM sound. Nothing wrong with that. However not needed at all. My favorite producer (Ron Trent) keeps things very easy. No layered sounds, no layered drum kicks, no automation tricks, just great music (IMO he is 2nd all time after Underworld). Underworld is something in between Ron Trent and EDM in this regard. Again, nothing wrong with any of this, however it is good to know where you want to be for you and your music. For my music I decided to use max 2 layers for my sounds and not to layer kicks, I plan to remove automation from the equation as well. There is so many great dance music out there without layering synth, kicks and abusing automation, so why not yours?!
5. Monitor and expensive headphones are in the beginning of your career not needed. As long as your speakers are amplified you are fine. If you progress with your home studio, 6 inch monitors are the absolute max for your home / bedroom studio. I decided to pick 6 inch monitors but I'd better pick 5 or 4 inch monitors of better quality. I still don't understand why the salesman in the store did not told me about this. I made the decision at home but he could have helped me with it. For them it doesn't matter as the amount of money spend would be about equal.

I hope this helps you to spend your time, money and focus well. Enjoy!
If something pops up in my mind I'll add it.

[PlantsnMusic]

Great points here, I am still trying to find my "sound" when it comes to music production. I bounce around with different genres and some songs I make complicated and others not so complicated. I still find myself never satisfied with what I create... any advice on getting over that aspect?

[Dúnedain]

Great points here, I am still trying to find my "sound" when it comes to music production. I bounce around with different genres and some songs I make complicated and others not so complicated. I still find myself never satisfied with what I create... any advice on getting over that aspect?

my 2 cts:

• Decide how synthetic / acoustic you want your music to sound. Do you want only synthetic sounds, only acoustic sounds (piano, guitar, bells) or a mix of them? Examples of dance music using lots of acoustic sounds: Vallee des Larmes by Rene et Gaston, Conte des Fees by Rene et Gaston, Way out by Orbital
• Decide for the beats how 'groovy' it should be. You can use 1-2-3-4 beats or a more groovy swinging breakbeat style. You might want to use drumsamples for the latter.
• Decide how melodic you want it to be.

Leftfield hits imo the spot, not too groovy, not too 1-2-3-4, using synth + acoustic sounds as well, not under-melodic, not over-melodic.

Hope this helps.

[PlantsnMusic]

I really want the music to have both elements, synthetic and acoustic. Meaning, using real drum samples along with synths and also recording my real guitar. I also try and humanize my drums, not snapping them right on grid etc.

thanks for the tips!