making dubstep

[aggle ale]

ive just started to try making dubstep with logic 8 and was after any tips or suggestions on getting started

any help would be much appreciated

[misk]

get to know your monitors, if you have a pair. if not, think about saving up for a pair of powered nearfield monitors. if your using logic 8, then start making some patches on the synths. really just mess around and learn how they work. get some samples off the internet and mess around with them, i wouldnt necessarily use them in a track unless you really mangle them, but its a great way to learn!

Listen to some of your favorite tunes to get a better idea of how it was mixed down, and how the producer conveyed energy in the track through his choice of arrangement.

im trying to give you some suggestions that are non-specific so that you just do your own thing - hope these help.

[somejerk]

1. learn to make wobbles
2. sample recognizable reggae sounds that have already been used by 4 or more other genres
3. add delay and reverb to said reggae sounds

if you are an american, make sure you only make boring, 1/2 step beats and sample "scary" movies. denounce jungle and call yourself a pioneer.

[djake]

learn how to use ur software first!

[pupstar]

i dont use logic, but when it comes to making dubstep id say push every limit possible.

[kate_]

There's enough Dubstep out there. Make some You-Step and maybe it will take you somewhere.

[djelements]

There's enough Dubstep out there. Make some You-Step and maybe it will take you somewhere.

You go in my sig now.

[two oh one]

There's enough Dubstep out there. Make some You-Step and maybe it will take you somewhere.

I agree.

And be prepared not to be instantly liked, bigged up or even played out. Anything that sounds different tends to not be praised straight away because it's not 'scene' enough.

But keep pushing where you want, and you'll be reaching the heady heights of 5 or 6 downloads a week. You'll get yourself out there in the end. Or not. Just do what you do, regardless of other people. People suck. Scenes really suck.



This is good though, as it sorts out those who want to make music for themselves vs those who need other people for validation and to feel part of scene.

[auan]

There's enough Dubstep out there. Make some You-Step and maybe it will take you somewhere.

That's brilliant.

[shonky]

1. learn to make wobbles
2. sample recognizable reggae sounds that have already been used by 4 or more other genres
3. add delay and reverb to said reggae sounds

if you are an american, make sure you only make boring, 1/2 step beats and sample "scary" movies. denounce jungle and call yourself a pioneer.

And who said the americans didn't get irony?

[manray]

Make a tune with 3 elements. Kick, Clap and Bass and call it deep forward future dub.

[auan]

Make a tune with 3 elements. Kick, Clap and Bass and call it deep forward future dub.

Hardly future dub. Isn't that exactly what's coming out now?

[slothrop]

Just do what you do, regardless of other people. People suck. Scenes really suck.

Very unconvinced by this. Sure, some people plow their own furrow and make something utterly original and brilliant, but a lot of my favorite music - music that makes me dance, music that moves me, music that touches my soul - has come from people participating in a scene. They're making music to connect with people, and working with the energy they get from seeing that connection in the flesh. I mean, hello detroit techno, chicago house, jungle, garage, early hip hop, ska / reggae / dub, disco, grime, bebop... even classical has almost always been about learning how your predecessors worked and then bringing your own ideas into developing their structures further. Meanwhile, the people doing their own thing, maaan, have brought us IDM and prog rock. Score.

IMO the thing to aim for is keeping your own ideas and your own individuality and integrity in what you bring to the scene.

[auan]

But the flip-side of that is that if you're really into a scene or genre, then the music you make, the music you choose to make, ends up sounding like it belongs in that scene as well. There aren't a lot of musicians who make music that truly belongs in a genre of its own, and even fewer with any kind of success.

All the guys on here who evangelise individuality (myself included) still post on a forum with a big 'dubstep' logo in the corner.

[manray]

I always say make MUSIC and not Dubstep.

[hugh]

i tend to think if im making something thats really original, there's probably a reason that I havent heard something like it before.
It's crap

[slothrop]

Here's a lengthy copy paste from an old (99ish?) interview with Simon Reynolds:

- Do you think there could be a dichotomy set up between the concepts of -scenius and -genius that follows something like: social/antisocial, created-for-clubs/created-without-anything-but-the-inner-audience-in-mind, etcetera? (I mostly ask this question to find my own place in this music -- I ve always been into the axis that connects records from Sly Stone s There s A Riot to Maxinquaye to Keith Hudson s Pick A Dub -- music not to lose yourself in a crowd to, but music in which you lose the crowd altogether.)

Yeah, that is pretty much the dichotomy I had in mind. Eno's idea of "scenius" really appealed to me because it provided a way of understanding how rave music evolved without the traditional music historian's reflex of fixating on specific individuals who changed the course of the music and precise places where the turning points occurred. So in dance music histories, specifically jungle, people will harp on endlesslly about Goldie, Fabio & Grooverider, the club Rage. The more hyperbolic acounts of jungle history will attribute the invention of breakbeat-driven hardcore/jungle/drum & bass to Fabio & Grooverider. In fact the idea of speeding up the breaks and chopping them up etc was occurring independently and simultaneously across the UK and in other countries too all through the period; breakbeat science evolved in tiny increments on a month by month basis; there were key people who made breakthroughs but no solitary geniuses who singlehandedly opened up a whole new frontier; on the DJ level, it wasn't just F&G at Rage but scores of dJs at dozens of clubs across London, the South East, the Midlands who were pushing the sound.

A good example of scenius in action is how 4 Hero, Doc Scott, Goldie and others sampled and resampled off each other's records The Mentasm sound originally created by Joey Beltram -- a game of ping pong, as Goldie put it, that actually mutated the sound and intensified it over a period of several months. When they went back to the original record to sample it after these several months, it actually sounded weak -- it wasn't as dirty and raw and evil as the sound they had collectively evolved through the back-and-forth sampling off each other. These guys were friends all affiliated to the Reinforced label, but this kind of traffic was going on across the entire scene, across the nation, between strangers -- there were producers who were more innovative than others, but even the cloners and copyists played their part in mutating the sound and coming up with new twists.

Until 3 years or so ago i'd probably have shared your interest, at least in terms of my overt ideology, in the individuals that stand out, who don't make their music to serve the crowd. But gradually I realised my fix wasn't just to do with records in isolation, heard at home on your lonesome onesome, it was the whole subcultural matrix -- music + crowd interaction + ritualised behavior + discourse. There a lot of records that work brilliantly as components of the DJ's mix, and with MC-ing over the top, but sound flat when heard in isolation.

These days I'm more interested in how records feed into and sustain "vibe" (which i guessed i'd define as the forcefield where tribal energy / identity meets music, technology and drugs to create a collective mood in specific social spaces and geographic locales), and less interested in art as a quasi-autonomous realm that's supposedly separate from the social, that's supposedly timeless and placeless. But there is a diagonal that may actually be the most interesting one to follow -- a line where there's a tension between the experimental / musical impulses of the auteur and the demands of the DJ/dancefloor. Some of my favorite stuff is created on that line -- hardcore / jungle 1992-94, dub and roots reggae in the Seventies, hip hop as it begins to move beyond party-rocking beats and gets adventurous-but-not-pretentious. Stuff that's either side of that diagonal line is either too homogenous (scenius) or too quirkily non-functional (genius).

(My emphasis.)

("Scenius stands for the intelligence and the intuition of a whole cultural scene. It is the communal form of the concept of the genius." - Brian Eno.)

[misk]

Scenius is my new favorite word! seriously, theres some massive scenius in dubstep. I tried being scenius, but i'm not sure that worked out. big up the genius. (hopefully)

[slim]

You-Step

This makes me think of dubstep with soulja boy samples... do not want...

Seriously though, that is such a good point, if you aren't making music for yourself, why are you making music at all.

As far as general music making hints go, i'm new to it as well, and one thing I will say is that you should finish tunes. I like to plan mine out on paper, structure-wise once i've got a basic idea down, so it has a beginning and an end.

Sure, further down the line you may end up with a load of older tunes which aren't technically up to the standard you are at and may be a bit embarassing even, but you can go back and mix them again, or keep them as a way of documenting how you have improved. And the rush you get after finishing a tune makes me really want to get started on the next one.

[addict]

There's enough Dubstep out there. Make some You-Step and maybe it will take you somewhere.

You go in my sig now.

been beaten to it again! very good bit of advice, shame im finding it so hard to put into motion.