Yep, Ray, you just got me pegged spot on, don't you.

I bet you were the kind of guy who flunked out of math because that stupid teacher just didn't know what the hell she was talkin' about, weren't ya'.

quote:

Originally posted by dragontrance That's not *JUST listening*. I get what you're saying, and I agree 100%. The analysis bit is only possible when you understand what you're hearing, wouldn't you agree? Seems to me that if you have, at least, a basic understanding of what the contituent parts are of a song, then you'll have an easier time creating one. If you just listen and imitate, I can see where it would take years and years and years, and maybe you develop an artistic voice, maybe you don't. Thanks, everyone.

To make music, you have to MAKE music.

The more you make, the more you try, the more you understand and the better you get.

And it will take years to develop a good ear for sounds that doesnt fit, sounds that are missing. etc.

I would say that the one of the most important skill you can ever have, is the skill to judge wether to keep or ditch a sound, and when to know if a sound is missing.
And that comes with experience.
Music is an art, thats not meant to be understood properly, very important to remember that.

The best ideas and tracks comes from accidents.

___________________


http://soundcloud.com/subtara

Well said!

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Originally posted by dragontrance Yep, Ray, you just got me pegged spot on, don't you. I bet you were the kind of guy who flunked out of math because that stupid teacher just didn't know what the hell she was talkin' about, weren't ya'.

If you knew me at all you'd be aware of how ridiculous the criticisms regarding my financial situation and math skills are. In all seriousness, the banter is obviously unconstructive, both ways... partly my fault.

I still believe dropping a track in a sequencer to visually analyze what you are hearing is helpful. Take a couple passes at a track you know well - one you've heard a hundred times - and listen to every minor detail, then take another pass and watch what you're listening to. Use a similar view to what is posted above and you'll see some of structural changes as the song progresses and hear what that means simultaneously.

Another suggestion is to try and remake a track - not necessarily for release or anything, but just for practice. If you try and remake the track from scratch, it will provide some useful experience in tweaking synths, getting a structure, and if you end up with something comparible, it will allow you to see the track as a whole. And if not, it may help you see what you are missing. Remaking a track is harder than it may seem at first, depending on the tools you have available, but it can be a worthwhile experience.

Goodluck.

quote:

If you knew me at all you'd be aware of how ridiculous the criticisms regarding my financial situation and math skills are.

Ray, I'm sure you're right. I don't know you, and all I had to go on were your comments. I agree, it's unconstructive and we could have started better. Thank you for being cool about it, and I apologize for the harshness of my tone as well.

quote:

I still believe dropping a track in a sequencer to visually analyze what you are hearing is helpful. Take a couple passes at a track you know well - one you've heard a hundred times - and listen to every minor detail, then take another pass and watch what you're listening to. Use a similar view to what is posted above and you'll see some of structural changes as the song progresses and hear what that means simultaneously.

Ray, that sounds like really good advice. Thanks very much. It wasn't at all clear to me that that's what you were referring to. I apologize, I misunderstood your meaning.

Did I mention I'm new to this? :-)

I've been using FL Studio for about a year now and I clearly have a lot to learn. That's why I'm here, after all. I didn't even know you could download other people's songs in a format that you can load into a sequencer. Yeah, that would be very useful, I totally see that now. Thanks for telling me about that.

I've been a fan of Trance and EDM for years, but I truly had no idea how to go about creating it. I had never heard of a step sequencer until a couple of years ago. The only sequencers I knew about were the kind you connect to a keyboard that just captured your midi inputs and played them back. I assumed that EDM Producers were actually playing every one of those notes directly into a sequencer and going from there. I didn't know about looping, sampling, wave synthesis, intros, outros, and breakdowns.

I learn a lot by reading, but there comes a point, as Subtle said, that you have to learn by DOING. That's where I am now.

So what I need to be doing is finding songs that I can open in FL Studio or Cubase and analyzing them in the sequencer, yes?

Here's another newbie question, don't freak or nothin', but where do you find songs by the likes of PVD or Tiesto in a format that you can anazlyze in this way?

Dragon

You should be able to find all the tracks you want at Beatport.com. You can get them online, download them in mp3 or wav format, and drop them as a new track in FL. What you are seeing in the pic above is that... it's a few tracks that have been dropped into a sequencer in their entirety. When you zoom out to see the full track you'll see the peaks, breakdowns, buildups, and it's easy to keep looping a particular section to hear what's going on.

If you do decide to remake a track, or even start building a structure around another song, just keep the track in your song (muted) and you can use it to reference easily.

Hope that helps.

Very cool!

Thanks, Ray!

quote:

Originally posted by dragontrance Very cool! Thanks, Ray!

Much better
Take it easy guys its just music

___________________
Stooped Cat

quote:

Life is to short to listen to something else than Trance

quote:

Originally posted by Khayat Much better Take it easy guys its just music

Well said.

___________________

-Facebook- -SoundCloud-

quote:

Originally posted by dragontrance Very cool! Thanks, Ray!

No problem. Glad I could redeem myself and provide something useful.

What a thread.
Alright, I have a guess... I'm thinking the big disconnect here is he has not seen music in the visual format presented by a .WAV editor, the time/amplitude look that we're so used to seeing.

dragontrance, you'll want to get your hands on a a .wav file editor. .wav file format is the uncompressed audio file format that holds highest common sonic fidelity. When you use samples in a DAW or a sampler, typically it is playing back .wav files. The pictures shown above are what .wav files look like when you load them into a .wav editor, but zoomed WAY out. When you zoom in, it appears as a complex logarithmic waveform. The wider & rounder the wave, usually the more bass frequencies you'll hear if you played it. Brief, jagged waveforms typically represent high frequency components. Things like high hats and vocals and lead synthesizers.

Running horizontally in the middle of a panel is a straight line which represents the X axis. The X axis represents time.
Running vertically is the Y axis, which represents amplitude. Amplitude runs upwards and downwards, from the X axis.

Roughly, the thinner the blue waveform is along the x axis, the less things are going on in the music, especially low frequencies. It's (sort of) quieter. So in the yellow highlighted areas, thats why it's smaller than the other parts - no drums, other musical pieces drop out. Less total amplitude in the song. In dance music, this is synonymous with the breakdown - It's components are being taken out, pieces are falling off, fading out.

Someone hook this kid up with SoundForge or CoolEdit or whatever you folks are using these days.

He can just download Audacity for free...