quote:

Originally posted by zodiac9 I was joking a bit. You put it well though, "original and competent." That pretty much sums it up in 2 words. At the risk of sounding old or snobby, it's awful. It sounds like something a newb made with pirated software. It's not musical, not anything palatable anyway. It's terribly repetitious. I've heard rap and hip hop that sounds better. Really, the first thing I look for in music, is that it has to at least be musical. For instance, I don't like Gorillaz, but they're stuff is very musical. I'm no D&B fan, but at least it's musically palatable. I think dubstep is awful too, I just don't get it. Seems producers are really stretching it thin to find a new sound, or their own sound. They forget, that sound has to still sound good. It's starting to sound like music is produced with a random number generator, and those numbers are turned into music. The trendy stuff anyways. If people are actually buying and listening to that stuff, what I say isn't going to matter at all.

S'allright everybody has different taste btw that tune IS dubstep, atleast thats what they say. I can see why you dont like it tho, its more ''textural'' than ''musical''. I find it musical tho, to me something musical is somethign that conveys a feeling or something like that. you could have something made with no instrument whatsoever, just recordings of wind or something lol but if it conveys something to me than i say its musical. Obviously we prolly dont think the same way on this subject lol. Anyways, this is a whole other discussion.

I still think that it is possible to make great music and standout. Can't please everybody for sure tho. Andy Blueman stood out in the trance world for a bit, I and some other people thought his music was extremely tryhard crap. Its all opinion and perspective, in the end.

Do these guys, who have ''their sound'' and are successful, try to have their sound, or, just do what they like and it happens to be different?

Interesting article and very informative. Thank you for the read

quote:

Originally posted by zodiac9 I was joking a bit. You put it well though, "original and competent." That pretty much sums it up in 2 words. At the risk of sounding old or snobby, it's awful. It sounds like something a newb made with pirated software. It's not musical, not anything palatable anyway. It's terribly repetitious. I've heard rap and hip hop that sounds better. Really, the first thing I look for in music, is that it has to at least be musical. For instance, I don't like Gorillaz, but they're stuff is very musical. I'm no D&B fan, but at least it's musically palatable. I think dubstep is awful too, I just don't get it. Seems producers are really stretching it thin to find a new sound, or their own sound. They forget, that sound has to still sound good. It's starting to sound like music is produced with a random number generator, and those numbers are turned into music. The trendy stuff anyways. If people are actually buying and listening to that stuff, what I say isn't going to matter at all.

Can't believe you just picked gorrillaz over burial... Burial is one of the best artists to emerge in the last 5 years IMO.

PS
That track IS dubstep.

quote:

Originally posted by mathieu S'allright everybody has different taste btw that tune IS dubstep, atleast thats what they say. I can see why you dont like it tho, its more ''textural'' than ''musical''. I find it musical tho, to me something musical is somethign that conveys a feeling or something like that. you could have something made with no instrument whatsoever, just recordings of wind or something lol but if it conveys something to me than i say its musical. Obviously we prolly dont think the same way on this subject lol. Anyways, this is a whole other discussion. I still think that it is possible to make great music and standout. Can't please everybody for sure tho. Andy Blueman stood out in the trance world for a bit, I and some other people thought his music was extremely tryhard crap. Its all opinion and perspective, in the end. Do these guys, who have ''their sound'' and are successful, try to have their sound, or, just do what they like and it happens to be different?

Its an awesome track. That's the reason I like it, its like the sound a train makes when you hear it rushing through a tunnel from 100 meters away.

Burial's sound comes from using a really strange way of working, no midi and heaps of hand placed samples. That's one reason why its unique, because its just not quantised at all.

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Pretty Lights and Girl Talk seem to be able to do well through the whole democratization thing. They reach out to the hip-hop crowd though which obviously has a HUGE audience.

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Originally posted by -FSP- Pretty Lights and Girl Talk seem to be able to do well through the whole democratization thing. They reach out to the hip-hop crowd though which obviously has a HUGE audience.

Girl Talk is just plain awful. He wants you to pay for his fucking album. The way he DJs, he absolutely no sense of musicality. If you want to call him a modern artist for convincing people that cutting up small chunks of tracks and DJing them together is the equivalent to what anyone here does, then yeah he's an artist.

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quote:

Originally posted by dj_alfi change your avatar for fucks sake.

Very interesting article, several good points there imo, but in the trance scene at least i think the way to expose yourself is having radio plays from the top djs, specialy from ASOT ,TATW and GDJB since are the most listened, plays in BBC Radio 1 count too but this generally consists in the cheesier "already famous" stuff.

I think the formula is radio play + X, i don't know what X is but you see some artists that appeared one year suddenly and next year came into the Dj mag top 100 (Take Arty,Avicii,W&W,Dash Berlin,Afrojack,Joris Voorn etc...) they had their own past story, please don't think that you can start producing/djing and getting famous in less than a year (in W&W case both were separate producers moderately successful, specially Re Ward and Dash Berlin is indeed a project of producers also known as Vengaboys and Alice Deejay to name a few) however others didn't have the same luck, they are arguably better than this named ones but they are not even close to the top 250 djs.

Agreeing with the OP i think now it's not about making good music but making "constant" music, a release every 2 weeks, you can alternate mediocre releases with slightly better ones, this is what people like Arty do, most of his tracks are the same generic shit, while once a month surprises you with something decent.

When your name appears constantly in ASOT if you know how to play your cards (i believe some people had 4-5 tracks played in ASOT but if you've no agency to manage your eventual gigs like most freelance producers, or not even an email contact is difficult to start having this international gigs) chances will come, people think that the n? 17 dj in the dj mag is a lot better than the dj 45 in the magazine, when both are easily overcome by a dj who is not even in the top 1000.

The best strategy i see to make a living of music is:

-Hire a ghost producer, a good one who knows the business and has already worked for an established name, don't be afraid of spending a big sum of money since this is an almost safe inversion.

-Get in touch with a sucessful label, Armada is pure cheese but does his job well, trance spins around them a lot and their promotion usually works, Toolrom is another label that works properly (getting apart the artistic quality of their releases, pure business point) they will care of the promotion of your "hits" (and i am going to post you a curious video here)



So basically you know have the ability (whithout having touched ever a daw) to produce hits (just give the directions to the ghost writer) and a good promotion.

-3rd step is getting an agency involved in good clubs, you get high profile gigs and half of the sum is for the real workers but hey, you are jesus posing in front of thousand people while having a decent amount of money in your pocket.

No dj skills?? Not necessary at all, told one of your friends to arrange you something in ableton live with your tracks and some of the hotest stuff from billboards and practice a bit your poses, learn to move knobs pretending you are doing something while aren't and go for the #1!

Mate, joris voorn has been around since like 2006, and dash Berlin were around when I still listened to trance, which was even earlier. Arty is a familiar name from back then too. None of those guys are new at all on the scene and all have been around at least 5 years. It is not by any means easy to crack the top 50 and I know some seriously talented DJs who haven't.

I'd say you're just not getting on the new artists as fast as some others are, they're hardly breakthrough artists

Another question involves whether you even WANT to crack the top 100. Its been acknowledged to be completely bankrupt and may harm your chances long term if you become associated with a bunch of other artists who push commercial tripe. There's nothing I could imagine that would be worse for my career than being associated with David Guetta or someone like him.

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yes i intended to say that, they have been producing for some years but suddenly on a year.... boom. Mr.Nobody-->A big name. It's a bit strange but i don't know how much tunes they had played in before 2009.

Dash Berlin is precisely the best example as it is a new name of old figures, but they became succesful again, in a short time. If you know how i think it's not that difficult

Last edited by Rodri Santos on Apr-19-2011 at 15:18

quote:

Originally posted by Rodri Santos yes i intended to say that, they have been producing for some years but suddenly on a year.... boom. Mr.Nobody-->A big name. It's a bit strange but i don't know how much tunes they had played in before 2009.

Joris Voorn was at his peak when he released "from a deep place" that was in 2007. Again, he was never a nobody.

Dash Berlin may be a good example of old producers under new names, but again, their first single was in 2007, and got a lot of attention even back then.

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quote:

Originally posted by Rodri Santos ... -Hire a ghost producer, a good one who knows the business and has already worked for an established name, don't be afraid of spending a big sum of money since this is an almost safe inversion. -Get in touch with a sucessful label, Armada is pure cheese but does his job well, trance spins around them a lot and their promotion usually works, Toolrom is another label that works properly (getting apart the artistic quality of their releases, pure business point) they will care of the promotion of your "hits" (and i am going to post you a curious video here) ...

And you really do think that even the mainstream audience into the different scenes will keep eating the bunch of lies surrounding what should be treated with care and passion?

What you just described is absolutely true, though, but I am not sure this still will be in a year's time.

Believe me though, if I tell you that people are sick of this non-moving, non-evolving scene full of wannabe's. There's a new scene growing that's not based on money or fame, but just on passion for good music. Too bad many can't see that yet. That will be a relief for the all of you.

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1 - I will never get popular
2 - I don't want to become a DJ

I'll just release and let the world know i've got something new every now and then. If it gets picked up? great! if not, their loss

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