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| RichieV |
| Just an observation from a listening standpoint. Why is it every song has the melodic contents in the breakdown and builds until the drop which is almost always just the bare rhythmic elements of the introduction. I understand that this was a sort of reaction against the over melodic music of pre 2002 . I suppose i'm not asking why as I know why, I just don't understand why every fricking song has to have this exact format. It is so stale and predictable. It reminds me of an essay by Adorno written a hundred years ago about how pop songs and their parts are essentially replaceable. SImilarly , modern EDM seems to be somewhat replaceable because the different sections seem to have no relation to each other. |
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| Zombie0729 |
i understand it. i didn't until about 8 mos ago but i have a feeling you're listening to the bulk of these tracks from your nice comfy studio chair. i've had a great club residency since August of last year and i get it now, the cleaner and clearer* the track "drops" into makes all the difference on a good, big sound system. when you play overly busy tracks they really don't do as well as things that are epic in the breakdown and simplistic on the drop.
i can't describe it or justify other then to say, it wasn't until i was DJing a lot more that i realized why producers/djs were making these arrangement decisions. just my 2 cents. |
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| RichieV |
| no , this is actually from someone that just hears EDM when he goes dancing every odd weekend. The problem is that every song does it. I can understand a bulk but it is so disappointing to hear a great hook in the break and then have it lost to the generic beat and side-chained pad. It is pandemic like the benny benassi bass a few years ago.Every song has the exact same form and the break is entirely self contained which makes the other extremities of the track replaceable with any other track. As a result, the tracks lack a certain coherency. |
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| Zombie0729 |
| you're unimpressed when you're at the clubs or you're saying EDM has become formulaic (lol...) ? |
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| Aesthetic |
| You're talking about how percussion then takes another building every 8 bars? Like when a tune kicks back in with say a kick and a clap? That's not as bad as how some tunes have a lush break and then at the end some random melody just fires away and techy madness ensues =).. though there are exceptions to the rule (patterson - thump) |
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| Kysora |
If you're saying most songs have a buildup that leads into a break that has nothing to do with what came before it, I can safely say that there's a good amount of uplifting trance that doesn't do that. The worst that it'll do is establish the first 1 or 2 chords in the main progression in the buildup before introducing the main melody and the subsequent chords in the break, and it might use hooks that are dropped later to help do that
In fact I don't think there are a lot of songs that I'm familiar with that have buildups that are notably different from the second half of the track. |
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| Beatflux |
| I thought I ranted about this a while back. I hate those stupid blue ball drops. |
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| Nightshift |
I understand what richie means and i agree with anthony here, i didnt get it at first until about a year or so back. when you are in a club it makes alot of sense. from a listneing point of view its not the most interesting, but when you are in a club setting its seriously the greatest thing ever imo (though not when its every track in a set).
for those of you who dont understand he means something like when you hear a track that has heavy rhythmic section that builds from bar 33 and on till the break then theres a huge melodic breakdown, then pretty much dropping back into bar 33 with a few alterations.
correct me if i misinterpreted, richie. |
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| RichieV |
| the problem is that if you do this with every song, which seems to be the case with most djs, you get a set that is completely monotone with no peaks or climax. I can understand the technique when you want to keep the energy up but constantly being teased with hooks and never getting them ever is extremely annoying. |
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| Kysora |
| Ohh, my fault, I misread the first post. Yeah I ing hate it when that happens, I've never done that once in my music and can't see why I ever would. |
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| DjStephenWiley |
| quote: | Originally posted by RichieV
Just an observation from a listening standpoint. Why is it every song has the melodic contents in the breakdown and builds until the drop which is almost always just the bare rhythmic elements of the introduction. I understand that this was a sort of reaction against the over melodic music of pre 2002 . I suppose i'm not asking why as I know why, I just don't understand why every fricking song has to have this exact format. It is so stale and predictable. It reminds me of an essay by Adorno written a hundred years ago about how pop songs and their parts are essentially replaceable. SImilarly , modern EDM seems to be somewhat replaceable because the different sections seem to have no relation to each other. |
Good question. I personally believe and probably always will that the energy must be carried over from the "drop" to the incoming sequence. This might sound like a "duh" thing but I hear so many tracks that create huge build ups and then the energy just goes poof.
My guess for so many rhythmic elements goes back to what Anthony was saying. You can keep the crowd at least shaking their hips a bit if you have a rhythm going (easier than a solo melody by far) and once they begin to hear the elements start to build from the beginning of the track they get more and more into it and bam you hit them with the drop and hopefully carry over the energy. That's the thinking of it from a club point of view and that's all the majority producers think about it. (Especially the well known ones) |
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