|
Is The Main Riff The Main Part Of A Track?
|
View this Thread in Original format
| future_newbie |
Do you think a great intro/verse should have an even greater main riff? If it doesn't would you perceive it as a fail?
Should the main riff represent the peak of a track? Is it the most important part, should it always be the greatest moment of the track?
And finally, how do you make a great main riff? Is it obligatory to layer more instruments?
Also, if you post tracks with good main riffs I'd really appreciate!
Any advice is welcome as well. |
|
|
| Evolve140 |
| I don't like to party to huge riffs all night. One really good one would work. Give me solid grooves and groovy beats I'll be down to party. But I don't want to listen to cheesy ass huge riffs all night. Lame. |
|
|
| kadomony |
| quote: | Originally posted by Evolve140
But I don't want to listen to cheesy ass huge riffs all night. Lame. |
WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT BRO |
|
|
| -FSP- |
| How you make a great riff really depends on the how it is juxtaposed to the other elements and textures. IMO you should think of the riff as part of the bigger picture. It needs to be carried by the other elements. |
|
|
| derail |
What is your definition of "riff"? So many words are evolving these days, it's hard to achieve a common understanding unless people define their usage of the term.
- Does a riff, in your definition, require any melodic content, or can it just be a rhythmic single-note pattern?
- Are you using the word riff to explicitly differentiate it from a melody (that is, a riff can be a rhythmic sequence of notes/ arpeggio playing over a chord (which probably around 99% of trance these days features), as opposed to a melody which stands on it's own, outside of the chord progression (such as ATB's 9PM Til I Come))?
- Are you using it to mean the same thing as a "hook" - anything distinctive and memorable, whether it be a word combination, a production technique, a rhythmic sequence or a melody?
Lastly, why are you actually asking? Are you asking whether it's okay to just be an excellent engineer/ technician without needing to become an excellent musician/ artist? Yes, it's okay if you want to do that - there are thousands of artists creating extremely professional productions where the music appears to have been created by an algorithm - in some songs it sounds to me like it was such a hassle for the person creating it that the piece needed chords/ notes/ etc, and they simply picked a chord progression which doesn't go anywhere, and dumped an arpeggio in there, including some random notes here and there "for interest" - basically spending a couple of minutes on the music so they had something for their engineering/ production talent to "shine through".
The same thing happened with guitarists in the wake of the early "shredders" - suddenly you have thousands of clones who focus on the by-numbers aspect of playing fast, rather than the much less direct aspect of playing something which people will actually want to listen to.
If you want to add to the thousands of incredible engineers/ producers currently in the electronic music genre, you'll fit right in and be instantly forgotten. If being an excellent engineer is worth it to you, then do it. It doesn't matter if there are people around who want to listen to good music. |
|
|
| bradlee |
| quote: |
Should the main riff represent the peak of a track? Is it the most important part, should it always be the greatest moment of the track?
|
that's a really good question and conversation starter. Firstly, I think it's entirely subjective and you should always go with your instinct.
if you look all the way at the hands-up and eurodance type trance (Check out Crystal Lake, Jens-O, Bangbros) [NOT THE PORN BANGBROS :P] you'll notice there's definitely a huge emphasis on "the riff" which for a good example let's just take 'Everytime We Touch' (you know u used to love it) anyway - that song actually peaks after the intro, after the verses, even after she sings the initial chorus. The obnoxious but awesome Brassy Synth hook that follows becomes the crescendo and the highlight of the track, outdoing the actual vocals that were sung prior.
Now if we're talking Aly & Fila or Gabriel Dresden or Airbase you will often also note this is a very similar formula. Even though the "main riff" is not as pronounced / obnoxious / patterned very specifically as you would find in a hand's up song. Also stating the obvious, more serious tracks tend to have a very gradual introduction to all the layers Making them significantly longer and almost more difficult to invent because you are forced to be very intricate in your adding and subtracting layers or you risk having an extremely BORING intro (nobody likes that!)
In rap and pop music, it's all given away at once or very soon and we are basically just listening to additional shuffling and jumbling of the same 8 beat loop (that they stole from a house or trance artist) People enjoy the predictability and familiarity of that sort of thing. Look how popular Rhianna is. Have you noticed that ALL of her songs (since the very first) either sample verbatum or make reductive covers of pre existing hits. Not to fault just her (i think shes rather boring personally) because most pop producers inevitably do this however some are worse than others.
There's LOTS of different types of trance than the ones i covered, by no means am i an AUTHORITY on this. |
|
|
|
|
