Books that somehow relate to techno production

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Hades
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Re: Books that somehow relate to techno production

Post by Hades »

oddmyth wrote: Not all reggae is 'chill out' music and by corollary neither is dub, but there is a fair portion of it that is so I can see making that argument, but considering that some of the most popular reggae music is actually about rebellion and not 'taking it easy', it makes me think that perhaps you've simply overlooked that portion of it.

One of my best friends at univ was a big reggae fan. I think I was forced to listen to more Bob Marley for 5 years than most people could ever bare in their whole lifetime.
He was always hammering about that "rebellious" aspect of good old Bob. He wanted dreads. First he nagged for over a year about it : "what would people say in our faculty ?",...
(I walked around with long hair and tons of piercings and didn't give a shit about what they thought),
then he nagged for another 3 years about how they looked and which shampoo wasn't good for them and blablabla.
He considered smoking weed bad for you, though the only music he listened to was made by stoned people.
Yeah, it was all very rebellious. :)

Look, I know I'm only giving a stupid example here, but I'm trying to say I know reggae and dub was once about rebellion, but nowadays how much of that rebellious aspect is still there ?
If a Finnish guy is asking about reggae and dub techniques in a topic about techno techniques, I think it's fair for me to feel he probably won't be needing much technique compared to making techno. And I'm quite sure he wasn't asking because he wanted to rebel against anything either. (no offence barfunkel) ;)
So yeah, then I just say "smoke a joint and go crazy with the delay" and add a smiley.

It's a bit like techno was "all about the future" and all that. How much of that is still left ?
A lot of the young folks just want to get into making techno (correction "producing" techno, they want to be a "producer", they hardly use the word creativity or musician any more) because they want to make big room techno, or bumcode techno. Cause it's a flavour that is currently in fashion, and they still seem to think they'll make it the easy way (and they don't realize it used to be a big sea with only a few fishes while it's now a small lake with thousands of fishes fighting for some space).
But anyways, techno and "future". Jeff Mills for example talks about "future" a lot (and aliens !!), but yet he refuses to use a computer (which I can still partly understand), and almost every set he does he has his 909 with him.
I like a lot of his work (and hate other parts), but yeah, for someone who talks so much about the future, he's not really looking forward a lot, is it ?
And that's someone who actually still talks about the "idea's" and "ethics" (if I dare use that word) involved in techno.
Most producers don't give a shit.
I believe (not a fact, just my personal belief) that a lot of the people that make reggae and dub don't give a shit about the rebellious aspect, they just wanna smoke weed all day and try to make a living (or at least get free drinks and/or sex) by making music.
Just like there are a lot of techno producers out there that don't give a fuck about making new sounds, they just want something that sounds big so they can get a "release" and people will write "big tune" or "full support" on their soundcloud.
The whole hippie culture was once about rebellion too, but that soon deranged into a great excuse to do shit all day and take any kind of drugs, shag anyone possible, and not having to care about raising their kids ("cause you're not supposed to surpress their creativity with rules and blablabla")... :)

oddmyth wrote: I could but since most people have been trying to figure out the production techniques used by all the greats for years and years, I'll just point you to a resource I've been skimming for quite a long time

http://www.interruptor.ch/

Most of the stuff I read online these days in terms of production techniques (efx chains mostly) can be attributed back to those guys working with real analog circuits in those studios down in Jamaica. Techno owes the world to dub, it wouldn't exist without it.
it's funny but I stumbled across that site a few years ago.
Never really explored it properly though.
thx for the link anyway.
Maybe I'll check it out on a long nightshift.
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Re: Books that somehow relate to techno production

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Hades wrote:


If a Finnish guy is asking about reggae and dub techniques in a topic about techno techniques, I think it's fair for me to feel he probably won't be needing much technique compared to making techno. And I'm quite sure he wasn't asking because he wanted to rebel against anything either. (no offence barfunkel) ;)
So yeah, then I just say "smoke a joint and go crazy with the delay" and add a smiley.
No rebellion here! I'm 37 and I like my comfort. I also like reading and I like creating music. Hence the topic.

Also, many dub techniques can pretty much directly be used in techno. Using the mixer as an instrument instead of as a static device. Creative use of delay and other FX. Use of the space between the notes and all that. Smoking a joint too.
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Re: Books that somehow relate to techno production

Post by Lost to the Void »

Hades wrote:
oddmyth wrote: Not all reggae is 'chill out' music and by corollary neither is dub, but there is a fair portion of it that is so I can see making that argument, but considering that some of the most popular reggae music is actually about rebellion and not 'taking it easy', it makes me think that perhaps you've simply overlooked that portion of it.

One of my best friends at univ was a big reggae fan. I think I was forced to listen to more Bob Marley for 5 years than most people could ever bare in their whole lifetime.
He was always hammering about that "rebellious" aspect of good old Bob. He wanted dreads. First he nagged for over a year about it : "what would people say in our faculty ?",...
(I walked around with long hair and tons of piercings and didn't give a shit about what they thought),
then he nagged for another 3 years about how they looked and which shampoo wasn't good for them and blablabla.
He considered smoking weed bad for you, though the only music he listened to was made by stoned people.
Yeah, it was all very rebellious. :)

Look, I know I'm only giving a stupid example here, but I'm trying to say I know reggae and dub was once about rebellion, but nowadays how much of that rebellious aspect is still there ?
If a Finnish guy is asking about reggae and dub techniques in a topic about techno techniques, I think it's fair for me to feel he probably won't be needing much technique compared to making techno. And I'm quite sure he wasn't asking because he wanted to rebel against anything either. (no offence barfunkel) ;)
So yeah, then I just say "smoke a joint and go crazy with the delay" and add a smiley.

It's a bit like techno was "all about the future" and all that. How much of that is still left ?
A lot of the young folks just want to get into making techno (correction "producing" techno, they want to be a "producer", they hardly use the word creativity or musician any more) because they want to make big room techno, or bumcode techno. Cause it's a flavour that is currently in fashion, and they still seem to think they'll make it the easy way (and they don't realize it used to be a big sea with only a few fishes while it's now a small lake with thousands of fishes fighting for some space).
But anyways, techno and "future". Jeff Mills for example talks about "future" a lot (and aliens !!), but yet he refuses to use a computer (which I can still partly understand), and almost every set he does he has his 909 with him.
I like a lot of his work (and hate other parts), but yeah, for someone who talks so much about the future, he's not really looking forward a lot, is it ?
And that's someone who actually still talks about the "idea's" and "ethics" (if I dare use that word) involved in techno.
Most producers don't give a shit.
I believe (not a fact, just my personal belief) that a lot of the people that make reggae and dub don't give a shit about the rebellious aspect, they just wanna smoke weed all day and try to make a living (or at least get free drinks and/or sex) by making music.
Just like there are a lot of techno producers out there that don't give a fuck about making new sounds, they just want something that sounds big so they can get a "release" and people will write "big tune" or "full support" on their soundcloud.
The whole hippie culture was once about rebellion too, but that soon deranged into a great excuse to do shit all day and take any kind of drugs, shag anyone possible, and not having to care about raising their kids ("cause you're not supposed to surpress their creativity with rules and blablabla")... :)

oddmyth wrote: I could but since most people have been trying to figure out the production techniques used by all the greats for years and years, I'll just point you to a resource I've been skimming for quite a long time

http://www.interruptor.ch/

Most of the stuff I read online these days in terms of production techniques (efx chains mostly) can be attributed back to those guys working with real analog circuits in those studios down in Jamaica. Techno owes the world to dub, it wouldn't exist without it.
it's funny but I stumbled across that site a few years ago.
Never really explored it properly though.
thx for the link anyway.
Maybe I'll check it out on a long nightshift.

Fuck, epic post.

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Re: Books that somehow relate to techno production

Post by seanocean »

ok so here i am again thread dredging, like a n00b.

but nobody's mentioned this yet:
http://www.amazon.com/Sound-Reinforceme ... 0881889008

-but this really gets into the nuts and bolts of audio, pro audio, and why things are the way they are with sound reinforcement. i think that too few people look beyond the monitors when it comes to where their sound ends up. for example, a lot of people mix for home audio but neglect the idea that pro audio basically cuts off the frequency range at the top and bottom of the spectrum. and this relates to techno because i've always thought that techno is really about soundsystem dynamics. i.e. huge columns of air beating you to a pulp.
also good tips on coiling cables, the idea of gain vs volume vs spl.. all just really good stuff. it's all really dense.. but if you spend time with it the information is truly worthwhile.

+1 on on mike senior's books.

also SOS is a great resource and they do have a full PDF available of their synth secrets series. heavy duty..
http://www.soundonsound.com/search?url= ... ummary=Yes

though sometimes i just record some text to speech for the website articles and listen to it while drawing or whatever.

-ok, so maybe i'm a wrapped up a little too tight ;)
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Re: Books that somehow relate to techno production

Post by Hades »

seanocean wrote:ok so here i am again thread dredging, like a n00b.

but nobody's mentioned this yet:
http://www.amazon.com/Sound-Reinforceme ... 0881889008

-but this really gets into the nuts and bolts of audio, pro audio, and why things are the way they are with sound reinforcement. i think that too few people look beyond the monitors when it comes to where their sound ends up. for example, a lot of people mix for home audio but neglect the idea that pro audio basically cuts off the frequency range at the top and bottom of the spectrum. and this relates to techno because i've always thought that techno is really about soundsystem dynamics. i.e. huge columns of air beating you to a pulp.
also good tips on coiling cables, the idea of gain vs volume vs spl.. all just really good stuff. it's all really dense.. but if you spend time with it the information is truly worthwhile.

+1 on on mike senior's books.

also SOS is a great resource and they do have a full PDF available of their synth secrets series. heavy duty..
http://www.soundonsound.com/search?url= ... ummary=Yes

though sometimes i just record some text to speech for the website articles and listen to it while drawing or whatever.

-ok, so maybe i'm a wrapped up a little too tight ;)

someone must have mentioned that yamaha book somewhere on subsekt before, cause I have it printed out from somewhere on the web and it's laying on the huge piles of "must read one day" on the floor of my studio.
Is it really that good though ?
I mean, I certainly don't mind reading, but it's a pretty massive book, and there are so many things I still have to get through that I don't want to waste my time on stuff that ain't worth it enough, if you know what I mean.

I read the synth secrets from SOS many years ago, that was quite helpful back then.
Not sure if it would be much help for seasoned producers though. Nonetheless nice (and thorough) for people that are fairly new to synthesis.
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Re: Books that somehow relate to techno production

Post by seanocean »

i found the sound reinforcement handbook a great reference when i was getting into toting my soundsystem around.. but years later i found that there could be an added benefit to looking at djing and making techno from the perpective of a soundsystem owner/operator. like DVS-1's tracks to me seem to have that knowledge behind them since he came from that background. silent servant was supposed to have been forced to read it by josh clayton as a young producer. and when i started eq-ing my tracks i understood that all elements in a mix have a crossover point from working with crossovers in a rig.
i guess though if you're seasoned producer, this isn't anything new, but an added perspective on what you already know may help see it in a new light.
there's stuff in there about mic-ing drumsets and where to place a guitar monitor. but those ideas may help if you're in that scenario, or if you're in a situation where you're in a live band for some strange reason. also i think it would help knowing what's going on with a sound tech when they're getting frustrated or if you want to chum up with the tech before your set so they are more willing to tweak your mix more towards your sound.. (hey, take that limiter off, i'll keep it down). or if you're at a gig and you're hearing the speakers are placed wrong in a space you can compensate with EQ/ panning in your live PA or djing.

there's also the engineering side which i might have to look back into. i still think about gain, volume, and sound pressure level. like, i've had this discussion with techs before and i've always wondered if it's good to keep your amps down and gains maxed, or just keep everything down.. because i've noticed that if your amps are maxed out and your signal going into them is low, my ears tend to get tired more quickly. i think i heard it described in the sound reinforcement handbook like this: if pressure in the air is greater due to the force of the amps but if apparent volume is low, you'd be doing yourself a disservice because there's not actual signal going through the air (as if the air molecules are still being pushed heavily but not with any dynamics). though i haven't been able to confirm that low amps with high amount of gain, fatigues an ear less or not. maybe glossing over that section again may help me get a better grasp why.
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Re: Books that somehow relate to techno production

Post by Barfunkel »

Thanks to my new job, I finally have money to buy some of the books mentioned in this thread.

I think I'm going for:

Secrets of House Music Production
Mixing Audio 2e
Unlocking the Groove
Music Theory for Computer Musicians
Music Theory for Dummies
Music Composition for Dummies

Thanks for all the tips!
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Re: Books that somehow relate to techno production

Post by Hades »

seanocean wrote:i found the sound reinforcement handbook a great reference when i was getting into toting my soundsystem around.. but years later i found that there could be an added benefit to looking at djing and making techno from the perpective of a soundsystem owner/operator. like DVS-1's tracks to me seem to have that knowledge behind them since he came from that background. silent servant was supposed to have been forced to read it by josh clayton as a young producer. and when i started eq-ing my tracks i understood that all elements in a mix have a crossover point from working with crossovers in a rig.
i guess though if you're seasoned producer, this isn't anything new, but an added perspective on what you already know may help see it in a new light.
there's stuff in there about mic-ing drumsets and where to place a guitar monitor. but those ideas may help if you're in that scenario, or if you're in a situation where you're in a live band for some strange reason. also i think it would help knowing what's going on with a sound tech when they're getting frustrated or if you want to chum up with the tech before your set so they are more willing to tweak your mix more towards your sound.. (hey, take that limiter off, i'll keep it down). or if you're at a gig and you're hearing the speakers are placed wrong in a space you can compensate with EQ/ panning in your live PA or djing.

there's also the engineering side which i might have to look back into. i still think about gain, volume, and sound pressure level. like, i've had this discussion with techs before and i've always wondered if it's good to keep your amps down and gains maxed, or just keep everything down.. because i've noticed that if your amps are maxed out and your signal going into them is low, my ears tend to get tired more quickly. i think i heard it described in the sound reinforcement handbook like this: if pressure in the air is greater due to the force of the amps but if apparent volume is low, you'd be doing yourself a disservice because there's not actual signal going through the air (as if the air molecules are still being pushed heavily but not with any dynamics). though i haven't been able to confirm that low amps with high amount of gain, fatigues an ear less or not. maybe glossing over that section again may help me get a better grasp why.
thx for the info
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Re: Books that somehow relate to techno production

Post by Lost to the Void »

seanocean wrote:

there's also the engineering side which i might have to look back into. i still think about gain, volume, and sound pressure level. like, i've had this discussion with techs before and i've always wondered if it's good to keep your amps down and gains maxed, or just keep everything down.. because i've noticed that if your amps are maxed out and your signal going into them is low, my ears tend to get tired more quickly. i think i heard it described in the sound reinforcement handbook like this: if pressure in the air is greater due to the force of the amps but if apparent volume is low, you'd be doing yourself a disservice because there's not actual signal going through the air (as if the air molecules are still being pushed heavily but not with any dynamics). though i haven't been able to confirm that low amps with high amount of gain, fatigues an ear less or not. maybe glossing over that section again may help me get a better grasp why.
There is no simple answer to this, although when I was a soundsystem engineer I found there were a lot of engineers who (showing their lack of understanding) thought that running amps hot but with low gains was the best way.

It simply is not so. In fact running an amp at full gain can damage speakers, regardless of the rated output of those speakers, entirely depending on the efficiency class of the amps and how they handle clipping.
You can blow speakers by running an underpowered amp in at a level well below the speaker performance limitations.

Also the linearity of the amps comes in to play as well. Some amps may operate in a much more linear way at lower power than high power and vice versa.

Air pressure doesn't come in to it, the speakers move the same amount of air and meet the same resistance at the same SPL regardless of wether that level is achieved by amp gain or mixer gain.

also again linearity comes in to it in regards to the mixer, sound card etc.

So essentially "ear fatigue" is all about clipping and frequency distribution, and that is influenced by different factors depending on the amp performance and gain source.
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Re: Books that somehow relate to techno production

Post by oddmyth »

seanocean wrote: there's also the engineering side which i might have to look back into. i still think about gain, volume, and sound pressure level. like, i've had this discussion with techs before and i've always wondered if it's good to keep your amps down and gains maxed, or just keep everything down.. because i've noticed that if your amps are maxed out and your signal going into them is low, my ears tend to get tired more quickly. i think i heard it described in the sound reinforcement handbook like this: if pressure in the air is greater due to the force of the amps but if apparent volume is low, you'd be doing yourself a disservice because there's not actual signal going through the air (as if the air molecules are still being pushed heavily but not with any dynamics). though i haven't been able to confirm that low amps with high amount of gain, fatigues an ear less or not. maybe glossing over that section again may help me get a better grasp why.
I'd like to see the actual quote from the book really, but one of the main reasons to moderate amplification across several signal sources in a stage is to keep the signal to noise ratio down. In most scenarios I've dealt with, you have one stage that has a much better amplification to SNR ratio than the rest, and that's where you would prefer to do the bulk of your signal amplification.

In the case were your amps are maxed and your input signal is low, then what happens is that the noise floor of your amp is much higher, and the signal output is much lower. Your ears would fatigue because of the high ratio of noise floor to signal.

As Steve mentioned there's no way to do what you wrote, the amplifiers are still only going to push air based on the input signal (SPL is measure in relation to average ambient pressure so the room has no effect on SPL). Some amplifiers do require a certain signal strength in order to produce music with clarity, but this is down to the mechanics of the driver itself, speaker dimensions, and number of drivers being used to create the signal output. The same can be said when you push a driver too far, when the amplification stage can push the driver outside the range it is meant extend out to, then the resultant sound can also become distorted in some fashion, usually the sound becomes muddy in the expected range of that driver as the driver itself can no longer reproduce the signal properly.
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