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 »

Having said that, I might try out a new tutorial series (once my Visa balance got renewed),
and if they're any good (which I do seriously think they will be), I will most certainly buy and watch most of them. :D

I'll keep you guys informed if I find them worth their money.
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Re: Books that somehow relate to techno production

Post by UN!T »

Hades wrote:
Barfunkel wrote:
serial wrote:I would also recommend checking some monthly magazines like Computer Music, Music Tech & Future Music
Their production articles tend to be quite lite though... It's mostly beginner stuff, like what do the controls on a compressor do. Hardly ever anything indepth about professional stuff.
I would go even further and say that 80% (if not 90%) of all youtube (video) tutorials are like that :
scratching the surface, explaining basic stuff that is all explained in the manual for people who are too lazy to read the manual.... :D
Or they show you how to make 1 basic sound with 1 certain synth.
They almost never go indepth into anything, nor do they often explain why you have to use this or that technique.

I know there are good tutorials out there as well, but they are very few and very far between.
And even with some of the amateur guys that I do follow on youtube because they sometimes make proper tutorials,
I have the impression they just need a regular ego-boost by posting yet another totally pointless video.
You watch it and think "dude, that was 20 minutes of nothing, you were more browsing through stuff than actually doing or explaining anything, why the fuck did you even make this video ??".

I am seriously desillusioned by tutorial video's.
I find I usually learn a lot more from spending the same time in the studio than from watching tutorial video's.
Those who can do.Those who can't make Youtube tutorials. Its funny because its as if some people have given up on trying to make music and they are now seeking fame through Youtube demos and tutorials.

It reminds me of this very well known poster or gearslutz got into an arguement with another member about acid house. The one guy tried to make the other dude look bad by saying "Yeah well I have 10000 subscribers on my Youtube synth demo channel." Who gives a fuck?!? Thats pretty lame really. Still nice guy, good demos just sort of a lame duck really.
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Re: Books that somehow relate to techno production

Post by Hades »

yeah I know it's a cliché :

"those who can't do teach" (or something similar, forgot how it was said in English)

but it's not always the case, I had some great teachers in the past, both in school as in music school.

anyways, the guys I'm planning to try 'n buy a tutorial from seem to have a far better philosophy :
Its important to note that we are still not a dedicated tutorial company and have no plans to become one. We are of the belief that when money is introduced to teaching, it becomes the driving force and more important than the knowledge being shared. By refraining from becoming a dedicated tutorial company and remaining with our production work, it not only means we can keep our finger on the pulse of the music but that our income is not dependent on selling tutorials and shifting as many units as possible.

This not only provides us with a clear focus for sharing of knowledge it also permits us as much time as we need to produce a quality tutorial rather than knock out a tutorial every week to meet some sales figures (typically, we only release 3 to 5 tutorials a year).
That right there is something I truely believe in : when money is introduced to teaching, it becomes the driving force and more important than the knowledge being shared.
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Re: Books that somehow relate to techno production

Post by Milanello1 »

Finally a discussion where I can get my question answered..I hope

Anyways, like most people, I've been watching youtube vids/tutorials for bout over a yr and half now and like the previous posters have said, they've helped me understand the basics but whenever I sit down and open my DAW I only have a very narrow mindset of how to approach things (ie; kick, bass, synth, pad) and my arrangement skills are horrific. I kinda feel burned out by just watching vids and experimenting using that approach and feel like at this point I'm not improving anymore by watching them ie; saturated-out. Hell, I only know the controls on effect devices/synths that they bother explaining. If they don't I have no clue what it does or how I can utilize it.

What steps should to continue my path to improve? I don't want to drop thousands of dollars for 'professional' courses as I feel they too will just be basic introductions to things I've already read or seen. I guess I want to be able to sit-down and know what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. Are there any books or series that you guys have read that would recommend to go from a beginner to intermediate stage? I want to understand delays, reverbs, compressors, eqing IN-DEPTH...how to arrange...how to experiment and not worry this isn't following a correct idea or is it bad production skills..

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Re: Books that somehow relate to techno production

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Milanello1,

Your best course of action is to sit down and play with the DAW, practice making music. Nobody ever learned to play the guitar by watching a video of someone playing the guitar.

If you want to understand delay/reverb/compression, then take what you hear/see in tutorials and apply it to something in the DAW and then experiment with it. If you need to understand a knob in the interface - research it, or just turn it and see what happens.

The worst thing you can do is spend forever watching tutorials, ultimately you learn from doing and making mistakes. If you want to learn about arrangement (something I'm personally horrible at), then listen to some of your favourite songs, open them in your DAW and pull them apart, figure out what sounds come in and out of the piece and when, and ultimately how the come in and out. Or just start arranging and then ask for help.
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Re: Books that somehow relate to techno production

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What Oddmyth says. Prepare to fail again and again, but slowly get better every time. We're all on this journey, just at different levels. Stick around the forum, ask questions and get feedback on your tracks (please do the same for others).

The Izahki book is a good theoretical resource and read your manuals. You see so many questions that people ask that are answered in manuals, when did people get so lazy?

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Re: Books that somehow relate to techno production

Post by willemb »

Planar wrote:What Oddmyth says. Prepare to fail again and again, but slowly get better every time. We're all on this journey, just at different levels. Stick around the forum, ask questions and get feedback on your tracks (please do the same for others).

The Izahki book is a good theoretical resource and read your manuals. You see so many questions that people ask that are answered in manuals, when did people get so lazy?
I think saying RTFM fell out of fashion...

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Re: Books that somehow relate to techno production

Post by UN!T »

Milanello1 wrote:Finally a discussion where I can get my question answered..I hope
Anyways, like most people, I've been watching youtube vids/tutorials for bout over a yr and half now and like the previous posters have said, they've helped me understand the basics but whenever I sit down and open my DAW I only have a very narrow mindset of how to approach things (ie; kick, bass, synth, pad) and my arrangement skills are horrific. I kinda feel burned out by just watching vids and experimenting using that approach and feel like at this point I'm not improving anymore by watching them ie; saturated-out. Hell, I only know the controls on effect devices/synths that they bother explaining. If they don't I have no clue what it does or how I can utilize it.

What steps should to continue my path to improve? I don't want to drop thousands of dollars for 'professional' courses as I feel they too will just be basic introductions to things I've already read or seen. I guess I want to be able to sit-down and know what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. Are there any books or series that you guys have read that would recommend to go from a beginner to intermediate stage? I want to understand delays, reverbs, compressors, eqing IN-DEPTH...how to arrange...how to experiment and not worry this isn't following a correct idea or is it bad production skills..
Get the manual for a single item, sit down with it and workthru it, don't just read it. Work through it. Perform the actions on every single function, feature, knob, button, slider, instrument or whatever it is no matter if you think you know it already, do it again. Its boring and it takes time to do but at the end of the day you will benefit. Do it at least twice. Once to learn and once to make sure you know it. Work through any tutorials provided by the manufacture as well. The key here is doing informed manner concise manner. Doing this will teach you every single feature in your DAW. Then you will be technically proficient with your DAW which is what you want.

Then concentrate on your creative process, since you will know what everthing is in your DAW you don't need to stop creating to figure out what X or Y is or does. Its more likely that you will then come up with ideas because you know what is available to you and how you can apply it.
C0REZ wrote:techno 2014 = fascism
:lol:

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Re: Books that somehow relate to techno production

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Planar wrote: You see so many questions that people ask that are answered in manuals, when did people get so lazy?
when most people stopped reading books.
If they don't ever read a book, then why should they be motivated to read something as boring as a manual.

UN!T is right though : read every manual and do it thoroughly.
I've read far too many manuals in my days, but it did help a lot in the end.
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Re: Books that somehow relate to techno production

Post by Barfunkel »

Any books on dub (the reggae kind) worth reading? Composing, playing, mixing, all that.
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Re: Books that somehow relate to techno production

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smoke a joint, hit the delay.

somehow I don't think the reggae guys are that much into "technique" :D
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Re: Books that somehow relate to techno production

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Hades wrote:smoke a joint, hit the delay.

somehow I don't think the reggae guys are that much into "technique" :D
What a farce.

There's lot of stuff online Barfunkel, your best bet is to learn the basic and popular riddims and instrumentation and then work towards learning the production style of dub.
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Re: Books that somehow relate to techno production

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oddmyth wrote:
Hades wrote:smoke a joint, hit the delay.

somehow I don't think the reggae guys are that much into "technique" :D
What a farce.

There's lot of stuff online Barfunkel, your best bet is to learn the basic and popular riddims and instrumentation and then work towards learning the production style of dub.
who's the farce oddmyth ?
me or what I just jokingly said ?

come on now, these guys are/were smoking weed from dawn till dusk and all night long.
You're seriously trying to make me believe there are tons of "production secrets" involved into making reggae as there are like with making techno ??

Hardwax sells a lot of reggae/dub records...
It's fair to say they sell about 70% techno, 20% house, and 10% a mixture of reggae/ambient/electronica.
Once every 20 or 30 records, I buy a few of those reggae/dub vinyls (so in reality that would mean I buy approx 1 dub/reggae record every month)
Even if I like them more than enough, my ears never hear a lot of different production techniques.

Must be my ears, I must be just dumb/stupid/deaf and all sorts of stuff.
Who shall tell.
What a farce !!

I used to be a massive weed smoker for at least 10 years.
I don't know if you ever smoked lots of pot in your life,
and I'm honestly not talking about the occassional joint, I'm really talking about preferring to be stoned rather than sober most of the hours that you're awake, which is what the biggest part of those artists do/did. Where you ever in Jamaica or any other Carribean island for that matter ? You should try it and see why people smoke there all the time.
It's a very interesting experience, to say the least...

Anyway... only very few get really creative when high on proper weed.
All the rest just chill out.
That whole chill out mood, that's exactly what you hear in all reggae and most dub records.
There's a reason they play reggae/dub in all the Dutch coffee shops almost all day long (you've ever been there ?).

Of course there's gotta be a few techniques, as with every style of music you're trying to make. But let's not pretend reggae/dub is full of production secrets.
It's not like those guys smoke a big joint and then spend a day in the studio trying to build a whole library of perfectly working kick drums, just to name a single example.

but sure enough, I'd love to be proven wrong : what secret production techniques about reggae/dub do you, out of experience, have to share with us ?
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Re: Books that somehow relate to techno production

Post by Barfunkel »

There are no secrets probably, but if you gave me a drumkit, a bass, a guitar, some mics, a mixing desk plus some joints, the results would very likely not sound like a dub record. I'm just interested in reading about how that stuff is made. Techno, house, dub, ambient, hip hop, whatever.
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Re: Books that somehow relate to techno production

Post by Planar »

I think Hades is on the money here. There isn't much to it. It's abuse of crappy old tape delay, spring reverb and phasers. The big deal is the ethos, it's about taking out as much as possible and the groove within that.

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Re: Books that somehow relate to techno production

Post by GLinet »

Hades wrote:
oddmyth wrote:
Hades wrote:smoke a joint, hit the delay.


come on now, these guys are/were smoking weed from dawn till dusk and all night long.
You're seriously trying to make me believe there are tons of "production secrets" involved into making reggae as there are like with making techno ??
Shit music has shit technique, good music has good technique... regardless of genre. The same can be said about most of the techno that's put out.

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Re: Books that somehow relate to techno production

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I don't think that's true at all.

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Re: Books that somehow relate to techno production

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Hades wrote: come on now, these guys are/were smoking weed from dawn till dusk and all night long.
I'm not sure what smoking weed has to do with being creative. I concur that for some people (myself included), weed isn't something that helps me be creative, but there are a number of people out there who are habitual drug users that are functional beyond belief when completely stoned. I've known and still know several people like this. They can run circles around other people smoking some of the heaviest weed in the world, they aren't all that common, but they exist.
Hades wrote: You're seriously trying to make me believe there are tons of "production secrets" involved into making reggae as there are like with making techno ??
There are quite a number of production techniques that originated in dub and reggae that are used in techno. The roots of dub and techno are the same - experimentation with sound and furthermore music written with rhythm more than melodic content in mind. It's these very minimal tracks that opened the doors for techno and not only techno, the roots of electronic music, ska, reggae and punk can all be tied back to Jamaica in the 60's and 70's.
Hades wrote: I used to be a massive weed smoker for at least 10 years.
I don't know if you ever smoked lots of pot in your life,
and I'm honestly not talking about the occassional joint, I'm really talking about preferring to be stoned rather than sober most of the hours that you're awake, which is what the biggest part of those artists do/did. Where you ever in Jamaica or any other Carribean island for that matter ? You should try it and see why people smoke there all the time.
It's a very interesting experience, to say the least...
I've never been to Jamaica myself, it's on my list of places to go, in fact the wife and I were saying we should do that this coming winter. My best friend growing up was Jamaican and I think I've always kept in touch with at least a few people who grew up in Jamaica over the years (Toronto is the home of a great many Jamaicans, perhaps you've heard of Caribana? North America's largest Carribean festival? That happens in Toronto). Yes I'm aware of what happens in Jamaica, yes I've been a 24/7 pothead with access to all sorts of crazy weed over the years.
Hades wrote: That whole chill out mood, that's exactly what you hear in all reggae and most dub records.
There's a reason they play reggae/dub in all the Dutch coffee shops almost all day long (you've ever been there ?).
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.
Hades wrote: Of course there's gotta be a few techniques, as with every style of music you're trying to make. But let's not pretend reggae/dub is full of production secrets.
It's not like those guys smoke a big joint and then spend a day in the studio trying to build a whole library of perfectly working kick drums, just to name a single example.

but sure enough, I'd love to be proven wrong : what secret production techniques about reggae/dub do you, out of experience, have to share with us ?
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.
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Re: Books that somehow relate to techno production

Post by Milanello1 »

I'll definitely be sticking around..maybe a bit too much :D
checking out Mixing Audio by Izakhi and so far I'm loving it..just wish I still had the patience and will to sit down and read at length xD

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Re: Books that somehow relate to techno production

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oddmyth wrote: I'm not sure what smoking weed has to do with being creative. I concur that for some people (myself included), weed isn't something that helps me be creative, but there are a number of people out there who are habitual drug users that are functional beyond belief when completely stoned. I've known and still know several people like this. They can run circles around other people smoking some of the heaviest weed in the world, they aren't all that common, but they exist.
fair enough, I'll give you that.
After all, I've made music when being stoned, usually it wasn't my best music.
You love it at the moment you're creating it, but you think "hmm, maybe not my best" the next day.

Perhaps I shouldn't have used the word "creative", but rather "productive", and that is most definitely the case : most people don't get very productive when stoned, and they aren't the most productive people there either by nature.
In the Carribean, people are chilled out all the time, it's in their blood.
Most of them never know "stress" like we do.
All the people I got to know over there were far more poor than us, and yet they were usually in a far better mood than most of us are over here.
Hell, even the weed is quite different than what we have over here.
I can't talk about what kind of weed you guys see in Canada since I've only smoked weed there twice (even though I've been there enough times),
but the weed we smoke in Belgium (and which I used to buy straight from Holland in the years I was a big smoker) is a lot "stronger" in effect.
For the moment they are rolling up weed-farms all over in Belgium, so I'm guessing most of the weed you buy nowadays over here is produced somewhere in Belgium,
but it's still heavily influenced stuff : plants that are forced to grow asap, given lots of fertilizers and 24/7 lights and stuff,
species/flavours that are chosen for their maximum effect,...
In the Carribean they just let the sun do the work.

I'm only trying to say different drugs/drinks have different effects on (most) people. There is also a reason they prefer rum there instead of beer.
It just fits the whole atmosphere there better. I usually hate drinking strong liquor (I don't have the stomach for it), yet I loved drinking rum while being in Cuba.
Not to say they never drink beer there, but yeah, rum just goes better with the weather I guess...
I don't think they'll ever be able to sell speed a lot over there, just to name an example of a drug that just isn't made for that region.
Coke is something else of course, given the location, but speed, no way, people just wouldn't be interested. :)

I'm still serious when I think you're best of smoking a joint if you wanna make reggae or dub.
Just like I also think techno could have never been invented somewhere in the southern parts of our planet where the weather is usually pretty great.
House sure, but not techno.
Nowadays there are a few good techno producers coming from South America, but let's face it, there's not a big market for that over there.
Just 2 days ago a German guy said he moved to Chile and said it sucked over there for techno.


oddmyth wrote: There are quite a number of production techniques that originated in dub and reggae that are used in techno. The roots of dub and techno are the same - experimentation with sound and furthermore music written with rhythm more than melodic content in mind. It's these very minimal tracks that opened the doors for techno and not only techno, the roots of electronic music, ska, reggae and punk can all be tied back to Jamaica in the 60's and 70's.
I agree that experimentation with sound is common to both techno and dub, but I think techno would have come to existence with or without Jamaica in the 60's and 70's.
Perhaps there is a far bigger connection between reggae and dub than I realize, but I don't really feel there is a direct line to be drawn.
After all, you can draw lines from so many music genres to so many older music genres.
Can we say our MIDI controllers wouldn't have existed if the clavichord (and more importantly the piano cause a clavichord has no velocity) was never invented ?

Plus, I very seriously believe techno is a LOT more about technique than reggae and dub.
Just the fact that to make reggae/dub you have to at least have a few musicians while with techno you can do it all by yourself, clicking in stuff with the mouse, even if you don't know how to play a single instrument.
That single fact alone makes techno a lot more "technical" than reggae/dub because you simply need more technical instruments than with reggae/dub.
oddmyth wrote: I've never been to Jamaica myself, it's on my list of places to go, in fact the wife and I were saying we should do that this coming winter. My best friend growing up was Jamaican and I think I've always kept in touch with at least a few people who grew up in Jamaica over the years (Toronto is the home of a great many Jamaicans, perhaps you've heard of Caribana? North America's largest Carribean festival? That happens in Toronto). Yes I'm aware of what happens in Jamaica, yes I've been a 24/7 pothead with access to all sorts of crazy weed over the years.
Sorry, no, I don't know Toronto enough to know anything about its festivals. I was there 7 times, but I was always under-age, and the last 2x I was in Ontario, I was legally of age for the Belgian law, but not for the dumb-ass (no offence) Canadian Laws.
I was being interviewed by a Belgian radio reporter (together with 2 other Belgians) who had flewn over for the occasion, and we all went to a bar "Belgian hall", all the others were 19+, but I was 18 and 10 months old. The bartender first threatened to kick us out, then eventually kicked us into the "under 18" part, in a different room at the back of the place.
The irony was that she (bartender) was even a few months younger than me, but Ontario laws say you have to be 18 to serve alcohol, but 19 to drink it.
All the old retired Belgian farmers came up to us excusing themselves for the stupidity of the situation, but yeah...

Anyway, if you ever go to Jamaica or pretty much anywhere in the Carribean, please : do not take a normal hotel !!
If you take the normal hotels, you only get to see what they like you to see. You won't see much poverty, you won't see much crime.
All the food will always be excellent.
And yes the kitchen is excellent in most of these places, but the reality is that a lot of the people that live there don't have the money to prepare such food that we get served in the hotels there.
Of course this depends from island to island, but in Cuba for example, the normal people got shit food, all the good food went straight to the big hotels.
We always stayed with locals, and every morning they'd ask us what we'd like for dinner : "pollo ? filete de pescado ? langoustine ?" (there was a 4th one, I forgot which)
That were the only options they had to offer us.
On our last night there, we wanted to cook for them, and we went to visit a local market, it was depressing how bad the food quality was, while all the big restaurants get perfect food.
Even finding a few normally sized cloves of garlic was barely possible.
It was also frightening to see how we almost never saw normal tourists, as if they were all hidden somewhere.
The same counts for the Dominican Republic (stuffed with "tourist ghetto's"), and definitely Haïti which is a damn right dangerous place to be.
St Maarten is already quite a bit better, but even there you get the see the island different if you don't stay in the hotels and try to find local lodgings.
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