Someone asked me: “What, in your opinion are most common mistakes that most beginners make when producing electronic music?” The top two mistakes really boil down to: a lack of hearing the big audio picture, and an unbridled desire to make things louder. I explain everything in the post.
In 1999, as editor of Channels, an entertainment magazine for a cable TV company, I had the privilege of interviewing Philippine national artist Lucio San Pedro. This was a year before he passed away. Little did I know how much impact that afternoon’s conversation would have on how I create music.
The title of the poem is Pag-ibig Na Makapangyarihan, which literally translates to “Love So Powerful.” This was a spoken word piece originally performed and written by Filipino hiphop emcee and poet Syke Dolero, known for his machine-gun flow. I ended up composing some jazzy world music around his poetry.
These three New Wave/New Romantic tracks from the 1980s influenced me and inspired me to create electronic music. While there are many more obvious choices I could have included (Depeche Mode, New Order, and Tears for Fears), these songs embody everything about electronica that appeals to me, even if the tracks themselves aren’t electronic.
There are two maxims I live by in creating music and ensuring there is a constant flow of ideas in my creative process: Capture All and Delete Nothing. A comprehensive explanation follows on my process.
Here’s a common question I get from musicians running their own websites: How do I post my music onto my blog? What free tools are available to me? And what cool embeddable music players are there out there? Well, here’s my simple list of free solutions.
I’ve been looking for a good article on how to run a netlabel and couldn’t find one except for this wikihow article that seemed incomplete. That got me thinking: why create a whole new article? Why not contribute to the Wikihow article instead, and add on to the wisdom already presented there? So here you go, below is the most up-to-date edit of the wikihow article after I got through with it. Hope this helps anyone thinking about joining the netlabel world.
The British dance music duo of Phil and Paul Hartnoll, who came to be known as Orbital, were critically and commercially successful in the dance music movement of the 1990s — and famed for their live improvisation during their gigs. But listening to their studio tracks taught me some important lessons. One track in particular “The Box” encapsulates these lessons in a single tune.
Back in 2005, I set out to write a rough guide on how I personally use Propellerheads Reason software for live gigs, in the hopes of shedding light on this most elusive topic: how do electronic musicians rock out on a laptop and MIDI controller?
You like music, you have a PC, and you’ve heard that people use these contraptions nowadays to make music. People are writing and printing sheet music using software. Some put together songs from scratch using only their PC. Some remix other people’s music using software and loops of music. Many music professionals record live instruments onto their computer, incorporating their computers into their private and commercial studios. Others use their computers to spin tunes like a DJ, or to perform live electronic music using software geared towards performance, installed on laptops which are chained to various instruments via USB or MIDI cables.
How exactly they do it all might seem like medieval witchcraft to you, but that’s why FAST FORWARD is here to enlighten with a beginner’s guide to making music on the PC.