Daft Punk Scores TR2N Soundtrack

March 04, 2009 02:41 PM ET

David J. Prince, N.Y.

Daft Punk, the French electronica duo known for their robot personas, have been tapped by Walt Disney Pictures to compose the score for "TR2N", an update of the studio's 1982 science fiction classic "Tron", Billboard has confirmed.

The film, currently in production, is tentatively scheduled for a 2011 release.

The "TR2N" score marks Daft Punk's first foray into the studio since 2005's "Human After All." After an extended hiatus, the duo reemerged in 2007 for an extensive world tour, spawning the Grammy-wining live set "Alive 2007." The group's 2001 track "Harder Better Faster Stronger" was adapted by Kanye West for his single "Stronger," and the pair appeared on the 2008 Grammy Awards with the rapper.

The musicians, Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter split their time between Paris and Los Angeles, where they have have assembled a new recording studio for the TR2N project.

Daft Punk have worked in film before, most notably as directors of their feature "Electroma," although that film used none of the group's own music. As Banglater explained to Billboard in 2007 about the pair's next musical project, "The cool thing is that we're always trying to do something that hasn't been done, or ultimately, that we aren't doing ourselves yet. It is challenging to get back in the studio and work with ideas we haven't expressed before. Some ideas take time, but some just take a few weeks, so we'll see."

The original film, which pioneered the use of computer graphics, was scored by Wendy Carlos, an electronic musician and composer whose "Switched on Bach" album was one of the first to highlight the Moog synthesizer as a musical instrument.

Comment:
Mikael Carlsson comments:

March 05, 2009

Cool. And here is the actual origin of this scoop: http://upcomingfilmscores.blogspot.com/2009/03/daft-punk-tron-20.html :-)

Glitch (History, Origin, How -To, Analysis)

Wiki Entry:

Glitch is a term used to describe a genre of experimental electronic music that emerged in the mid to late 1990s. The origins of the glitch aesthetic can be traced back to Luigi Russolo's Futurist manifesto The Art of Noises, the basis of noise music. In a Computer Music Journal article published in 2000, composer and writer Kim Cascone used the term post-digital to describe various experimentations associated with the glitch aesthetic. Glitch is characterized by a preoccupation with the sonic artifacts that can result from malfunctioning digital technology, such as those produced by bugs, crashes, system errors, hardware noise, CD skipping, and digital distortion.^[2] Cascone considers glitch to be a sub-genre of electronica. ^[3]

History

Glitch originated in Germany with the musical work and labels of Achim Szepanski^[4], who later gained popularity through the collaboration with Sebastian Meissner under the moniker "Random Inc."^[5]. While the movement initially slowly gained members (including bands like Oval)^[6], the techniques of Glitch later quickly spread around the world as many artists — including bands such as Kid 606, Team Doyobi and Autechre — followed suit. Yasunao Tone used damaged CDs in his Techno Eden performance in 1985. Trumpeter Jon Hassell's 1994 album Dressing For Pleasure — a dense mesh of funky trip hop and jazz — features several songs with the sound of skipping CDs layered into the mix.

Oval's Wohnton, produced in 1993, helped define the genre by adding ambient aesthetics to it^[7]. Though the music of Markus Popp's band (Oval) may be the first in which the techniques of Musique Concrete were applied to the subtleties of Ambient, glitch is also informed by techno and industrial music. Turntablist Christian Marclay had been incorporating the use of scratched or otherwise damaged vinyl records into his sets since the 1970s; it is the rapid advance in technology and expansion of thought behind music that has allowed glitch to adopt this "broken" sound and use it as a stylistic marker.

Production techniques

Glitch is often produced on computers using modern digital production software to splice together small "cuts" (samples) of music from previously recorded works. These cuts are then integrated with the signature of glitch music: beats made up of glitches, clicks, scratches, and otherwise "erroneously" produced or sounding noise. These glitches are often very short, and are typically used in place of traditional percussion or instrumentation. Skipping CDs, scratched vinyl records, circuit bending, and other noise-like distortions figure prominently into the creation of rhythm and feeling in glitch; it is from the use of these digital artifacts that the genre derives its name. However, not all artists of the genre are working with erroneously produced sounds or are even using digital sounds.

Popular software for creating glitch includes trackers, Reaktor, Ableton Live, Reason, AudioMulch, Bidule, Super Collider, FLStudio, MAX/MSP, Pure Data, and ChucK. Circuit bending -- the intentional short-circuiting of low power electronic devices to create new musical devices -- also plays a significant role on the hardware end of glitch music and its creation.

Sub-genres

Glitch Hop

Glitch hop is a relatively new sub variant of the glitch form, and shares the name click hop, blip hop, downbreaks and break hop. Aside from the obvious lineage of hip hop and glitch this genre tends to borrow from the IDM and minimalist genres as well. The music is marked by the DSP laden sonic tapestry and twitchiness of glitch with a more hip hop style framework. The beat tends to follow hip-hop's break-derived conventions, falling into a range between 85-100 bpm. Instead of using just traditional drum kits, glitch hop's "nerdified drums" are augmented with clicks, bent circuits, and sometimes the cut up vocals of the MC. Swedish producer Andreas Tilliander's landmark Cliphop and Plee albums (released as Mokira by German labels Raster Noton in 2000 and Mille Plateaux in 2002) are considered by some as the blueprints of the genre.

Notable groups of this genre include the L.A.-based production group The Glitch Mob, other artists include Prefuse 73^[8], Machinedrum, Dabrye, Kid 606, Jahcoozi, BreakBeatBuddha and Edit, who published glitch hop tracks as part of larger glitch albums. Cex and MC Lars also sometimes perform glitch hop material. CanopyRadio.tv is a well-known collaborative project that mixes jungle and glitch hop together into podcast form.

Popular Electronica act Autechre also experimented in a more instrumental style of Glitch hop, notably in more recent years.

Further reading

• Andrews, Ian, Post-digital Aesthetics and the return to Modernism, MAP-uts lecture, 2000, available at authors website.
• Bijsterveld, Karin and Trevor J. Pinch. "'Should One Applaud?': Breaches and Boundaries in the Reception of New Technology in Music." Technology and Culture. Ed. 44.3, pg 536-559. 2003.
• Byrne, David. "What is Blip Hop?" Lukabop, 2002. Available here.
• Collins, Adam, "Sounds of the system: the emancipation of noise in the music of Carsten Nicolai", Organised Sound, 13(1): 31-39. 2008. Cambridge University Press.
• Collins, Nicolas. Editor. "Composers inside Electronics: Music after David Tudor." Leonardo Music Journal. Vol. 14, pgs 1-3. 2004.
• Prior, Nick, "Putting a Glitch in the Field: Bourdieu, Actor Network Theory and Contemporary Music", Cultural Sociology, 2: 3, 2008: pp 301-319.
• Thomson, Phil, "Atoms and errors: towards a history and aesthetics of microsound", Organised Sound, 9(2): 207-218. 2004. Cambridge University Press.
• Sangild, Torben: "Glitch — The Beauty of Malfunction" in Bad Music. Routledge (2004, ISBN 0-415-94365-5) [1]
• Young, Rob: "Worship the Glitch", The Wire 190/191 (2000)
• Noah Zimmerman, "Dusted Reviews, 2002"

See also

Noise music

Microsound

Lowercase (music)

Clicks & Cuts Series

Minimal techno

Microhouse

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All Music.com Definition/Statement:

As computer-aided composition slowly eclipsed the traditional analog approach to crafting electronica, the palette of possible sounds soon widened immensely, resulting in the advent of the glitch style in the late '90s. No longer was the artist confined to sequenced percussion, synth, and samples, but rather any imaginable sound, including the uncanny realm of digital glitches -- a possibility that was quickly exploited by a generation of youths with the means to create entire albums in their bedroom with only a computer and some software. Where early-'90s analog-toting pioneers such as Aphex Twin and Autechre had envisioned the quickly diminishing areas of electronica that had not yet been explored, and simultaneously, another insular group of pioneers led by Robert Hood and Basic Channel stripped away the elements of electronica that had ultimately become little more than ineffective cliché, a second wave of computer-armed protégés studied these aesthetics and used software to create microscopically intricate compositions harking back to these pioneers. First championed by the ideological German techno figure Achim Szepanski and his stable of record labels -- Force Inc, Mille Plateaux, Force Tracks, Ritornell -- this tight-knit scene of experimental artists creating cerebral hybrids of experimental techno, minimalism, digital collage, and noise glitches soon found themselves being assembled into a community. Though artists such as Oval, Pole, and Vladislav Delay, among others, had initially been singled out by critics beforehand, Mille Plateaux's epic Clicks_+_Cuts compilation first defined the underground movement, exploring not only a broad roster of artists but also a wide scope of approaches. The artists on the compilation, along with a small community of visionary artists in the software-savvy San Francisco/Silicon Valley area of California led by the Cytrax label, soon found themselves as the critically hailed leaders of yet another electronica movement. It wasn't long before the glitch aesthetic began being crossbred with existing genres, resulting in endless variations on the aesthetic, such as MRI's click-driven house and Kid 606's noise remix of N.W.A's "Straight Outta Compton."

Related Styles

Ambient Dub Ambient Techno Experimental Techno Experimental Dub Experimental Ambient

Glitch Album Highlights

Top Artists Click here for full list. Thomas Brinkmann Kit Clayton Vladislav Delay Oval Pan Sonic Pole Frank Bretschneider Sutekh Terre Thaemlitz Donnacha Costello Alec Empire Exos Jasper Komp Low Res Carsten Nicolai Safety Scissors Twerk

Top Albums Click here for full list. 1 Pole 94 Diskont Oval Aaltopiiri Pan Sonic Endless Vainio Väisänen Vega Multila Vladislav Delay Nek Sanalet Kit Clayton Ovalprocess Oval Approximate Love Boat Low Res Curve Frank Bretschneider Dok Oval & Christophe Charles

Top Songs Click here for full list. Berlin Pole Do While Oval Ele Vladislav Delay Fahren Pole Hapatus Pan Sonic Nuchu Kit Clayton Pohdka Tomas Jirku What You're Doin Soul Center Anima Vladislav Delay Trucker Terre Thaemlitz

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Editing Techniques for Glitch Production from Remix Magazine.com:

FRACTAL TENDENCIES

Aug 1, 2004 12:00 PM, By Jason Scott Alexander

Simply mention the words stutter or glitch among DJ and remixing circles, and you're sure to conjure a discussion revolving around artists such as BT, Hybrid, Aphex Twin and Autechre, to name but a few. Longtime pioneers of the two infectiously accidental-sounding effects, they have carved an entirely new style of production and musical arrangement, not to mention forged two new categorical subsets within electronic music. This article will take a look at how to create and incorporate stutter and glitch edits into your productions.

In its simplest form, the stutter has become so mainstream that nearly every DJ mixer, DJ software and even some decks now offer a one-button solution for the effect. Likewise, glitch-music production has moved from the progressive remix studio to the dorm room, where students are using their PCs and off-the-shelf tools to disintegrate Top 40 hits into rhythmically and melodically unrecognizable piles of cuts.

These simple (some would say rudimentary and old-school) variations of the stutter and glitch edit are not what this article is going to examine. A stutter edit in today's terms isn't merely a case of repeating a slice of audio or MIDI-retriggering a sample at 16th- or 32nd-note intervals. Nor is it simply the sound of a CD skipping or of a gated pad — both common misnomers. The most complex stutter edits of today take on a decidedly more musical and melodic character. They are typically handpicked arrangement elements that get sliced and diced at such tiny, tight intervals that the end result ring modulates and creates its own pitch. Although standard tools such as Propellerhead ReCycle, Sony Acid and Bitshift Audio Phatmatik Pro are used to prepare audio for stutters, the expert artisans all agree that it's much, much deeper than simple beat slicing and beat mangling.

The discussion herein will comprise general ballpark guidelines, not rules. This is not a tutorial on using specific software tools, either. Remember, no single technique is the right technique; no single tool is the right tool; and no amount of theory can ever replace intuition or those funny-looking flaps on the side of your head. Be forewarned, though: Performing extreme stutter or glitch edits can be an insanely time-consuming endeavor, sometimes taking days or weeks to complete just 10 seconds of finished product — much like a cartoonist drawing animation cells. It's also a 99 percent trial-and-error process requiring lots of experimentation, tons of patience and a pretty good dose of fearlessness to boot.

ANATOMY CLASS

Describing the makeup of a stutter edit is extremely challenging, as it can literally take on any one of hundreds, if not thousands, of forms. A stutter is typically, but not exclusively, derived from the isolation and repetition of a plosive or attack transient in a vocal or primary percussive sound within a track. This isolated section, or slice, is usually an eighth note in length at its largest and falls precisely on or around the beat to form a strong rhythmic progression across several beats. A glitch, on the other hand, is usually a momentary eighth- or 16th-bar blistering of extremely minute slices of audio, a 64th note or smaller, often being derived from sustained sonic elements containing rich and complex harmonic textures.

Another key difference is that a stutter typically progresses with rhythmic shifts, or changes in note intervals and subdivided accents, whereas a glitch occurs so quickly that the slices of audio create a static, tonal or buzzing sound. Stutters most often occur at builds, transitions and breakdowns or anywhere you'd classically think of using a drum fill. Glitches, as their name suggests, are not used to emphasize or reinforce rhythm as much as they are sprinkled about at odd rhythmic intervals to jar the listener into taking notice. They artificially induce a momentary rhythmic change to the track by breaking up the monotony.

Oftentimes, stutter effects get blended with or dissolve down to theoretical glitches. That is, the individual audio slices, or elements of a stutter, can be reduced to 64th- or 128th-note values (or smaller), at which point they are no longer audibly stuttering but creating tones. You can see how this is a pretty gray science.

That said, with MIDI's timing being about as accurate as a sundial, trying to pull off sample triggers smaller than a 32nd note will sound like hell. Although it's still an often-used trick for some producers to automate and adjust the sample start point (on samplers that even have this feature) and have a number of notes firing off rapidly one after the other while sweeping the sample start knob, today, it's all about slicing up audio and manipulating each individual slice in your DAW. With sample-accurate timing, working with audio inside of a workstation allows total freedom of the resolution of your stutter spacing — not to mention all of the cool things you can do to each of the individual slices once you have them all spaced and lined up.

But what about source material? What's a prime candidate for stutters or glitches? The easy answer, of course, is anything. Practically speaking, though, for your stutters, look for rhythmic elements that already stand out in the mix: drums loops, lead vocals, vocal hooks, percussive synths, rhythm guitars and so forth. Elements like these that are already telling a story or keeping the rhythm moving are ideal. Stutters can be performed on individual tracks, such as the lead vocal, to accentuate a lyric or phrase; on stems, in which you can process a group of sounds together; or on the full stereo mix, which provides the greatest impact. Glitches are rarely administered to the full mix, unless, of course, you're aiming to break up the rhythm of the track; they're more like overlays, little decorative ticks and flicks that are surrounded by a solid backing.

PREPARATION, NOT PERSPIRATION

With the possibility of having thousands of 128th-note audio slices littering your arrange page, it's best to do your homework and get a grip on the audio you've decided to treat. Your first step is to decide if the section you wish to apply the stutter to is more of a sound-design element or an arrangement element. If you're intending to create a hook sound from a rhythmic element, such as a complex stuttered percussion loop with lots of processing, it's probably a good idea to take it outside of the arrange page and into a dedicated audio editor and preprocess the entire section with any tonal effects that you're considering. Then, you can take it into a transient-detecting loop-dicing tool, such as ReCycle, and slice it up there.

At this point, you want to make sure that your audio file is looped nice and tight, and remove any pops at the ends of your slices by manually or automatically applying minute fades to the front and back of each. These slices won't be your actual stutters, but rather starting-point elements from which you pick and choose and fine-tune the repetition and spacing of once you import them back into your DAW's arrange page.

Another cool trick is to first bounce your selected section of audio several times, each time applying different effects plug-ins, EQ settings and so on; then, take all of your bounced audio files and identically chop them up into small slices in ReCycle. Then, once you bring them back into your DAW and start building your slice edits, you'll have time-exact variations of your cuts with which to drop in and out of, similar to subtractive mixing.

If your stutter is going to be applied to already time-aligned elements, such as vocals, in a rather hit-and-miss fashion throughout the song, your best bet is to perform the slice edits within your DAW. For this, zoom in on the section of audio that you're interested in, set the grid to a desired resolution — say, 32nd notes — and perform a slice-to-grid command. Slicing the audio to smaller divisions is not terribly advantageous at this point unless you're intent is to dissolve a stutter into a glitch. Remember, you can always reduce your working grid to a finer resolution later and selectively reslice your chopped-up bits in half, quarters or whatever. Again, fading the front and back of certain slices may be necessary to remove unwanted pops. As you will see, using this method and saving your effects processing for application to the individual slices later on allows you greater freedom and control of the dynamics and motion of your stutters. Next comes the extremely laborious task of spreading everything out.

BARS AND BEATS

Once your initial slices are created and imported back into your DAW, it's time to start granularly piecing together the edit so that it stutters or glitches and sounds cool “in time.” Right now, the slices play through as normal. A cleverly performed stutter or glitch is not blind repetition or constant equal-interval cutting. It is for this reason that generic chopper tools, plug-ins or gate effects cannot possibly produce an authentic-sounding complex stutter sound. Those tools don't have the ability to think like a musician. Stutters aren't just effects; they are a form of 21st-century composition.

Take a look at a fairly basic one-bar stutter that will rhythmically repeat at eighth-note intervals over a straight four-on-the-floor pattern. You've lined up the group of stutter cuts so that the first slice containing the initial attack transient of the loop, or whatever you have, is sitting right on the one count of the bar in which you wish the stutter to begin. Next, copy and paste this slice every eighth note for the length of the bar, shifting all remaining slices to the right a full bar. These slices can either be left to play through in succession without stutter or manipulated later. Through experimentation, you will find that the duration of each stuttered slice need not necessarily be a full eighth note in length and often sounds better if you trim back the slice durations, dependent on the source material. Take a listen — it sounds basic and bland, right? You've just discovered the first key to making an interesting stutter: variation. Stutter variation can either be time variant, tonal variant or both. Time variation can come in many forms, including slice positioning, duration and relative spacing. Tonal variation can be the result of effects processing, variations in source material within a stutter sequence, induced pitch from extremely tight stutter spacing and so on.

Going back to the one-bar example, if you copy the last four eighth-note slices and paste them a 16th note to the right, you have a one-bar section containing four eighth-note slices for the first two beats and eight 16th-note slices for the second two beats. Just that slight introduction of variation to the stutter makes it more interesting, but it's still nothing to write home about.

A classic stutter build might take this example a step further by continuing the stutter across the following bar for two or three bars, reducing the stutter intervals to 32nd notes and eventually 64th notes across the final beat. But what could really add some life to the party is the introduction of some compound rhythm.

SYNCOPATION NATION

Shifting the beat emphasis from the usually strong beat to the beat that's usually weak is an important tool in making stutters stand out. Different syncopations can build tension and make for the rhythmic shifts caused by the imposition of compound meters. Consider a four-bar transition that takes you out of a steady kick-driven groove with a lead vocal over the top. You want to drop down to just a vocal stutter of the hook for the first bar and let the vocal line continue on with a pad, no beat, but reintroduce rhythm over the fourth and final bar of the transition, using the vocal itself, before you come back in with an explosion of the full mix.

You've chopped the four-bar vocal hook at pretty ruthless 128th-note intervals and brought it into place near the first beat of the first bar of the transition. (A tip: Slide the entire section of slices to a muted holding track directly above or below where you're working — it saves having to scoot everything over as you build the stutter.) Now, you don't want to start right on the first beat of the transition; rather, drop the first slice squarely between the third and fourth beat of the bar just prior to the transition. This syncopation will allow you to do something very cool next. Thinking in terms of eighth-note chunks for the next little while, you'll stutter the first 128th-note vocal slice for the duration of this pretransition space; then, starting on the first beat of the actual transition, you will repeat 64th-note slices (or two consecutive 128th-note slices butted or pasted together) for the first eighth of the bar. So far, it should sound like a fishing reel being cast out: a high-pitched buzzy whir in two pitch increments.

Now, as you increase the size of the slices, to not lose the motion of the lyrics, you'll want to advance through the slices over time. There is no set rule as to how to perform this; it's really up to your ears and acquired skill. However, a simple rule is to look for places that the syllables or vowels change in the lyrics.

Okay, now that you're sitting on the anticipated second beat, you're all lined up to drop in four 32nd-note slices of the progressing vocal hook for another eighth of the bar. Move ahead, and insert two 16th-note slices for another eighth of a bar and one eighth-note slice for another eighth of the bar. Now, you're two full beats into the transition, and it's time to let the vocal fly as normal. If it isn't already obvious, you'll want the vocal to come in at the right time, so some fudging with stutter slice elements will be necessary. This is why it's extremely helpful to have the intact audio waveform sitting above or below for reference.

For the end of the transition, you need to reintroduce the rhythm over the fourth and final bar using the vocal itself as your rhythm element. Because vocals typically are sustained notes at the end of a hook, it doesn't really make sense to use an attack transient for this. Instead, search out a cool-sounding section of the held note to stutter. Often, truncating the vocal tail just prior to where you start the stutter gives the brain room to breathe and builds greater anticipation for the stutter. Here, you could drop 32nd-note slices across the first two beats and shift from simple to compound time for the rest, inserting stutters in stairs of 32nd, 64th and 128th notes. Really, stutters and glitch edits are all about rushing and dragging time and then catching up right on the downbeat. So feel free to try out all sorts of crazy meters, syncopations — whatever feels right.

CAUSE IN DA EFFECT

The secret weapons of the pros in achieving the coolest stutters, though, is their arsenal of hundreds, if not thousands, of plug-ins. It's common to hear of producers performing multipass preprocessing treatments to prep their audio, even before a single slice is ever made. Likewise, smearing an effect across a final stutter sequence can help smooth things out and remove any harshness that may have cropped up. The types of effects they use range from the garden-variety stock plug-ins to extremely esoteric and complex “math music” applications.

Filter and phase plug-ins such as Sound Toys FilterFreak and PhaseMistress are notorious favorites among the stutter pros for their ability to deftly sync to and follow rhythmic material such as drum loops, breaks and guitars. Distortions, decimators and vocoders are another set of preprocessing tools that do wonders on lead vocals and drum loops. Distortion, in particular, is awesome for making stuttered vocals and beats sound really cool. And don't be afraid to go outside of plug-ins. Look to old, crappy stompboxes and overdriven economy mixers; sometimes, they're the rawest and coolest-sounding. It's all about adding the right coloration to the material while it's still intact so that you retain a smooth flow to the stutter once it's chopped and spread. Throwing ramped or envelope-modulated pitch- or formant-shift effects can really make a vocal stand out, too. Combining these in carefree, mad-scientist fashion is the only way to go.

Stepping it up a notch, you have such interesting processes as granular synthesis, sample granulation, spectral analysis and spectral morphing, resynthesis and cross synthesis. Typically, these are found in specialty apps and plug-ins like Yowstar's G Audio (incorporates former products Girl and Cosmetic); Tom Erbe's acclaimed SoundHack Spectral Shapers collection of timbral morphing tools (including +spectralcompand, +binaural, +morphfilter and +spectralgate); Native Instruments' Reaktor modular synthesis, effects and sound-design studio; GRM Tools; DFX's Scrubby, TransVerb, Skidder, RezSynth and Buffer Override; U&I Software's MetaSynth; Ross Bencina's AudioMulch; Cycling '74's Max/MSP; and Applied Acoustics' Tassman 4. And for the truly brave, there are such math- and code-heavy sound-design programming tools as Miller Puckette's Pure Data (PD), Barry Vercoe's C-Sound, James McCartney's SuperCollider and Symbolic Sound's Kyma system.

Those latter four are what many call math-music programs, or programming languages dedicated to manipulating audio in real time. They've each been around for many years, largely on the open-source Unix platform, and do take some time getting used to. If you wish to be on the leading edge of sound design, though, learning one or more of these environments is a must, and you won't regret the time spent.

Now, if you're a true glutton for punishment, you'll dig in and treat each slice individually. There, personal discretion and lots of free time come in really handy. By treating and processing your stutters a slice at a time, you can dramatically alter their dynamics and sense of animation. These individual treatments will be clearly noticeable in the eighth-to-32nd-note range, and you'll really get a charge out of the results. Then, try some postprocessing with flanged reverbs and retro tape delays if the stutter needs to sit back in the mix.

Overall, the best piece of advice is to use everything you can get your hands on, and keep your sound-generation possibilities wide open. Tons of freeware and open-source tools are out there to pick up on. The unique combination of your editing style and the sound-design tools you choose to use will set you apart from the rest of the pack, so listen, experiment and then listen some more. And remember, be fearless. There are no rules.

HYBRID IMPLEMENTATION: MIKE TRUMAN TALKS SHOP

What sonic elements seem to tickle the ears when stuttered or glitched?

Usually drum loops and percussion or anything rhythmical works best. Long pads, vocal washes, et cetera, that are stuttered end up being lost in a mix, unless you want that mid-'90s progressive-house vocal gate effect. The rule of thumb is that if you can't really notice the effect in a track, don't bother doing it. Otherwise, you're wasting loads of time on a programming trick that you'll be very proud of when it's soloed but will make absolutely no difference to the track on a club sound system. Go for big sounds pushed high in the mix to edit if you don't want your valuable time wasted muddying up a mix.

Is it true that the modern stutter concept has left the MIDI space and has nothing to do with retriggering samples anymore?

Not entirely. If you listen to our mix of Jeff Wayne's “War of the Worlds,” there are stutters and edits all over the beat programming, and it was all done using an Akai S3000 and MIDI. Loads of producers have been doing similar tricks with Akai MPC drum programmers for ages, but editing in audio onscreen is just so much easier.

What about sound design — do you leave your DAW for specialized processing?

We definitely go outside of Logic to process the sound files. The best technique we've found is to take one loop and process it through loads of programs and then chop sections out of the processed loops to generate the edit in an arrangement. We use Peak for Premiere plug-ins, Metasynth, Thonk, SuperCollider, Reaktor and a ton of little shareware programs that only do one effect well, but you use whatever program suits your idea. SuperCollider, for instance, was used for the granular drum effects in our mix of Sarah McLachlan's “Fear,” the really metallic smudges on the snare and kicks.

What's your processing trick du jour for treating stutter elements?

At the moment, we're messing about with specially edited Reaktor delays, feedbacks and granular synthesis. Most techies will have noticed loads of GRM Tools effects in our current tracks, as it's got a less-digital feel to it. We're trying to move away from the very robotic edits and put things through guitar amps and rerecord it to smooth things over a bit. Phase is a good old favorite on tightly looped edits. It just takes away some of the harshness. Also, it's a good idea to toy around with delays and reverbs to give a sense of depth to the chops.

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The Aesthetics of Failure: Glitch Music, by Kim Cascone

The Aesthetics of Failure - Glitch Music

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Academic Work Promotional culture Culture-Music

Great paper on Glitch and computer generated electronic music.

IDM Forums

IDM Forums has some great, you guessed it forums, regarding production, technique, live sets, gear, artists, releases, etc. etc. If you want ideas on how to make beats check it out.

Here's a thread regarding tips on Minimal House production. Enjoy.

IDM Forums

Defining Electronic Music Genre's

There are many folks out there who are not in tune with the beauty, complexity and awe of the electronic music genre's. They will just carelessly omit all sub genres and plainly call electronic music techno. And it really $%#@ing bothers me too!

So I am going to layout some sub genres so you can decipher what you are listening too and become more cultured in the world of sound and music. I'm a completest and I'm going to resist listing too much, as hard as that might be. So if you want the list of lists as far as electronica sub-genre's go, this Wiki page is where it's at:

Full list of electronic music genres & subgenres

I'm only going to post some that I feel really stand out and need definition.

Trip Hop

House

Minimal House

Big Beat

Drum_&_Bass/Jungle

IDM (Intelligent Dance Music)

Trance

Trip Hop

Trip Hop is a music genre also known as the Bristol sound. The trip hop description was applied to the musical trend in the mid-1990s of downtempo electronic music that grew out of England's hip hop and house scenes. It is often rejected as a term by those artists to whom it is applied. It has also been described as "Europe's alternative of choice in the second half of the '90s", and a fusion "of Hip-Hop and Electronica until neither genre is recognizable." ^[1] It is thus categorized as a fairly experimental genre, and sometimes with elements of Dance.

Sometimes characterized by a reliance on breakbeats and a sample-heavy, often moody sound pioneered by Coldcut's remix of Eric B. & Rakim's "Paid in Full", trip hop gained notice via popular artists such as Massive Attack, Portishead, Tricky, Björk, Thievery Corporation, Amon Tobin, and rock-influenced sound groups such as Ruby, California's DJ Shadow, Cut Chemist, Unkle, and the UK's Gorillaz, Howie B. Morcheeba, originating from Hythe in Kent, Londoners Glideascope and New York's Bowery Electric are also often associated with this sound. The latest additions to this line of performers are Jem, Australia's Spook, Anomie Belle, and the Anglo-Polish experimental collaboration Flykkiller.

History

Trip hop originated in the '90s in Bristol, England, during a time when American hip hop started to gain increasing popularity in Europe along with the then well established House music and dance scene.^{[citation needed]}British DJ's decided to put a local spin on the international phenomenon and developed hip hop into a different style, marking the birth of trip hop. The name is meant to suggest the spacey, down-tempo feeling of trip hop music. Originators in Bristol modified hip hop by adding a laid-back beat ("down tempo") – Bristol's signature sound in hip hop (trip hop's predecessor) was characterized by its emphasis on slow and heavy drum beats and a sound drawing heavily on acid jazz, Jamaican and dub music. Trip hop took root in Bristol partly because of its deeply rooted sound system culture and its relationship with a black identity. It is important to note that, as an important slave-trading centre in the 18th century, Bristol's black community has influenced black British identity for centuries; Bristol is 2.8 percent black^{[citation needed]}. In addition, Bristol has a large multi-racial community (only 89.3 percent white^{[citation needed]}), as well as a well-integrated youth culture that grew out of the integrated school systems. ^[2] Under the influence of American hip hop from the 1980s both black and white British youth became consumers of hip hop. Hip hop in the UK was immediately fused with black soul and elements of dancehall.

The term "Trip hop" was coined by music journalist Andy Pemberton in the UK magazine Mixmag to describe the hip hop instrumental "In/Flux", a 1993 single by DJ Shadow, and other similar tracks released on the Mo' Wax label and being played in London clubs at the time. "In/Flux", with its mixed up bpms, spoken word samples, strings, melodies, bizarre noises, prominent bass, and slow beats, gave the listener the impression they were on a musical trip, according to Pemberton.^[3] James Brendall termed the experience of trip-hop with the combination of "computers and dope".

Massive Attack's first album Blue Lines in 1991, is often seen as the first manifestation of the "Bristol hip hop movement" (known as the "First Coming of Bristol Sound"). 1994 and '95 saw trip hop near the peak of its popularity. Massive Attack released their second album entitled Protection. Those years also marked the rise of Portishead and Tricky. Portishead's female lead singer Beth Gibbons' sullen voice was mixed with samples of music from the '60s and '70s, as well as sound effects from LPs, giving the group a distinctive style. Tricky's style was characterized by murmuring and low-pitched singing. Artists and groups like Portishead and Tricky led the second wave of the Bristol Movement. This second wave produced music that was dreamy and atmospheric, and sometimes deep and gloomy. The British press termed this style of music "trip hop," referring to this evolved style of hip hop; this term should not, however, be confused with the American usage which is closer to rap music.^{[citation needed]} Other seminal, more commercial trip hop albums include "Homebrew" (1992) by Neneh Cherry and "Breath From Another" (1998) by Esthero. These albums, as groundbreaking as they were, sold very poorly regardless.

Musical Aesthetics

Trip hop is known for its melancholy aesthetics. This is due to the fact that several acts were inspired by post punk bands; in the 1990s, Massive Attack and Tricky both covered Siouxsie and the Banshees and The Cure.^{[4] [5] [6]}

In some instances, the trip hop sound relies on jazz samples, usually taken from old vinyl jazz records. This reliance on sampling has changed the way record labels deal with clearing samples for use in other people's tracks. Trip hop tracks often sample Rhodes pianos, saxophones, trumpets, and flutes, and develops in parallel to hip hop, each inspiring the other. However, categorically, Trip hop differs from hip hop in theme and overall tone. Instead of gangsta rap (e.g. NWA) or conscious rap (e.g. KRS-One) with its hard-hitting lyrics, trip hop offers a more aural atmospherics with instrumental hip-hop, turntable scratching, and breakbeat rhythms. Regarded in some ways as a nineties update of fusion, trip hop transcends the hardcore rap styles and lyrics with atmospheric overtones to create a more mellow tempo that has less to do with black American urbanite attitude and more to do with a middle-class British impression of hip-hop.^{[citation needed]} As Simon Reynolds put it, "trip hop is merely a form of gentrification" ^[7]

Trip hop production is historically lo-fi, relying on analogue recording equipment and instrumentation for an ambiance. Portishead, for example, records their material to old tape from real instruments, and then sample their recordings, rather than recording their instruments directly to a track. They also tend to put their drums through considerable compression.

Later artists have taken inspiration from many other sources including world and orchestral influences as well as film scores. In fact, artists such as DJ Shadow or Portishead extensively used film soundtracks as an influence with its acoustic instruments and orchestral sounds designed to create a mental imagery of a cinematic experience and immerse the listener to a mood of aural reverie rather than a focused attention to social commentaries or lyrics of gangsta rap.

House

House music is a style of electronic dance music initially popularized in mid-1980s discothèques catering to the African-American,^[1] Latino,^[1] then in New York, Detroit, and eventually Europe before becoming infused in mainstream pop & dance music worldwide.

House music is strongly influenced by elements of soul- and funk-infused varieties of disco. House music generally mimics disco's percussion, especially the use of a prominent bass drum on every beat, but may feature a prominent synthesizer bassline, electronic drums, electronic effects, funk and pop samples, and reverb- or delay-enhanced vocals.

Musical elements

House music is uptempo music for dancing, although by modern dance music standards it is mid-tempo, generally ranging between 118 and 135 bpm. Tempos were slower in house music's early years.

The common element of house music is a prominent kick drum on every beat (also known as a four-to-the-floor beat), usually generated by a drum machine or sampler. The kick drum sound is augmented by various kick fills and extended dropouts. The drum track is filled out with hi-hat cymbal patterns that nearly always include an open hi-hat on eighth note off-beats between each kick, and a snare drum or clap sound on beats two and four of every bar. This pattern is derived from so-called "four-on-the-floor" dance drumbeats of the 1960s and especially the 1970s disco drummers. Producers commonly layer sampled drum sounds to achieve a more complex sound, and they tailor the mix for large club sound systems, de-emphasizing lower mid-range frequencies (where the fundamental frequencies of the human voice and other instruments lie) in favor of bass and hi-hats.

Producers use many different sound sources for bass sounds in house music, from continuous, repeating electronically-generated lines sequenced on a synthesizer, such as a Roland SH-101 or TB-303, to studio recordings or samples of live electric bassists, or simply filtered-down samples from whole stereo recordings of classic funk tracks or any other songs. House bass lines tend to favor notes that fall within a single-octave range, whereas disco bass lines often alternated between octave-separated notes and would span greater ranges. Some early house productions used parts of bass lines from earlier disco tracks. For example, producer Mark "Hot Rod" Trollan copied bass line sections from the 1983 Italo disco song "Feels Good (Carrots & Beets)" (by Electra featuring Tara Butler) to form the basis of his 1986 production of "Your Love" by Jamie Principle. Frankie Knuckles used the same notes in his more famous 1987 version of "Your Love", which also featured Principle on vocals.

Electronically-generated sounds and samples of recordings from genres such as jazz, blues and synth pop are often added to the foundation of the drum beat and synth bass line. House songs may also include disco, soul-style, or gospel vocals and additional percussion such as tambourine.

Techno and trance, which developed alongside house music, share this basic beat infrastructure, but they usually eschew house's live-music-influenced feel and Black or Latin music influences in favor of more synthetic sound sources and approach.

History

House music is a descendant of disco, which blended soul, R&B, funk, salsa, rock and pop with celebratory messages about dancing, love, and sexuality, all underpinned with repetitive arrangements and a steady bass drum beat. Some disco songs incorporated sounds produced with synthesizers and drum machines, and some compositions were entirely electronic; examples include Giorgio Moroder late 1970s productions such as Donna Summer's hit single "I Feel Love" from 1977, and several early 1980s disco-pop productions by the Hi-NRG group Lime.

Other stylistic influences include New Wave, Reggae, European synthpop, industrial and punk, hip hop, and the sparse electronic music of Kraftwerk — Trans-Europe Express was played in New York discos in 1977.^{[citation needed]}

House was also influenced by mixing and editing techniques earlier explored by disco DJs, producers, and audio engineers like Walter Gibbons, Tom Moulton, Jim Burgess, Larry Levan, Ron Hardy, M & M and others who produced longer, more repetitive and percussive arrangements of existing disco recordings. Early house music producers like Frankie Knuckles created similar compositions from scratch, using samplers, synthesizers, sequencers, and drum machines.

The hypnotic electronic dance song "On and On", produced in 1984 by Chicago DJ Jesse Saunders, had elements that became staples of the early house music sound, such as the 303 bass synthesizer and minimal vocals. It is sometimes cited as the 'first house music record',^[2][3] although other examples from the same time period, such as J.M. Silk's "Music is the Key" (1985) have also been cited.^[4]

Etymology

The origins of the term "house music" are disputed. The term may have its origin from a club called the The Warehouse, which was one of the nightclubs that became popular among the teenagers living in the Chicago area in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The Warehouse was patronized primarily by gay, black and Latino men,^[5] who came to dance to DJ Frankie Knuckles' mix of classic disco, European synthpop, new wave, industrial, and punk recordings. Knuckles released his dance tracks and mixes on D.J. International Records as well as on the Trax Records label. These dance tracks became known as house music. The club gained considerable fame in the mid 70s and grew tremendously towards the end the 70s. Knuckles production's increased at that time, and his mix of the Jamie Principle song "Your Love" is considered by many the track that was the launching pad for house.

Chip E.'s recording "It's House" may also have helped to define this new form of electronic music.^[6] Chip E. claims the name came from methods of labeling records at the Imports Etc. record store, where he worked in the early 1980s; music that DJ Knuckles played at the Warehouse nightclub was labeled in the store "As Heard At The Warehouse", which was shortened to simply "House music".^[7]

Larry Heard, aka "Mr. Fingers", claims^{[citation needed]} that the term "house" reflected the fact that many early DJs created music in their own homes, using synthesizers and drum machines, including the Roland TR-808, TR-909, and the TB 303 Bassline synthesizer-sequencer. These synthesizers were used to create a house music subgenre called acid house.^[8]

Juan Atkins, an originator of Detroit techno music, claims the term "house" reflected the exclusive association of particular tracks with particular DJs; those tracks were their "house" records (much like a restaurant might have a "house" salad dressing).^[9]

Minimal House (Micro House)

History

Microhouse has its roots in the minimal techno, glitch (both developed in the early 90's), and house (developed in the mid-80's) genres of music. Its first echoes appeared in the glitch album by German experimental artist Oval, in 1993. Like many contemporary electronic genres, Microhouse has many influences, most notably techno and the "click and pop" garage house that has emerged from Yorkshire Bleeps and Bass (or "Bleep"), glitch and minimal techno. Contrasting with tech house, which is often thought of as 'house with techno melodic elements', microhouse is more aptly described as 'housey minimal techno' - a marriage of the funky and groovy backroom house elements with glitch and the driving, repetitive sound of techno.

The first microhouse track to gain mainstream popularity by a non-glitch artist was Isolee's 1999 anthem, 'Beau Mot Plage'. However, microhouse did not begin to rapidly build in popularity until the early 2000s with the advent of record labels such as Kompakt, Perlon, Spectral Sound, Fabric, Telegraph and Force Inc. The term microhouse is usually credited to music journalist Philip Sherburne, writing for the magazine The Wire in 2001, to describe, according to Stelfox, "the spectral, hypnotic interpretation of classic Chicago grooves emerging on labels such as Perlon, Kompakt, Playhouse, Ongaku, Klang Elektronik and the Mille Plateaux family of imprints-most notably Force Tracks and Force Inc- at the turn of the millennium."^[1]

Musicology

Microhouse strips house music down to a more minimal and sparse aesthetic, in the same vein as tech house. Its relationship to house and tech house music can be compared to the relationship between minimal techno and the harder techno genres. Like house and techno, microhouse is built around a 4/4 time signature. A noticeable difference between microhouse and house is the replacement of typical house kick drums, hi-hats and other drum machine samples with clicks, static, glitches, and small bits of noise. Microhouse artists often experiment with different forms of sampling to achieve this effect.

One characteristic feature of microhouse is the use of sampling: extremely short ('micro') samples of the human voice, musical instruments, everyday noises and computer created wave patterns are arranged to form complex melodies (such as can be heard in Akufen's "Deck the House"). Vocals in microhouse are often simplistic, nonsensical, and monotone in nature, although some artists, such as Matthew Dear, combine singing with microhouse production.

Microhouse is somewhat obscure when compared to other genres of house and techno, but several cities including Berlin, Cologne, Paris, Montreal, the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, Minneapolis, Detroit, Chicago and Portland have budding scenes, and with the minimal techno boom of the mid-00s, is now gaining great popularity in German, French, Canadian, Italian and Spanish clubs. Mainstream tech house records and CDs will occasionally have microhouse or minimal reworks of tracks. On top of this, several tracks have become major club hits over the years, and a few others have even gained European radioplay.

Big Beat

Style

Almost certainly influenced by the work of studio legend Dougie Wright, big beat tends to feature distorted, compressed breakbeats at moderate tempos (usually between 90 to 140 beats per minute), acid house style synthesizer lines and heavy loops from jazz, rock or 60s pop. They are often punctuated with punkish vocals and driven by intense, distorted basslines with conventional pop and techno song structures. Big beat tracks have a sound that include: crescendos, builds, drops, explosions, crowd-inciting drum rolls, and whooshing sounds that pan across the stereo-field. Big Beat is also characterized by a strong psychedelic influence stemming from the influence of Dougie Wright, Serge Gainsbourg's arrangements and songs, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and the acid house musical movement. Particularly in the style of Fatboy Slim, the genre features a heavily compressed, and a thunderous drum sound (hence the name). It can also contain off-the-wall samples such as explosions, police sirens, and snippets of Turntablism. Big beat is similar to jungle music and drum n bass, both sharing frantic breaks, heavy bass, and an odd "jittery-rhythm" but big beat tends to have more rhythmic loop beats than jungle.

History

At the beginning of the 1990s, several local UK electronic music genres converged at several points. The disco scene at that time was very straight and promoted glamour and beauty. Out of many clubs in London a subculture emerged which opposed the pop scene but at the same time wanted to dance to electronic music. Sampling became an integral part of standard studio equipment and made the fusion of many genres easier. Norman Cook first defined the word Big Beat named after his club night 'The Big Beat Boutique', which was held on Fridays at Brighton's now demolished Concorde club. The music played there combined breakbeats, rock, funk, drum'n'bass, industrial, jazz, acid house, hip hop and trance. The term caught on, and was subsequently applied to a wide variety of acts, notably Bentley Rhythm Ace, Lionrock, Monkey Mafia, Meat Beat Manifesto (who had been making similar music since the late eighties and inspired the whole genre), Lunatic Calm, Death in Vegas and David Holmes.

Big Beat was later brought into the American mainstream because of the "rock-like" qualities found in the music of acts such as The Chemical Brothers and The Prodigy. By mixing their electronic elements with the characteristics of post-grunge, The Prodigy was able to popularize the Big Beat genre even more. "Firestarter" was The Prodigy's first big national and international hit. Because of their cross-genre sound, the band was booked to play rock festivals causing rock fans to appreciate their electronic style and opening a gateway for other Big Beat musicians. The band released their third album, The Fat of the Land, in 1997 and it topped both the UK and US charts along with the charts of twenty or so other countries.

Other notable Big Beat acts include The Crystal Method, Overseer, Adam Freeland, Propellerheads, many artists signed to Brighton's Skint label and London's Wall Of Sound label, and the later work of The Prodigy. By the time of the latter's successful 1997 album The Fat of the Land, the music press in America was increasingly drawn to using the catch-all term 'electronica' to describe the Big Beat sound. The Big Beat movement started to decline by 1999, due to the genre's tendency for playing out samples, and a general dumbing down of electronica in the late 1990s^{[citation needed]}. Artists started to diversify their sound with other genres such as Trance (Chemical Brothers), Soul and Gospel (Fatboy Slim). However, Big Beat had left an indelible mark on popular music as a true incarnation of rave music, even though it sounded "rock". Without this association to rock, some have argued that it never would have reached the heights that it did, or talked to as many listeners as it did. ^[1] The genre's mainstream popularity was to be taken by funky house, then later electro house in the mid-2000s.

Big Beat acts such as The Chemical Brothers and Fatboy Slim have collaborated on a variety of musical styles from rave, house, rap, disco, etc. In "Generation Ectasy", Reynolds says, "they've reminded us that dance music is supposed to be about fun, about freaky dancing as opposed to head nodding and train spotting."[1]

Drum & Bass/Jungle

Drum and bass (commonly abbreviated to d&b, DnB, dnb, d'n'b, drum n bass, drum & bass; also known as jungle) is a type of electronic dance music which emerged in the late 1980s. The genre is characterized by fast breakbeats (generally between 160–180 bpm, but also having occasional differences in some older compositions), with heavy sub basslines. Drum and bass began as an offshoot of the UK's rave scene of the very early 90s, and over the first decade of its existence there were many permutations in its style, incorporating elements from different musical genres.

History

A musical style called acid house developed in the UK in the mid to late 1980s and early 1990s, along with a "scene" which consisted of related social activities in nightclubs and other venues. Acid house music combined regular beats alongside broken, syncopated beats, strong basslines and a faster tempo than the regular house music. By 1991, musical tracks made up of only "broken" beats began to be known as "jungle" and became a separate musical genre (circa 1991-1992) popular at raves and on pirate radio in urban Britain.

These tracks often combined ragga vocal tracks with broken beats and basslines. By 1994 jungle began to gain mainstream popularity and fans of the music (known as junglists) became a recognizable part of British youth subculture. The sound took on a very urban, raggamuffin sound, incorporating dancehall "ragga" style mc chants, dub basslines, but also increasingly complex, high tempo rapid fire breakbeat percussion. At this time jungle began to be associated with criminals and criminal activity and perhaps as a reaction or perhaps independently of this, producers began to draw away from the ragga style and create what they labeled drum and bass. There is no clear point at which jungle became drum and bass, though most jungle producers continue nowadays to produce what they call drum and bass.

As the music style became more polished and sophisticated, it began to shift from pirate to commercial radio and gain widespread acceptance (circa 1995-1997). It also began to split into recognizable sub genres such as jump-up. As a lighter sound of drum and bass began to win over the musical mainstream, many producers continued to work on the other end of the spectrum, resulting in a series of releases which highlighted a dark, technical sound which drew more influence from techno music and the soundscapes of science fiction and anime films, this sub-genre became know as techstep (circa 1997-1998).

While evolving musically, drum and bass found itself suddenly upstarted by the UK garage sound, which drew a key part of its inspiration from drum and bass. This genre quickly eclipsed drum and bass in popularity and nearing the turn of the millennium, statements were made to the effect that "drum and bass is dead". Drum and bass however survived this event and the turn of the millennium has seen a revival in its popularity and continuing development, i.e. the appearance of the liquid funk subgenre which draws its inspiration from house and disco alongside a new wave of artists, joining the "jungle" pioneers. It remains a fairly unknown musical style but makes frequent unrecognized appearance in the mainstream as well as being highly influential on other musical styles and some of its artists, notably Goldie, are widely known. It remains most popular in its birthplace in the UK but has spread worldwide over the short period of its existence.^[1]

Musicology of Drum and Bass

There are many views of what constitutes "real" drum and bass as it has many scenes and styles within it, from the highly electronic, industrial sounds of techstep through to the use of conventional, acoustic instrumentation that characterize the more jazz-influenced end of the spectrum. It has been compared with jazz where the listener can get very different sounding music all coming under the same music genre, because like jazz, it is more of an approach, or a tradition, than a style.^[3] The sounds of drum and bass are extremely varied - and to a person unfamiliar to them, there may seem to be little connection between the sub genres. One common, though by no means universal, element is a prominent snare drum falling on the 2nd & 4th beats, with a less regular kick pattern around it.

Drum and bass could at one time be defined as a strictly electronic musical genre with the only 'live' element being the DJ's selection and mixing of records during a set. 'Live' drum and bass using electric, electronic and acoustic instruments played by musicians on stage has appeared and is a growing aspect of the genre.^[4][5][6]

For the already mentioned reasons, the musicology of drum and bass is difficult to precisely define; however, the following key characteristics may be observed:

Importance of drum and bassline elements

The name "drum and bass" should not lead to the assumption that tracks are constructed solely from these elements. Nevertheless, they are by far the most critical features, and usually dominate the mix of a track. Despite the apparent simplicity of drum and bass productions to the untrained ear, an inordinate amount of time is spent on preparing tracks by the more experienced producers.

The genre places great importance on the "bass line", a deep sub-bass musical pattern which is felt physically as much as it is heard. There has also been considerable exploration of different timbres in the bass line region, particularly within techstep. Bass lines exist in many forms, but most notably they originate from sampled sources or synthesizers. Bass lines performed with a bass instrument, whether it is electric, acoustic or a double bass, are rare. An example of drum and bass played live with an electric bass can be found in the work of bands such as Squarepusher and STS9. Sampled basslines are often taken from double bass recordings or from publicly available loops. Synthesized bass lines are however just as common.

In drum and bass productions, the bass lines are subjected to many and varied sound effects, including standard techniques such as dynamic compression, flanger, chorus, over-drive, equalization, etc. and drum and bass specific techniques such as the "Reese Bass", a distinctive synthesized bass sound comprising layered 'clashing' sawtooth waves. Kevin Saunderson's 1988 classic "Just Another Chance" is widely recognized as the earliest example of the use of this technique.

Of equal importance is the "808" kick drum, an artificially pitch-downed or elongated bass drum sound sampled from Roland's classic TR-808 drum machine, and a sound which has been subject to an enormous amount of experimentation over the years.^[7]

These bass techniques are fully appreciated in a club or rave environments where high quality woofers and powerful amplifiers are required to fully reproduce the eponymous basslines at high volume levels. This has led to the creation of very large and intensely loud touring soundsystems by producers wishing to show off their tracks, such as dubs from Soundman and dubs from Dillinja's Valve Sound System. This does not mean, however, that the music cannot be appreciated at home or accurately reproduced on personal equipment.

The complex syncopation of the drum tracks' breakbeat, is another facet of production on which producers spend a very large amount of time. A drum phrase lasting seconds may often take a day or more to prepare, depending on the dedication of the producer. The Amen break is generally acknowledged to have been the most-used (and often considered the most powerful) break in drum and bass.^[8]

It would not be too much of an exaggeration to say that drum and bass (at least in its early days) was a style built around a single broken beat element which was a single sample, the Amen, but other samples have had a significant impact, including the Apache break, the Funky Drummer, and others.^[9] The Funky Drummer has perhaps superseded the Amen in modern productions.

A commonly used break is the Tramen, a combined beat that is perhaps the ultimate statement on the fusion of musical styles in drum and bass as it combines the Amen, a James Brown funk breakbeat ("Tighten Up" or "Samurai" break) and an Alex Reece drum and bass breakbeat.^[10]

The very fast (objectively) drum beat forms a canvas on which a producer can create tracks to appeal to almost any taste and often will form only a background to the other elements of the music. However, without a fast & broken beat, a drum and bass track would not be a drum and bass track but could be classified as a gabber, techno, breaks or house music track.^[11]

Tempo

Drum and bass is usually between 160-180 BPM, in contrast to other forms of breakbeat such as nu skool breaks which maintain a slower pace at around 130-140 BPM. A general upward trend in tempo has been observed during the evolution of drum and bass. The earliest old skool rave was around 125/135 bpm in 1989/1991, early (late 1992-1993) jungle/breakbeat hardcore was around 155-165 BPM. Since around 1996, drum and bass tempos have predominantly stayed in the 173 to 180 range. Recently some producers have started to once again produce tracks with slower tempos (i.e. in the 150s and 160s), but the mid-170 tempo is still the hallmark of the drum and bass sound.^[12][13]

A track combining the same elements (broken beat, bass, production techniques) as a drum and bass track, but with a slower beat (say 140 BPM), would not be drum and bass but a drum and bass-influenced breakbeat track.^[14]

The speed of drum and bass is not however only characterized by that of the broken beat. Drum and bass has a bassline, which will typically play at half the speed of the drums, bringing its speed down to that of, for instance, a laid back hip-hop track. A listener or dancer can concentrate on this element rather than the faster drums.

Since the speed of music is subjective, an aggressively produced track with a complicated beat and synthesizer sounds may 'sound faster' than one with a sampled double bass bassline, guitar riffs and simpler beat, however the second track may be in strict BPM terms faster. Radio friendly tracks like Shy FX's "Shake Ur Body" often have higher BPMs than ominous techstep productions which might eject the uninitiated very quickly from a dancefloor.

The faster a track is in BPM terms, the less complex its drum patterns can be because at higher step the elements cease to be heard separately, turning them into a wall of sound. A faster drum and bass track will therefore generally have a less complex drum pattern than a slower one.

Live performances of drum and bass music on electric and acoustic instruments will often entail a drop in relative BPM (though not necessarily), unsurprising in light of the complexity of drum patterns and the high exertion required of a drummer.

Context

For the most part, drum and bass is a form of dance music, mostly designed to be heard in clubs. It exhibits a full frequency response and physicality which often cannot be fully appreciated on home listening equipment. As befits its name, the bass element of the music is particularly pronounced, with the comparatively sparse arrangements of drum and bass tracks allowing room for basslines that are deeper than most other forms of dance music. Consequently, drum and bass parties are often advertised as featuring uncommonly loud and bass-heavy sound systems.^[15][16]

There are however many albums specifically designed for personal listening. The mix CD is a particularly popular form of release, with a big name DJ/producer mixing live, or on a computer, a variety of tracks for personal listening. Additionally, there are many albums containing unmixed tracks, suited for home or car listening.^[17]

Importance of the DJ and MC

‎Drum and bass is often heard via a DJ. Because most tracks are designed to be mixed by a DJ, their structure typically reflects this, with intro and outro sections designed for a DJ to use while beat-matching, rather than being designed to be heard in entirety by the listener. The DJ typically mixes between records so as not to lose the continuous beat. In addition, the DJ may employ hip hop style "scratching", "double-drops" (where two tracks are synchronized such that both tracks drop at the same time) and "rewinds."^[18]

Many mixing points begin or end with the "drop". The drop is the point in a track where a switch of rhythm or bassline occurs and usually follows a recognizable build section and "breakdown". Sometimes the drop is used to switch between tracks, layering components of different tracks, though as the two records may be simply ambient breakdowns at this point, though some DJs prefer to combine breakbeats, a more difficult exercise. Some drops are so popular that the DJ will "rewind" or "reload" by spinning the record back and restarting it at the build. "The drop" is often a key point from the point of view of the dancefloor, since the drum breaks often fade out to leave an ambient intro playing. When the beats re-commence they are often more complex and accompanied by a heavier bassline, encouraging the crowd to dance. The name of a genre of drum and bass, "jump up" initially referred to the urge for those seated to dance at this point.

DJ support (that is playing a track) in a club atmosphere or on radio is critical in track success, even if the track producer is well known.^[19] To this end, DJ's will receive dubplates a long time before a general release of a track, sometimes many months before, in order to spark interest in it as well as benefit the DJ (exclusive and early access to tracks is a hallmark of DJ success, i.e. the case of Andy C). Sometimes a DJ will receive versions of tracks that are not planned for general release, these are so-called VIP mixes.

DJs are often accompanied by one or more MC's, drawing on the genre's roots in hip hop and reggae/ragga.^[20]

The role of MCs in the music cannot be underestimated but they do not generally receive the same level of recognition as producer/DJ's. There are relatively few well-known drum and bass MC's, Dynamite MC, MC Fats, MC Conrad, Skibadee, Shabba D, Eksman, Bassman, MC Fun and Stevie Hyper D (deceased) as examples.^[21]

Jungle vs. Drum & Bass

Nowadays the difference between jungle (or oldschool jungle) and drum and bass is a common debate within the "junglist" community. There is no universally accepted semantic distinction between the terms "jungle" and "drum and bass". Some associate "jungle" with older material from the first half of the 1990s (sometimes referred to as "jungle techno"), and see drum and bass as essentially succeeding jungle. Others use jungle as a shorthand for ragga jungle, a specific sub-genre within the broader realm of drum and bass. In the U.S., the combined term "jungle drum and bass" (JDB) has some popularity, but is not widespread elsewhere.

Proponents of a distinction between jungle and drum and bass argue that:

• Drum and bass has an integrated percussion and bass structure while jungle has a distinct bass line separated from the percussion.


• The relatively simple drum break beats of modern drum and bass (generally a two-step beat) are less complex than the 'chopped' 'Amen' breakbeats of jungle^[23]


• The usage of ragga vocals differs drum and bass from jungle.


• Jungle is the music of the early nineties and drum and bass appeared at a later time.

Opponents of a distinction would argue that there are many modern drum & bass productions with separated basslines, complex breakbeats and ragga vocals.

Probably the widest held viewpoint is that the terms are simply synonymous and interchangeable: drum and bass is jungle, and jungle is drum and bass.

"At the end of the day I am an ambassador for Drum and Bass the world over and have been playing for 16 years under the name Hype... To most of you out there Drum and Bass will be an important part of your lives, but for me Drum and Bass/Jungle is my life and always has been... We all have a part to play and believe me when I say I am no fucking bandwagon jumper, just a hard working Hackney man doing this thing called Drum and Bass/Jungle." DJ Hype^[24]

"Live" Drum & Bass

Many music groups and musicians, such as Shapeshifter, STS9, London Elektricity and Jojo Mayer's Nerve have taken drum and bass to "live" performances, which features an acoustic drum kit, synthesizers, bass (upright or electronic), and other instruments. Samplers have also been taken live by playing samples on drum pads or synthesizers, assigning samples to a specific drum pad or key. MCs are frequently featured in live performances.

A recent example is Pendulum's Tour Of The Americas, where live instruments and MCing were heavily used to recreate, but also further enrich the original sound of the songs played.

IDM (Intelligent Dance Music)

Intelligent dance music (commonly IDM) is a popular name for an electronic music genre that emerged in the early 1990s at the end of the British rave era. The genre is influenced by a wide range of musical styles particularly electronic dance music (EDM) such as Detroit Techno.^[1][2]Stylistically, IDM tends to rely upon individualistic experimentation rather than on a particular set of musical characteristics.^[3] The range of post-techno ^[4] styles to emerge in the early 1990s were described variously as ambient techno, intelligent techno, and electronica. In America the latter term is now used by the music industry as a catchall to describe EDM and its many derivatives.

The term IDM is said to have originated in the United States in 1993 with the formation of the IDM list, an electronic mailing list originally charted for the discussion of music by (but not limited to) a number of prominent English artists, especially those appearing on a 1992 Warp Records compilation called Artificial Intelligence. The term is still seen by some as being peculiar to the U.S.^[5][6] but it is routinely used by music journalists, record labels, and fans on both sides on the Atlantic.^[7]

History

At the tail end of the British rave era a number of UK based electronic musicians were inspired by the underground dance music of the time and started to explore experimental forms of EDM production. By the early 1990s the music associated with this experimentation had gained prominence with releases on a variety of record labels including Warp Records (1989), Black Dog Productions (1989), R & S Records (1989), Carl Craig's Planet E, Rising High Records (1991), Richard James's Rephlex Records (1991), Kirk Degiorgio's Applied Rhythmic Technology (1991), Eevo Lute Muzique (1991), General Production Recordings (1991), Soma Quality Recordings (1991), Peacefrog Records (1991), and Metamorphic Recordings (1992).

By 1992 Warp Records was marketing the musical output of the artists on its roster using the description electronic listening music, but this was quickly replaced by intelligent techno.^[8] In the same period (1992–93), other names were also used, such as armchair techno, ambient techno, and electronica,^[9] but all were attempts to describe an emerging offshoot of electronic dance music that was being enjoyed by the "sedentary and stay at home".^[10] Steve Beckett, co-owner of Warp, has said that the electronic music the label was releasing at that point was targeting a post-club home listing audience.^[11] By 1993 a number of new record labels emerged that would also gain a reputation for their intelligent techno geared releases, such as New Electronica (1993), Mille Plateaux (1993), 100% Pure (1993), and Ferox.

Artificial Intelligence

In 1992, Warp released Artificial Intelligence, the first album in the Artificial Intelligence series. Subtitled "electronic listening music from Warp", the record was a collection of tracks from artists such as Autechre, B12, The Black Dog, Aphex Twin, and The Orb, under various aliases.^[12] These artists, among others, would eventually become the main topics of conversation in the Intelligent Dance Music List, an electronic mailing list founded in August 1993.

The IDM List

In November 1991, the phrase "intelligent techno" appeared on Usenet in reference to Coil's The Snow EP.^[13] Another instance of the phrase appeared on Usenet in April 1993 in reference to The Black Dog's album Bytes.^[14] Wider public use of such terms on the Internet did not come until August 1993, when Alan Parry announced the existence of a new electronic mailing list for discussion of "intelligent" dance music: the Intelligent Dance Music list, or IDM List for short.^[15][16]The first message, sent on August 1, 1993, was entitled "Can Dumb People Enjoy IDM, Too?".^[17] A reply from the list server's system administrator, Brian Behlendorf, revealed that Parry originally wanted to create a list devoted to discussion of the music on the Rephlex label, but they decided together to expand its charter to include music similar to what was on Rephlex or that was in different genres but which had been made with similar approaches. They picked the word "intelligent" because it had already appeared on Artificial Intelligence and because it connoted being something beyond just music for dancing, while still being open to interpretation.^[18]Artists that appeared in the first discussions on the list included Autechre, Atom Heart, LFO, and Rephlex Records artists such as Aphex Twin, µ-ziq, and Luke Vibert; plus artists such as The Orb, Richard H. Kirk, and Future Sound of London, and even artists like System 7, William Orbit, Sabres of Paradise, Orbital, Plastikman and Björk.As of 2008, the mailing list is still active.

Trance

Trance is a style of electronic dance music developed in the 1990s. Trance music is generally characterized by a tempo of between approximately 128 and 160 BPM, melodic synthesizer phrases, and a musical form that builds up and down throughout a track. Trance is a combination of many forms of electronic music, such as ambient, techno, and house. Trance has been described as "Classical melodies with Jungle rhythms".

The origin of the term "Trance" is ambiguous, with some suggesting that the term is derived from the Klaus Schulze album Trancefer (1981), Amon Düül II's Vive La Trance (1973) (as typified by the track Mozambique),^[1][2] or the early trance act Dance 2 Trance. It's also been noted that trance shares a number of similarities found on Neil Young's electronic Trans album.

History

Origin

In the early 1980s, the German composer Klaus Schulze composed several albums of experimental, atmospheric "space music". Two of his albums from the 1980s include the word "trance" in their titles: Trancefer (1981) and En=Trance (1987).

Some of the earliest identifiable trance recordings came from The KLF, a UK-based acid house group. The most notable of these were the original 1988 / 1989 versions of "What Time Is Love?" and "3 a.m. Eternal", along with "Kylie Said Trance" (1989) and "Last Train to Trancentral" (1990). The KLF labeled these early recordings "Pure Trance". While the KLF's works are clear examples of proto-trance, two songs, both from 1990, are widely regarded as being the first "true" trance records. The first is Age of Love's self-titled debut single which they released in early 1990 and is seen a basis for the original trance sound to come out of Germany, Some consider "The Age of Love" to be the first true trance single. The second track was Dance 2 Trance's "We Came in Peace", the b-side of their own self-titled debut single. Another influential song was Future Sound Of London's "Papua New Guinea" (1991). New Order have also said to have had a hand in establishing what Dance music is today. Similarly, but more specifically to trance, Robert Miles.

The trance sound beyond this acid-era genesis is said to have been an off-shoot of techno in German clubs during the very early 1990s. Germany is often cited as a birthplace of trance culture and is celebrated once a year in the "Love Parade" festival. Some of the earliest pioneers of the genre include Jam El Mar, Oliver Lieb, and Sven Väth, who all produced numerous tracks under multiple aliases. Trance labels such as Eye Q, Harthouse, Rising High Records, FAX +49-69/450464 and MFS Records were based in Frankfurt.

Trance Production

Trance usually employs a 4/4 time signature, a tempo of 130 to 160 BPM, and 32 beat phrases, somewhat faster than house music but usually not as fast as rave music. Psychedelic Trance is sometimes faster and earlier tracks were sometimes slower. A kick drum is placed on every downbeat and a regular open hi-hat is often placed on the upbeat; a type of beat also colloquially known as "four-to-the-floor". Some simple extra percussive elements are usually added, and major transitions, builds or climaxes are often foreshadowed by lengthy "snare rolls" - a quick succession of equally spaced snare drum hits that builds in volume towards the end of a measure or phrase. Unlike House and Garage music, Trance tends to add interest to tracks not through complexity of rhythm but through complexity of melody and harmony; as a result Trance tracks tend to have a simple (i.e. non-varying) beat which acts as a foundation for complex chordal and melodic structures which are further emphasized by the heavy use of electronic music production technology, such as synthesizers, samplers and effect units (most notably for Trance, Reverb and Delay effects). Flangers, phasers and other effects are also commonly used at extreme settings but these settings can be (and often are) 'tweaked' over time, creating further interest by adding cycles or emotional tension and release. As an example of this the volume, cutoff and/or resonance parameters of a synthesized arpeggio can be slowly increased over a period of time, resulting in a variation which is calculated to form a particular emotional response in the listener. As in most electronic music, there is no need or demand for resulting sounds to resemble any real-world instrument, so producers have free creative rein. However, modern Progressive and Uplifting Trance tracks do make use of pianos and other "orchestral" or conventional and non-electronic instruments.

Synthesizers form the central elements of most trance tracks, with sawtooth-based sounds used both for short pizzicato elements and for long, sweeping string sounds. As with other genres of electronic music, many artists use synthesizers such as the Roland TR-808, TR-909, and TB-303, the latter being the source of the "acid" sound. There are also several synthesizer sounds that are almost completely unique to its genre. One of these sounds is the "supersaw", a waveform was made famous by such synthesizers as the Roland JP-8000, the Novation Supernova, and the Korg MS2000. A technique called "gating" is often employed in creating lead sounds (turning the volume up and down rapidly in rhythm with the piece to create a stuttered, chopped sound). Rapid arpeggios and minor scales are common features. Trance tracks often use one central "hook" melody which runs through almost the entire track, repeating at intervals anywhere between 2 beats and several bars.

Traditionally, trance uses classical music as its base. Many "classical" songs have in fact been "remixed" in a modern trance style. Many trance songs use jazz as their base.

While many trance tracks contain no vocals at all, other tracks rely heavily on vocals, and thus a sub-genre known as Vocal Trance has developed. The sound and quality of the production relies to a large degree upon the technology available. Vintage analog equipment is popular with many producers, with names such as Moog, Roland and Oberheim being staples in the trance sound palette. Modern music creation software can emulate the sound of classic "synth's".

Trance tracks are usually built with sparser intros and outro's in order to enable DJ's to blend them together more readily. This is known as "Mixing" or "Beat Matching". This also works as a build up and wind down and in modern trance the intros and outros do not resemble the main part of the song very closely. Records that adhere to this "build up, strip down" arrangement during intros and outro's are referred as being "DJ friendly". As trance is more melodic and harmonic than much dance music, the construction of trance tracks in such a way is particularly important in order to avoid dissonant (or "key clashing," i.e., out of tune with one another) mixes by DJ's who do not mix harmonically. DJ's who can successfully "Key Mix" will find more popularity with listeners as there are no obvious breaks in the music, assisting with a journey that is not interrupted.