ANYONE can make electronic music

It's so easy even a classical pianist can do it...
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[@JamesonNathanJones]

Oh look, here are some concepts that helped me when I started making electronic music: bit.ly/FREEcompositionguide

[@TheDeepening718]

anyone with Garageband can make electronic music because cakewalk suuuuuuucks sucks.

[@j.richardson-u9u]

Awesome! YES MAKE YOU OWN SOUNDS!!! ALWAYS AT LEAST TWEAK THOSE PRESETS! DONT USE SOUNDS THAT COME WITH THE MACHINE. MAKE YOUR OWN MUSIC, YOUR OWN STYLE

[@erndog64]

I feel you need to sneak each feeling individually....just to add the "dramatics" to a scene or song. The feeling is what it's all about.

[@baplotnik]

rock and roll will take you to the mountain my freind

[@DerDieDasBoB]

Do you know nils frahm? German guy who puts electronic and classic very nice together... You stuff reminded me about him ☺️

[@kptamc]

I suffered a bad fall when I was a child that left me with impaired motor skills in my hands. I never could play sports like baseball, football or a musical instrument like the other kids. But I never let that stop me from playing ice hockey or electronic music. Electronic/ambient has been a way for me to participate in making music. Just recently got back into it after selling everything decades ago.

[@erndog64]

It's changed so much.

[@kptamc]

I have recently uploaded some of my tracks here on KZbin. Please stop by and visit. Comments are welcome.

[@Nobody-hc2bo]

I've been making music in a DAW for about 15 years now, I actually really would've liked to see a well argued video about why anyone can make music now. I know it's often used as a derisive thing, but honestly this hobby is accessible to anyone who wants to participate and I think that's sort of amazing

[@cmpc724]

Accessible to anyone with free time. I used to spend 4-5 hours per day making stuff and now I have a toddler so that ain’t happening 😂

[@TommyWashow]

@@cmpc724 whos fault is that?

[@future62]

I think it's great for people who want to create music. It's less great for people who want to find it. There is too much music to sort through these days.

[@cmpc724]

@@TommyWashow “fault” is a weird choice of words - it’s my decision, yes

[@melancholas]

Don't take it as a disadvantage. Your toddler will grow up and then, maybe you can even inspire him, to make music together. 👍🤘🎧​@@cmpc724

[@glennweber9290]

"Building your own canvass to paint on", I feel like that's the most accurate take on synth programming and how it leads to sounds, and subsequently songs. It's been my experience too.

[@exston]

"electronic music is like building the canvas as you're painting it!" So crazy! I literally had the same thought last night!

[@Rhythmattica]

All with the same colours, but filtered

[@surgicalcreativity]

To me: electronic music is more like making your own lead white base to tint and tone with the other pigments you’ve made. The cavas is the ear, memory or storage file; the brush would be the hardware/software.

[@marcinha1973]

Yeah and everyone ends up sounding the same because they mistake sound for music.

[@marcinha1973]

Yet on piano vids almost everyone plays music and on synth hardly anyone plays music. This is especially true for modular synths. Also, given the endless possibilities and accessibility of electronic instruments why are there no universally recognized true masterpieces made with all the technology?

[@beatrixguitar]

I finished my masters in classical guitar 3 years ago and I just started out with electronic music. I feel so stupid, I never thought I’m gonna be a beginner in music ever again in my life. Thanks for this video!

[@valley_robot]

I am a guitar player also, it's my main instrument that I am most comfortable with, that said since the 90s I have been interested in electronic music, I am now pretty well versed in the genre and know my way around modular synthesis, analogue and digital synthesis and sampling, I know my way around my daw of choice (MPC) and it's a wonderful playground to be in, I use my guitar in most of my music but it's mostly synths and samples, music is music, it makes no difference what tools you use to make it

[@StefaanHimpe]

I've written choir pieces based on accidental harmonies I heard from a generative synthesizer patch. There's a lot of room for cross-pollination between sound design and traditional composition.

[@mikevenus4117]

I’m self taught when it comes to music theory and the chords progressions, scales, and drum patterns. Electric music is all about vibes and texture because people want to lose themselves in the music then trying to understand what we are doing. I hide my jazz chords under the synth sounds that I make. I feel it’s like the saying, “give them medicine in the candy.”

[@thewhitefalcon8539]

Have you tried making chiptunes? They use a limited sound palette, so you might like it.

[@Lagrange_Point_6]

Good tip about separating out sound design and composition. I tend to do that myself. In practical terms it means spending some time at the start of a project creating a template for my piece, including named tracks and synth patches/effects/etc. Then when I start writing/recording I have my palette of sounds ready to go. It really can speed things up as I find myself inspired by the sounds I have crafted and can imagine the composition before touching a keyboard or mouse.

[@JamesonNathanJones]

Absolutely! A lot of my tracks have started that very same way.

[@marcbrasse747]

I am not so strict but ever since instruments have become user programmable I tend to do that in separate sessions. So I insist on building my own library but avoid to let that take the steam out of the composing process. Equally I work a lot with improvisation to get the juices flowing but then put my analytical cap on later in the proces. Which is one of the biggest advantages of working with a recording medium as your composing tool. Happy accident are immediately caught on canvas to be validated later. Nothing is set in stone until you decide to accept it as a final version.

[@R1019-l7x]

For me as a hobbyist, Music is a healing process and electronic music has been instrumental to express my deepest thoughts, emotions through musical vocabulary using natural given human creativity. I have also learned to appreciate honest musicians more who pave the road for the never ending journey and discovery through their musical expressions.

[@R1019-l7x]

Sure!

[@melancholas]

I don't know how to describe it, but I could listen to you for hours. The way you share your thought processes, changing old behaviors, how you yourself got inspired by electronic music, all this influenced me to start studying digital music production. As someone who has beginner guitar skills but a passion for all kinds of music, especially classical and scores, your vids inspired me to dive deeper into the world of music theory, harmony. As you mentioned, combining classical music with electronical is like stepping into a unlimited world. Therefore I am starting to learn the piano in a few weeks, too. I am so thankful to have found your channel and hope to learn more🤘👍.

[@JamesonNathanJones]

Thanks so much!

[@dodgingrain3695]

lol, its not only about the sound design and composition, its also about learning how to mix well which is yet another skill that takes a lot of years to do effectively. That skill lets you take sounds and make them fit together even if they seen like they don't.

[@marcbrasse747]

I actually found that to be the hardest thing to become effective at. Coming up with something original? No problem. Recording it properly? Almost a breeze! But mixing things in one go in those “good old days” before total recall? Avoiding transients tiring the listeners perceptions? Etc. The horror!

[@dr.gregoryf.maassen2637]

I once went to a Kraftwerk concert in the early 1990s with an elite classic music student. He was completely shocked by the performance and basically walked away when the robots took over (those who have seen Kraftwerk live, they know what I am talking about). He declared that electronic music was basically evil and had nothing to do with creativity and art. I wish I could share your video with the student to educate him on the complementary aspects of both worlds. I cannot as I lost contact with the student.

[@Rose_Arcana]

On purpose... no doubt.

[@Acoustic-Rabbit-Hole]

But consider that they guy was defending acoustic music. Maybe electronic music isn't "evil" and "un-creative," but if you really look at pop music now, and even since the 80's, most of the mass listeners ONLY listen to pop music and rock-and-roll. A very large percentage really don't know anything else. I'm a piano teacher I can constantly witness a person who has a wealth of songs In their head, yet cannot focus outside of a four-minute piece and connect the dots the there are movements and entire changes of key, as which are being expanded-on, resolved, rinse, repeat, etc. That's growth. Something that missing is short-form music. My favorite band is the 80's group Erasure because they use pure analog synthesis, but apply it to very clever and sophisticated songwriting. And, yet, again, their many unique seems to get only a small amount of attention. // But here's a very important thing about it: the guys from Erasure (Vince Clarke and Andy Bell) compose almost ALL of their songs outside in the garden with just an acoustic guitar and Andy sining. This is really astounding considering that Vince Clark, in the electronic world is known a one of the most innovative and influential analog synthethists starting in the last 70's when he began his career. @@Rose_Arcana

[@ghost-user559]

The student was correct in many ways. The goal of electronic music has always been to find unison in dissonance, which is the opposite of the classical world. The goal of classical music has been to find unison with instruments that already are harmonically driven and sound beautiful in their own right. Whereas electronic music starts in darkness and dissonance and chaos, and tries to find some kind of harmonic and rhythmic balance from that clashing of dissonant themes. If one were to apply morality to sound, then dissonance is “evil”, and harmony and unison is “good”. Listen to Bach and then listen to Kraftwerk and there certainly is no doubt a devolution has occurred between the two.

[@BonasBuden]

That is an important notion to understand a holistic approach of composition. Sounds used can be simple or even boring by them selves but when layered they really make up something. sometimes it is hard to know without testing which sounds would fit together. You run into that same concept in mixing and mastering. Most of the time different sounds are spectrally and volumetrically sectioned and while you listen to them on solo they usually sound thin and weak but yet they sit in the mix perfectly.

[@rodrigolaporte274]

YES! Dividing days into sound design, creation, mixing, etc. That's what I started doing too, hopefully it'll help me to actually complete stuff

[@NegativeReferral]

An interesting thing about electronic music is that its focus on timbre is a clear departure from the idiom of especially classical music - which is that (1) melody, harmony, and rhythm are **what** you play, and (2) timbre is **how** you play it or expect someone to play it. This is why it seems to many that sound design is so removed from composition. When in practice, there's a lot of sensory thought put into modular jams built around LFOs or sequencers outputting random notes. The timbre is a big part of the vibes we electronic fans listen to. At the other extreme, the patch you create or sample you choose is what you say, and the notes (if any) are how you say it. And when you think of it... that's how speech works. "How you say" something has more to do with the volume and pitch of your voice than the timbres, which correspond with vowels (what you say). And just because someone sounds angry to you, doesn't mean they necessarily are (they could be on the spectrum or have a foreign accent that for some reason sounds aggressive)... just like how people are free to interpret whatever they find meaningful in the music. Electronic music is such an open philosophy that you can't really generalize to a single set of techniques. Some people stereotype it as "just taking other people's beats and tunes and plagiarizing"... which is just a cynical way at looking at SOME electronic music, such as Daft Punk (though phrase sampling DOES take talent and can breathe new life into a stock loop or other popular song)... or "just random bleeps and bloops"... except DeadMau5 is very "composer-like" in his production, and there is sentiment that goes into the "Randomness", just as there's sentiment in the opera singer who doesn't plan out every vibrato undulation. And a lot of it is performed - on MPCs, Kaoss pads, Launchpads, theramins, good old fashioned keyboards, voice-to-MIDI, etc. And if it isn't - Renoir only needed to paint each of his paintings once. It's a fine art, not a performing art.

[@EricRaymondSF]

Super helpful perspective. The idea of where sounds sit in a mix may seem basic to more experienced music producers, but it's a lesson that takes a long time to really appreciate in electronic music. It's really easy to go patch-blind.

[@ДарьяДарья-в4у]

I'm a classical musician to. And what you said about the difference between electronic and acoustic instruments, music. This is absolutely accurate. Electronic music has a different type of musical movement, composition. These things, which are different from academic music, can even be confusing, because it uses completely different instruments to make music. And it's just incredibly exciting. The new way. That's why you should stop being snobbish about it.

[@bricelory9534]

I also have found it really help to keep patches simple and layered. Each sound might actually be not particularly pretty on their own but are bespoke for their role within context. I do love making my own presets for libraries of go to patches and sounds - often fairly basic but they seem to layer well. I highly recommend making your own sounds - not only will you sound unique because you are using sounds no one else has, but you will have an intimate understanding of how that sound works, which will help immensely in arranging and mixing.

[@VadimBolshakov]

Most useful type of the content on internet: people reflecting on their "mistakes" in learning path and how they got where they are, told from the perspective: "how I was thinking at the moment". Thank you for sharing, Sir!

[@HieronymusLudo]

I recently simplified my recording into the DAW chain, and this really helped bring out problems much earlier in the process, i.e. in the sound design and arrangement stages. I could visually see the difference in the waveforms of the single-stereo tracked recordings. Very informative for me.

[@ilkhausen1212]

One of your best posts! Loved every minute. 💥

[@racunars]

Great post! 👏Thank you for your insightful reflections. I think the elements of traditional music has been extended with electronic music. Some artists are blending both: traditional and electronic instruments, producing incredible new genres of creative music. I started playing piano (intermediate level 😊), but later I got electronic instruments and enjoy playing and blending both.

[@Kurko_Meho]

establishing fluent workflow is 90% of the battle

[@erndog64]

Yes....beat or melody first? What comes first is what gets built on. Then the critical phase starts...after what's been done.

[@garygimmestad4272]

Thanks for another thoughtful and useful/inspiring chat. When you talked about scaling back presets to make room for other elements I had a little epiphany (an epiphanette?). I realized that I mark atmospheric and ambient presets as faves because I like the worlds they suggest. Well, if they already suggest a world, they’re essentially self-sufficient. Would I just be plopping ‘characters’ into a pre-existing scene? That’s a really reductive thought but it prompted me to think about how I choose sounds for my projects - presets or my own sound design. Electronic music, to me, is about world building; it’s akin to what science fiction and fantasy writers do. When I begin with a busy preset, it might be more than it’s too-broad texture that’s problematic (an arranging and mixing issue). It can also be that too much is defined in terms of world building. So, scaling it down does more than just make room for other sounds, it makes room for creating a different world.

[@soundofnature939]

Everytime I watch your videos I lean something new that gives me some kind of comfort in my own developments, thank you Jameson

[@mekosmowski]

Thank you. Your videos are helpful. I've decided to start saving up for your class bundle. I aspire also to a fusion of Classical style and electronic musics. I'm looking forward to seeing more about your process in depth later this year

[@hdslave]

Your videos are really good man

[@davidleary5639]

Inspiring and commendable journey .Great video ,hope you get a million views and more .

[@mitsostim07]

I also come from a classical music background (studied classical guitar for years) and I find the classical world/teaching very limiting (didn't have any synthesis courses, just harmony and fuga). Now I am exploring the electronic music world and everything to me is EXACTLY as you described it. I can relate 100%. It's much more fun but I have to rewire the way I think about music. To put it better, I now start to understand music.

[@OscarUnderdog]

Lovely video! Thanks for that!

[@daviHuggMonster]

as always. great tips. I do not have the musical background, and it takes me even more trial and error to achive something that I like and sounds good

[@Azeria]

I properly started trying to make music in late 2022. I've finally now got to the point where I have finished songs in the genre and style I've been aiming for, and they're still not good enough to actually release. It does take a long time to learn this stuff, although to be fair I had to learn much of the basics of music theory at the same time as well.

[@chinidadian]

"back up to the sound design stage and see what you can simplify"... fantastic advice!!

[@cornishwavesmusic]

Interesting as always Jameson

[@ZebraandDonkey]

For me when I learned keep it simple, use space and frequency space for sounds or frequencies range, really made a huge difference. Experimental sound design still requires space for frequency range and it can transition through different instruments. I learned so much about that from studying Miles Davis’ compositional approaches.

[@LucasLarsson-ed9fn]

First video I ever saw from you but I somehow understood and agreed with everything you said. Its like you said what I've been thinking, but you managed to put it in to english words, and online I loved it. New subscriber. Moving on to another vid you made.

[@allistergilbert4564]

Love listening to the thinking process 😊

[@samprock]

First time on YT one said - “memorable”! Happy to hear that and will be happy to hear more music that has music also made with unlimited sound design …. buffet

[@YRR_J]

4:04 that would make a wonderful ambient for a a highly stressful event. Like in a game where you had to do something irreversible and now feel guilty or stressed about it.

[@ralek592]

Soma

[@ingolf7411]

Thank you for your valuable thoughts. Although we have a great variety of different electronic gear today, I find some inspiration in the music of "older" composers/performer such as Eliane Radigue or Else Marie Pade. Sometimes very minimal but full of fascinating textures.

[@user-es6wm3yi3h]

This guy gets it. Thank you for your insight, good sir.

[@V3ntilator]

People who didn't know notes, made music at home since 1986 on AMIGA. I used Protracker (Amiga) and FastTracker 2 on PC. Both of them uses samples.

[@planetplex]

I love your videos and how you don’t sacrifice saying something meaningful and helpful to the KZbin pressures. I come more from the computer and sound design world and right now I’m inspired to finally learn piano more because I think it could help me in the same ways your discussing in this video! Thank you for what you do man!

[@meilstone]

Good points there, I found it useful to spend some time (like 10 years) on learning how to mix and master music. It taught me to avoid many mistakes in the arrangement and sound design stage. It's an exciting, never ending journey!

[@Krog360]

A great viewpoint 😉I'm not a musician by any stretch of the imagination but I do have an interest in all things related to electronic music. Your point about sound design and how it can inspire your creations was something that bought home the aspect of this 'hobby' that I enjoy so much. I always seem to gravitate towards the all-in-one solutions like grooveboxes in the hope that they will somehow bring out a hidden talent that I never knew I had 😂 Inevitably though, I just end up churning out fairly mundane 'compositions' that never really provide me with any sense of achievement. However, sitting down with a single low cost synth (Behringer Crave in a lot of cases) I can somehow seem to generate 'sounds' and textures that lead me to create things that I feel quite proud of....................completely subjective of course 🤣Thanks for posting such a thought provoking video 👍

[@robinr22]

Just as a point of order - you make music, you're a musician. Doesn't matter if you're just banging spoons together.

[@Krog360]

@@robinr22 😂👍

[@davidpetersonharvey]

I love your approach and it's right on. Whole working on my music degree, I took all the recording studio classes. Fitting things across the frequency spectrum and giving each item it's own space is fundamental.

[@ochreJ]

One of the reasons there is so much bad electronic music these days is because producers are obsessed with sound design rather than musicality. I’m a preset man all the way. Leave sound design to professional sound designers.

[@MiketheNerdRanger]

I reject the idea that sound design is the reason for bad music. Some people work on sound design because they can't afford good presets.

[@frien_d]

this is how you get composition and weird rythm obsessed people who don't give a f about sound design. This is how you get polyphia. You don't want polyphia, so maybe the answer is in between.

[@JayM928]

I disagree with this so much that I’m tempted to be impolite in my response (oh snap, no I didn’t).

[@BenCaesar]

On the surface you’re right, but sound design is what separates the greats. At least in hip hop the greatest (Pharrell, Timbaland, Dre) always made their own sounds and obsessed over it. Put Skrillex in there too btw.

[@wariusgaius]

Your music still sucks though

[@glenesis]

That re-enactment piece was fire ❤️‍🔥

[@steventaylor3789]

Great point about starting your mix with the sounds you use. I have heard that before but I think you really do a great job here of explaining that in context. Thanks!

[@ashe_]

I really needed this video, I started making electronic this year as a NYR for my mental health. I wanted to start something new and be back at the very beginning of something, and so I picked up bitwig. I really love how you calmly laid out this decision between making sounds vs making songs, and I think because I'm so new to this it is a little overwhelming. How do I make a nice sound if the notes I'm demoing don't sound good in the first place? You also described my thoughts on presets, they sound amazing but unless they are the main focus and I choose others that were watered down to compliment them, I could never really find 2 presets I liked and have them go together in the way I wanted. Going to keep going and do as you say, dedicate some days to sound design and just play around with synths and see if anything sounds good enough to invoke creativity.

[@davarpe]

I am always happy to see a new video of yours popping up. It feels like going to the gas station, but in this case you are refueling my energy to keep making progress on this path. Thank you for that, one big hug :)

[@shan5445]

What I like about this guy is although he is educated he speaks in a creative way which inspires you. I think he must spend hours creating. I think I need to get into sound design cos I want all my instruments to sound exactly like what it sounds like in a live environment.

[@unkatom]

I learned “classical” guitar at 12yrs (1972) then learned electronic music in JR collage while 19yrs (1979) so i saw the benefits of both approaches… while also learning first traditional drawing & painting, sculpting and (eventually) composition… then I got a computer in the nineties. Now AI comes along which cuts me out of the process of creativity… so I feel there are downsides to chasing tech and embracing the “new”. Theres a lot going on in the arts these days… it can get a bit difficult to sort out what works and what doesn’t. I will admit i can hear when people “forget” to include the nice aspects of the past as they chase new tech. Art is often knowing when NOT to play a note or add more brush strokes. Art is balance. That can be a challenge when things keep changing at the fundamental level.

[@jaydavies2001]

I do not have any formal music education but I know when I like a sound or sequence of sounds/chords. I LOVE those beautiful massive synth soundscapes, I remember back to the 70's (1970's) when they were fresh and have enjoyed the synth evolution ever since. I have always held myself back, coz, I do not know this or I do not know that but you've kind of told me that I don't need formal music training to explore and enjoy myself..... Thank you for pointing out the snobbery, these people have made my love of music & sound in to something I must be ashamed of coz of not knowing all their BIG words; I can now look forward to having fun 🙂 Thank you Jay (South Wales)

[@Antara755]

I am the perfect example, no music theory, not one instrument learned. All I do is improvise on a synth thinking i've created something worth listening to. But all that has caught up to me now. And I realise now that in order to progress I have, I must learn music theory. That's why I start learning music theory with a privatie teacher this week. I consider myself more a sounddesigner, soundscape-creator then a musician, to call myself that is an insult to people who studied for years to master an instrument or music in general. That's why I love the music of Blade Runner. Vangelis is a master composer but also created atmospheres and feelings thru soundscapes. Yes, he created a lot of musical masterpieces but I focused more on the feeling you get when you hear a massive drone sound coming from a Yamaha CS80 with 8 seconds of reverb. If you have created an interesting, epic sound, it can take you to a place of great inspiration and you don't need to know what chord you are in. Anyway, great take on the subject.

[@shan5445]

I agree that each person can learn in varied ways. Because of my experience I would never take lessons. I would rather learn by ear although it make take decades but I have learnt that repetition is the key. So I challenge myself to completing tasks.

[@nigelericogden3200]

It’s wonderful to hear your observations Nathan. As a fan and part time creator of electronic music I’ve been saying much the same for 40 something years… right now, my feeling in a nutshell is that less can be more … in almost every regard … Nigel 🙏

[@bjornark]

Good stuff, keeping things simple helps with creativity.

[@noahmin203]

Hey, Jameson. Your videos and book have been very helpful to me. Thank you very much!

[@ItsJustMePal]

Thank you so much for this inspiring video! I've geared up the last six years or so, both hardware and software. I know I have more than I actually need, but now I need to get my thumb out my ... and just start. Your video may just be the last push to get me there. When I release my first album, I'll name one of the songs after you. 🤩

[@defipunk]

While i had the typical piano lessons as a child, i come from nearly the opposite site of the spectrum, with an early disregard for the complexity of the arts. Partially driven through a talent for math, allowing me to reduce musical complexities into a formulaic world view. Obviously, I've evolved since my long-gone teenage years, but your explanation and your view of both music and sound design as a whole is wonderfully accessible and truly resonated with me.

[@amado7760]

Great video Jameson, thanks :)

[@funkymunky]

Gordon Freeman, you speak?

[@umairasif15]

The G cord gives him chills..

[@marcelallbriton5742]

This is very well done!

[@markbelcher1777]

Subscribed and made my way over to Apple Music to your new single - nice!

[@EchoKraft]

Great video ! One of my favorite artist/composer is Trent Reznor of NIN's. He dose exactly that, he makes music using sounds and textures. He also has a back ground in classical music. Which I believe helps in arrangement of sounds and textures.

[@keithericksen5756]

I’m with you 100% on everything you said

[@ob1quixote]

Thanks for this. I love composing but hate sound design. I'm obsessive enough that I will easily waste an entire afternoon futzing with the portamento on a bass synth patch or editing a sample. So I'm a preset man through-and-through. You've given me a lot to think about.

[@JamesonNathanJones]

Totally get it. I think my love of interesting ambient textures really helped me in getting into sound design. One of my favorite things to do is set up an evolving sequence or patch and let it run while I improvise around it at the piano. It has led me to make things I never would have otherwise.

[@pripyat23]

I switched from mainly playing metal music to electronic music around 2014. This is basically my story, floundered around for a few years until I really stepped up my sound design game. Even Rock music that uses a lot of stompboxes is pretty simple on the sound design front compared to an expensive synth.

[@FilthyAnimal893]

it always gets me a bit of a chuckle as someone with 15 years experience with synth sound design hearing guitar pedal nerds talk about their pedals. I always end up thinking you paid how much for a flanger with 2 knobs???

[@GaryMatthews1]

Brilliant & well explained video on how to think past the different patch banks we all tend to use to create our music. I use a large amount of different patches (mainly Arturia V Collection & my Korg M3 with a radias attached) in order to see how the patches can fit together and produce a song etc. I will now attempt a different approch to find out how your concept works

[@FloydRunner2049]

Always great to transfer skills and talent to a new instrument. Helps approach composition and sound design from another angle as opposed to endlessly scrolling through the palette of presets. Dolby Atmos is a great way to separate a mix from an new perspective and it transfers well to the stereo frequency spectrum and placements

[@ambientzoneofficial]

Man, just saw this video of yours. Fantastic! So well put into words and a catching storyline :) The art of sound design, for sure. Muddy. The biggest trap of all the options we have. Too many, ie, less is more 👍🏻

[@Acoustic-Rabbit-Hole]

There is a very interesting fact about the electronic music duo, Erasure, who are known for Vince Clarke's intense approach to analog synthesis, even creating most of his drum sounds by patching analog sounds together. He even formed the much more famous Depeche Mode and wrote all of the songs for their first record, Speak & Spell. So, what interesting is that Erasure have shared that almost ALL of their songs were written outside in the garden with just Vince on his guitar, and Andy singing and playing around with melodies. It really makes one think how one of the great synth veterans still refers to acoustics as the setting for a new idea or musical thought.

[@distantsea]

It reminds me of something Mick Gordon said in an interview about the Killer Instinct soundtrack. He would make the music using basic and poor sounding patches, demonstrated in Spinal's Theme. This meant that when he liked what he heard despite the actual sounds, he would pursue those ideas and begin to introduce the sonic pallette he wanted for a given character's theme, such as the horns and xylophone for Spinal's theme.

[@theboofin]

Nice presentation, cool humour.

[@smkh2890]

Since the sonic palette is so broad, it helps to limit one parameter: Duration. Set a limit to the length of a piece and work backwards from that. John Cage realised that 4'33" of silence was more interesting than an open-ended silence.

[@iainmcaleese5468]

Very good. I’m not a musician but like to play music to the best of my limited abilities. I’m just trying to find a limited amount of sound that I can make the best of.

[@iainmcaleese5468]

I’m actually a semi retired actor and theatre director but have just got into synth music on a very restricted budget. I have a very small home studio which has been constructed mainly for the purpose of audio drama but as always my interest and joy in music is always a distraction 😂

[@madman10mj]

I rarely find a video that describes my exact issues, but I’m definitely feeling like the presets I find sound good, but have additional sounds within that I could do without. I haven’t even considered opening up my synth to tweak the sounds. I’m gonna keep this advice in the back of my head next time I’m working with a preset. Hell, I’ll probably just start designing my own sounds. I work with serum

[@Sp1n3c]

the possibilities are endless

[@dengdiddididdi]

Fantastic vid! Thanks 🙏

[@nalaeel219]

That iridium patch sounded very NINesque

[@OscarRoads]

Needed this video. 🎉 . I went from the metal head kid who dreamed of being a guitar god. To making music on my computer. Learning the basics of mixing and going down the rabit hole of design has me shrugging at music my nerd friends who scoff at the process. Its 100% a skill with a very high skill ceiling.

[@RaichoNikolov]

There is something interesting in the idea of electronic music producer who ACTUALY can play music and can understand score music. But the other side is not to underestimate. The electrinic bands that I fan of (like The Prodigy) have this raw and primal vibe that makes me to prefer them against classical music.

[@krutas3035]

This was great!

[@did_you_know_trees_can_talk]

excellent video! i was trained to grade 5 oboe, then later played drums and bass in various bands and to be quite honest it was all pretty easy - self taught in various other instrumnest too, but electronic music is really the hardest thing i've ever learnt and will never stop learning and it will always be hard to me i think. The snobbery from people who don't actually know how to do said thing is quite shocking!

[@NostalgicRuckus]

I have these random thoughts of sitting at a Rhodes late at night accompanied by a pocket trumpet. This video got me back to those thoughts again. I don’t know why but yeah.

[@jloiben12]

When people say things like “electronic music isn’t real music”, and almost every time it is some terminally online music theory major/doctorate/etc who doesn’t actually make music that is saying this, I feel obligated to remind them that there is a reason why there is an MPC in the Smithsonian

[@notaspectator]

You've hit on something with your vulnerability. Thank you kindly, friend.

[@wormjuice7772]

If it keeps the creation going, its a good phase your in.

[@valley_robot]

John Michelle Jarre used presets all the time, vangelis also, nothing wrong with being happy with a sound someone has spent hours designing

[@DavidChandekStark]

Great video. I think one challenge of much electronic music is that there is little if any significant distinction between composition and performance. In classical music the performers can help manage some of the issues of layering, tone, and presence. Which is to say that the performers are collaborators with the composer in the full realization of the music set out in the score. I suppose in electronic music, the role of the "performer" might be more akin to that of the "producer" or recording engineer, which is, for most of us, the same person as the composer. The problem is that music production is a set of skills unto itself, and one that I personally find less interesting, but that is unfortunately necessary in some form to create electronic music such as we are discussing here (not necessarily "classical" music for electronic instruments).

[@atommachine]

It is a sculpture of the imprint of each individual consciousness having a human experience.

[@KB28L]

Thank you!

[@paulmakl6282]

That deep bass at 2:12 is amazing.

[@shan5445]

I used to practice playing piano as a child I was starting to get it. I would come home from school drop everything and run to the piano to practice. One day I came home ran to the piano and it was gone. My dad told me I was getting good so he sold it. I'm so glad I have the opportunity to make music now and learn how to play which I can now not fantastically well but you just never know a person's experience if you were pushed by your parents to get your masters and be able play that's GREAT for you but remember we all have differing experiences.

[@WAZA___]

"Anyone can make music" That's the problem.

[@jenstornell]

Blending orchestral sounds with dance / trance was much harder than I tought. BPM is different, room is different, phase is different and frequency range is hard to manage. But I don't give up. I want to make a "symphony" with 50/50 electronic sounds and orchestral sound as well as having choirs and even song.

[@FilthyAnimal893]

Apashe is an artist who recently made a claim to fame by writing and arranging for a full live orchestra which he recorded and used to make his electronic album.

[@jedimindtrix2142]

Theres a big difference between taking samples and throwing them together ontop of a premade drum beat using plugins that make sure everything is in the same key versus playing all your own parts and making everything from scratch. I suppose it depends on what ones definition of "making music" is. I personally dont consider taking bass lines, lead lines, drum patterns and other pre recorded samples that other musicians played and putting them together to make a "song" composing. It can certainly be interesting for people if they dont play music or instruments to be able to at least have some fun

[@JakeSignalYT]

I was shocked how useful music theory helps in making Electronic, changed the whole approach. Then learned the science behind sound, and yet again it improved.

[@mmypainting]

I got a lot from this, thanks.