Electronic Dance Music: How the Hell They Make It
If you’re anything like me when you first really start to enjoy electronic dance music, you probably thought to yourself: “Holy shit, this stuffs sooooo fucking dope, how the hell do they make it!?” If you’re not, this article is definitely not for you, so for both of our sanity you should probably stop reading it.
If you were anything like me, you we certainly amazed at how difficult it was to figure that out in contrast to, let’s say, figuring how how rock music is made. Most people know that the tools to the rock trade consists of a band featuring a nice selection of guitars, drums and the like, but what the hell are the tools for making electronic dance music?
Because the tools and techniques needed to make this style of music is almost never-ending I will only briefly cover a few of them in this short article. If you’d like to get a more in depth overview of it, check out my book “How To Make Electronic Dance Music: A Beginner’s Guide.” Now that my shameless self-promotion is out of the way: How the fuck do you make this music?!?!
Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs):
The whole process is enabled by music production programs which are called “Digital Audio Workstations” (DAWs for short). Think of the DAW like the kitchen: It’s the place in which all the magic happens, where you can find all your tools, ingredients and combine them. A handful of DAWs I suggest for beginners to check out are:
-FL Studio (PC and soon Mac, my personal favorite and a probably the most intuitive one for beginners)
-Ableton Live (PC and Mac, easily the favorite of most producers. A little harder to learn than FL in my opinion as it’s got a very unique layout, but if you can learn it you will be quite dangerous).
-Bitwig (Linux, PC and Mac, a relatively new DAW on the market. A little more difficult to find tutorials for this program, but if you’re running Linux this is really your only option)
For you more experienced producers out there who are about to get in my face about discluding Logic, Pro Tools, Avid and the like I understand your concern, but it’s really not helpful to overload them with the entire portfolio of DAWs available on the market. I chose the ones I personally think are the easiest to learn the concepts of producing in, but if they’d like to go out and check out the more intricate ones all power to them!)
Samples and Synthesizers:
Now that you understand the various “kitchens” you can work in to make music, what are exactly the tools within them that make shit happen? Continuing on the kitchen metaphor, what is the equivalent of “ingredients” in music production?
There are two methods that a producer can choose to obtain the necessary “ingredients” needed for his track. One method uses pre-recorded audio files which are called “samples”: Think of them as pre-packaged ingredients that you can take from “sample packs” and intersperse the among the track as you see fit.
Another way producers can obtain the necessary “ingredients” is through synthesizers. Think of synthesizers as a producers way of growing his own food, except there’s way less dirt involved and is easily 100 times cooler than pulling weeds every weekend. There are so many types of synthesizers to the point that there are magazines dedicated to them, so I won’t inundate you with the details. If you are interested in some beginner synthesizers to mess around with, then definitely check out my “How To Make Electronic Music: A Beginner’s Guide” book as I list a handful of programs you check out to start getting your hands dirty.
Mixing:
Mixing as an area within electronic dance music (and within music processing in general) is so broad that they actually give out Grammy awards JUST for people who excel in this department. I can not even begin to give you a concise picture of what all is entailed in this aspect of music production, outside of the fact that mixing can be thought of as the process in which the producers make sure all the various elements within his track get along nicely. Again, if you want to get a deeper look into mixing, I know I’m a little biased here but I do truly believe my book will give you great resources which will give you an even better insight into what is all entailed in this regard. If for whatever reason you have an adverse hatred for my non-apologetic plugs (which is perfectly understandable), Mike Senior’s “Mixing Secrets For The Small Studio” is a perfect place to start as well :)
Music Theory:
Music theory is the study of the practices and possibilities of music, according to the all-knowing Wikipedia. In “I’m have no fucking idea what you’re talking about” terms: Knowledge of music theory is what assists the music producer in choosing the best notes for his production. Though plenty of producers do not have a formal training in this aspect (Audien is one well-known example), all of the top EDM creators still have a very developed sense of the musical relation between notes. Whether it was developed formally or not, this aspect is still crucial in helping them develop their creations.
In Conclusion:
At a very very basic level, the combination of music theory, synthesizers, samples and mixing within a DAW is what enables the electronic music producer to create the kickass tracks you and your friends fistbump to. Hopefully this short blog post inspires is enough to at least give you an appreciation for what all goes into your favorite creations, because as much shit we get from other musical genres it still does require a ton of knowledge and skill to perform at high level. So now no matter if you’re listening to Martin Garrix’s latest hit or Deadmau5's latest track flipping the bird to the “EDM” label as a whole, you’ll have a very basic understanding that will help you appreciate it just a tiny bit more :D
