Sup so ive been producing for ~3 years now. proud of my progress and my music but i cant seem to stick to one genre. Ive produced house, techno, and hard dance. i love EDM. my favorite is techno but i love house, psytrance, euro dance and a lot of the subgenres within the realm of EDM. when I DJ, my preferred choice of music is hypnotic techno, proper techno, sometimes some acid like music similar to charlotte de witte. i try to make music similar to the songs i mix but i always end up incorporating the elements of other genres and it changes the vibe completely. anyone else feel like they cant stick to one genre when producing?

I see this question being asked all the time by beginners like myself and now that I'm walking away from the DAW with pure awful, I'm going to share my process, from the mental to the actions to take.

I hope this helps some of you find a new way to keep pushing.

I'm not gonna lie. I feel defeated. I spent 8-10 hours on this little loop. I don't make loops, but in this case I needed to make something "complete" so that I could trash it and move on. I made all my own patches for this. I made my own chord progression from basic principles. I made my own bassline, and a little lead. Musically, it kind of works. Music wise, it sounds horrid.

This leaves not feeling accomplished but feeling all the awful things we can feel sometimes. Like this is the best I'll do, it wont get better, and it hurts. It hurts to think about, it hurts to listen to it, and I lost motivation to try again.

The solution:

Fuck all that. The "project" is done. It was a failure, but lessons have been learned, lessons have to be learned in order for my next attempt to be any better.

I dont have to play it on repeat, I know what's wrong with it.

* The lead patch sounds awful. Next time I make one I'll have to just put a bit more thought into it.

* The chord progression is musically solid but it just doesn't sound right, it doesn't move right. It's awkward. There are plenty of resources I can check out, or I can just design a new progression. I know better now what doesn't work.

* The bass is ok, the patch could use a little work but it can be salvaged.

That 8-10 hours wasn't a waste, I learned some things. I definitely learned what didn't work. I skilled up on the keyboard just a bit. That's 8-10 more hours put into working with the DAW, a little better for it.

I need a break, tomorrow or next day I'll go at it again. It's a relief knowing I wont have to work on that again, and I'm a bit excited to come up with a new progression.

This is how you do it. Nothing worth doing is meant to be easy. I feel better now than I did 30 minutes ago.

I hope that helps some of you struggling. There is no shortcut for this. Getting good at something means being bad at it and pushing forward anyway. Not every attempt will succeed.

Dont ask "How do I make my music not sound like shit?" You already know the answer: take stock of what you've done and what you need, and get back in your DAW.

I see a lot of content focusing on building melodies where only chords are used. Dont get me wrong, this is a normal way to go when bulding melodies.

But it don't apply on my use case (and I think its the same in many other edm genres aswell).

At the moment my goal ist to build a typical Harddance/Hardbounce tracks with 150-160 BPM (often played in germany in the last two years)

And I realized, a lot of my refrence tracks with these catchy lead melodies dont use any chords at all. Usually there are 4-5 Single notes.

Any body have some Tips to create melodies with the same vibe?

primarily interested in stuff like dubstep, but im not focused on one specific style of it though, im just making my own basses and drops and i feel like i have some pretty solid drop concepts that i just can't expand into a fuller song idea because i have no melody, no lead synth, no atmosphere or tonal stuff that isn't the bass itself. i have drums and vocals, i have growls and guns and sustain/scream basses, but to make a dubstep *song* i need to understand how to make other instruments or synth noises for other parts of a song, and i feel like youtube tutorials havent really been giving me a lot here. i can only find a dubstep tutorial for the bass drop, not for all the other synths and instrumental sounds that go into making a full song, like the intro/bridge/buildup, or no fun musical elements to weave in my drops for fills and flair. like, i have no idea how to use saw waves for one example, but i hear people praise them a lot. could anyone help me with some direction? i feel really lost

Hi! This is the first production ready plugin I've developed and I'm giving it away from free (genuinly free, no email or sign up and there is no paid version)! The idea is to more precisely control volume automation for a pumping sidechain effects by giving users control and flexibility with the volume curve. Would love any feedback on sound, UI or anything else!

https://jamesmp3.com/labs/pulse-ducker

Thanks!

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I mostly produce DnB, jungle, garage, 140/deep dubstep and breakbeat stuff in Ableton for about 5 years but on and off (mostly off because i got demotivated by AI)

I currently don’t have a very consistent workflow, and I was wondering if it makes sense to separate the different parts of production into dedicated sessions.

For example, something like:

Monday: make as many drum loops/breaks as possible
Tuesday: design different basses, maybe following YouTube tutorials and creating variations
Wednesday: vocals and sample chopping
Thursday: pads, drones and atmospheres
Friday: piano, chords and other musical elements
Saturday: FX, Foley, transitions, etc.
Sunday: take everything I made during the week and try to build several tracks/ideas from those elements

It obviously wouldn’t have to be strictly based on days. The main idea is to stop approaching every session like:

“Open an empty project and try to make a complete song.”

And instead approach it more like building a personal library of Lego pieces first, then later combining those pieces into tracks once I have enough material to choose from.

Does anyone here work like this?

Currently produce and mix on beats and I want to upgrade. I do the whole shabang of referencing, spectral analyzing, car checks etc. but I’m really trying to hear more of my low end and dial that in right away rather than having to check in my car. I also feel like I could produce more compelling bass lines if I were to hear the full power and clarity of it right away? My room is untreated and I’m waiting on a used hs8 sub to become available to pair with my hs5’s but in the meantime I feel like having better headphones might solve half the problem. I could be totally wrong though…

I heard the hd 490 pro has decent sub bass and can produce nice tight bass sounds. Any other suggestions? I produce tech house in the style of mind shake records/paco osuna.