Genre Choices

[mobius017]

I was wondering if anyone here who makes music had decided what sorts of genres they tend to lean toward?

Currently, I seem to gravitate more toward lofi and synthwave. Though I also get ideas for pop, and am willing to stretch that in a folk/ballad or rock direction.

Even that doesn't cover everything, though. I also have a song based on Taiko that I'm working on, as well as a desire to do something with PVC drums, as well as steel pan/Calypso, and even something really...experimental. Being able to do jazz at some point would be really cool, too.

I love it when producers get inspired and try a bunch of different things, even just once. Getting stuck on labels seems like it limits one's options unnecessarily.

Still, I'm curious what other people might be thinking/have decided for themselves.

 

[Vector]

Generally I gravitate toward the House/Eurodance/Eurobeat/Techno/Synthpop metagenre, which I easily fit Synthwave into since it has similar roots in the 80s and uses similar structures and instruments...and also includes most J-pop from the late 90s well into the 2000s, since Eurodance specifically had a strong influence.

Historically, they all come directly from Disco: they share the four-on-the-floor drum beat, off-beat bass (often a walking bass that jumps between two octaves), staccato chords and brassy leads. Early House and Italo Disco were the direct descendants, making use of early samplers, the Korg M1 keyboard, and the TR-909 drum machine, and the rest grew from there, forming what we now define as "Electronic Dance Music."

That's not to say I'm exclusively interested in that, but it's definitely my most passionate interest in music these days. And definitely the area I have the most handle on.

 

[MillyAqualine]

I desperately try to aim for discoish tunes but fail lol

Instead I end up doing vaguely space music but since I like it it's not a problem....

Also, I wish one day to be able to produce a nice pop-rock tune too

The worst is when I try to learn how to make some genres and ending up with something else because I wanted to add a bit of originality so it doesn't end up like a copy-pasta of the tutorial's tune (like when I wanted to make tropical house and reggae and ended up with a 90's electropop tune and then a random 2000's music that was quite popular, especially in some comedy movies over here) ; also Celtic music would be nice to make, and I did think about eurobeat and parapara songs (though I do have an ooooold one that I need to remake since I don't think i've done it in LMMs i was still using the fl studio demo.... Same for the strange one I've done overnight while messing around with a wah-wah synth on fl studio demo around 10 years ago)

 

[InstallGentoo]

I don't like it but I always seem to gravitate to sad and moopy music with bells and piano reverb. I make it too overdone. I want to make upbeat dance type stuff like techno and trance or something more cardinal and emits lust (idk how to describe it, like a heartbeat or vicsous liquid pump and deep breaths type of feeling to the music), it always comes back to that unrefined moopy emo music I don't really like like I started out making because I'm just not skilled.

 

[mobius017]

I don't like it but I always seem to gravitate to sad and moopy music with bells and piano reverb. I make it too overdone. I want to make upbeat dance type stuff like techno and trance or something more cardinal and emits lust (idk how to describe it, like a heartbeat or vicsous liquid pump and deep breaths type of feeling to the music), it always comes back to that unrefined moopy emo music I don't really like like I started out making because I'm just not skilled.

It's just my offhand thought, but you might have some luck in changing to a more upbeat genre if you focus on the drums.

If you deconstruct a song, you'll probably come to the (likely correct) conclusion that every part plays an important role. But I've come to understand more and more how critical the drums are to making a song that sounds good and carries the desired feel. The rhythm of a song, often set by its drums/percussion, is the skeleton that gives it form and the heartbeat that conveys its energy. (Things like chords, by contrast, set its mood/convey more emotional content.)

You want your drums/percussion to not only have the desired tempo, but also often to be sufficiently interesting on their own. That's why there are drum kits, with different kinds of drums, as well as cymbals and other things. The different sounds let you make interesting patterns of tempo and timbre. For a good lesson in how to do that, I'd recommend listening to some hip hop, a genre where the beat is considered central. (Seriously, some of the kids in my grade school could make engaging hip hop beats on their desks with their pens and the heels of their hands--you know there's got to be something worth learning there.)

(Sorry, this has gotten kind of preachy. And your hearing this from someone who is still learning. But it's all but a natural law for me: the better my drums are, the better my song is.)

The only reason this occurs to me is because you mentioned making sad/mopey music when you want to make something more upbeat. The difference between the two that jumps out at me is that beat. A more melancholy song will likely have a slow, depressing, simple drum pattern, is it had a drum at all. But dance usually has a quick drum pattern, often with multiple kinds of percussion. Focusing on that might help you break out of one genre and into the other.

As a guideline, I also heard this interesting fact once: the human heart beats around something like 120 times per minute. Tempos slower than that are perceived as calming, and faster ones are exciting. As you can guess, pop/dance/EDM tend to have faster tempos, and their drums reflect that.

 

[InstallGentoo]

It's just my offhand thought, but you might have some luck in changing to a more upbeat genre if you focus on the drums.

If you deconstruct a song, you'll probably come to the (likely correct) conclusion that every part plays an important role. But I've come to understand more and more how critical the drums are to making a song that sounds good and carries the desired feel. The rhythm of a song, often set by its drums/percussion, is the skeleton that gives it form and the heartbeat that conveys its energy. (Things like chords, by contrast, set its mood/convey more emotional content.)

You want your drums/percussion to not only have the desired tempo, but also often to be sufficiently interesting on their own. That's why there are drum kits, with different kinds of drums, as well as cymbals and other things. The different sounds let you make interesting patterns of tempo and timbre. For a good lesson in how to do that, I'd recommend listening to some hip hop, a genre where the beat is considered central. (Seriously, some of the kids in my grade school could make engaging hip hop beats on their desks with their pens and the heels of their hands--you know there's got to be something worth learning there.)

(Sorry, this has gotten kind of preachy. And your hearing this from someone who is still learning. But it's all but a natural law for me: the better my drums are, the better my song is.)

The only reason this occurs to me is because you mentioned making sad/mopey music when you want to make something more upbeat. The difference between the two that jumps out at me is that beat. A more melancholy song will likely have a slow, depressing, simple drum pattern, is it had a drum at all. But dance usually has a quick drum pattern, often with multiple kinds of percussion. Focusing on that might help you break out of one genre and into the other.

As a guideline, I also heard this interesting fact once: the human heart beats around something like 120 times per minute. Tempos slower than that are perceived as calming, and faster ones are exciting. As you can guess, pop/dance/EDM tend to have faster tempos, and their drums reflect that.

Maybe that's why. Most drum kits I found I find to dislike. Most of the attack of the kicks have this harsh attack and cycbles and hats have this noise I don't like. Don't like to start with the drums because the whole tone and direction of the song starts with the first track you lay down and my drums tend to be unalterable samples or take alot of processing for effects where starting with the chord progression and a polyphonic synth that can be fine tuned helps to shape the direction more precisely. I feel like it will fall into the trap of sameness considering I habitually go for four on floor and the samples are basically fixed. Like a rock drum kit with the harsh attacks and distorted releases feels like you need to add a guitar no matter what, and with trance kit you feel like you need to add a arpeggio no matter what. idk, I just feel that it's hard to shape the genre starting with drums, it will start the rhythm then I just drift off to boilerplate accompaniment to the drum. Maybe I'm not very skilled with the drums and drum techniques where I can shape a song to my liking, I always fall back to four on the floor... syncopation and swing feels wrong by itself, that's when it starts sounding like a cocophony when there's a syncopated counter rhythm disjointed. I guess the good side is that it allows one to follow a tempo without needing a metronome and influence more short and staccato notes for the other tracks.
Maybe I should do chords, arppegiate them to the rhythm I want, then the drums. I find it hard to start out with just drums. I should learn more drum techniques.

 

[Vector]

Expanding on that, the interplay between the kick drum and the bass have a lot to due with dance grooves. The classic four-on-the-floor beat is all about syncopation. You have the kick and snare providing clear timing for people to dance to (kick on every beat, snare/clap to accent the two downbeats)...but what's going on between them?

This video does a nice, visual breakdown of a bunch of classic 90s Eurodance songs. They all have that basic skeleton, but what they do with the cymbals and variations over multiple bars really shows how to add energy.


Now...bass. If you want that Eurobeat pumping sound, it comes from the bass being syncopated: it's a simple pattern that's offset by one from the kick drum. So the kick hits, then the bass right after. Eighth notes, either rest/hit/rest/hit or note/note+8/note/note+8 (the same note an octave up). It's usually a plucky FM synth. The classic one is the Yamaha "Lately Bass," which can be found in the Arturia DX7 emulation or probably found for Dexed, a free DX7 VST. But plenty of basses will do, even a bass guitar sample.

Something like Daft Punk is different: their baselines tend to be more "square," meaning a significant amount of the notes hit at the same time as the kick drum...but French House is known for a sort of aggressive pumping sound in the low end. That comes from a side chain compressor, which is ducking the bass volume hard when the kick signal is present, then letting it quickly rise back up as the kick's short tail fades.


Hope that helps. I'm a major nerd about recreating 90s dance music techniques.

 

[InstallGentoo]

Hope that helps. I'm a major nerd about recreating 90s dance music techniques.

That stuff is pretty good. I think I learned a couple techniques I didn't know about, like that fade into the drum roll, I'll try and figure out how to do that with my akai pads. I feel like I probably want to develop the drum samples from scratch, there's just too much "sameness" in my taste. like three or four different samples of the same kick drum in a song. That sidechain compression went over my head not sure what he was trying to do, I'm sorry.