i've seen a couple of references to "loop techno". i'm a little confused about what this is actually.
techno is based on bunches of loops, as is all music for that matter
...melody...chorus....melody...chorus...and so on.
Printable View
i've seen a couple of references to "loop techno". i'm a little confused about what this is actually.
techno is based on bunches of loops, as is all music for that matter
...melody...chorus....melody...chorus...and so on.
alot of techno sounds like its just loops on the face of it, but if you listen carefully you can usually hear synth lines e.t.c that arent loops as they are constantly having there filters tweaked, also you can probably hear little changes in percussion, extra hits, different notes, extra fx and so on, if im wrong somebody please correct me as im from a london techno background which isnt loops.
right.
I understand that Modulation is a key to keeping any sounds interesting...but often the synth line repeats itself, even if it is being modulated. Maybe every 2bars, maybe every 4bars, etc.
Also, even if the drums/percussion change subtly within a track do they change so much that they never repeat themselves?
I hear ya on the dj tool tip. Some techno is just the first 4bars over and over and over. But I still think all music is based on loops, except maybe pure improv.
See your point professor, even though basically all techno and other genres of music are looping segments of the song, in this case it most likely means that the artist is using more or less readymade beatloops that builds up a sound that hasn´t got that much melody or synthhooks to it.
funny everybody talks in this section called "looptechno"
but when i called it biting people get quiet.
biting other peoples grooves is un-called-for. JUST MAKE YOUR OWN SHIT! YOU GOT THE TOOLS, JUST DO IT.
Oh and don't hate because I said it.
(Iknowthisisadeadsubject,justhadtogetitout)
cheers!
surely loop based techno can be made with your own loops??? and saying that you shouldnt sample someone elses stuff is silly too as they got their samples and beats from a machine that you could have bought too. dance music has been sample based for years and does not mean that its a bad thing. the trick lies in changing it sufficiently so that it becomes your own work anyway.
here in holland (i don't know if this is the case anywhere else) some so called techno purists use 'looptechno' as cursing...
i totally do not agree.
when james brown introduced the funk, all drum elements and instruments where used as repeating patterns....
later when the first dance tracks where born, all elements where sequenced as loops. so the whole dance and techno is based on looping. ok we know how to tweak and modulate and filter and so on... this keeps the sound driving and interesting.... it's based on the art of playing with effects rather than with melodies... techno producers anr't musicians!!! they are beat creators. :lol:
I've only heard this term used in a derogatory manner to say that the techno has been put together with little to no talent because all it is is one or two repeated loops that just plod never building up and never actually going anywhere. In my honest opinion, Glenn Wilson is very guity of boring plod plod yawn "loop techno", whilst Jeff Amadeus is not because of stronger phases and more dynamic basslines.
??????Quote:
Originally Posted by Ritzi Lee
according to pure plastic site...ben sims is the loop techno king :twisted:
i think Ben Sims is kinda loop techno?!
well that's my personal opinion
is that so hard to understand??Quote:
Originally Posted by crime
Actually I don't agree either, saying that techno producers are not musicians is far to sweeping a statement to be able to make, it just ain't true..Quote:
Originally Posted by Ritzi Lee
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sunil
Ok now we have an interesting discussion. :)
In what way you can show me that a techno producer is a musician??
Justin Berkovi
Quite simply actually. By definition a 'musician' is somebody who composes music.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ritzi Lee
[quote="Sunil"][quote="Ritzi Lee"]well, someone who is skilled at composing music anyway, this is of course a subjective matter!Quote:
Originally Posted by Sunil
Easy. Both Guy McAffer and Henry were in a band before going banging 'aving it acid techno. Guy played the keyboards and Henry the drums. Both are musicians and techno producers. Take it up with Henry if you want to.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ritzi Lee
I can not see how you can be good at writing techno if you are not a musician. Without an understanding of percussion, harmonics, timing, etc. its just going to sound like somebody is playing with Reason/Fruity/Logic/Cubase etc. Beleave me, I wish I had a musical background - its a whole language on its own, that if you can speak it you can put alot of smiles on people faces.
The difference between a musician and a non-musician is that a musician can get what he hears in his head into a sequencer - a non-musician generally only uses trial-and-error to get something that sounds good by experimenting and it never sounds like what you thought it would.
Peace.
some people are saying ALL music is made from loops, poppycock!! you have to be careful when making such sweeping statements.
and to say techno producers arent musicians. thats a touchy one. you'd have to know the individual artist to know if he had any musical training, but is that all that being a msucian depends on?? i dont think it is.
i can play guitar and i could read music although i've forgotten how to now, so this classes me as a musician ( i think ). It definetly is helping me in my productions as i already know about how many beats in a bar etc and what notes are in tune and which notes are'nt.
agree. it ain't training but ability to be er... create music. oxford dictionary anybody?Quote:
Originally Posted by Tony
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tony
well i think you really have 2 define for yourself.
what's a loop??
mathematically: a loop is something you can map to a circle.
because the circle is infinitly continues, so is the loop.
and for me musicians are people who play live instruments.
not pre-programmed. but really live...
glenn wilson is loop techno at its best imo
:dontevengothere:Quote:
Originally Posted by Ritzi Lee
mmm, what about live P.A's? i know u may find it hard to believe but some people do actually play LIVE :roll:
hmmm...som1 has described it correct i think (cant rem name now 2nd or 3rd post i think)
i thought loop techno was when you make the loop u want to go thru your track. it doesnt change ur build up just keeps going.
glenn wilson is a good example. isnt a good thing or a bad thing, alot of techno is made this way for a few reasons.
makes it simple to mix, fits together well with other looped tracks. also is quick to make, some people use the same loop over n over making small changes to it.
thats what i think anyway? pls correct me
glenn wilson live was great the one time i saw him at a party in bklyn
yeh i heard hes hot live but snot at mixing. :roll:
did anyone hear about the famous "5 minutes of silence " symphony by john cage, a man who has always said he made a living from his shortcomings as a musician.
well the idea wasn't just that the orchestra never played a note
it was the fact that when the conducter tapped his baton he got everyones attention
and they listened intently to their surroundings.
something they probably had never done in an auditorum before.
the experience becomes musical even though what you are listening to wouldn't normally be classed as music , just background "noise"
and this is the key to it all for me.
a musician is simply someone who can draw your attention to their sound
and make you realise it as music and not noise.
you don't need classical training or years of experience
just a good idea and the determination to make it happen.
that's the way i look at it anyways.
I agree with DtD's point...musician = peron(s) talented in the art of music (from the OED)
As for loop techno, IMHO, loop techno is for perons with a computer and loads of sample CDs :lol: :lol: :lol:
No attempt to program synths, write patterns etc...
Either way, when you are ****ed and high on lodsa chemies :clap: :clap:
you don't think "this is loop" this is MIDI"..just whether this is banging or not
ciao
Personally I've been bashing away on drums and guitars for years before I started writing techno, I'd always considered myself a musician of sorts, it amazes me that someone could think in this way.. So is techno not music then? What about all the old detroit stuff, rave music, whatever? this all has melody, and therefore is music (isn't it? forgive me if I'm wrong..) Believe it or not, there's techno being produced right now that has melody..Quote:
Originally Posted by Ritzi Lee
My personal definition of loop techno is listening to a record that sounds exactly the same wherever you put the needle on it, I hear so many records like this, completely structureless (To my ears anyway, maybe I just don't get it) which I find quite boring...
... I'm still really amazed... techno not music????
[quote="crime"]My personal definition of loop techno is listening to a record that sounds exactly the same wherever you put the needle on it, I hear so many records like this, completely structureless (To my ears anyway, maybe I just don't get it) which I find quite boring...Quote:
Originally Posted by Ritzi Lee
quote]
it can sound xacly the same or w/a slight variance,,like an xtra/diff hi hat or kick or vocal sample,,,its not structureless but has a more consitent structure throughout and the changes r more subtle and imo more appreciated than the typical track w/a predictable build up, the breakdown, the kick comes back and evryone is happy type track,,,,,a lot of these tracks r very short or at least they should be mixed in and out relatively quickly and this is where the structure(more typical defintion of...) comes in,,,its more on the dj to create a structure from the diff loopy tracks through good programming and tight xciting mixing,,,,a very understandable strory can be told like this although it may not be as obvious..i think
I think maybe there is a little confution between minimal and loop...
Minimal can be quite repetitive but if it's really quality it will somehow keep u hooked 2 the point that seems like there is a different evolving something 2 it.
Crime is refering to the more Loop, meaning, some1 nabbed a loop, threw in some hats and let it run... do a few cuts, filter,.. and presto u got 3 new eps a month!! Still truth isn't black or white.. I know some Loop stuff that really rock and they r really simple, but the way the little twists and quirks were donne i makes then bonce!!!
Z
woah dood great post. musicians for me would be defined as people who want to control,shape & direct sound somwhere, play many shaped or non shaped sounds together and in most cases trying to achieve their harmony(altho this last one hasnt much to do with a definition of a musician in my opinion). i would even say, as dave put it nicely, that a musician would be a person who would just direct you and make you percieve plain everyday sounds, it doesnt even have to be their sound. not to even play it or compose it, just to draw your atention to a sound or create a soroundings where, like cage, he actualy used his public as his instrument. i would say if you intentionaly influence/shape/direct sound, your a musician.... everyone is a musician, just dont realise it yet ... every sound is music if you can percieve it that way....its just a unshaped untained sound you might hear next time you go down to the record store to buy some vinyls ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by davethedrummer
[quote="crime"]
My personal definition of loop techno is listening to a record that sounds exactly the same wherever you put the needle on it...
quote]
...completely agree. My old mum says all my music is like that - all you can hear is the same boom boom boom, I'm glad I ain't your neighbours... :lol:
...and no mum, that is not perfectly loud enough
It got overdone though... I remember a time when it was almost impossible to buy records like this (back in '94/'95) and the only people really doing this kind of stuff were The Advent and the old "Reload" label from belgium, and so it sounded really fresh... when you have 50+ labels putting out 10 records a year of this kind of stuff, anything really good gets lost in the fodder, and sadly, this is what happened, the sound got done to death, this is why I grew tired of it personally... I've never heard anything as good as Dynamic Structures III on Reload or the Advent's number 8 on Internal (I think? the one with "Retreat" on) since... also when these records came out, you never used to hear whole sets of them, they were cool in the mix with other stuff, it's when certain djs seemed to put there blinkers on and play whole sets of this kind of stuff, really killed it for me...Quote:
Originally Posted by tekku7181
I prefer some crazy break on the 7th bar, half a beat late when everything falls to pieces, dropping into 5/8 time, unleashing the demon modular synth sound from hell, totally unpredictable stuff, but it's all horses for courses I s'poseQuote:
Originally Posted by tekku7181
yeh ofte hera ppl trying to be smart n droping or changing things not on a 4
i find it annoying when playin a record n they try to change things half way...
got a really nice new german record, but it gets slightly faster thru the record making it nearly impossible to leave it mixing for longer than 8 bars or somthing
surely once you heard the record a few times, you know where the change is, and work around it... This is what gets me about a lot of people who play "Loop techno" and just seamlessly mix one record into the next, switching the (Supposed) B-Line (Let's be honest here, it's not a real B-line, it's an offbeat bass stab, nothing more) with the bass e.q, with each record sounding like minor variation on the last.... This is what completely switched me off a lot of this stuff.. sorry, rant over, but this is my personal angle on it, I completely respect peoples right to their own taste, but I do feel that it has turned a lot of people off of techno, after only hearing this kind of stuff, not liking it because they thought all techno sounded like this... ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by serox
yeh each to there own. i like to see somone mixing without tocuhing EQ's and finding it hard to hear records coming in and out. that is easier to do with loop techno, and des sound good if ppl do it right :)
long smooth mixes without the EQ's . the record u r bring in you want to try keep the same sound going thru it. maybe its a hat or kick or somthing small in the bakground that u keep going. i love doing a set with just glenn wilson records, often he uses the same sound in differant tunes/records. so u can mix them well together n keep the same sounds going thru it.
the records are 4/4 so you want to keep them both on the same bar if possible. anything else, will just sound shit, u wont have sounds changin starting / stopping at the right place. only when u do this it will sound right.
this is the way i was shown to mix anyway, anything else will sound shit i think. can always hear ppl just playing records over each other, in time. but the wrong place. which only shows up if they are doing long mixes...
here is a example of what i mean. constructed mixing, things are stoppng and startin at the right place together. only possible cos the records keep the same loop/pattern.
is only a 20min mix, take the time and check it u will see what i mean. im shit at explainin things :)
http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~ser/...ou_all_mix.wma
i can think of one person that you all know who is exactly a definition of loop techno
USER
loop techno can really be off putting to people as it does sound pretty much the same the whole way through..........ooh, a high hat!....etc, but give that to some scratch up, double copy psychopath, of which i am edging towards, and then it makes a shit load more sense!!
leave scratching to hip hop. with techno sounds nearly as bad as spin backs lol
Yeah, but who is User ? :lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by Tony
Actually, just had a re-read and this thread is funny as !
Unless my eyes are deceiving me, it looks like we've got some DJs who play out regularly almost every weekend (sometimes to crowds of thousands), some people who run their own labels and also some people with long years and a vast wealth of experience in the scene (in distribution etc.), and some very talented, long-standing producers being told how and what mixing is, being told what music is or what loops are by some of the bedroom boys.
The world is flipped on it's head today. :scratch:
I'm a big User fan, there's a great energy in that stuff. Whatever people think of his style (It does get slated occasionally), I definitely still think there's a place for it..Quote:
Originally Posted by Tony
hmmm, you're being more than a little condescending here man. People are entitled to their opinion, it's up to the next guy to agree or disagree if he wants to, not to question the validity or importance of the 'bedroom boys' opinion.Quote:
Originally Posted by Patrick
[quote/crime]
It got overdone though... I remember a time when it was almost impossible to buy records like this (back in '94/'95) and the only people really doing this kind of stuff were The Advent and the old "Reload" label from belgium, and so it sounded really fresh... when you have 50+ labels putting out 10 records a year of this kind of stuff, anything really good gets lost in the fodder, and sadly, this is what happened, the sound got done to death, this is why I grew tired of it personally... I've never heard anything as good as Dynamic Structures III on Reload or the Advent's number 8 on Internal (I think? the one with "Retreat" on) since... also when these records came out, you never used to hear whole sets of them, they were cool in the mix with other stuff, it's when certain djs seemed to put there blinkers on and play whole sets of this kind of stuff, really killed it for me...[/quote]
**** man you are so right there!
the lack of looped techno forced you to mix it up a bit
now there's so much of it you play it endlessly for ten years and you'd still have a few tracks left.
looped techno needs something else to go with it to break it up a bit.
No, I'm not at all.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sunil
Sunil, man, I think you're being a little loose in your interpretation of my post. I'm not questioning the 'validity or importance' of the bedroom boys (but obviously feel free to point out where in my post I said that, cos I can't see it ;) ). Still looks to me like a fair assessment of what has actually occurred in this thread. But I suppose I was more questioning whether the people they are telling need to be told. That's all. I'm sure damn near everyone started out as bedroom boys, so it's an incredibly important, and indeed essential, resource/entry point/development path or whatever.
That said, I will happily admit that I do get arsed off reading post after post after post (and not just on this forum , but on most techno related forums that I visit) by DJs who have just recently got into techno who still have a very undeveloped, narrow view of what the genre is or can be, but are still happy to spout off from their postion of ignorance what their version of "the rules" is. The "what is techno" argument, as we both know, has been running for years and years and I don't think any two people have every entirely agreed on one definition. But one word that will come up time and time again is innovation. As you well know, the whole thing started because a couple of kids in Belleville ignored the rules and did what they wanted and not what they were 'supposed' to. So there's no way, this far down the line, I'm going to accept that the music "should be" or "has to be" like this or that, or that it has to fit into any structure or conform to any one persons idea of what it is.
The point I probably should have developed more fully if I could have been arsed to type a full post last night is, that, yes, a part of techno probably is what some of the people are describing it as, but what they are describing is only a tiny part of the whole. But the way it continually gets expressed as if that small part is all of it is what gets on my nerves.
See, when I started getting into this music I was really keen to hear loads of the genre and to learn more from people who had been into it longer. Still am. I certainly wouldn't have been cocky enough to go on forums (if we'd had them back in the day on our steam powered computers) and start telling established artists or DJs what's what. Obviously, if people don't question and challenge the established order there won't be any change or development of the music and the scene will stagnate (and reading this and many other threads, there is a fair argument to say it already has). But I still do find it weird, and just a touch ironic, when many of the challenges I see are coming in the form of a call to conformity, uniformity and general blandness and some of these old badgers are the ones saying that things need to be broken up a bit and fu.cked around with.
You will notice that I am very carefully sticking to generalisations (nor am I only referring to points made in this thread, but there have been a few similiar ones recently on BA and a few other forums (InOut springs to mind etc.))and deliberately not picking up on any specific individuals points. I think that would be unfair and I would then be doing what you are accusing me of i.e. condascending to people. Attacking somebody for being new and not knowing a lot is shit.
The fact that people are new to a scene isn't a bad thing. The fact that people have strong opinions isn't a bad thing. The fact that people have a passion for the music isn't a bad thing. But the fact that they aren't prepared to open their minds and their ears and take a little bit of advice and a few tips and pointers from others definitely is a very bad thing.
And having read many of your posts on here and getting a flavour of your tastes and opinions from them, I really don't reckon I'm saying a lot there that you would disagree with. Unless of course you really are being hormonal and are looking for a fight, in which case I'll see you behind the (cyber)bike sheds. ;) :lol:
Shit, sorry for that long and rambling post and the slight thread hi-jack. It's just in this forum I notice that if there's any ambiguity in a post and it can be read as a negative statement, when it was probably meant as a neutral or even positive statement, then somebody will always jump on it and assume you meant the worst, so I was covering all the bases. (not having a go at you, Sunil). But people should ease off on the hair-trigger keyboard action a bit. No wonder it's a nigthmare for Mark to try and moderate.
Anyway, back on track, these are what loops are :
http://www.sugardrops.co.uk/catalog/.../pic000199.jpg
See, they look like they are all different colours and flavours, but when you really get your teeth into them you start to notice they're pretty much all the same. And then after a bit you fancy a change, like a nice packet of Space Dust or something. (see what I'm doing there ? D'ya see ? Geddit ? It's an analogy innit :roll: :doh: )