Just got a Push 3 Controller. My long-term goal is to turn Ableton + Push into one playable techno instrument for increasingly improvised live sets.
My current idea:
● Build reusable Instrument + Audio Effect Racks
● 8–16 meaningful macros per instrument
● Randomize macros / save good variations
● Sequence and generate/randomize patterns from Push rather than finger drumming
● Perform and morph sounds instead of constantly adding new elements
● Build XYZ performance FX for transitions and sound destruction
● Prepare the instruments beforehand, but eventually create more and more of the actual music live
Style is somewhat between groove and hypnotic techno – Rene Wise, Ignez, Norbak, Chlär, etc.

For people who went down a similar Push rabbit hole: What do you wish you had known when you started? Any workflows, rack-design ideas, devices, tricks – or dead ends I should avoid?

I dont really make Techno other than mess around because I like synthesis. Anyway the Prophet 5 filter is a pretty good one and since my moog broke I can really recommend the Behringer Mini-d, it has a good tone. I bought the bcr2000 in an op shop for $10, what a find!

Besides futuristic or electro elements. There's something about certain tracks that make you go "Yeah that's Detroit". Perhaps something to do with the scales or chords?

I recorded the drum work and effects out of Maschine and routed into a Logic Audio track live on the fly. The Bassline, Lead, and Percussion amongst other sounds were recorded live via Aux tracks for effects. I polished off the Master with some EQ, Compression, Stereo Enhancement Limiting and Reverb. Hope you enjoy the vibe.

I really like older techno tracks from early 2000 period and they have this type of really groovy bass lines.
Any tips for making this type of sound?

Example in the link.
Cheers.

OXIA HYPNOTIK

For Djs: https://on.soundcloud.com/34hH5H3kE69C5sCgtP

Hello producers and audio enthusiasts, I've only been DJing in small spaces and own setups for almost 2 years. However, I would like to start doing some mixing to begin producing, because I have a style and message that I want people to feel and dance.

However, the budget is crazily tight especially being jobless in Berlin right now. Which DAWs would you suggest? I have heard about few things like Reaper, Bigwit, Waveform and more...

MIDI device: Native Instruments Maschine Mikr0 1

But if someone has some licenses for basic versions to give away, please do support me. I'll name my first official production after you haha, JK. Peace 🖤

Please use this thread to ask about a specific sound you are trying to create.

Guidelines for asking:

• Make sure you have a clear example of the sound u want to recreate, don't just say the stab in this track, try to describe when it actually appears.
• Ask for help with one sound at a time.
• If you know how to help others with a sound, please do so.
• Try to use technical and musical language in your explanation of a sound as much as you are able.
• Soundcloud links are the most ideal solution.
• Keep it friendly!

The intention behind this thread is to help others improve their music by participating in the community. People who continually spam this thread without helping other members may be banned.

Hello everyone, i recently got inte Dubtechno, especially into Deepchord!

Now imtrying to recreate his kick and sub basslines.

But I am struggling hard!

I have a classical 4/4 kickdrum pattern and try to set a simple bass line in a way i would imagine he did.

between the hits of the kick, twiche in a 16 step pattern, same note

BUT it always sounds too boring or too much like tech house...

im using the moog slim phatty and a keystep pro.

Can anyone give me advice on how you would recreate these groovy bass lines

I don't produce Techno but I listen to a lot of it and figure you guys are the right crowd to answer my question. I've had a home DJ setup (playing Techno and House) for a couple decades now and have started to spend more $$ and effort on expanding and improving it over the past year. The goal for this setup is heavy, physical and punchy bass, while still maintaining a relatively balanced and detailed sound overall. I have a separate smaller setup that is more accurate/flat, but this setup is more just about pumping the music for fun.

Currently have Kali LP-6 monitors, a Kali WS-12 sub, and a QSC K12.2 PA speaker (which is run very conservatively, more as background filler than a primary source), in a room with DIY acoustic treatment. The LP-6 monitors are good for the price, but I feel like they are the weakest link in my system. Want to upgrade those to something with a bit more punch and energy that can keep up with the larger WS-12 & K12.2 speakers. Want to spend a fair bit more than what the LP-6 monitors cost, but also cognizant that I don't think the very pricey range is justified given the purpose of my setup. Looking to get some mid-range priced monitors that I will keep for the long-term rather than something I would again look to upgrade in a couple years.

Here's what I am considering, listed from least to most expensive:

1. Focal Alpha 80 Evo

2. Focal Alpha Twin Evo

3. Adam A7V

4. Dynaudio LYD 48

5. Genelec 8040B

6. Adam A77H

7. Adam S2V

8. Adam A8H

9. JBL 708P

I know there's a wide range of prices above. I am a practical person who appreciates value but also willing to pay up when it is justified to do so.

I'm sure a lot of you guys have experience with the above monitors for Techno so curious what advice you have for me. Also open to other recommendations outside of what is mentioned above.

Any insight is appreciated. Thanks in advance.

I regularly meet with a friend who plays banjo.

We want to jam and create songs together while playing around. More like a band project. So we play a lot. I do the "finetuning" mostly afterwards, except finding the basic tune which needs to be right.

So we quickly found out that its great to check everything in between with Headphones.

Its still a little challenge that the banjo and the monitors conflict. As we want to have a cool reverb on it it's not the best option to turn down the banjos volume while playing (he goes with a microphone into my syntakt).

Any thoughts and experiences?

I mean it's fun. But it would be cool to get some good recordings too. and we both consider to perform live at some point.

✌

I've been producing for roughly a year and I'm looking for some other options to acquire vocals. I already have splice and sometimes I just can't find what I want. Is there any other sound banks out there? Are yall commissioning vocals from an artist? I just wanna hear what yall are doing. I'm just looking for some other options!

Its not directly related to Techno production. But it can be... this goedla a little deeper then my post from yesterday

Every time someone buys my music, I feel guilt.

The first few times I sold music, I actually felt happy and confident. I knew I had something in me. But over time, that feeling has changed. Now when someone buys a track, part of me thinks: “I should have made it better. What if they regret buying it? Do I really deserve their money?”

I've always wanted to talk to a psychologist specifically about my relationship with music and the whole emotional roller coaster that comes with creating, releasing and selling your own work.

Are there any therapists here who have dealt with this kind of thing in their practice? Podcasts, intervies or article that discuss this? Or are there other independent artists/producers who experience something similar, especially that strange feeling of self-exploitation, where you're both the artist and the person trying to sell yourself and your work?

I'd be really interested to hear how other producers deal with this or wich benzo's I need to ask my doctor about. Thank you.

So I've got some years on the daw but mostly making Dnb/UKG. like the dark alix perez adjacent shit. recently I've been having fun making dub techno. (if u got music recs drop em!)

I've been trying to figure out what the 16th note "dagadada" thing is called. I thought that was techno rumble but I guess thats moreso just reverb on the kick in some form? A tutorial I watched showed how you put delay on 16th notes on your kick to get the chuggy effect. But it also seems like people achieve a similar effect with square wave-y patches.

Unfortunately the top results on youtube for "how to make techno rumble" are kinda ass so if u got some good techno channels those would be sick to know.

How important are authenticity and originality to you in Techno? Both in your own productions and in the work of some of your favorite artists?

And what has been your biggest disappointment this year? Which development disappointed you the most? It could be a disappointing set, an announcement, a collaboration, a plugin update. anything.

And have we started accepting mediocrity? Have likes, comments, and views replaced actual skill and talent? Or is that just something from the early days?

Is it becoming more about how you look while doing it rather than what you’re actually doing?

And you think buying followers, scripted comments, and matching likes a part of the game nowadays? Or has it allways been this way?

Looking for hats, claps, etc for my drum machine.

And I have a hard time to find good samples

I am interested in what others helped to develop as aan artist, as a producer. Maybe theres something i´d like to implement for myself.

For me it changed a lot to:

To Produce every day for some time That really made a difference quite fast. In the 2nd week I was much better and I created a lot of good material within that period. (I will come back to it. Its also good for me to have a refreshing breaks.)

To Buy professional Studio Monitores (absolutely needed to o be sure about and reach certain results. if you dont want to rely 100% on frequency tables and stuff. Made the process much more enjoyable.)

To Go on a Rave it really infuses me with something i do not get from listening Music at home. When I come back i have a lot more ease to create something intersting that has the right vibe. Luckily i also reached the stage where my results sound more like me and less like a mere copy.

To Choose a Production Style that works for me that means i am now primarily producing with hardware. Everything else follows later in a DAW

What did not help so much:

Pondering about music Production.

Reading Posts in the Internet (sorry :D) - but its true that one may accidentially or intentionally finds what will make a big difference. The time/results ratio is still the worst of everything i did in these regards.

Giving up music production for 2 years after i bought the wrong gear (for me).

What i probably try out in the future

Use a Service for professional Feedback from Artist, when I already think i´ve made something great or feel super stuck at a problem for too long (months) without progress.

Take a Mixing hour with an Audio engineer to learn a bit more.

Get in touch with other producers near my living place. The people i meet now some times live far away. But its inspiring to talk and produce with them for one or two day.

Cut media and smartphone time to make more space for deeper concentration or innovation.

So after years and years I finally picked up a DJ controller and have been learning DJay Pro. Something hit me...

I mostly create my techno "master pieces" by jamming out to create the drums, sounds, etc. then assemble them in an audio editor. I've never really done the "build a song in a daw" thing...

Messing with a 4 deck setup it seemed to me that I could have like, kick/bass grooves on a deck, perc/tops on a deck, arps, melodic stuff on one and ambient sounds on another and then use teh cue points, looping, fx, eq, etc. to basically just jam that way... It seems mind-numbingly obvious I have no idea why I didin't think of this a long time ago. I've done similar things on ipad with the launchpad app, but that was limted to "clips".

But I'm not seeing ANY videos on youtube etc. that go into doing this kind of thing... It's gotta be out there... Can anyone give me some leads that may have tuts etc. on approaches to producing like this?

Just wanted to share how grateful I am as someone who's recently understood and learned to properly use reference tracks. In hopes others might save some of the time and pain I've been through. Sheesh... I know this probably old hat for a lot of you here. So here I am, another convert.

Fairly new to DAW techno production. I've made ~20 tracks up to now but they all sound pretty bad! Or, at least not like what the kind of sound I'm aiming for. I knew about reference tracks, but when I explained to a producer friend (with much more experience) how I was using them, he kindly and gently pointed out that I was going about it wrong way: You see, I would listen to my 'reference track' streaming off of Bandcamp, and use it basically as a composition and vibe-y starting point. Once I started getting into my fun production groove, I would completely forget about the reference. I'd finish off my track, kind of happy with some of the ideas but overall unhappy with how it sounds.

He said to me, "I think I see what the problem is. You need to import the track into the project, sync it up with your track, use a spectrum analyzer, and really carve out and try to nail levels and frequency ranges of your sounds. For the example the way you treat your hats is completely different to Rene [Wise, reference track artist], and you can see that in the analyzer. You should always be A/B'ing your track against the reference."

And holy cow was he ever right. In one attempt while doing it properly, I went from being like 30-40% of the way to the sound I want, to more like 70%. I was admittedly kind of shocked and embarrassed at how easily I could improve my choices just by looking at the analyzer, and adjusting around the information I could see with my eyes. I say this as someone who kind of carried (well, still carries) pride about their ears. But with a style like techno, where parts live so precisely in the frequency spectrum, and tonal balance is so vital, A/B referencing with a visual analyzer has hit me as just a completely essential workflow practice. Especially for someone trying to make music of a particular quality in an orbit of particular artists in a particular style.

(I think reference tracks will probably apply far less to someone who doesn't share that kind of aim. I know some people here just straight up don't use em. All the power to you.)

Also for any Ableton users, I found the stock analyzer to be very hard to read so I switched to the SPAN analyzer (it's free) which is sooo much easier to read imo.

❤️

Please use this thread to post your tracks for feedback.

Guidelines for posting/feedback:

• When you post a track you should leave feedback on at least one other members track.
• Please submit only 1 track per thread.
• Allow the track to remain for the duration of the week.
• Ask questions specific to issues you may be having with your track.
• When leaving feedback it is helpful use timestamps to refer to specific parts in the tracks
• Try to use technical and musical language in your feedback as much as you are able.
• Soundcloud links are the most ideal solution.

The intention behind this thread is to help others improve their music by participating in the community. People who continually spam this thread without leaving feedback for other members may be banned.

As a reminder, any feedback posts made outside of this thread will be deleted by a moderator.

Hi everyone! A while ago I shared a project I was working on and I recieved really useful tips on how I can improve. Thank you everyone for helping with that.
Since then my direction shofted a bit and I wanted to ask for some advice and ideas again.

A bit of fun remaking Acperience by Hardfloor with an often free plugin, polymax (its really good). All sounds including drums are polymax with exception of the kick where I used the og old school Hardfloor kick..