Cool post mate, I read it 2 times.Thanks for your thoughts! It helps.Rene Disco wrote:
I know exactly what you mean about using the same sounds and melodies. I too was influenced by the sounds of the 70s and 80s and 90s. To make even a demo back in the 90s was expensive and you had to be really into music to even want to buy equipment. And only you and your friends would be able to hear them unlike today. My Tascam 4 track portastudio cost me $500. I couldn't browse presets, auto-tune, copy/paste tracks and all that so I feel you. Never mind pressing CDs they cost about 30 to 50 bucks. Most studios in LA were $100 bucks an hour to rent. Endless takes, rewinding the reel-to-reel machine took long, manual fader automation, muting ans soloing on the console, sometimes two or three of us would automate during mixdown.
About the melodies... yest it is true what you say about melodies today. You can even hear the same chords being used in Hip Hop/Trap that they use with EDM tracks. However that was also the case in the 90s. They also used the same chords and melodies. Not only that but a lot of records also had the exact rhythm of the lead hook. example: "Understand this groove" by Sound Factory had the same rhythm as "Jump" by The Movement as well as many others. And as for melodies, example: "Everybody is in the place" by Prodigy the melody was used on other records like "Mallorca" by Lewis Lovebump and many others. They still use that today. Just listen to the Morongo Casino commercial. Even Jason Mraz, Maroon 5, etc. It had to sound like that or it wasn't cool remember?
Take "Your love" by Prodigy. So many cool rave records had that fast attack piano rhythm or it wasn't real rave. And the grown ups would ask me, "Why do you like that noise?" And to me those sounds were insane and awesome to me. But to them all they could hear was the thumpin' kicks and the simple staccato synths. I can show you many examples. Some tracks were so primitive like the one with the "oink" pig sound. Or even "Conquistadores Chocolate" by Cholate Tribe. Or how about "Everybody's Free" by Rozala. A lot of records had piano rhythms with alternating low piano notes. I could show you more example but remember that for us all that was new and cool. And others would try say we have no taste or whatever.
I have several piano Vines and Instagram videos on my feed of 90s techno, house, rave tracks if you want to check it out. Yes there are some artists who aren't that creative but there are many others who are. If you listen to Monstercat Tracks there are songs with not so primitive arrangements. And as far as Vaporwave and Retrowave, yes they use samples but the rave scene also sampled a lot but it was cool. Remember "Close your eyes" by Acen? They had those cool rave synths as well as The Beatles "Here comes the sun." The same today. I could write a book on this but hopefully you get where I'm coming from.
I think I will make a Youtube tutorial on how to make 90s tracks. Don't give up man. Music is cool. And today I don't have to pay 20 bucks to go to The Florentine Gardens in Hollywood to hear the latest records. There are so many labels out there making cool tracks if you just listen. Get drunk, smoke a blunt, or whatever but immerse yourself and get "into" the music. I still think Subtractor and Thor synths are cool! And with Reason 9 I think we will be hearing crazy melodies and tracks.
I come to some conclusion for the last days. If you want to create someything original you have to use equipment that nobody use today or at least is used by a few people. Is very hard to create something orinal using the same equipminet as milions other use.
I decided to do not sell my Studio One and some unique plugins like Korg Wavestation, BBE sweet optimized, Focusright Red Suit. There is no any alternative to it in Reason and I think never be. Hopefully I can program Wavestation, and it makes me feel realy cool, because it is hard and workflow is unicue that gives unpredictable results. This synth is not very popular because you have to know something except clicking mouse on screen to program it. I do not go to use any other synths or drummachines only WS for everything. I thinks for now it is last thing that inspire me and make me feel that I do something different.
I decided to sell Reason anyway because I feel i can not make anything unicue with it.