Rock'n'Roll vs Rock'n'Rave

We've all been exposed to old school rock bands such as AC/DC's obsession with Rock'n'Roll, but we're considerably further into the future now, and a lot of musicians are substituting the "Roll" for "Rave".

Combining electronic music with traditional live instrumentation has been going on for a while, but this new sensibility of combining the two venues is relatively new - merging the pit with the dance floor, the DJ booth with the stage, the alcohol-fuelled dancing with the... uh... other alcohol fuelled dancing.   

Okay, so not everything is different - and perhaps that's why the combination of synths and guitars has taken off so successfully.   Let's take a look at how it works and get our heads around Rock n Rave...

Spot the Difference

There are clearly differences between Rock and Rave - Where rock generally has a reasonable amount of structural variety, rave music thinks nothing of using the same beat throughout the track to drive it along.   Vocals tend to take the focal melody in rock, whereas in rave it'll often come in the form of a synth, as instrumental music is more common.   The live element of rock music leads to the ability to improvise, whereas the pre-programmed dance floor tunes lend themselves to mixes with other songs and rewinds in the club when people are really feeling the music.

These differences have resulted in distinct cultures surrounding the styles, so before we jump into how they can work together, let's...

Spot the Similarity

The main thing I've noticed is the balance between power and melody.   Both genres have sub-genres that push themselves further to either end of said balance (Death Metal to Arena Rock, Dubstep to Trance), but in 90% of the sub-genres, there will be an element providing the power and an element providing a melody to sit on top of the power, giving people something to latch on to - the hook, the chorus, the riff, the drop, whatever it's called, it's pushed by the powerful part of the music into the foreground.

Another tendency for these genres is to build up and break out into large, memorable sections.   A lot of focus is placed on the tension during the build-up.   Rock songs tend to work their way up into the big choruses, just as rave builds to the drops.   

But most importantly for these genres, the similarity lies in being obsessed with intensity.   It's very much about how loud and how big the tunes are.   This means that no matter the cultural differences between appreciators of rave and rock, they can come together to appreciate the very core of their beloved styles.

How they can work together

There are several acts that have spliced the styles together in several different ways, so let's talk about a few...

Sampling rock music in rave tunes: A quick way to get that raw, rock power into the rave environment is to put that iconic distorted guitar over a driving programmed beat.   This works really well as, so long as the frequencies of the bass don't interfere with those of the guitar, it can result in crisp production with plenty of power.   This means DJs can keep their beloved rewinds and mixes intact without relying on live performance, and the clubs can enjoy the power of rock music in a familiar setting.

Using a DJ/synth player in a conventional rock band: Using a keyboard in a band is by no means a new idea, but by adding higher tech gear and using iconic rave sounds over rock music, the structure can be changed - instrumental rock music with catchy rave synth riffs becomes a recurring staple and the live element can be maintained authentically.

Total integration: Is there a way to have it all?   The live performance and the mixing between songs?   A structurally varied song with a driving pulse?   Improvisation with unrelenting production values?   Well if we look to bands like Pendulum, Enter Shikari and The Prodigy, it's clear that the two genres are so closely intertwined that at times it's difficult to hear where one genre ends and the other begins.   They start not with rock in mind or with rave in mind - with this new combined structure.   They aren't afraid to change things for live performance, but also the live elements now control a lot of the Electronica, with triggers on the drum-kits sorting the percussion and MIDI guitars allowing for stereotypical rock poses to be pulled whilst playing that killer synth riff.   

It's that marriage of the technology of rave with the personality of rock that brings together this resultant hybrid of high quality and live intensity.   This wave of bands have grown up with one ear pointed towards the stage and the other on the dance floor (They must have a seriously wide head), but the evolution is not over yet by any means. 

That leads me nicely into my parting rhetorical question for anyone about to embark into rock n rave music:

How are you going to contribute to the evolution?

5 Essential online tools for musicians

The internet is a wonderous place.   So many amazing tools are available for free - but it's difficult to choose which ones are the best for establishing and maintaining your musical career.

Well, here are 5 essential sites you need to be surfing on a regular basis!

1. Soundcloud

A brilliant site for uploading music, since you can embed attractive looking flash music players into any website.   This makes soundcloud ideal for sharing your tunes on forums, where you can get tips on improving your production or simply get new fans!

2. Google Calendar

Seems a strange one, but if you're serious about music as your career, you'll need to keep on top of things.   To be able to know when you're in the studio and when you're doing your weekly video blog for your fans, a good calendar can be invaluable.

Google calendar can sync to your phone if you've got a smart phone, or if you, like me, have an ancient brick, you can still set it up to send free SMS reminders of the most important dates in your calendar!   Seriously useful.

3. Facebook

It might seem obvious, but you'd be surprised how many people don't make the most of the biggest social networking site in the world.   Facebook is the ideal place to keep the maximum number of fans involved.

By regularly giving your fans new content, links to things they might enjoy and insights into what you're up to (preferably not what you ate for breakfast every single day) they will be reminded of your existence and kept interested.

4. Youtube

If you're wondering where to make new fans, look no further than YouTube - by making a decent remix or cover that people will be searching for, you can direct a whole bunch of new fans to your channel and get them to explore your tunes!

Don't just restrict it to your music though - why not review your latest Prime loops purchase, do some reviews of your gear, tutorials on how to use it and novelty videos are all a good way to draw in traffic.

5. Reverbnation

Possibly the biggest collection of tools for musicians on the interweb.   From mailing lists to street teams, widgets to blogs - it's all there.   You can even earn money from it when people listen to your music on there.

It's such a great place to keep your fans informed and your promotion on form that you just can't miss it!

What is... Progressive House?

The new genre that has been slowly building its way up to a mainstream climax (much like the structure of the songs) with massive chart hits, huge anthems and dancefloors around the world obsessed with it.

So, it's time to ask some questions about it...

What's it all about?

Where the musical element is perhaps similar to its predecessor (House, if you couldn't guess), the structure is where it differs. Club-goers have become more hooked on those epic tracks that take ages to build and reward you with an intense climactic chorus that you cannot help but dance to.

I've noticed a tendency for authentic sounding instruments hovering over the funky, gritty basslines as well - strings tend to be popular, with artists such as Justice and Deadmau5 using them to great effect.

When did it start?

It's been going for absolutely aeons in electronic music terms. Early 90s house music occasionally veered towards the more epic structures and sounds, crossing over into progressive trance and back - the two genres being separated only by either having euphoric melodies or more minimal, dark hooks.

The later 90s and early 00s brought more definition to the genres and Progressive House started to become more and more commonly accepted in its own right.

How did it start to get popular?

With occasional hits throughout the 90s such as Sasha's "Xpander" getting mainstream success, it's only reached massive mainstream appeal more recently with artists like Deadmau5 making huge hits like "Ghosts n Stuff" and "Faxing Berlin", each of which have millions of YouTube views.

Why is Progressive House so epic?

It's the combination of making people wait for that all important climax with the huge, hooky instrumentation. Strings and Piano are so good at making powerful music when used effectively, and many artists do just that.

High production values from the best of the best in the genre push other producers to match it and it's definitely helped to move electronic music into a new era of sound quality.

Where can I get it?

Just have a good click around beatport's massive Progressive House section or simply search YouTube for "Progressive House" and you'll be presented with more playlists than an OCD sufferer's iPod. Just get listening and then get making it!

Wanna start making big Progressive House tracks right away ? Then check out Prime Loops' powerful "Progressive Synthesis" sample pack, providing you with tons of cool and authentic synth patches for Kontakt, EXS24, Halion, NN-XT and many other sampler instruments!

What's new in Reason 5?

Are you a Reason user, but have found it lacking slightly in some areas?   Well chances are in this update to Reason and Record (the audio recording software that integrates with Reason), Propellerheads will have answered your prayers...

1. Ke$ha will be happy...

With the new Neptune Pitch Adjuster and Voice Synth Device in Record, you get
a high-quality processor to correct and shift pitches, create backing harmonies, formant shift and vocode the hell out of your voice.

This addresses the issue that most Record users had that Autotune was an industry standard plug-in.   Now there's no issue any more and you can T-Pain away to your heart's content! (Or use it subtly, your call.)

2. The King of Drum emulation...

The Kong Drum Designer in Reason allows you to build and tweak your sounds with your choice of drum synthesis, sampling, REX loops, physical modeling and effects modules for percussion on Kong's 16 MPC-esque pads.

Basically now you're not restricted to samples for percussion - Kong makes it a million times easier to create your own sounds from scratch.

3. Goodbye, Copy and Paste!

Sick of wearing out your Ctrl (command on a mac), V and C keys?   Block-based pattern sequencing mode solves that problem with easily alterable patterns that are dynamically linked to each other!

Brilliant for Hip Hop producers especially.   There's another great feature for authentic Hip Hop producers too...

4. Sampling + Wave Editing

Live sampling is in Reason!   Finally, there's a way to get the real world into the virtual rack without a million steps in between!

So now you can be more creative, start diggin' in the crates and get your tracks poppin' ol' schoo' style!   Okay, I'll quit with the apostrophes and get on with telling you about...

5. Doc Oc?

But it's not all about your own samples.   You can load up more of your favourite loops since Dr.REX octuples into DrOctoRex Loop Player in Reason - this actually has more options than you'd initially think as well, since not only are 8 loops available, effects, audio processing and slice-specific parameter adjustment make it a completely different animal.

An Octopus, to be specific.

So get excited - Reason 5 is going to be a BIG step forward for Propellerhead fans.

5 tips for drum synthesis

Ever wanted to make your own kicks, snares and noises to make your percussion more personal?   It's a difficult road to tread, with cheesy beats tripping your confidence along the road to self sufficient sound production.

But never fear!   Here are 5 top tips to remember when synthesising your own drums!

1. Pitch drops

By having a really fast pitch drop from a high to a low note, you can get anything from a tom to a dancey kick to a dirty low sub bass drum.   Just alter the speed of the drop (One-shot LFOs or preferably envelopes are really good for this) and you can modulate the sound to your heart's content!

2. Snare Secrets

Want to get that punchy undertone to a snare but the noise generator isn't quite cutting it?   Let's think logically - an undertone is just that.   We need more than noise to make the punch, so filter a low sine wave underneath (make the frequency of the sine around the 200hz mark - if it's in key with the song then so much the better!) and listen as it punches like Mike Tyson in an annoying person convention (I'd advise never going to one of those).

3. Parallel distortion

That essential beef is only added when you route the sounds through distortion, then mix the newly distorted version with the original clean one.   That way, you maintain the clarity and introduce some gritty awesomeness to the tone!

Tube distortion works particularly well - if you have a guitar amp (or a guitar amp sim) try running your samples through it for some insta-grit to your beats!

4. Don't be afraid to layer

Samples are there for a reason!   Maybe by layering your home-grown sound with a sample, you can get something closer to what you want!   Try high-pass filtering a one shot sample from XXL Hip Hop Drums and putting a simple dancey kick underneath - Electro House-tastic!

Band Pass filtering can be a blessing here as well, allowing you to filter multiple sounds without overlapping the frequencies, making some really unusual and synthetic sounds.

5. A resounding yes!

Resonance is great for getting some weirder harmonic overtones from your drums, so don't be afraid to introduce it in droves when creating less conventional percussion!

iPad - the future of music or an expensive toy?

So the whole world has been split between people who love it and people who laugh at it, but the iPad has undoubtedly made an entrance onto the scene, competing with laptops and building up quite a reputation.

But does its intuitive interface lend itself to high quality music production?   Let's take a look at some of the pieces of software available for it that explore its musical side...


Synths

The first port of call on our journey through the iPad's musical expertise is synths - can it generate its own sounds?   Well, the short answer is - yes.

Much like the iPhone, there are synth apps available for it, such as "miniSynth Pro", which allows for subtractive and FM synthesis with 2 oscillators amongst other features.

The large screen allows for a keyboard display of many keys that can be easily played (they've opted for a clever two-level organ-esque approach to fit more keys on screen at once) and the touch screen makes it seem that bit more authentic and fun to play with, rather than interacting through a dehumanising (perhaps a bit of a harsh word, but you know what I mean) mouse.

The results are perfectly useable as well.   High quality sound and some useful arpeggiator options mean it is a versatile and playable tool.


Samplers

So how about importing your Prime Loops library to the iPad?   Well, if you want to start playing with your XXL Hip Hop Drums one shots, then look no further than Akai Synthstation.

The MPC is a massive influence as you'd expect, so you can load up your one shots and cut-up loops into the familiar pads, or compile things in a looping fashion in the grid edit mode.   It's basically an MPC translated into software - very cool.

Recording software

This is perhaps where the iPad is lacking, mainly because it's not got a fantastic amount of input ability (though some companies have come up with ways to get microphones and line level inputs into the device), but some software companies have still had a go.

"StudioTrack" by Sonoma Wire Works, for instance have made an 8 track sequencer that can apply effects, allow you to mix your track and acts as a nice, quick mixing tool.   What it lacks in versatility and depth, it makes up in accessibility, again with the touch pad allowing users to go back to the days of authentic mixers and move faders around like in the good ol' days!


Sheet Music

It's not all about sound coming directly from the iPad - as it's good for books, sheet music seems like a logical extension of that, allowing a pianist to keep all of their music in one place and for it to scroll automatically as you perform your piece!   Convenient, huh?

MIDI Contoller

need some more dynamic input for your DAW since the mouse/keyboard combo isn't cutting it?   Things like Cubase iC, Trixmix 2, TouchOSC, pOSCa, MRMR, iGOG and Spectrasonics Omni Live (to name but a few) are creating a stir in the hardware industry.   Anyone with an iPad can use the wonders of wifi to make virtual midi connections to their favourite software and control their synths and samples so much more easily!

Sequencer for live gigs and DJ sets

Looptastic and iSequence have both thought that bringing a versatile looping and sequencing to the live arena from your favourite apple tablet is clearly the way of the future!   With many FX, sounds and loops to choose from, it's definitely got the potential to work its way into the live sets of touring DJs who like to keep everything in one place!

Stand alone instrument

It's not just limited to synthesis, as iElectribe and Tenori-On have proven - their devices map perfectly to the rectangular screen and allow some really cool hands (or tenori) -on access to the whole of your electronic music performance!

Groovebox

Devices like moxMatrix, Propellerhead ReBirth and our friend TouchOSC have proven their worth as grooveboxes on the 'Pad (there really is no need for that apostrophe, but there are so many "i"s floating about that it's starting to get dangerous), providing anything from old school techno to modern electro productions quite literally at your fingertips.

Other useful studio gimmicks

How about TC electronics polytune tuner, the BPM Counter, Metronome, Rhyming Dictionary... the list goes on as far as the apps store will let it.   Which is pretty far.


Overall

So in conclusion, it looks like it's not quite a professional DAW-beater just yet, but there are definitely some useable pieces of software for live performance and getting ideas down when you're away from the studio.   All-in-all a great tool for inspiration, since the accessibility will no doubt unleash your want to start actually getting back in touch (aha) with your musical creativity!

Voice synthesis and how to use it

Ever felt the need to take your vocals to the next level of computerised goodness, but are sick of using the same old pitch correction tools?

Say hello to voice synthesis...


What is voice synthesis?

If you've heard the song "Hide and Seek" by Imogen Heap... or perhaps the song that sampled it - "Watcha Say" by Jason Derulo, you'll be familiar with voice synthesis.

It sounds like impossibly tight and accurate harmonies, resulting in gorgeous chordal vocals that can add power to any vocal line.


How does it work?

By making multiple instances of your source vocal line, then pitch correcting each one to a note that's being played by the synth, the resulting sound is a playable version of the voice.

Sound complex?   It's not - just think about it as each note being played has its own T-Pain app.


Where can I use it

The Studio: Electronic musicians all over the globe are subscribing to the succinct and sharp harmonies given from voice synthesizers.

The studio is the obvious place to start using them since it gives you time to play and manipulate the voice with some of the more advanced features (Formant shifting for one - allowing the voice to maintain that natural sound without turning the harmonies into Alvin, Simon and Theodore.)

Live: However, live is where you can really experiment.   The aformentioned Imogen Heap uses it to great effect, but more upbeat music works well with it too, as Pendulum have proven time and again.   It adds a whole different dimension of talent to vocal performance - being able to concentrate on singing and manipulating your voice simultaneously.


Some cool voice synthesizers...

Propellerheads' "Record 1.5" comes with "Neptune" - a seriously powerful voice synth that can also do conventional pitch correction, as well as automatic formant correction.

TC Helicon's VoiceTone synth is a method of getting live vocoding and voice synth (from a guitar input if you'd like!) without splashing on a pricey audio laptop for gigs.   Convenient for the on-the-go vocalist who doesn't want to be adjusting parameters on a macbook mid-set!


So get correcting your voice and have a play with what's available to you!   Who knows?   Perhaps you'll be to voice synths what Cher and T-Pain is to autotune!   ...Or perhaps you'll maintain your integrity and just make some awesome music with interesting vocals.   The choice is yours!

The Loudness War

As music production reaches higher and higher for that stand-out sound, it's explored no avenue more frequently than that of volume.

Listen to a song from 30 years ago and compare it to one from today - you'll have to give the volume knob a good turn to compete.   But why has this happened?   What's causing producers to attack each other with big beats, and how is it affecting our listening experience?

Let's ask some questions...

What is the Loudness War?

Ever since the invention of the club, producers have wanted their track to stand out - to be the banger that gets everybody on the dancefloor and takes them out of obscurity into super stardom.   But how do you make a song stand out amongst so many other similar tracks?   Amongst other things - volume.

If one song is louder than the rest, it'll sound more intense, therefore (in theory) making the club-goers dance all the harder.   However, since this has been the thought process for decades now, it's got to the point where tracks simply cannot go any louder while maintaining musical integrity.

Therefore, producers now have to fight their way to decibel heaven, making sure their tracks pump out as loudly as the hits in order to stand any chance of getting into a DJ's playlist.   There's nothing a DJ hates more than having to adjust the volume knob - it's just hassle!   (Either that or the P.A. simply can't go any louder!)


Victims of the Loudness War

As with any war, there are innocent bystanders that will be needlessly mutilated.   In this case, it's dynamic range.   This is the difference in volume between loud and quiet parts of the track.

Why would you want dynamic range?   Well, the bigger the difference in volume between a lead synth and a kick drum, the harder that kick drum will punch the listener in the face.

So the victim is - punchiness!   Dance tracks now are a seamless blend of loudness, that doesn't even dip in the massive "hands-in-the-air" moments.   Listeners don't get the punchy, powerful tracks they deserve and these quality tunes are forever destined to be big, rectangular blocks in mastering suites across the globe... or are they?


Fighting the loudness war

If you want to say no to these pointless casualties of war and take back the dynamic range that your songs deserve, perhaps it's time to stop putting limiters on everything.   Perhaps it's time to turn down the synths and simply turn up your speakers rather than the track!

It's a tough battle, since many DJs will not give any quarter to producers who dare to venture below that 0dB point, but if you want tracks that punch and take listeners through a range of dynamics, you'll have to risk it and fight the good fight.

So are you with the Club DJs?   Conforming to the mainstream and making large, loud listening experiences?   Or dare you depend on dynamics to give your track a completely different dimension to it?   It's time for you to pick your alliance for this war; it's going to go on for a long time!