Uplifting but not cheesy

I like techno and I like it on the harder, industrial side of things. However, I do love it when there is a hint of melody or euphoria in there, but not too much. In my own productions I have never succeeded in this, it always falls over into the cheesy side of things and then I hit the delete button. Any tips?

Honestly hard to say as cheesy is mostly subjective. I’d say try experimenting with making the sound less present in the mix and see how that works? Sometimes a little less emphasis does wonders.

Anything along the lines of Teebs that you like?

Try not deleting it but instead save it, close it, forget about it. Then in 2-3-4 weeks time open it again, close your eyes and listen. If it still sounds cheesy you should feel exactly where the cheese comes in and work your way out of it from there.

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Listen Barker, he has an album or two of uplifting stuff that still hits pretty hard :slight_smile:

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I’d say that this is one of the hardest things to achieve in electronic music: To evoke certain emotions without being on-the-nose. Ideally it’s not even happy or sad, but an ambiguous mix of both.

I recently heard this track on a party and thought it was incredible:

I think the key is to not overdo it. Just have a few chords or samples working together and rely on the power of repetition.

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thats what I instantly thought of as well

also I think the advice of waiting a couple weeks before opening up something you deem ā€œcheesyā€ is definitely a good idea. often its just perception, also everyone has a different treshold of cheesyness. I don’t think theres a secret to it, just keep experimenting until you found your own sweet spot

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There is no cheese…

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I just made a dub jam and shortened a vocal saying ā€˜happiness’ to ā€˜piness’ - I hope it’s not cheesy

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I’m almost always better creating melodies in pianoroll with a midi keyboard or launchpad funnily enough, as i’m better at grooving and such on dawless

Started connecting a midi keyboard to my dawless setup, jam things out, then step by step inputting into sequencer with help from keyboard trying to reproduce my jams in sequences. has helped me a lot

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Who moved my cheese?

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Ala Voodoo Ray

Hot take, but I don’t know if this is possible to learn without fully embracing cheese. Making emotional music involves emotional intelligence, and I think emotional intelligence involves being in tune with all kinds of emotions, knowing how they feel, and being able to express them through music. It’s about empathy and vulnerability.

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I love cheesy techno:

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Juan Atkins hits it right on the spot! Uplifting, but not cheesy. Flash Food is a good example

Perhaps experiment with melodic basslines, add groove and do some Juno strings on top. In Flash Food he literally ā€œlifts upā€ the chord/strings sound with a bend.
It’s a good track.

Maybe try some Oliver Klein.

Donā€˜t delete, instead do it! There is nothing wrong to do what you’re unconsciously do (as long you do no harm to people who don’t like it)

upcheesing

Embrace the cheese!

Some of my stuff is Full Solid Cheddar!