Uplifting but not cheesy

w-lf · 2023-10-08T11:45:56.547Z

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.

Malmal · 2023-10-08T15:13:46.688Z

thats what I instantly thought of as well

also I think the advice of waiting a couple weeks before opening up something you deem “cheesy” 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

Bunker · 2023-10-08T15:52:20.667Z

There is no cheese…

Bitsnbobs · 2023-10-08T17:57:54.989Z

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

DavidL · 2023-10-08T18:28:58.831Z

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

plragde · 2023-10-08T18:37:48.002Z

Bunker:

There is no cheese…

Who moved my cheese?

Bunker · 2023-10-08T18:47:54.547Z

Ala Voodoo Ray

error.eyes · 2023-10-08T19:22:49.202Z

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.

Enrico_Pallazzo · 2023-10-08T23:26:28.507Z

I love cheesy techno:

johnbitwig · 2023-10-09T00:33:32.813Z

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 “lifts up” the chord/strings sound with a bend.
It’s a good track.

J3RK · 2023-10-09T03:53:03.335Z

Maybe try some Oliver Klein.

gekkonier · 2023-10-09T04:51:09.936Z

Don‘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)

chaocrator · 2023-10-09T05:19:19.096Z

upcheesing

jiffybox · 2023-10-09T05:30:04.936Z

image736×668 114 KB

Matoshi · 2023-10-09T07:45:43.028Z

Embrace the cheese!

Some of my stuff is Full Solid Cheddar!

Bitsnbobs · 2023-10-09T08:40:25.011Z

Yeah something like that

Bunker · 2023-10-09T09:34:32.768Z

To be fair Gerald ran out of sample memory, or that’s how the story goes. Either way it worked!

davestasiuk · 2023-10-09T19:17:12.179Z

If you haven’t already, check out pretty much any of Ehsan Gelsi’s live sets.

I think what makes his music so powerful to me is because I feel it to be optimistic and searching, and very driving.

Bonus points for being inspiring as an Elektronaut, since he sequences pretty everything from his DT, and the performances are very hands on and polished. He’s an underrated talent imo.

soulfood · 2023-10-09T19:23:26.154Z

I’m a firm believer that any melody can sound cheesy or not cheesy as long as it is paired with an appropriate sound.

Like I used to think any electronic music I made had to be 100% minor scales as I felt the major scale just sounded… cheesy.

Now I’m of the thought that it can be pretty powerful if the sound world is suiting.

That aside, my number of one way to avoid cheese is to not use all the notes in a scale. Yeh like most often I just write not thinking about the notes I use, but sometimes I get stuck and write ‘mathematically’ so to speak. When I do this I’ll set a limit like I can’t use a third and a fifth. One or neither. If I use a third in one octave I have to miss the next one but included a 9th but then have to drop the 5th.

Try it. It’s cool.

davestasiuk · 2023-10-09T20:02:48.507Z

soulfood:

Like I used to think any electronic music I made had to be 100% minor scales as I felt the major scale just sounded… cheesy.

Now I’m of the thought that it can be pretty powerful if the sound world is suiting.

Using modes can help blend as well. The mixolydian mode sits nicely…major third but a minor 7. Edited to Add: Also chord suspensions (adding a 9th or a 4th) where you skip the 3rd can imply something cheerful but still have enough ambiguity to not be overly sweet.

Also great tip on skipping a note or two in the scale.