What's the sequencing theory in IDM?

The Lounge
#1

I’ve all the sequencing tools I need, Euclidian, piano roll, step sequencer, step conditions, random trig, trig repeat and what not, but every time I try to build more complex, non-repetitive IDM/break-beat like patterns I always end up with muddy chaos.

How to find the right balance between coherence and disorder?

What should be structured and what can be let to some more randomness?

How to make the track breath? Somehow, all sounds are on top of each other, nothing stand out, no tension/release, no break.

What are your recommendation here, where to start?

Thanks!

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"IDM in box"
#2

Basically : EQing, Filtering, Compressing.

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#3

I’m constantly trying to figure this out as well.

I won’t pretend I’m an expert, but two things recently I’ve been doing:

(When sampling), much smaller slices, really just grabbing the peak and a bit around it, so that when played back at something like 160bpm in between a bunch of other stuff you’re just getting the main hit. Not sure if I’m describing this well, hopefully you get what I’m saying.

The second thing I’ve been trying is kind of the opposite. When chopping breakbeats if there are sections of the break that have multiple hits in a small window (think 32nd notes), I’ll take slices like that and exclude “single hit” slices. Then when I sequence, I won’t sequence every step in stay a 16th note split bar, instead doing 8th notes or something.

These two different approaches have let to some more clarity in the breakbeat mangling for me recently. Don’t know that I’ve explained very well, but it’s a topic I’m constantly exploring so wanted to contribute.

Also this for sure. I feel like I need to end up removing almost all the low end for it to not sound like muddy garbage, in addition to other areas of the freq. spectrum. I usually try and play around by ear until there is a bit more clarity.

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#4

And panning

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#5

I’m no expert but it’s my favourite genre and I try to write similar stuff. Might be a bit of a general thing but I find a ‘less is more’ approach is what works.

If things are sounding like a muddy mess then it’s usually because I’ve added too many sounds and not spent enough time on what’s already there. This issue comes about because when passively listening to IDM it generally naturally sounds complex, so the brain defaults to adding different sounds and filling up the frequency spectrum.

However when actively listening I realise there’s still only a few elements interacting at any one time, most of the time. It’s my sound design that needs work, not the layering of individual sounds as such. A crowded mix will always sound crowded.

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#6

As the last person said, there doesn’t tend to be a lot of stuff going on at a time - most Rdj stuf is a melody acting as rhythm, bass acting as bass, and rhythm acting as melody - but it’s that last bit that fools people.

The rhythm acting as melody uses complex sequences of sounds and timbres to create that feeling of evolution, emotion and busyness - it’s sequences of different drum hits or pitches one after the other - rather than a lot at the same time. The thing is, us lazy types try to achieve that by throwing random stuff at the wall, and while I doubt those old schooidm artists manually sequenced every. single. fucking. hit. I’d bet there was a lot more manual structuring and sequencing going on than it sounds like.

That’s my opinion, anyway, from a lot of listening. I have no insider knowledge no music theory and very little talent.

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#7

Awesome takes from everyone. Very interested to hear how people program. It’s definitely my feeling as well that all of the best IDM stuff I’ve heard is likely from meticulous programming.

I’ve found that I get to IDM sounds I like much quicker in tracker interfaces because it’s really just meticulously sequencing everything, no tricks or shortcuts.

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#8

So… I’m going to get burned at the stake for this but…

IDM is really wiiiiide.

I agree with @Boxymusic ,
I’m going to post a track I made, if you like the idea i’ll tell you the one dumb rhythmic trick I did that you can incorporate in your music to get that IDM feel.

let’s say we are working with a 16 step sequence as 1 bar.

for a Afx breaks beat, a lot of the rhythms are present in 70 funk, a good example is Jame’s brown’s Funky drummer break.

a break pattern I like to use is put a

  1. bass drum hit on the 1,4, (sometimes on the 7,(10 or 11),15)
  2. snare on the 5,13 (ghost snare hits on the 7,10 or the 7, 11)
  3. An interesting but evolving Euclidean pattern on HH or just 1,3,5,7,9,11,13,15

When I make the bass lines i try to drop the root of what ever chord I’m working on on the 1 but all other harmonic arppeggiated info I put in the 4,7,9,11 or 15, (ignoring the 5, and the 13)

Melody and bass should always enforce the syncopated feel of the drums.

I hope that helps.

( stay way from randomizers !!! )

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#9

I’m not an expert, but all that random, Euclidian bollocks has little/nothing to do with IDM as far as I can tell. It’s just a bunch of people who really like programming drum patterns in hyper detail.

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#10

Don’t over-complicate, less is often more, repetition is your friend.

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#11

Trim those releases! Everything sounds super staccato in IDM except the pads and some of the leads. At least that’s my experience

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#12

As much as i love IDM, i often find that too much randomness is not the way to go.
meticulous sequencing and creating space for each sound in the writing and sound design is the key to get coherence.
I love randomizing things but it’s always under control : usually some sound parameters or a few random notes and trigs but not more.
As you said : too much random is just chaos.

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#13

There’s no theory, or at least there shouldn’t be. It’ll comes down to how one composes a track, with one’s own musical personality.

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#14

IDM in a nutshell :sweat_smile:

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#15

My strong opinions with little or no basis in fact:

Limit yourself to a single track and sound-lock/program change/whatever per-step. You can’t have muddy chaos if only one thing is ever playing at a time :brain::point_left:

Nothing should be random. That’s the “Intelligent” part of IDM. Everything should be perfectly crafted, engineered, iterated over, polished, and quantized down to the tick. It’s repetition that makes the non-musical sound melodic. Randomness effs that up.

Tension can be achieved by establishing a strong pattern, then subverting expectations by breaking it, and resolving by finding your way back to the pattern. Polyrythms kind of do this for free. A kick on every 3 and a snare on every 5 resolve every 15 beats. But you can do this much more intentionally and on a much larger scale. Make a fugue out of it.

This should be 90% of your mix and should carry your song. After that you can permit yourself one track for pads, one for arps, and one for a drone/bass/dealer’s choice. These can pad out frequencies and help with the dramatic tension with their timber frequency or urgency or the other things we’ve learned from techno. But they can’t do it on their own. So add them last.

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#16

Yes exactly this. It sounds way more complex than it actually is in terms of layers-sound sources. I would stay away from eq, compressors and such (as track inserts) and focus on audio editing and sequencing with very few sounds.
Most of those AFX tracks for example don’t use that many different sounds and parts-stems. But every little part of the sequence is different with lots of tiny sequence edits and sound edits.
Elektrons arent really suited for complex sequencing tbh

#17

Yes.

#18

I do set some rules for myself… I allow randomness but in a very controlled manner, randomness is there to add the little extra spice, not to carry a track.

So usually I midi sequence a drum machine from the OP-Z and Octatrack. With this I program a full beat on one track and then I program another with lower velocity to add ghost notes and what not, it is here the randomness can come in. Having several programmed drum patterns on different tracks is a great way to add variation within a pattern.

Drums and melodic parts are the to anchor each other. If drums are bugging out then the Melodie’s are there to reign it in and vice versa.

I want to get into to slicing break beats but I never get any decent results when I try it…

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#19

same. Simple in theory but hard to get something decent. Always sounds as if I tried to hard :upside_down_face:

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#20

i suck at sample based work flows, i wish i was better at slicing breaks as well.

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