What's the sequencing theory in IDM?

The Lounge
#21

Can you give an example of a track with a similar drumpattern to what you are trying to achieve?

And perhaps upload a pattern of yourself a long with it.

But best advice is to just listen and try to decipher what’s going on. Best work to study is of course Squarepusher’s. But ignore his amen break tracks. There’s less amen on Go Plastic.

Also learn programming in a pianoroll or Renoise. It’s much easier. Or even straight onto several audio tracks in Pro Tools or something, ignoring MIDI altogether. It gets very confusing quickly on a XOX style hardware stepsequencer.

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#22

Oh man… lol i think it’s waaaay easier on a x0x style sequencer.

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#23

It works, but it gets confusing as hell :slight_smile: as you can only see one track and one or half a bar at any given time

#24

Exactly! forces you to use your ears. Only 2 or 3 sounds ever should be playing at the same time :slight_smile:

I use a Cirklon for everything (also has a piano roll pattern but i hardly ever use it.) I’m just now getting into trackers and its a bit more confusing. Because I can visually see events and stuff and it make me rely on my eyes when I should just be listening.

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#25

I think with trackers there’s a point when you’ve used them long enough that it just becomes like looking into the matrix.

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#26

Nice. I still can’t get my M8 there but I’m having fun.

with trackers I feel things start to sound like breakcore. and theres a missing groove element that if its not in the sliced drums you are sequencing, it sounds very robotic. Listen to SYRO, theres and unbelievable amount of groove on all the even 1/16th notes. all that micro timing on a tracker would feel tedious (loving the groove (table?)
on the m8 though!)

#27

Yeah. If you go through Aphex Twin’s discography, you can clearly hear on his drumprogramming when he used a tracker or a xox stepsequencer like the Cirklon. When he doesnt use trackers or pianorolls his rhythms are wayyy simpler.

On youtube there’s an interesting video of The Flashbulb (who uses Fl studio since I think the red album). In the video he uses the keyboard version of the mc505 to recreate an old track. All he does is count while using the step input sequencing feature. It’s a cool video. But it’s just counting steps really

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#28

The unpopular answer is that often people have all the tools, but are lacking talent… or at least a good ear. Hard to know where you are in your journey, but I’d suggest you start by listening to a bunch of stuff you admire, with a notepad and pen, and making two sets of notes — on the first listen, think about broad brushstrokes, the general ideas / direction / standout things. Then on the second listen (and beyond), be much more detailed: for example, study the rhythms and try to transcribe them, notice which elements are where in the mix, assess the arrangement in terms of sound types / frequencies and how they stack or interact etc. You may find there’s a whole load of things you probably then want to think or learn more about

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#29

for our tracker friends

Digiphex recreates Vordhosbn on the Polyend tracker.

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#30

You can modulate perhaps the start point of a sample to get a less stiff groove instead of nudging.

Although stiffness and staccato are key to get that old skool rhythmic vibe. Too much sustain and looseness will result in a mess quickly. Keep it tight

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#31

Lots of good tips in here, I’m bookmarking this thread for later.

Reminded me of this video where you can see an Aphex Twin project file at work. You can see the tracker running in the background but also lots of pop-up windows with various envelopes running, or melodic sequences, samples that seems to be playing back in a granular way to make pads, etc.

I think the answer to sequencing good IDM stuff vs. chaos has to do with the balance between weird, unexpected elements and a layer or two that’s simpler and helps connect the listener’s ear to something musical they can follow.

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#32

This is a great thread. Keep 'em coming, folks!

#33

FTFY :slight_smile:

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#34

People often fixate on Autechre using generative/random sequencing but they’ve made plenty of dense material on relatively straightforward sequencers like the Machinedrum or R8, or standard DAW environments like Logic. When they do use generative techniques it is with Max patches they have built themselves, heavily constrained and controlled to produce results that are suited to their music.

My advice would be to avoid random or generative sequencers as much as possible and focus on a single environment or machine instead of jumping around from tool to tool. Try remaking patterns from tracks you love to figure out how they’re constructed. Take your time, rework sequences and sounds until everything starts to fit together. What are you already familiar with that you can focus on? Learn it well and you will develop your voice and establish techniques that will transfer over to other gear.

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#35

Spacing and pacing. Generative is generally not the way to go for the bulk of it, detailed programming is the way to go. IMO the best IDM uses call and return, syncopation and offsets in meter to give an almost never repeating feel. But it is a broad church.

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#36

I’m in the camp that dislikes heavy use of randomness and prefers purposeful, planned composition and synthesis. IDM has branched off into quite different areas over the last 30 years so I don’t think it’s so easy to nail down the “theory”. Single artists’ catalogs will range from ambient, futurism to sci-fi brutalism, etc. I think you’d be better served by figuring out the esthetic you’re after and then honing your craft to realize that. Here are 2 examples I did, the 1st 22 years ago, the 2nd 19 years ago. The vibe of these two differs as does the process. There is no random or stutter at any point in either of these.

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#37

I also am in the “meticulous detail in programming over random/generative” camp. In this way, I don’t think Elektron sequencers are easy to use to make lengthy high BPM IDM percussion.

In a pinch, though, you can get quite a bit of deliberate variation out of the Digitakt’s sample-slot-as-an-LFO-destination trick. A sin wave shape set at odd timing can give a deliberate, ever-evolving feel to the sounds being triggered, and judicious use of Plocking things like depth or wave form can add some unexpected variations here and there.

You can also do some tricks where some trigs are ratcheted, but are set only to hit when a prior trig with a higher probability doesn’t go.

But yeah, for the really musical stuff, tracker software on a computer and lots of time spent is probably the best way to go.

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#38

Listen to this track from AphexTwin because the drum programming is beautiful and complex and grooves nicely, but I’m pretty sure there are literally only 3 elements - kick, snare and hat. Yet he manages to get so much feeling out of them.

#39

try making slower hiphop breaks, then speed it up and add the other elements

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#40

IDM is really a broad term.
Also think there are not to many shortcuts, random stuff always sounds too random :slightly_smiling_face:
Guess most of the time, detailed sequencing gets you better results. Depends on what you want. Recent autechre stuff has quite a lot of randomness feeling. Don’t know if they did their beats with a lot of randomness but to me it has that feeling.
While druqks and go plastic sound like super tedious, detailed editing to to me.
Many „braindance“ tracks use just nice sequenced xox drummachines. Funk break like patterns as already mentioned.

I‘m not very good at making super detailed beats. Some things that help me get that feel:

  • Placing all my drum hits on a single track, few overlapping notes
  • Use a bunch of different sounds, e.g. different hihat, percussion hits
  • Make small changes to every hit, like pitch, sample start, decay, fx send
  • Elektron trig conditions help to get more variety without copying and changing the pattern over and over, but use the e.g. 2 in 4 like condition, not the percentage one
  • Use some retriggers, ratcheting, but always put trig conditions on them, they shouldn’t happen to often at the same place
  • Nice effects for idm are very short delays, comb filter, bit reducer. Use them on single hits, not all over the place

Some people get great results in eurorack, with logic and sequential switches, but that road escalates quickly. You could try vcv rack though

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