I feel similar about people who just combine loops from sample packs and call it their own creation.
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I always wanted to make music over dj’ing but they often go hand in hand. I’d have to understand your perception of EDM/IDM to truly comment.
I’m big on purity and innovation. That is a really small window but the smallest touch can always be a new spot on the map.
If I can’t come up with anything I feel is unique I will just go with making classic hip hop beats and breakbeat driven drum and bass. There’s still a lot of meat on the bone in the area of trap. Post modern cumbia is also another area of interest. My best examples of this aren’t on youtube.
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Ugh. This is why the older you reach the better.
Also using something where you still have to piece things together (i.e. not the easier way). This is how Dilla really showcased his genius by using the mpc which confined many but he did really simple things that nobody did before i.e. non quantized drums.
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I’m a terrible keyboard player and only do it out of necessity but I can fake it just enough to lay down one track at a time. I’ve been playing guitar for over 25 years and could shred if there was a decent midi guitar option out there.
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I mean were really past the shark on a lot of that. Records made for dj’ing and software made for ease of use have really created a lot of grunge.
Diplo and TripleDouble have a legendary mix of classic breaks, 60’s rock and jazz that is still impressive as they are mixing records before the James Brown effect really took hold.
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Yeah Dilla was the man. I’m not against sampling or loops here and there really but at least in my area there are a bunch of amateur “DJs” making trap and dubstep type stuff and getting shows where you can tell it’s just all layered loops.
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I jam this song regularly still.
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Music means different things to different people. Some bros just wanna call themselves b-boys in whatever way so they can get girls or whatever.
I still remember moving back to Arkansas and meeting a dude who told me he was a rapper. Played a track for me. I was like “where did you get that beat”? “Some website”
It was Non Phixion “Black Helicopters” instrumental. And a shitty dub at that. 
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I’m using EDM as a catch-all for modern electronic music. I had a music partner back in the early to mid 2000’s and we were making some electronic stuff then. It definitely wasn’t dance music nor was it entirely electronic. Had a lot of weird processed guitars and some horns, vocals, etc. I only recently got back into it because I’m real fuckin’ bored during quarantine and the music I was focusing on (fingerstyle acoustic guitar) was starting to feel more like work.
So I hopped on ebay/Reverb to see if I could grab some of those old synths we used back then and…NOPE. The Fizmo, for example, goes for insane money. Korg Prophecy used to be a thing I’d see for $75 in pawn shops. People want $350 now. The only thing I managed to snag cheap so far was a Kurzweil K2000 but it’s deep enough to keep me occupied in sound design for the next 10,000 years.
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Free and I’ve wasted hours and hours. It did get me buying eurorack modules though so free comes with a caveat I suppose.
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All the tech bros are buying them up like corvettes.
Honestly, $350 is pretty reasonable compared to some others. There are rare pieces going for $20K.
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Naw man, music is a hobby and release as much as a profession. If you have fun then do it. More people should be making shitty music and enjoying it imo.
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Im picky as fuck on IDM if we are talking classic works and not on the dancefloor. I lean hard towards psychedelics and away from the ephemeral as they usually have the qualities I’m looking for.
Here’s an example:
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I hear ya there. I’m the same way so barely release or post things publicly haha. One thing about old Phish tours I look back on was the drum circles. You could have 5-50 people playing drums who didn’t know shit about drums or percussion but all barely synced in had a blast to the point it was almost spiritual. Perfectionism is a huge issue with a lot of artists.
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The sampling culture really rubs me the wrong way sometimes. Dilla is a legit genius with flips and blends, it really is his own creation. A lot of others…meh.
It’s hard for me to listen to hip hop songs that are just a single rip of a loop, because the funk/soul/disco song they rip it from is often better and far more nuanced. So that’s what I listen to these days.
I really enjoy the Kanye production on finding forever and Go. Soulful.
Glad this thread popped up. 15 years ago i went to an audio engineering school and basically haven’t touched it since poker became a thing. Might have to fire up Reason again
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I think sound design just by itself is a pretty awesome hobby. So if you like twisting knobs and generating crazy sounds then do that. Composing original music (that doesn’t suck) has to be one of the hardest and most abstract things a human can do. Most of the people who started at 14 didn’t figure it out either.
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A lot of shit in music today we hear on iconic recordings were mistakes too btw.
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I mean Khruangbin hit a new spot on the map by fusing funk with dub and disco but the real touch was just adding reverb.
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Plus, those legs!
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The whole Stax sound was a product of a production studio on tilted ground.
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