I have recently gotten FL Studio 6 and I was trying to make a few beats with it. Then my friend came up with the idea that we should write a quick song just for the fun of it. My other friend gave me advice on how to write a song, he said first make the beat, then establish the rhythem, and then the lyrics.
And I was trying to make the beats in FL Studio 6 sound good, but I couldn't. Can anyone give me tips on that? We want to make a techno track so what beat should we make. I hope you guys understand what I am trying to aim for here.
Also, can you guys give me advice on how to write our first song?
If you don't know anything about music and don't have any ideas for your first song: Don't write a song.
But since you said "We want to make a techno track", just crank the metronome to 140bpm or something even more inhuman, select any random collection of notes for a square-waved mono synth lead, layer a dozen bass drum samples playing a straight four-on-the-floor pattern and you're just about finished. Then loop the thing for twice as long as it takes to irritate people.
Don't care even if you are new. It doesn't hurt trying to learn. Remember that nobody is master from birth.
In 15-20 years ago I played with trackers (tracker song players/editors). I even tryed to compose some simple tunes. Usually the first step was to investigate some ready made songs how they are made. You played the songs with only 1 channel on first and learned how it played with only e.g drums, then tryed other channels (eg. keys channel, vocal channels etc).
Sidenote: The tracker songs are not totally dead. The best tracker songs are very good (e.g IT and XM mods) and Winamp plays almost all of them. Besides they are much smaller than mp3s often. For example one good techno/dance mod (IT tracker) I have has 38 channels is 4:20 long and only 900kB is size.
What kind of style? Detroit techno? Techno ambient? Experimental techno? Minimal techno? Glitch? Electro? Goa? Hardcore? Techno Dub? There are so many possibilities in techno music that you should first consider your aim. If it's the dancefloor, arm yourself with excellent 909 and 808 sets for a start. Grab a copy of Rebirth at rebirthmuseum.com to have some grips on the basic sounds of the machines that initially shaped techno and house.
To have a harder/punchier sound try using heavy compression on kick and snares, the beats have to be hard as nails. Techno is sometimes quite different from house, it has wider tempo ranges, wider sonic palettes, more freedom in the development of rythmic patterns. Try some good synths and effects from kvraudio.com, there are tons of them. Don't overcrowd the composition adding too much stuff, and keep dynamics at an overall acceptable level: don't go too much over the classical -12 Db RMS mastering limit, dynamics are extremely important in techno, it's not death metal.
Don't overcrowd the sonic spectrum in the mid-high frequencies, use high frequencies well to add clarity, make full use of extremely low frequencies but never overdo it, popping the subwoofers of a club is a bad thing to do. Always listen to your composition at different volumes on different systems before going public, it has to be acceptable (and safe) wherever you play it, unless it's aimed exclusively to good systems (most part of experimental techno privileges good hi-fis).
But in reality, the thing you learn listening to some of the enormous techno production is that you have an extreme degree of freedom, but most of the people are so ignorant about techno that the term is usually mentally associated with dull, unchanging music. Techno music is exactly the opposite, if you want. Listening to Pan Sonic, Villalobos, Autechre, Alva Noto, Drexcya, Snd, Oval, Plastikman, Brinkmann, Jeff Mills (to name a few) can give a hint of the enormous sonic and stylistic diversity of the stuff that goes under the generic name of techno.
So there are no general rules, it doesn't even have to sound good in classical terms if it sounds interesting, but if you're going to do techno because you think it's easier than different genres forget about it, or think about it again.
Edit - I forgot the most important rule, take care of switching off the monitor from time to time. There are moments in which you'd better use only the ears. The visual perspective is fine for development, it helps a lot but you also have to detach yourself from that point of view to be objective. After all people generally listen to music, they don't see it.
FL's not bad, I try and put it to good use anyway - click my sig pic (first one) to see what FL is capable of (in the hands of a complete amateur who should really stick to singing [click the second sig pic] because there's no technology involved ) :up:
I use fruity Loops, just like Hank, infact, we are friends with each other on Myspace.... Twice... www.myspace.com/flammenJC its like retro electro more than hard techno
) :up: