Genres - What is what ?

AndyPlankton

@Fruitbat1919 said:
My idea snippets that I’ve jotted down of late must be influenced by differing genres even if we go by their lengths - anywhere between 2 bars and 90. Sometimes I just record whatever is going on in my head and see where it goes. The only limitation I’ve found with my current setup, is not really being able to have full control of BPM on the fly. Maybe it’s because I don’t know the software well enough, or maybe changing BPM on the fly is more a hardware thing?

Someone mentioned a Metronome app in another thread that has Link that can be used for on the fly BPM..

[Deleted User]

@AndyPlankton said:

@Fruitbat1919 said:
My idea snippets that I’ve jotted down of late must be influenced by differing genres even if we go by their lengths - anywhere between 2 bars and 90. Sometimes I just record whatever is going on in my head and see where it goes. The only limitation I’ve found with my current setup, is not really being able to have full control of BPM on the fly. Maybe it’s because I don’t know the software well enough, or maybe changing BPM on the fly is more a hardware thing?

Someone mentioned a Metronome app in another thread that has Link that can be used for on the fly BPM..

Yeah have one that does that, but in the recording environment, BPM changing on the fly is pretty much ignored really

[Deleted User]

I only mention this, as it’s one thing that sometimes pressures music towards certain genre stereotypes

AndyPlankton

@Fruitbat1919 said:

@AndyPlankton said:

@Fruitbat1919 said:
My idea snippets that I’ve jotted down of late must be influenced by differing genres even if we go by their lengths - anywhere between 2 bars and 90. Sometimes I just record whatever is going on in my head and see where it goes. The only limitation I’ve found with my current setup, is not really being able to have full control of BPM on the fly. Maybe it’s because I don’t know the software well enough, or maybe changing BPM on the fly is more a hardware thing?

Someone mentioned a Metronome app in another thread that has Link that can be used for on the fly BPM..

Yeah have one that does that, but in the recording environment, BPM changing on the fly is pretty much ignored really

When recording audio, changing BPM is not a good idea (on the recording device anyway)....there is a reason that neither Cubasis nor Auria have Link support yet
For playback it is fine.

[Deleted User]

@AndyPlankton said:

@Fruitbat1919 said:

@AndyPlankton said:

@Fruitbat1919 said:
My idea snippets that I’ve jotted down of late must be influenced by differing genres even if we go by their lengths - anywhere between 2 bars and 90. Sometimes I just record whatever is going on in my head and see where it goes. The only limitation I’ve found with my current setup, is not really being able to have full control of BPM on the fly. Maybe it’s because I don’t know the software well enough, or maybe changing BPM on the fly is more a hardware thing?

Someone mentioned a Metronome app in another thread that has Link that can be used for on the fly BPM..

Yeah have one that does that, but in the recording environment, BPM changing on the fly is pretty much ignored really

When recording audio, changing BPM is not a good idea....there is a reason that neither Cubasis nor Auria have Link support yet
For playback it is fine.

Yes but wouldn’t it open up things if you could just use a pedal to control the BPM of the beat and that changed the recording BMP at the same time. Yeah technical problems aside, I do think that the relegation of BPM control within many daws to an afterthought, has an affect on shoehorning some musical ideas. Genres kinda feel like limitations that I’m always fighting against in many ways

[Deleted User]

I think it’s interesting when we trace genre timelines to the devices used and can see clear correlation at times to how technology has developed.

The above when then looked at from a business perspective, it’s easy to see why genres often become boxes that are being used to try to make the most profit. You just have to look at the types of IAP sounds, loops, etc that are being sold in the mainstream musical markets - diversity is not its strong point.

[Deleted User]

Apologies, I’m going off on tangents lol

AndyPlankton

@Fruitbat1919 said:
Apologies, I’m going off on tangents lol

Genres are definitely marketing tools.....for marketing the output to consumers, and the tools to creators.

AndyPlankton

@Fruitbat1919 said:

@AndyPlankton said:

@Fruitbat1919 said:

@AndyPlankton said:

@Fruitbat1919 said:
My idea snippets that I’ve jotted down of late must be influenced by differing genres even if we go by their lengths - anywhere between 2 bars and 90. Sometimes I just record whatever is going on in my head and see where it goes. The only limitation I’ve found with my current setup, is not really being able to have full control of BPM on the fly. Maybe it’s because I don’t know the software well enough, or maybe changing BPM on the fly is more a hardware thing?

Someone mentioned a Metronome app in another thread that has Link that can be used for on the fly BPM..

Yeah have one that does that, but in the recording environment, BPM changing on the fly is pretty much ignored really

When recording audio, changing BPM is not a good idea....there is a reason that neither Cubasis nor Auria have Link support yet
For playback it is fine.

Yes but wouldn’t it open up things if you could just use a pedal to control the BPM of the beat and that changed the recording BMP at the same time. Yeah technical problems aside, I do think that the relegation of BPM control within many daws to an afterthought, has an affect on shoehorning some musical ideas. Genres kinda feel like limitations that I’m always fighting against in many ways

I use the tempo knob on my circuit to do this

[Deleted User]

@AndyPlankton said:

@Fruitbat1919 said:

@AndyPlankton said:

@Fruitbat1919 said:

@AndyPlankton said:

@Fruitbat1919 said:
My idea snippets that I’ve jotted down of late must be influenced by differing genres even if we go by their lengths - anywhere between 2 bars and 90. Sometimes I just record whatever is going on in my head and see where it goes. The only limitation I’ve found with my current setup, is not really being able to have full control of BPM on the fly. Maybe it’s because I don’t know the software well enough, or maybe changing BPM on the fly is more a hardware thing?

Someone mentioned a Metronome app in another thread that has Link that can be used for on the fly BPM..

Yeah have one that does that, but in the recording environment, BPM changing on the fly is pretty much ignored really

When recording audio, changing BPM is not a good idea....there is a reason that neither Cubasis nor Auria have Link support yet
For playback it is fine.

Yes but wouldn’t it open up things if you could just use a pedal to control the BPM of the beat and that changed the recording BMP at the same time. Yeah technical problems aside, I do think that the relegation of BPM control within many daws to an afterthought, has an affect on shoehorning some musical ideas. Genres kinda feel like limitations that I’m always fighting against in many ways

I use the tempo knob on my circuit to do this

As an iPad only dude I’m essentially knobless!

[Deleted User]

I came across a new one yesterday, presumably invented the day before when DJ Puzzle was making his video about promising new app Grid Music.

The new term was ‘tribal glitch.’ Inspired by that we went away and made some of our own. But here’s a link to what the great man himself did.

https://youtu.be/nhOBLK84V9k

High5denied

growing up, when the late 80's hit, into the 90's, I thought what I liked to listen to was Techno(in addition to a lot of other stuff). Music like 2 Unlimited, AB Logic, The Movement, Praga Kahn/LOA, Code Red, Fun Factory, and the countless others.

We would use a lot of these songs for our Katas in Martial Arts Tournaments, they were easy to Orchestrate the Karate moves to.

Now, I find out that........Some of the "Techno" artists I listened to were actually, really.......House music, New Beat, Acid house, Trance music, Industrial dance music , Rave, or............Maybe even........electronic dance music, microhouse, power noise, tech trance, but AKA: Ambient house, Euro-trance, Nortec, Electro house.

Fa-huck. I guess Idunno......

PhilW

@jwmmakerofmusic said:

@PhilW said:
I know it was meant as tongue in cheek, but I don’t even know the difference between House, Garage and Hip-Hop, so defining things in terms of those doesn’t help. Although I’m pretty sure I hate them all, so it probably doesn’t matter anyway.

You’d probably like classic House and Hip-Hop. Maybe not. The new genres are hit or miss, although I hate Future Bass and find Trap as an insult to real Hip-Hop.

Anyway, what kind of music are you into?

Prog Rock would be my favourite, but I listen to all types of rock, pop, some classical, film music, electronic, folk, etc. There is a lot of music around that I tend to lump together as Dance Music that I find too predictable / repetitive / cliched to be interesting to me. And any form of rapping is a big turn off. Horses for courses, it would be a sad world if we all liked the same things.

PhilW

@AndyPlankton said:

@Fruitbat1919 said:

@AndyPlankton said:

@Fruitbat1919 said:
My idea snippets that I’ve jotted down of late must be influenced by differing genres even if we go by their lengths - anywhere between 2 bars and 90. Sometimes I just record whatever is going on in my head and see where it goes. The only limitation I’ve found with my current setup, is not really being able to have full control of BPM on the fly. Maybe it’s because I don’t know the software well enough, or maybe changing BPM on the fly is more a hardware thing?

Someone mentioned a Metronome app in another thread that has Link that can be used for on the fly BPM..

Yeah have one that does that, but in the recording environment, BPM changing on the fly is pretty much ignored really

When recording audio, changing BPM is not a good idea (on the recording device anyway)....there is a reason that neither Cubasis nor Auria have Link support yet
For playback it is fine.

Auria is one the few ios daws that has a tempo track, a most welcome feature.

RUST( i )K

@AndyPlankton said:
Often in threads when discussing what an app is good at or for people use Genre.....descriptions like Trance Pads or Trap Hats are 2 examples that have come up recently.

As an old timer I have no idea what these mean as I do not know the Genres and sub genre's used in todays music.....in my day it was either Rock Punk Reggae or Disco for the most part.

As a way of helping us old timers understand some of this new fangled youngster language, could you younger folks post examples of tracks and which genre/sub genre it is, and what defines that it is that genre ?

This would not only help when reading posts, but also help me put the right tags on tunes that I upload to this t'interweb thingy

AudioGus

@High5denied said:
growing up, when the late 80's hit, into the 90's, I thought what I liked to listen to was Techno(in addition to a lot of other stuff). Music like 2 Unlimited, AB Logic, The Movement, Praga Kahn/LOA, Code Red, Fun Factory, and the countless others.

We would use a lot of these songs for our Katas in Martial Arts Tournaments, they were easy to Orchestrate the Karate moves to.

Now, I find out that........Some of the "Techno" artists I listened to were actually, really.......House music, New Beat, Acid house, Trance music, Industrial dance music , Rave, or............Maybe even........electronic dance music, microhouse, power noise, tech trance, but AKA: Ambient house, Euro-trance, Nortec, Electro house.

Fa-huck. I guess Idunno......

When people I work with ask me what kind of music I make I just rattle off the general tools/processes.

‘I use samplers, synths, drum machines, computers etc’ To which, nine times out of ten, they reply ‘Oh, techno.’ I used to say ‘Mmm, sorta. But techno to a lot of people is actualy a pretty specific genre and not a broad umbrella term and Blah blah blah me me me my music my music etc etc’ At this point their expression would either be pursed lips, with raised eyebrows and a polite nodding half smirk or simply glazed over.

Now I just say ‘Yah pretty much.’

Mayo

It is a constant moving target.

Tomorrow morning, today will be yesterday.
move on.

oat_phipps

I narrowed my genres down a few years ago to driving music (my personal fav), party music, introspective music, and space music. My favorite artists usually span all four, but it’s much easier to assort everything into these four categories. You would think such a small system couldn’t cover everything, but it surprisingly does. I suggest you try it.

And before I came up with that system, I registered my album that would normally be called ‘power-pop’ as Action-Adventure. Films have much more concise genre definitions.

gonekrazy3000

@AndyPlankton said:
Often in threads when discussing what an app is good at or for people use Genre.....descriptions like Trance Pads or Trap Hats are 2 examples that have come up recently.

As an old timer I have no idea what these mean as I do not know the Genres and sub genre's used in todays music.....in my day it was either Rock Punk Reggae or Disco for the most part.

As a way of helping us old timers understand some of this new fangled youngster language, could you younger folks post examples of tracks and which genre/sub genre it is, and what defines that it is that genre ?

This would not only help when reading posts, but also help me put the right tags on tunes that I upload to this t'interweb thingy

i find it amusing that you mention trap hats since @ExAsperis99 is actually one of you old timers. maybe he could translate the lingo for you as i myself find it hard to understand myself. I'm a semi-younging stuck in the disco/techno era myself @_@

High5denied

@oat_phipps said:
I narrowed my genres down a few years ago to driving music (my personal fav), party music, introspective music, and space music. My favorite artists usually span all four, but it’s much easier to assort everything into these four categories. You would think such a small system couldn’t cover everything, but it surprisingly does. I suggest you try it.

And before I came up with that system, I registered my album that would normally be called ‘power-pop’ as Action-Adventure. Films have much more concise genre definitions.

Party music, you mean like Andrew W.K.?

oat_phipps

@High5denied said:

@oat_phipps said:
I narrowed my genres down a few years ago to driving music (my personal fav), party music, introspective music, and space music. My favorite artists usually span all four, but it’s much easier to assort everything into these four categories. You would think such a small system couldn’t cover everything, but it surprisingly does. I suggest you try it.

And before I came up with that system, I registered my album that would normally be called ‘power-pop’ as Action-Adventure. Films have much more concise genre definitions.

Party music, you mean like Andrew W.K.?

Totally! Loved that guy’s first two albums

Edit: I’m also pretty sure he won the ‘loudness wars’ in music production before they ever really even took off

CracklePot

@High5denied said:

@oat_phipps said:
I narrowed my genres down a few years ago to driving music (my personal fav), party music, introspective music, and space music. My favorite artists usually span all four, but it’s much easier to assort everything into these four categories. You would think such a small system couldn’t cover everything, but it surprisingly does. I suggest you try it.

And before I came up with that system, I registered my album that would normally be called ‘power-pop’ as Action-Adventure. Films have much more concise genre definitions.

Party music, you mean like Andrew W.K.?

Huh, I was thinking “Happy Birthday” or maybe “Auld Lang Sine”

AndyPlankton

@High5denied said:
Party music, you mean like Andrew W.K.?

@CracklePot said:

@High5denied said:

@oat_phipps said:
I narrowed my genres down a few years ago to driving music (my personal fav), party music, introspective music, and space music. My favorite artists usually span all four, but it’s much easier to assort everything into these four categories. You would think such a small system couldn’t cover everything, but it surprisingly does. I suggest you try it.

And before I came up with that system, I registered my album that would normally be called ‘power-pop’ as Action-Adventure. Films have much more concise genre definitions.

Party music, you mean like Andrew W.K.?

Huh, I was thinking “Happy Birthday” or maybe “Auld Lang Sine”

Aaaaa Gaaa do do do push pineapple shake the tree

CracklePot

@High5denied said:
growing up, when the late 80's hit, into the 90's, I thought what I liked to listen to was Techno(in addition to a lot of other stuff). Music like 2 Unlimited, AB Logic, The Movement, Praga Kahn/LOA, Code Red, Fun Factory, and the countless others.

We would use a lot of these songs for our Katas in Martial Arts Tournaments, they were easy to Orchestrate the Karate moves to.

Now, I find out that........Some of the "Techno" artists I listened to were actually, really.......House music, New Beat, Acid house, Trance music, Industrial dance music , Rave, or............Maybe even........electronic dance music, microhouse, power noise, tech trance, but AKA: Ambient house, Euro-trance, Nortec, Electro house.

Fa-huck. I guess Idunno......

The punks used to have this saying, “just say heck no to techno”. I think before techno, we called the weird electronic stuff “Industrial”. There was “Death Rock” and “Speed Metal” too. Those were later known as Goth and Thrash.

AndyPlankton

@CracklePot said:
The punks used to have this saying, “just say heck no to techno”.

Techno is probably more punk than any of the other EDM genre's, as in no rules just do what you feel.

CracklePot

@AndyPlankton said:

@CracklePot said:
The punks used to have this saying, “just say heck no to techno”.

Techno is probably more punk than any of the other EDM genre's, as in no rules just do what you feel.

Yeah I always laughed at that saying. Seemed like old fashioned, reactionary thinking to me, so not Punk at all. Really, I think techno scared them!

AndyPlankton

@CracklePot said:

@AndyPlankton said:

@CracklePot said:
The punks used to have this saying, “just say heck no to techno”.

Techno is probably more punk than any of the other EDM genre's, as in no rules just do what you feel.

Yeah I always laughed at that saying. Seemed like old fashioned, reactionary thinking to me, so not Punk at all. Really, I think techno scared them!

It scared me too

oddSTAR

@jwmmakerofmusic said:
Okay, let me take a crack at it.
“Future Bass” - A horrible shitty genre...

(If anybody took this tongue-in-cheek post seriously, haha. )

As a fan of several of what Google defines as "Future Bass" artists (e.g. Flume, Odesza, Martin Garrix, Illenium, Seven Lions...), just let me say: "OUCH!"

@AndyPlankton said:

Genres are definitely marketing tools.....for marketing the output to consumers, and the tools to creators.

While I don't deny that it serves a marketing purpose, I'd also argue it serves music fans to allow them to find similar artists to something they already like. Imagine how hard it would be to track others down without some kind of common categorization! It's hard enough already...

Most of those electronic sub-genres seem defined by a few minor differentiating similarities in instrumentation or beat nowadays. I'd almost define them literally by sound:
Trance = "OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ OONTZ"
Dubstep = "VRONK wubwubwub BRANK wubwubwub"
Trap = "BOOM tsktsktsk BOOM tsktsktsktsk"
Future Bass = speaker blown

AudioGus

@CracklePot said:

@AndyPlankton said:

@CracklePot said:
The punks used to have this saying, “just say heck no to techno”.

Techno is probably more punk than any of the other EDM genre's, as in no rules just do what you feel.

Yeah I always laughed at that saying. Seemed like old fashioned, reactionary thinking to me, so not Punk at all. Really, I think techno scared them!

A shame they never lived to see The Prodigy

jwmmakerofmusic

@PhilW said:

@jwmmakerofmusic said:

@PhilW said:
I know it was meant as tongue in cheek, but I don’t even know the difference between House, Garage and Hip-Hop, so defining things in terms of those doesn’t help. Although I’m pretty sure I hate them all, so it probably doesn’t matter anyway.

You’d probably like classic House and Hip-Hop. Maybe not. The new genres are hit or miss, although I hate Future Bass and find Trap as an insult to real Hip-Hop.

Anyway, what kind of music are you into?

Prog Rock would be my favourite, but I listen to all types of rock, pop, some classical, film music, electronic, folk, etc. There is a lot of music around that I tend to lump together as Dance Music that I find too predictable / repetitive / cliched to be interesting to me. And any form of rapping is a big turn off. Horses for courses, it would be a sad world if we all liked the same things.

RUSH!!! When it comes to Prog Rock, they’re my favourite. Matter of fact, I wish I could write lyrics like Neil Peart, use better metaphor rather than heavy-handed transparency. Imagine how much better dance music could be if you combine it with well-crafted lyrics.

SO, what kind of pop do you listen to on occasion? Name me some artists (even if guilty pleasure artists).

Indeed if would be a sad world if we all liked the same things. I’m just saying that when it comes to real hip-hop, I’m into NWA, Digital Underground, Tupac, Snoop Dogg (80s/90s, not the joke he turned into), Fresh Prince & Jazzy Jeff (although I lost respect for them when they released the vomit-inducing “Get Lit” ), to name a few.

@oddSTAR said:

@jwmmakerofmusic said:
Okay, let me take a crack at it.
“Future Bass” - A horrible shitty genre...

(If anybody took this tongue-in-cheek post seriously, haha. )

As a fan of several of what Google defines as "Future Bass" artists (e.g. Flume, Odesza, Martin Garrix, Illenium, Seven Lions...), just let me say: "OUCH!"

As our friend PhilW said to me above, “It would be a sad world if we all liked the same things.” I don’t fault you for liking what you like mate, because musical tastes are subjective. I love cheesy and fun “EDM” like Lucas & Steve, R3hab & Quintino (their “Freak” track), Daddy’s Groove, Joe Stone, DJ Fresh, Sam Feldt, Ferreck Dawn, Olly James, 99 Souls, Zedd, Don Diablo, Pep & Rash, and so on and so forth. I also LOVE KSHMR and would not label him as “cheesy” but rather epic.

2014-2016 was when Spinnin had great releases and I discovered so many great artists. In 2017, many artists started turning to Future Bass, and it became one frustrating disappointment after the next. R3hab was the biggest disappointment due to drinking the Future Bass koolaid. His 2017 album mostly SUCKS.