To get started in music tech, you'll need a few things. First, you'll need your own headphones. Next, you'll need an email address you can check at school (a Gmail account or a yahoo account is fine). Together, we'll set up a Google account, a blog and a file sharing account at Divshare. Then we'll dive into our workstation software FLStudio 9 for your first project.
The first day of class is largely exploratory. You should noodle with the software and explore the sounds in the browser, drag a few of them over to the step sequencer, put some dots into a pattern on the Step Sequencer and put a few patterns in the playlist. Once you've done this for a few minutes, we'll get serious.
What makes a good beat?
Only you can decide what you like, but there are a few basic guidelines and a few basic principles that all good drumbeats share. Now would be a good time to search your MP3 player for some of your favorite tunes. Listen to just the drums to find out what makes the groove work. You'll probably find these basic groove principles:
1. Simple is better. Overly complex beats that use too many instruments are difficult to listen to, and ultimately distract from the rest of the music. Try to free your beats of clutter.
2. Repetition is essential. The pattern should not be too long, and should repeat in a predictable way.
3. Consider your tonal spectrum from bass (low pitch) to treble (high pitch). The kick drum sound should create a steady pulse, the midrange sound should cut the bass pulse in half and the high pitched sounds (usually hi hat) should subdivide the kick pattern. In traditional notation: Bass- on beats 1,2,3 and 4; Snare- beats 2 and 4; hi hat every other beat (1+2+3+4+).
here are some of my favorite classic beats to illustrate this point:
Kiss- Prince and the Revolution
Lust For Life - Iggy Pop
Billie Jean- Michael Jackson
Blue Monday- New Order
I Don't Wanna Stop- Ozzy
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