Anyone have any good reliable sources on the development of dance music?

Jay D

I am looking for something that goes into the actual creation of it. The technologies used, hardware, tools and all that jazz. Not looking for a description whatsoever on any clubscene or movement in Chicago, Berlin or wherever.

The actual technologies used to create it, how they have developed, etc.

Thanks in advance.

jonny68

Look no further than the famous Roland TB-303:cool:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_TB-303

It was not until the mid- to late-1980s that DJs and electronic musicians in Chicago found a use for the machine in the context of the newly developing house music genre.

jtsuited

or actually look further if you want to learn anything.

don't think there's any real documentation on it.

the timeline goes...

808/909/303/various analogue synths/sampler/hardware sequencer setups in the early eighties
then late 80's early 90's software sequencers replaced hardware sequencers (the Atari ST was very popular) with samplers playing a bigger part than synths.
then there's a gap when it all gets confusing and people's setups were very very different.
then computer's became fast enough around the millenium and everything started being done inside the DAW.
And now we're here with little justification for buying expensive hardware when software is just THAT good.

that's the short version anywho.

Executive Steve

Akai MPC or EMU samplers for the Hardcore / Jungle crew, and a Juno for the basslines; 12 seconds of sampling time, everything arranged in Cubase running on an Amiga and mixed down on mackie desk with guitar FX pedals to **** with the sound some more; 99% of everything is samples cobbled together from utterly random second hand records by lunatic pill heads making tunes in their ma's basement

2002-ish everyone switches to computer setups, tunes are uniformly crap for the next five years while 99% of the scene gets far too excited about being able to make loud simple blocky tunes; the loudness wars take off in earnest and everything disappears in a sludge of 200hz boosted white-noise "Pendulum" snares

2007 - present - people start to ease off on the brickwall limiting and explore dynamics again, influenced by the original 2005-2006 dubstep sound, dubstep then collectively downloads Native Instuments "Massive" VST and starts raping the "Brutal Electro" preset with an LFO BPM-synched to the filter cutoff. Dubstep disappears up it's own hole and almost everyone who's actually interesting either goes back to aping 2006 styles or else jumps ship to UK Funky, Garage, Wonky or DnB

Jay D

Cheers lads. Need to get cracking at that this weekend.

Zascar

What exactly are you doing Jay?

Jay D

I've to do a 2000 word essay on how technology has made an impact on popular music (but popular can be any genre). Simple enough, not that much words but still, first time doing this sort of thing in some years since last in education.

FLYNN-DOG

What course u doing jay and where?Sounds great......

Jay D

Sound engineering

Scubadevils

Jay D wrote: »

Sound engineering

Fair play Jay, where did you end up doing it? Did the Pulse course give you the bug to take it further?

Jay D

Felixdhc wrote: »

Fair play Jay, where did you end up doing it? Did the Pulse course give you the bug to take it further?

Yeah they sure did Dave, that was some drug teasing if ever I experienced it

The volume of work is already considerably higher though and not even the full length of that course into this

Scubadevils

Jay D wrote: »

Yeah they sure did Dave, that was some drug teasing if ever I experienced it

The volume of work is already considerably higher though and not even the full length of that course into this

Yeah I'd say so, I loved those two months or whatever the intro course consisted of, would have loved to go on and do further but work and family doesn't leave much time at the moment!

I can imagine its a lot more intense alright, best way though... enjoy it.

eoincody

http://www.gridface.com/features/an_electronic_dance_music_timeline.html

i was just looking at this yesterday