Book Snippets
Wolfgang Gartner
His name is one of the biggest in dance music. We talk to the electro-house master about ‘wtf sounds’, when to abandon a mix and the importance of hard work.
How do you see the dance music industry developing over the next two to three years?
I see it developing in a big way! It already is. You look at people like David Guetta doing collaborations with Akon and such, and you see more and more people embracing dance music. It’s really on the rise here in America too, which is exciting because it had a pretty bad lull here in the early 2000s. Some people think mass consumption of dance music is a bad thing. I feel the other way. The more people who get into it, the more people will start producing, and it just leads to more talent, more music and more of what we love.
When mixing, what do…
The Bassics
supplying low-end energy, rhythmic balls and occasionally cracking melodies, the bass can make or break a track.
The most important relationship in dance music is between the kick drum and the bassline – the king and queen mix elements that have the power to drive a dancefloor wild and the sonic foundations upon which the rest of the production is built. Get it right and you’re halfway to a hit.
The key to getting the two working together is picking a kick and bass that complement each other, rather than fighting each other for frequency space and impact.
As a general rule of thumb, if the kick is high in low-mid energy (the kind of cracking kicks used in nu-rave, electro or disco), the bass should sit below it, while if the kick is laden with low-end energy (like minimal 808 subs that…
Pads - The Backing Sound
Pads are to the synth world what the string section is to the orchestra. They primarily occupy a space in the mid-range, adding a rich, tonal bed that ‘pads’ out the mix. Sounds can range from smooth and warm to shimmering, ghostly textures. Thanks to their strong, but often subtle, mid-range presence, they are ideal for mapping out a track’s chord progression and reinforcing the lead.
The simplest pad sounds come from old analogue polysynths like the Roland Jupiter 8. Newer digital synths have a far wider palette for creating exotic textures than the classic analogues, especially wavetable synths, which are ideal for creating interesting moving textures. To make a big pad stack several oscillators in ascending octaves and use subtle amounts of detuning and chorus/ensemble effects on them…
Anatomy of A Track - Electro-House
Introduction
Fat pumping basslines, searing synth leads and chunky beats are the key ingredients of an electro-house bomb. Putting them together into a workable arrangement requires a knack for creating memorable riffs, chopping up hooks and considering the effect of an arrangement on the dancefloor.
In contrast to the more linear arrangement typical of tech/minimal, electro-house and fidget tracks are made up of clear ‘sections’, usually based on a synth line or chord progression, that turn around every four, eight or, very occasionally, 16 bars. As the song progresses, these sections are repeated and modified by using different combinations of synth and drum elements.
A good technique is to perfect an eight or 16 bar segment of the hook first, with all drums and edits locked down,…
Walthrough - Electro
Up-front electro-house bass sounds are loud and proud, taking equal inspiration from rhythmic and lead bass styles. Swing can be used to add more bounce and sidechain compression is used aggressively for added pump. A good synth is a prerequisite for authentic electro tones. Choose one with multiple oscillators and modulation sources. Try creating riffs with call and response lines, and juggle these between two or more synths to create variations on the hook.
Use the LFO to modulate the filter cutoff point and create tempo-driven wobbles that cut across the groove. To help keep things tight, ensure that the LFO is set to re-trigger with each new note and that it is bpm-synced.
It’s also worth experimenting with the LFO phase and polarity/direction parameters as this can help tighten up or…
