Finding Your 'Sound'

Right Turn Clyde

Have any of you struggled to find your particular sound? I'm all over the place. It's house and soul one month, and EBM and industrial the month after that. Then it will be something else, and something else, etc. It's great to have different tastes, and I love hunting for new music regardless of genre. But those different tastes mean that I've a box of records that don't really go together. I realise that the greatest DJs can stitch anything together, but to my ears some things just don't work along side each other. I'm just wondering what have other people done in this situation. Did you deliberately pick a certain type of sound, i.e. house/soul/funk, and stick to it? Or did you just naturally find your rhythm? Cheers.

Maysa07

Right Turn Clyde wrote: »

Have any of you struggled to find your particular sound? I'm all over the place. It's house and soul one month, and EBM and industrial the month after that. Then it will be something else, and something else, etc. It's great to have different tastes, and I love hunting for new music regardless of genre. But those different tastes mean that I've a box of records that don't really go together. I realise that the greatest DJs can stitch anything together, but to my ears some things just don't work along side each other. I'm just wondering what have other people done in this situation. Did you deliberately pick a certain type of sound, i.e. house/soul/funk, and stick to it? Or did you just naturally find your rhythm? Cheers.

To me nobody has a "Sound". I listening to everything, once it's good it's good.
deep house one day, Techno the other.

ianuss

I wouldn't bother trying to chase a sound, you'll only end up with records you're not really that into.

Right Turn Clyde

Thanks guys. I don't think I'm trying to 'chase' a sound. I guess I'm just trying to tie down my scatterbrain tastes so as to give myself a bit of direction. But I'm sure you're right. Just go with the flow. Follow your ears.

djerk

id be in the same boat as yourself clyde, most of my sets would be quite varied in their genre at times, i think it just takes a bit more work to make the tracks flow from one to the other, not relying so much on the tempo and beats of tracks and using different mixing techniques and eq/effects creatively. the more you practice i guess the more youll learn to get a feel for it and to stitch things together. heres a set with a mixed bag of styles i put together a while back if you wanna have a listen. sometimes i prefer to go this method, sometimes its nice to play a straight set in a particular bpm range, pulling and pushing the grooves etc.

http://www.mixcloud.com/dyer/oscillate/

Right Turn Clyde

djerk wrote: »

id be in the same boat as yourself clyde, most of my sets would be quite varied in their genre at times, i think it just takes a bit more work to make the tracks flow from one to the other, not relying so much on the tempo and beats of tracks and using different mixing techniques and eq/effects creatively. the more you practice i guess the more youll learn to get a feel for it and to stitch things together. heres a set with a mixed bag of styles i put together a while back if you wanna have a listen. sometimes i prefer to go this method, sometimes its nice to play a straight set in a particular bpm range, pulling and pushing the grooves etc.

http://www.mixcloud.com/dyer/oscillate/

Great advice. Cheers. I'll check out your mix. Sounds good.

mrg123

djerk wrote: »

id be in the same boat as yourself clyde, most of my sets would be quite varied in their genre at times, i think it just takes a bit more work to make the tracks flow from one to the other, not relying so much on the tempo and beats of tracks and using different mixing techniques and eq/effects creatively. the more you practice i guess the more youll learn to get a feel for it and to stitch things together. heres a set with a mixed bag of styles i put together a while back if you wanna have a listen. sometimes i prefer to go this method, sometimes its nice to play a straight set in a particular bpm range, pulling and pushing the grooves etc.



Lovely mix man! Some nice sounds to kick start my morning. I'm kind of in this spot aswell, One day I'll be listening to dark techno and the next trip hop, ambient or something else! I don't think I could stick to just one genre anyway, it would be too boring..

Executive Steve

Buy what moves you, I really regret having been so focused in my record buying over the years, some great tunes I let slip through my fingers because I didn't think I'd ever get much use out of them or because I didn't feel they represented where I felt I was at.

Whatever about the merits or otherwise of being associated with a sound when it is time to look for gigs or put on nights, there's lessons to be learned about mixing from every genre under the sun - you'll approach things very differently when you're playing techno than you will approach things when you're playing drum and bass, and you'll learn and develop techniques and routines that will be applicable and transferable out of whichever field has inspired you to try them.

Executive Steve

I also very much tend to compartmentalise my listening though - apart from hunting for tunes to play, and listening to a few podcasts and shows I only really listen to Drum and Bass when I'm mixing it or when I'm out, the rest of listening time is anything from 70's Dub albums to Free Jazz to Gabber to Classical to Miami Bass to Hip Hop to Footwork to old trad songs, and my ears and my heart are the happier for it I think. Especially if you're making music it's better to listen outside of what you're trying to achieve in the hope of bringing whatever you find there into your music rather than writing to fit your own straitjacketed idea of what a piece of techno or house or dubstep should sound like - the latter is responsible for thousands and thousands of the most boring generic tracky bollocks ever recorded clogging up all the Beatport charts, the former is the path to originality and personal satisfaction.