so this is maybe a little bit of a strange topic, but I felt like I had to get some tips about this. A little background: When I first started producing, I was doing trance, then turned to a melodic house style. From this music I am used to work with very few samples, most of the sounds are synth based (basslines, melodies, stabs, pads etc.). My ultimate goal, however, is still to produce techhouse, to be more precise in the style of Format:B, Jay Lumen, Joris Voorn or Heartik. Yet I fail miserably - not necessarily that my tracks are ****, but because they all end up in the same melodic (progressive) house style.
I think this is largely based on my workflow, because when listening closely to tracks of the named artists, I feel like there is not much work with synths going on, but it is much more “just” an intelligent way of working with sampling.
So to be a little bit more precise, here are my questions to how:
Am I right, that this techhouse is much more based on samples than on acutally working with synths?
Do you have any good tips to approach this kind of music? Tutorials maybe? The TechHouse tutorial here didn’t help me much to be honest.
I produce tech house, I don’t have any finished tracks released… still learning and experimenting. Don’t get too caught up on sounding exactly like a certain artist… set yourself apart, produce on your own feelings and what sounds good to you.
Maybe buy a really decent tech house sample pack and that will give you the sound of tech house…
chop up some of the loops
shorten them
move the start locator of the loops… creates different rhythms…
create querky stab sounds from vocals and use them as off beat hits to get some rhythm…
various reverbs and FX go along way too.
But yea if its tech house maybe head away from using big melodic sounds and go for minor key short stabby chords…
listen to the artists that u mentioned more…pick out each sound they are using…tech relies very much on drums, bassline and getting that groove…ull get some stabs here, lots vocal hits/stabs,and mel wise very simple like 3 note licks
My productions vary from house to deep-house, tech-house and even techno.
I’ve read it before, but best practice to creating a kind of sound is listening to that particular sound for some time.
Listen carefully. Grasp what has been done.
The producers you mention all rely heavily on a great bassline that’s driving the track. Keep away from progressive sounding saw basses. No heavy cutoff filtering. Everything needs to be smooth.
Another thing you need to master is how to program the beat. Not just the right kick, snare & claps, but also the closed and open hihats. Adding some extra groove with some loops.
Think this track I made is a bit of what you meant:
