What happened to?

[Guest djnemo]

Ok, here is a question that has been bugging me for a while. It seems that everyone nowadays (now this goes for mostly full on, so not everyone i KNOW) uses so damn minimalistic drumsets? And why is it that noone uses the open hats of the 909 anymore? The drums in the 808, 909 are so frikking good and powerful, yet everyone seems to avoid them a lot.

 

I can understand that you want to create something new, but I miss the energy of good old acid trance beats. Where you had this 4/4 open hihat that just came in at the right moment and brought the track to a top that is undescribeable.

 

It is very conservative of me, I know, but I just love those drums so much. AND I think that blipping bassdrum, has become over used (Now, I do use that one as well I have to admit, but not as much as everyone else).

 

Whats your thoughts about this? Is the 909 and 808 going away from our style of music? I hope not, I sure know that I will use those sounds a LOT in the future too.

 

I am NOT by any means saying that those are the only good sounding drum machines out there, and that I am not using other drum machine sounds than those, I just recognized that they are not as widely used as they were before...

 

Hope this makes sense, today is not my best day of explaining and writing hehe.

[Spindrift]

I do like a straight driving open hh myself.

The grittyness of the 909 though can sometimes be a bit to heavy for my liking, and also in the olden days i tried to tone it down by EQ'ing a bit myself.

Although I can't say I used 909 hi hats myself for years, I think the quest of making everything sound new and fresh can turn in to very bland results most of the time.

No doubt the 909 ohh works, that is of course the reason that no other drummachine comes close in how much it's been used in all types of dance genres, except the 808 of course.

 

So...what am i getting at...don't know really

I'm sure glad that every track don't have the same percussion still, and I understand that a sound with with higher resolution can go better with todays crisper productions, but still advocate the old "if it ain't broke don't fix it".

 

In general about the constant need for new sounds, melodies and rythms it sometimes puzzels me why that is.

I have been spending quite much time in Bengal with a "baul".

They are musicians and poets singing about religious stuff.

A bit similar to the more well known qwawali music (for example Nusrat Fahte Ali Khan or Sabri brothers), although hindus instead of muslims.

These forms of music is based on thousands of years old litlle melody snippets "ragas" and rythms "tals".

The improvise quite a bit, but constantly using the same old favourite tried and tested "sequences" and rythms.

How come that the same melodies and rythms sounds great even if they hear them every day, and have done so for generations?

 

For me the reason i can be amazed how good the same rythm sounds time after time is the amount of passion and inspiration they play them with.

Not sure how well it translates to non-live music like trance all the time.

But still, in my ears it's much more important that i can hear that the person who made the track was not struggling to find something new, but rather was enjoying and getting inspired by the stuff he puts down.

Then it really doesn't matter if some elements is used before for ages, an inspired track is an inspired track and will inspire the listener normally as well

[Taika-Kim]

Fullon is popular, so the people who want their tracks to be popular use the sounds that are "current".

 

People who just make the music for the love of it, use whatever they want.

 

I use those driving offbeat ohs in 99% of my songs