I have found this week quite a challenge. Techno is an exacting art form. Melody is stripped away; chords are gone. What’s left behind is rhythm, some power, and a fundamental drive. Producing techno is like looking into a microscope: the effect of every little change seems magnified; the timing of each sound demands much more scrupulous attention, and the accumulation of the composition has to be be tightly managed. 

I feel nervous about uploading this track because I feel like I haven’t done a good enough job in some of these areas. That though is the purpose of the website and why I have taken on this project. I could (and probably would have) spend hours refining the track, but perhaps I’m better off taking what I’ve learned and putting it into the next techno track. There are, after all, plenty of weeks to go! 

In that spirit then, here is what I’ve learned:

*I almost certainly used too many drum elements. 

*The timing of many sounds, and in particular several of the drums, is not tight enough, reminding me of looking through a dirty pair of glasses. 

*The low end rumble also needed some more work. 

*The overall musical message isn’t clear – many different parts competing for attention. 

*On a more technical note, although I’m not a fan of the loudness wars, and making everything sound as loud as possible, a track can’t be ridiculously quiet either. For some reason the way I mixed this track meant that in order to bring the track up to an acceptable loudness level I had to squash far too much dynamic range, which did suck a little life an breath from th production.

I’ll leave you with an irony: although you don’t hear it as much now as you used to, there can still be a perception that writing dance music is easy, and perhaps even that a computer could do it. Techno, with harmonies and melodies stripped away, should, those folk might say, be the easiest form to write. Just slap a few drums into a track, add a little repeating bassline, some enharmonic tones up top and you’re done. 

Right? 

Damn wrong.