Help Me Better Appreciate EDM

[KissingSunlight]

I have a very eclectic taste in music. I am always willing to have an open ear for all music genres. I have to admit EDM is challenging to me. I have a hard time critiquing it beyond, "It has a good beat. You can dance to it."

There are a ton of different subgenres to EDM that is confusing to me. For example: Is the "Garage" part of the "House"?

Can anyone help me understand and appreciate EDM better? What do you listen for in a good EDM song? What's makes one track better than the other? Maybe provide some links to help explain EDM. Also, what would be some cheap software or downloads you would recommend to get. If I want to experiment making my own tracks. Anything else that you can think of like recommending artists to check out. I would appreciate that very much.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Here I thought you wanted help appreciating Edmonton. And I was all ready to chime in with "LOL THERE'S NO APPRECIATING EDMONTON YOU ARE SOL".

You ruined a perfectly good joke that no one would have appreciated anyway, because this isn't HFBoards and no one is using three letter acronyms to refer to cities.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

I don't know anything about subgenres (I don't like them in general), neither can I really explain anything about the culture, but I freaking love Pendulum and Knife Party (they're partly composed of the same people). Some of their tracks are borderline interchangeable between the groups, but in general Knife Party are more aggressive and heavy, whereas Pendulum does more atmosphere and party-oriented stuff. Pendulum went on hiatus in 2011, but it seems they're making a comeback, since I saw them on the performer list for a festival this summer.

Some example tracks:

Spoiler: Pendulum

Spoiler: Knife Party

 

[KissingSunlight]

Here I thought you wanted help appreciating Edmonton. And I was all ready to chime in with "LOL THERE'S NO APPRECIATING EDMONTON YOU ARE SOL".

You ruined a perfectly good joke that no one would have appreciated anyway, because this isn't HFBoards and no one is using three letter acronyms to refer to cities.

I used to visit Edmonton when I was in high school. I really appreciated that their drinking age was 18 years old.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

As an old raver, I could post a bit, though it'd be heavily biased towards my own preferences of course. However as someone with a job I have to go to work now, so it'll have to wait until evening.

I could post the link to whatever his fuckin name is.org that has a big spider diagram of "EDM", but it's kinda out of date, nowadays...just like me.

 

[Skin]

If you want your own software, you can purchase or "acquire" Fruity Loops (FL Studio) and with a few tutorial videos on youtube you can start experimenting with sounds. Big Room is probably one of the easiest genres to start producing because of how simplistic the drops can be and everything before that you can make sound good with some sampling.

I am by no means an expert, but I have dappled with the software for a few months and made some tracks and alot of <1 minute samples.

An appreciation of skill required to make songs comes with alot of time, listening to alot of genres and trying to produce yourself. However, appreciation of skill does not necessarily translate into music you enjoy listening to. There are many artists producing in very niche genres that requires a huge amount of skill but it may not sound good to you.

 

[Dizchu]

Depends what counts as "EDM" and what counts as just "electronic". I love lots of electronic music but I don't listen to it for the intention of dancing. However I'll try finding some stuff that has nice beats and grooves.

Spoiler: DANCE MUSIC

^(music video is cool too)

 

[Vicarious Reality]

I have a hard time explaining it beyond, "It has a good beat. You can dance to it."

Spoiler: I mostly listen to old trance, when i am not checking out new stuff like electro dubstep

After a while you know which artists put effort in, instead of randomly dispensing triplets and whistles