How to Make Electronic Dance Music

A beginner’s guide to making Electronic Dance Music. In this blog, we’ll go over the basics of what you need to get started making your own EDM tracks.

Introduction

Some people think that making electronic dance music is easy. All you need to do is put some samples together and add a few effects, right? Wrong! If you want to make professional sounding EDM, it takes a lot of hard work and dedication.

In this guide, we’re going to show you how to make electronic dance music that will get people moving on the dance floor. We’ll cover everything from choosing the right equipment to creating catchy melodies and dynamic rhythms. By the end of this guide, you’ll have all the tools you need to make your own EDM tracks that will make the club go wild!

What You Will Need

To make electronic dance music, you will need a computer with a music production program, an audio interface, and a MIDI controller. You will also need a sound system to play your music on.

Getting Started

First, you need to choose your software. There are many different programs out there that can be used to make electronic dance music, but they all have their own strengths and weaknesses. Some are better for beginners, while others are more suited for advanced producers.

Once you’ve chosen your software, it’s time to start making some music! The first thing you’ll need to do is create a basic beat. Start by placing a kick drum on every quarter note, and then add a snare on the two and four. From there, you can start adding other percussion instruments like hi-hats and cymbals.

Once you have your basic beat down, it’s time to start adding some melodies. You can use a MIDI keyboard or controller to play in your melodies, or you can use the built-in piano roll editor in your DAW to draw in notes. Just experiment and see what sounds good!

Finally, don’t forget the bass line! A good bassline is essential for any electronic dance track. Start by playing around with some simple bass patterns, and then add distortion and other effects to really make it thump.

Building the Track

The first step to making any kind of EDM is choosing the right tempo. EDM is almost always between 125 and 150 beats per minute (BPM). Once you’ve chosen your tempo, it’s time to start building your track.

The basic structure of an EDM song is intro, build, drop, outro. The intro and outro can be anywhere from 8 to 32 bars long, and the build and drop are usually 32 bars each.

In the intro, you’ll want to introduce the main elements of your song. This is a good time to add a synth line or drum loop that will be prominent in the rest of the track.

The build is where things start to get exciting. This is where you’ll add more and more elements to the track, building up anticipation for the drop. At the very end of the build, you’ll want to add a crash or clap to signify the end of the build and the beginning of the drop.

The drop is where all the elements of your track come together for an epic dance moment. This is usually where the bassline comes in, along with any additional synth lines or percussion. The drop should be 4 to 8 bars long.

After the drop, you’ll want to let things settle down for a bit with an 8-bar outro. This is a good time to bring back in any elements from the intro that were left out during the build and drop.

Building an EDM track can seem daunting at first, but once you get started it’s really just a matter of layering different sounds on top of each other until you create something you’re happy with.

Adding the Finishing Touches

Now that you have the basic framework of your song, it’s time to add the finishing touches. In this section, we’ll cover EQing, reverb, and other effects that will help give your track a polished, professional sound.

EQing is the process of adjusting the balance of frequencies in a track. For example, if you want your kick drum to sound punchier, you would boost the low frequencies. If you want your hi-hats to sound brighter, you would boost the high frequencies.

Reverb is an effect that simulates the sound of an impulse reflecting off of surfaces in a room. This gives your track a sense of space and depth. You can add reverb to individual tracks or to the entire mix.

Other common effects include compression, which evens out the level of a track; delay, which creates echo effects; and filtering, which allows you to remove certain frequencies from a track.

Experiment with different EQ settings and effects until you find something that sounds good to you. There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to mixing and mastering, so use your ears as your guide.

Conclusion

In conclusion, making electronic dance music is a process that requires both creativity and technical expertise. With the right tools and a little bit of practice, you can create professional-sounding tracks that will get people moving on the dance floor.