Finding Quotes for EDM-style Songs

HRmusic90

HRmusic90

21st Century Digital Boy
I mainly play guitar and work on riffs and songs for hard rock or metal, but I also love working on electronic music as well now and then. My favorite styles are hard trance and dark drum n' bass.
I'm working on a song now, and I decided that it needs some quotes to fill in a few blank areas. One of my Sony loop libraries comes with a few all-purpose quotes, but none of them quite does it. I was wondering, how do EDM musicians decide what quotes to use for their songs? Should I look at my DVD collection and see if anything stands out? Just wondering what other people do.
 
When you say quotes are you talking about using some vocal sections? Like, "I've got the power"? Which, if you heard the original where that sample came from, I have no idea how they found that part to use the selection. That phrase they used is so obscure in the original.
 
Old Ben Franklin and his Poor Richard's Almanac are a veritable treasure trove of wisdom just waiting to be mined for EDM tuneage. Especially in this day and age where kids are just using the same loops over and over. Howsabout throwing some timeless wisdom in the mix? Something like "By failing to prepare you are preparing to fail." or "A penny saved is a penny earned!" would sound ace bumpin' on the dance floor.

Or that guy Plato dropped some bombs too. One could easily picture some 24-hour-party babes being worked out of their pants by such zingers as "Necessity is the mother of invention." You could even loop it in a phasey robot voice.
 
DM60 said:
When you say quotes are you talking about using some vocal sections? Like, "I've got the power"? Which, if you heard the original where that sample came from, I have no idea how they found that part to use the selection. That phrase they used is so obscure in the original.
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Yes. That's what I'm curious about.
 
fat_fleet said:
Old Ben Franklin and his Poor Richard's Almanac are a veritable treasure trove of wisdom just waiting to be mined for EDM tuneage. Especially in this day and age where kids are just using the same loops over and over. Howsabout throwing some timeless wisdom in the mix? Something like "By failing to prepare you are preparing to fail." or "A penny saved is a penny earned!" would sound ace bumpin' on the dance floor.

Or that guy Plato dropped some bombs too. One could easily picture some 24-hour-party babes being worked out of their pants by such zingers as "Necessity is the mother of invention." You could even loop it in a phasey robot voice.
Click to expand...

Nice! That would probably work too because Ban Franklin and Plato was hugely into EDM!
 
HRmusic90 said:
Yes. That's what I'm curious about.
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I am not being a smart a$$ when I say this, but that really is part of the art (some would argue). Taking something that hits you just a certain way, and then using it to spin it into a new direction. I have used a few samples in my tunes, and I was actually inspired by EDM, even though I don't consider my stuff anywhere near EDM. But sampling sounds, dialog, etc. for my songs. I have used it several times as accents for tunes.

My only guidance is, find some tunes that have a cool sound (try Jimmy Hendrix Cross Town Traffic for example, there are some cool nuggets in that tune and it is very repetitive so you can manipulate it is pretty easy), grab it, check to see what key it is in, play around with it.

You will get a lot of misses, but I do think it is a talent that you have to work at to become good at it.
 
HRmusic90 said:
Nice! That would probably work too because Ban Franklin and Plato was hugely into EDM!
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Actually they couldn't have been. Ben Franklin predated EDM by about 200 years. Plato, by over 2000.
But what difference does it make? Why is it better if they are fans of the music they're being quoted in? Doesn't that restrict you to only quoting 15yo mall rats and 30yo software developers?
 
DM60 said:
I am not being a smart a$$ when I say this, but that really is part of the art (some would argue). Taking something that hits you just a certain way, and then using it to spin it into a new direction. I have used a few samples in my tunes, and I was actually inspired by EDM, even though I don't consider my stuff anywhere near EDM. But sampling sounds, dialog, etc. for my songs. I have used it several times as accents for tunes.

My only guidance is, find some tunes that have a cool sound (try Jimmy Hendrix Cross Town Traffic for example, there are some cool nuggets in that tune and it is very repetitive so you can manipulate it is pretty easy), grab it, check to see what key it is in, play around with it.

You will get a lot of misses, but I do think it is a talent that you have to work at to become good at it.
Click to expand...

I think I see what you mean. As I get more into it, I'll develop more of an intuition. Maybe I just need a little patience...
 
fat_fleet said:
Actually they couldn't have been. Ben Franklin predated EDM by about 200 years. Plato, by over 2000.
But what difference does it make? Why is it better if they are fans of the music they're being quoted in? Doesn't that restrict you to only quoting 15yo mall rats and 30yo software developers?
Click to expand...

True!
I wasn't trying to be sarcastic with my first post, just humorous. My mind quickly went to Ben Franklin holding glow sticks and sucking on a pacifier, and I chuckled...
 
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