I was getting some new stuff in my playlist and when going thru the music, the second I heard some vocals on it, like some female singing about love or what a great night she’s going to have or some IMHO similarly stupid vocals like recent Pendulum have I just go like “hmmm… this dounds pretty gay so, deleted”…
Take into consideration this is not the same as sampling vocals which adds since they are kinda repetitive, but more like full fledged songs about whatever…
Do you like your EDM turned into songs? hate em? any good examples?
depends on what you play and the sound youre going for. if youve not figured out your signature sound yet and are just dropping tunes within a specific subgenre then its less important.
Can’t forget the influence of drugs. Everyone I’ve ever talked to at a trance show was either on X or looking for X. Big name DJs might scorn drugs in public, but they know exactly who their audience is in the studio.
I personally think that vocals just get in the way of what’s important: big fat basslines and hard hitting, muted stabs. That, and alot of producers use a vocal track to get away with a boring/lazy arrangement. Eg, any Kaskade track or any of deadmau5’s “progressive” tracks. I think I might make a mix of those to help me fall asleep at night.
After ODing on sugary top40 eurodance in my early EDM years as a kid and teenager, I’ve had a reserved stance on vocals.
Since I started curating my own collection to mix with (deep house/house/tech house/techno) I cut anything with cheesy, overemotional singing in it very early on, under the pretense that “it annoys me and besides, this is club music, the groove should be enough”. Both male/female singing. I hate it when someone ruins a good tune with an orgasmic-ice-cream-eating-voice-for-an-advert
Two major exceptions during this period:
(one of my first vinyls in 2005)
(finally got rid of that one as 1-was a low qual bootleg mp3 2-the cheese became overwhelming).
I don’t play these anymore. Too much.
Not against small samples as it usually works to help the tune.
Then my shit got a bit minimal and sung vocals were a no-no. I didn’t miss them and played entire sets for a few years with nothing in it.
I’m putting some back into my sets, more as it gets housier. Nothing too over the top, it’s usually more muted or whispered voices.
In general let’s say Matthew Dear/Audion/False’s mangled vocals always do it for me:
Gotta find the acapella on this one, works really well
A bit of an exception (yuk @ Hed Kandi artwork. That’s all I could find)
Harder:
More recent :
Tolerated sample usage :
Of course there are some classics where it just works :
(gotta love using the acapella and the James Holden remix is sweet but hard to find)
As for vocals, only enough to hold a strong case of the chills (frissons).
Samples, fuckyeah absolutely. Good driving baselines reaffirmed by epic vocal samples.
Fluffy little clouds
Anything Fear and Loathing related (story of my life)
Anything Blade Runner related
Anything Full Metal Jacket related
Anything Space related - squawks, transponder noise, beeps, chirps…suspended feeling
50/60’s era medical/endurance/testing conversation samples
Some great Depeche Mode samples always bring on the chills
Sade
Erykah Badu
…etc
01. Yamin feat. Marcie - No One (Andy Duguid Remix)
02. Dennis de Laat - Every breath
03. Setrise vs Brand - Tropical Shores
04. Sied van Riel - Sunrise
05. Kismet - Empty streets
06. Dfolt - I come running (Tydi remix)
07. Tenishia feat. Tiff Lacey - Burning from the inside (Dub mix)
08. Sam Sharp - Roundabout (Sander van Doorn main mix)
09. AVB feat. Jaren - Unforgivable - (First State rough mix)
10. Black & Jones - Where u belong (Sied van riel Remix)
11. Tyler Michaud - Renegades (Mat zo remix)
Easton Producer Spotlight
Easton - ID
ID - (Easton remix)
Easton - ID
Daft Punk - Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger (Easton remix)
Push - Universal Nation (Easton remix)
Easton feat. Zoe - Through Loving you (Mike Shiver Catching sun Remix)
My stance towards vocals is quite ambivalent, there are some tunes where the vocals just fit perfectly and I love playing those. But in other cases (probably the majority) vocals can quickly ruin nice instrumentals for me. Right now what likely annoys me the most is the over-usage of short vocal samples as percussive elements in certain types of tech-house, it’s actually to the point that when looking for new tracks I go like “hm, sounds nice” at first and the moment those samples come in it’s “nah, scrap that, let’s look further”. Or african children’s choirs. (In most instances) Way too cliché (and ultimately annoying) - all of it.
But not to slide into too much of a “vocals suck” post, here’s some brilliant tracks incorporating vocals (just off the top of my head, so most fairly recent, one could find many more examples especially when thinking about classic tracks).
I like to pepper my sets with vocal tracks to maintain interest, but I used to really dislike vocal tracks, always thought pure intstruments/electronics could tell a more meaningful story
