Wikihow Published a Totally Easy, Eight-Step Guide to Producing Techno
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Wikihow Published a Totally Easy, Eight-Step Guide to Producing Techno

Could WikiHow turn you into a super producer in just eight steps?

Listening to music is great and everything but there comes a time when, as a listener, you find yourself getting itchy. You want to be in control. You want to start making your own music. It's not easy though, is it? To suddenly switch roles, to suddenly become the person in control. I'm speaking from experience here, as a man who tried to do that once, just once, and created this piece of…whatever the fuck that is. That itch still lurked though, so after a prolonged period of idleness I felt it was time to come out of retirement and have a long, hard scratch.

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I could have paid for some new software and spunked the pitiful remains of the month's wages on a drum machine and a rinky-dink USB keyboard or a stylophone or a kazoo, but instead I turned to the internet for help. WikiHow, that great depository of incredibly well constructed educational and entertaining guides to pretty much everything, was where I sought solace.

I didn't want to just make any old music, though. What I wanted to make was what WikiHow called "techno dance music" because I like both techno and dance music so if I'm going to make another banger or two, I might as well do it within a generic framework that I admire and enjoy. WikiHow, in its infinite crowdsourced knowledge, reckoned that I could go from zero to techno dance music hero in eight simple steps. What followed made about as much as sense as you'd expect it to, I.E. less than none.

With that in mind, I decided to rate each of the eight stages for usefulness. Would I come out of the other side ready to take on the world? You'll have to read on the find out…

1. Develop your music theory knowledge.

Their advice: "This is useful if not necessary for writing music."
Our thoughts: A spectacularly unsolid start here from the usually knowledgeable gang over at WikiHow, with advice so strange and non-specific that it seems like not even they believe it. Other things that are "useful if not necessary for writing music" include having hands, possessing the gift of perfect pitch, and being Mozart.
Usefulness: 3/10

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2. Know your way around a computer.

Their advice: "This is not necessary but is the leading way of producing techno music."
Our thoughts: I admire WikiHow's honesty here. It's like they initially released this guide to creating techno dance music and really brazenly claimed that computers are the ONLY way to make techno dance music and some beardy guys who make techno dance music using machines made of sawdust and old circuit boards got very annoyed about the way the multi-brained boffins at WikiHow HQ had denied them a voice. I also admire how the guy in the drawing has the sleepily-aroused look of a stoner currently into the 45th minute of a YouPorn browse. He's not even going to whip it out now. He's just going to survey all he sees until he passes out with eight porn tabs and Keith Chegwin's Wikipedia page burbling away.
Usefulness: 3/10

3. Choose a music program.

Their advice: "Follow this step only if you have a computer."
Our thoughts: Hold up, WikiHow mate! Only one step ago—the third of eight simple steps towards techno dance music success—you were telling me that knowing my way around a computer was a pivotal part of the process. And now you're sort of suggesting that I, maybe, don't actually need one? That, actually, the way forward is to buy one of those old machines made of sawdust and old circuit boards, that, maybe, the beardy lads mentioned above were right to get annoyed. I've got a computer though, and I'll be damned if I leave the old girl to gather dust, so I guess I better boot up an old copy of eJay Dance & House Double Pack and start throwing together some absolutely top tier techno dance music for the heads out there. I've got the software, I've got the ideas…now what?
Usefulness: 3/10

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4. Add percussion.

Their advice: "Being the backbone of a song, many artists start by laying down a drum line. Many seem complex but can be broken down into simpler pieces."
Our thoughts: Put a banging donk on it!
Usefulness: 3/10

5. Add second layer.

Their advice: "With a drum line established, you have more of a choice now. You may choose to put down a Bass line or a Synth line. Either works but you may prefer to start with a Bass because it feels like the natural progression."
Our thoughts: "Add second layer" is actually a really fucking great euphemism for "do all of the actual creative work necessary to turn an idea into an actuality," and I plan on using it a lot in the near future. When friends down the pub ask me how the novel's going I'll confidently slap my pint down on the table and say, "Yeah, not so bad actually, just adding the second layer to it." When my mum asks me how the hoovering's going she'll get a firm but fair, "just about to do the second layer, mum." My life will be a happier one. A better one. A life with—finally!—a real second layer.
Usefulness: 3/10

6. Add a third layer.

Their advice: "Go back to step 5 and lay down another line of what you didn't put in earlier."
Our thoughts: Foiled again! There I was thinking that my world was immediately brighter, that I'd been let into the big secret that'd free me from my humdrum shackles, but no. There is no quick and easy "add a second layer" in this life. You've just got to go back and add more and more layers, you've got to create and craft what's effectively a steaming potato dauphinoise of techno dance music that even the fussiest eater in your life would happily wolf down. And that's not easy. God, maybe this making music thing, any music, not just techno dance music, is harder than following eight steps supplied by WikiHow. Fuck.
Usefulness: 03/10

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7. Add sound FX and extras.

Their advice: "With your song in its basic form, it's time to add some detail. Many songs will add "chopped up" or distorted lyrics at this point. Many artists also prefer to splurge a little and add noises that aren't inherently musical. A great example is "Ping Pong" by Bassnectar"
Our thoughts: Being a UK based fan of techno dance music, I hadn't come across "Ping Pong" by Bassnectar before. Having now listened to it for the first time I can't honestly say I enjoyed it, but I'm still impressed the track was produced using WikiHow.
Usefulness: 3/10

8. Publish.

Their advice: "There are many ways to get your work out. One recommended option is to post it to your favourite music forum or to a Google+ community or other social media."
Our thoughts: Do you remember the glory days, the halcyon days, those happy golden days of yore when Web 2.0 emerged from its cocoon and spread its wings of content as wide as it could? How it tricked us all into believing that it was a good thing? That the Internet was all about self-publishing and self-control and self-curation? When, in actuality, all that it resulted in were a million bad blogs that were nothing more than really bad cultural studies essays about the links between Burial and Pieter Bruegel? What a time to have lived through though. What an honor, what a privilege. Luckily for those of us starved of Flickr accounts and Holy Moly, WikiHow's confident that self-publishing is the best way to get your Techno Dance Music out there. And there you have it: if Jeff Mills had been born in 1996, he'd be smashing the fuck out of Google+ right now.
Usefulness: 3/10

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