Obviously it is a wide genre of electronic music. However it does have the few defining characteristics. Fast, heavy, distorted and punk influenced pop, jazz, techno and rock sounds along with psychedelic music influences characterize the style. Obviously certain groups, and artists were influenced more strongly by some more than others.

Fat boy Slim, is more funky. The prodigy, are more punk. The chemical Brothers and the Crystal method are more techno.

Producing Big Beat is all about big sound. The drums should be distorted and loud. Vocals can have a punk edge, and also be distorted. Intense bass lines and synthesizer loops are also characteristic of the style.
Fast drops of elements, explosive addition or return of elements, wind and droning noises and extreme work in the stereo field are also common.

This is style of electronic-based music I first got into. The prodigy’s fat of the land album is still a favorite.

Music Producer Pro:
I can teach you about how to use Acid Music Studio. This guy teaches you about everything. Beats, drum bass and guitar, production, and engineering. Very In depth Program. If you really are determined to learn everything about making music, this is for you.
If you want to Produce like a Pro Click This Link

Rhythm Guitar should be centered, but lower. The Rhythm Guitar should be treated as part of the Rhythm section and used to drive the song, it should not be louder than the lead guitar.

Bass should be panned off to the other side about 10%. It should be at a fairly low volume through the whole track. The bass should mix with the drums to create your rhythm section.

Drums should be panned in relation to where the drum being hit, is on the drum kit. Your kick drum should be centered. Snare drums should be panned 10 to 50% to either side depending on their location on the drum kit. Hi hat should be panned 70% or so, to the side it’s located on the drum kit. Symbols can be panned anywhere, as can other percussion. The idea is to give the impression of sitting in front of the drum kit while it’s being played.

Keyboards should be panned to the same side as the bass at about 30%. Depending on the style, determines the volume keyboards should be played. Obviously during keyboard solos; or parts that emphasize keyboards, they need to be louder.

Vocals should always be panned to the center. During verses, and the chorus the vocals should be the loudest element of the song. Additional vocal elements can be panned and set at a volume appropriate for the effect desired.

Standard rock music, and pop music arrangement is as follows( while variations are used for all songs, this is the basic structure used in most rock and pop music):

intro – hook – verse – chorus – verse – chorus – Solo – intro reprisal – chorus – finish

This arrangement, however is typically set aside for more story oriented songs.

For example ’stairway to heaven’.

This is an example of a ‘building song’.

In this arrangement the song starts low and slow, then builds to a grand finale that ends; typically, with a slow finish.

Bohemian Rhapsody, is also a good example of this kind of arrangement.

A jam song, generally has no set arrangement. Lyrics are frequently improvised, as are various elements of the song. Grateful Dead songs, particularly on their live albums exemplify this kind of free form arrangement.

Guide to Song Writing
A superior guide for writing songs. You will learn everything you need to know about writing a song – from the very basics right through to the “complicated” stuff.
Everything you need to know about becoming a professional songwriter is contained within this book.
Get a look at the creative and the business side of things: from the actual how-to-get-a-good-idea right through to marketing your stuff to industry insiders.
Guide to Song Writing

When you set yourself on making a Minimalist techno track, work your drums and bass first and arrange everything else around them. Don’t worry so much about not being repetitive, use pitch and processing to work the drums into something that you could dance to without anything else. Then you can go back through and add some other small elements to show off your style, and flair.

You actually want it to be repetitive. The idea is to get the listeners so zoned on the beat, they dont even care about the rest of the song. Keep the beat strong and heavy. It can be fast, slow, or anything you want. It just needs to be something that keeps them moving.

I personally find it to be an annoying style to make. Its not easy, the precision needed to make the drums, bass and hooks ride true is tiring. I just don’t like music that’s so repetitive.

However I will often work a track as a Minimalist song to start with, then work it to where I want it to go. I figure if its a decent sounding minimalist track, it’ll make a great foundation to base something else on.

Really if you make a good enough Minimalist song, you could base an entire album on it. NEVER WASTE A GREAT BEAT!

If you are working on your beat skills, I suggest working with some Minimalist techno tracks for awhile. Once you have down the art and science of making a good Minimalist song, you can make beats for anything.

As inspiration try listening to some tribal music. The drums are the drive, the other instruments (if there are any) are just there to add color. You are looking to make beats that dig into peoples minds and hearts and grab them, and don’t let go till the songs done. Master that and any dance style is yours for the making.

A little help to spark your creativity
One of my little helpers. If you’ve ever wondered how I can pop out new songs and videos so quickly (the odd ones), this is my secret. Its affordable, and full of cool little tricks to help you boost your creativity.
Unleashing The Creative

When creating a DownTempo track in Acid Music Studio I recommend setting your Beats Per Minute (BPM) fairly low, around 90 to 70. Use slower, hypnotic “groove type” beats, and arrange nice instrumental pieces over it. You can use vocals and other soothing noise in the back ground to help fill out the track.
With DownBeat (same thing) its all about being nice and chilled.

However, there are also countless directions you can take downbeat-downtempo music. Never feel like it has to sound a certain way, it’s YOUR music!

Sounds simple, and the truth is that it is. It only gets hard when you make it hard.

The simplest arrangement is Intro-Verse-Chorus-Bridge-(A solo, for example)-chorus-Finish.

All it really is, is figuring out when instruments start, when the beat starts and when they stop. How often you use your chorus, how long you let a hook ride. If you don’t try to over think everything, the song will “tell you” how it should be arranged.

Style and song feel plays the biggest role in how you arrange a song. Softer songs generally start with a guitar or keyboard intro, then let the beat come in. More exciting songs often start with the bass, or full rhythm section, then add the rest. In your face tracks typically blast you with a loud intro using everything.

The truth is that their are no rules for arranging a song. I know people hate to hear that sort of thing, but its true. Listen to ten rappers and their producers will each have their own style of arranging songs. The same goes for all music. Part of what makes an artists or groups style is how they like to arrange songs.

Some don’t bother at all, or use arrangements loosely. Free style rappers, jam bands like the grateful dead and others, just do what they feel at the time.

Try starting with a Hi-Hat hitting on each beat. Then add your kick in a steady rhythm. Add a clap after every second Kick (kick–Kick–Clap–Kick–Kick–Clap). Then arrange some other percussion around that. Use different sounds in the same rhythms in a rotating pattern. For example use three toms for the first use of your rhythm, then do the same thing with two toms and a snare, then with three snares, then go back to the three toms.

That’s a simple way to assemble a Beat.

Try using a break. Use a single element of your rhythm to keep things going, but drop out the rest of the beat for a short time.

The possibilities are truly only limited by your imagination.

Make your own hip hop beats, without needing thousands of dollars in software and equipment.

First off what you plan to record determines a few things. As does your environment. If you have a studio that’s great, I’m interested in talking to people without a studio. Since we don’t have the benefit of sound booths, professional wiring, and all the other fancy equipment and Microphones Pro studios have, we must use a little ingenuity and imagination.

Lets start with isolating what you’re recording from the backing track. Now unless you have a savant singer, or instrument player, they will need to hear the rest of the track to get their cues. So how do you do it?
The easiest way is to play the track over headphones on a separate computer or player, then record with your main system. If you cant, try isolating the recording mic instead. If you really have no way of keeping the live sound from bleeding into what you’re recording, try your best to position the mic, where it wont pick up as much of the backing track.

I have found that using an amp, and a recording Microphone works best. If you don’t have a USB Mic that plugs into the computer, or an adapter for plugging a standard mic jack into a computer, I have never seen a computer that doesn’t have a plug for an online chatting mic. They don’t pick up sound as good as a real mic, but they get the job done when you can’t afford anything else.
You can use a mic to record directly into the computer if you don’t have an amp, but you lose whatever ambiance the room adds when you go purely digital.

For electric instruments, place your mic about a foot or two away from the amp, for instruments like woodwinds, and strings, set them up close to the recording mic or the amp, and play with where you put the mic till you hit a sweet spot. For recording vocals, you need to differ for the vocalist. Some like to hold onto the mic when they record. For clean singing the mic they sing into should be slightly higher than their chin.

As you can tell there are a lot of variables to deal with. The most important thing to do is try to get the purest recording you can, with what you have. Don’t waste time worrying over what you don’t have, and do your best with what you have on hand. With a little experimentation and trial and error, you can make even the worst equipment work for you.

However I; personally, separate sounds you have bought or recorded yourself, from what is typically thought of as sampling. Probably born from early hip-hop artists, the act of sampling is taking parts of other peoples songs and using them to construct your own. There are several reasons to do this, the most obvious is that if you have no way to make your own songs, sampling lets you get around it. Another reason is that all recordings have a unique character, depending on the instruments used, and where they were recorded. Sampling lets you get a piece of that character.

Near as I can tell, those are the pro’s of sampling other peoples work. The con of sampling; in my opinion, far outweighs the pro’s. It’s copyright infringement. If you want an idea of how that can cause you trouble look up Vanilla Ice, and The Verve. In the case of The verve they had permission to use the sample, but the owner decided they had used too much.

This is why I distinguish between anything you buy, or record yourself and Sampling. I just call the first loops, and anything taken from someone else’s song is a sample. For obvious reasons I don’t ever use samples. Unless it’s something in the public domain, and even then I don’t make it available for sale.

So now you know more about sampling and why you might want to do it, but really shouldn’t. There is a whole world of sounds around you to explore, so why risk the potential trouble of a copyright lawsuit.

Piano For All:
Need help to learn the Keyboards? This Unique program will help you learn how to play in months rather than years. What ever the style you want to play, you can learn it with this program. Gives you the wisdom of a teacher, without the high cost and time to find and hire one.
Another program I thought deserved to be on here. They came up with a way to train you to play thats efficient, but not boring. It actually helps you want to play, rather than discouraging you.
If you want to learn Piano the right way Click this Link

When you play a CD, the reason each track sounds the same volume, the reason some tracks fade out, and others move into the next, is mastering. Its the finishing process of making music. When you put together a mix CD, with songs from different albums, you no doubt notice they often change volume, this is because every CD is a bit different in how its mastered.

You see, different types of music need the emphasis to be on different parts of the sound spectrum. Once everything is ready, the volume of the whole CD is made consistent, and its then burned into a master. The master is then duplicated to make the CD’s that are sold.

Also; contrary to popular misconception, commercial CD’s are not burned like a computer burns one, the information is actually stamped into the back of the disc, and a protective layer is applied, this is why damage to Commercial CD’s can be buffed down. As long as the backing layer (the top of the disc) is undamaged, the information is still intact.

Mastering is an expensive process, involving complex programs and years of learning. Since each album will need to be mastered differently, there is no template, no one size fits all. That is the where the real skill comes in. It is also why most of the mastering for all music albums is handled by a relatively small community of professionals. Another misconception is that’s its part of the studio process, in reality the music is sent out to be mastered, after its been finished.

Musician MasterMind:
A Five Month Program That Teaches Musicians How To Get Their Own Website, Set Up A Marketing System And Make Music Sales From Their Website. Ive been using his system for awhile now, and have gotten some good results from it. If you want to get your sounds out there and dont want to get ripped off by corp-rats, this is the way to go. Its rather pricey but this will teach you everything you need to go from 0 to Big Fucking Star.
Musician MasterMind
Self Promotion Resources to Boost your Music Career:
Myspace guide.
201 Self-Promotion Tips For Songwriters, Musicians And Bands On A Budget.
Lots more about getting your music out there to potential fans.
Musician MasterMind is High end, this is Bargain. Dont get me wrong, the tips in here can take you a long way down the road. If you cant afford MasterMind, these guides will let you pick a subject and master it. The Myspace Promo guide is kickass.
Self Promotion Resources

In this article I’m going to go over how useful a computer actually is. I’m going to compare old-school analog equipment to modern computers, and the programs used by them. To start off with the absolute essential analog recording device, a multi track tape deck. A multi track tape deck allows you to make multiple recordings and play them back at the same time. This lets you take two, three, or more recordings and combine them into one. This lets you record vocals, drums, guitars, keyboards and whatever other instruments being used as separate tracks. Then using the recorder you combine them into one. These multi track tape decks are expensive, and can take up a lot of space. They are also limited in the number of tracks they can use at once. Acid music studio has a number of tracks only limited by your computer’s ability to handle them. The same tracks you would use for loops can be used as a multi track recorder.

Next I’m going to go over effects. There is a vast amount of effects available. In old-school analog recording you needed a rack full of various effect modules. These effects can cause lots of different changes to your music, or the sounds that you use to make it. I will go into all the various effects in a different article. Let me simply say that there are dozens of effects used both with instruments and recording. From the pedals guitar players use, to the reverb effect there are many available. And with traditional hardware each one takes up room, lots of room. If you’ve ever seen footage of the band recording studio you have probably seen what I’m talking about. All those shelves of black boxes with the knobs and switches, with cords leading together. Furthermore most of these effects would be used while recording. Taking away the freedom to apply them later. And on top of all that you have the massive equalization control panel. That’s the big desk with all the sliders and knobs.

A home recording studio using the computer combines all of this equipment into one tool. As long as your computer can handle them it can use as many effects as you want. Including all the traditional effects as well as plenty of very weird ones that you will only find for computers. Including EQ panels. Best of all you can apply these at any time. While the best effects processors do cost money plenty can be found for free. Most of these will plug in directly to your program. Acid music studio has built-in effects. I have also found a number of free ones I have downloaded to use.

The same thing that can be said about effects can be said about MIDI and drum machines. Hardware versions of these machines, and old-school synthesizers which were also modular take up a large amount of space. Certain models would have their own sound just like any instruments, and with any enthusiasts there would be a tendency to collect them. A computer takes all of these tools and gives them to you in a single package. Again the best ones do cost money. However many very nice MIDI, drum machines, and synthesizer programs/plug-ins can be gotten for free.

Piano For All:
Need help to learn the Keyboards? This Unique program will help you learn how to play in months rather than years. What ever the style you want to play, you can learn it with this program. Gives you the wisdom of a teacher, without the high cost and time to find and hire one.
Another program I thought deserved to be on here. They came up with a way to train you to play that’s efficient, but not boring. It actually helps you want to play, rather than discouraging you.
If you want to learn Piano the right way Click this Link

Online Print shop. Pro-Printing for Lots of the things a band needs printing done for.
Sometimes you need stuff printed up. They do it at great prices.
These folks have a solid rep, i trust them.