Becoming a Glitchy McGlitcherson

[UnderpΩny]

So... I've never made glitch before. I'm very interested in the genre though, and it's something I'd like to have a go at. I've been experimenting, with varied success. Eventually, I want to be able to successfully incorperate glitch techniques into my final composition for A-Level Music Tech. The brief this year gives a lot of freedom, so I can really get creative and make something that stands out.
So, does anyone have any good tips or techniques I could try out, or things they've stumbled upon while experimenting themselves?
Also, one of the best ways (for me) to learn new techniques is to listen to a lot of music within the genre and then basically try and emulate the things I liked. So does anyone know of any really interesting artists I could try out?

[Pinkie Cake]

I could suggest you to listen to Cex's first two albums, best glitch i've heard. Aphex Twin is also a notabe glitch abuser

examples:
Cex




Aphex Twin


The Flashbulb

Squarepusher

[Whitetail]

Well there's plenty of glitch samples out there on the internet for you to use, like these:
http://www.laptopnoise.com/freeglitch.htm

But one of the best ways to make glitch music is to make your own glitches, so basically take a CD with music on it, anything - and do horrendous things to it, scratch it up, burn it, basically destroy this CD in any way possible that is still in tact enough for it to play out of a normal CD player (I'd imagine the cheaper, the better since computers will probably just give you a "can't read" or something) - and interesting suggestion I found on a thread once was to tape it to your shoe, read side down, and walk around for a little bit on a rough surface. Play it back and record it's playback, you should get some interesting sounds.

Other techniques can include things like circuit-bending (basically open it up and do things that aren't supposed to be done with it's circuits) noise-making toys and recording the weird sounds they make before they finally die out on you (in some cases you can circuitbend something in a way that it still remains usable, or at least doesn't die soon after).

Have old hardware that doesn't do anything but make horrible sounds? Sample it!

Basically to make Glitch music it's a lot of sampling and audio manipulation, render your leads individually and reimport that audio into the track, no chop it up and play with it, etc. etc.

In most Glitch music I've heard (that's actually musical, and not just a random assortment of hardware failure sounds with no tonality or rythmatic center to them) the glitch sounds are used for the Drums but with audio manipulation you can take it many, many different ways.

Probably my favorite Glitch artist is Cex, I find his stuff pretty inspiring since he was the first Glitch artist I had heard that tried to make something more then "just a random assortment of static sounds," though Venetian Snares experiments with glitch type samples in a lot of his songs - it seems to be a fairly common interest in IDM producers (as for the genre itself, it seems to normally be classified as IDM or Ambient, but really the only thing in common with most glitch producers is their use of glitch sounds adapted into a genre which normally doesn't use that sort of thing).




Also it's probably a given, but check db_Glitch for some easy glitch type sounds for instrument parts
Also random, seemingly pointless automation variations in the lead parts can help in general (pretty much what db Glitch does).


Dangit Pinkie, you sniped me on Cex

[Aussie]

I'd like to think I'm good at making glitchy noises.

What I do is I take random samples, cut them up into really small pieces, CTRL + V the fuck out of them, transpose random parts, then run dblue Glitch, E-Phonic LOFI, or Stutter Edit through it all.

IDK, maybe you can try that too.

[Whitetail]

Basically with Glitch, there's no such thing as a bad sample
Sample EVERYTHING

[UnderpΩny]

Wow. Thanks Derpy! Great advice, and those free glitch sound effects will definately come in handy. I hadn't really considered scratching up CD's and stuff like that - Also considering the practical side of what I can actually do with what I've got, it's something I'd like to try but may not be able to. Always a bit of a problem for me... I wanted to get some field recordings, for a bit of atmosphere, but in the end I found a website with some free ambient recordings available.
Anyways, how could I go about glitching up a synth part, at the end of a riff or something... wait, don't tell me. I guess I'll try sampling it, cutting it up, then playing around and seeing what I can get out of it.

Topic is still open, if anyone else has advice.

[Sugarholik]

scratch it up, burn it, basically destroy this CD in any way possible that is still in tact enough for it to play out of a normal CD player

Dangit!
Suddently I have an irresistable urge to get a CD and a hammer...
This should be fun! ^^

[Whitetail]

Well note it has to be playable by some measure
Maybe try a sander or something, I'm honestly not sure what works best

Also one thing to try if possible would be using casette tapes, something tells me if you damaged their film they'd be more likely to yield something that'd play back then a CD BUT they're also much more fragile

[Sugarholik]

Well note it has to be playable by some measure

Yah, I figured that out. Totally analog thingies like casettes or vinyls might be good, but nowadays they are quite rare so I'll have to manage with CDs.
Can't wait to start glitchin'!
Also I'll let you know if I come up with a good way to partially demolish CDs.

[Mundius]

Isn't there a Glitch VST that affects a track? Like, this one? http://illformed.org/plugins/glitch/

Derpy, you posted this one a while ago, I'm amazed you don't remember it.

[Applejinx]

I just found a youtube with little chiptunes from ONE line of C code. I could see generating samples this way

[bartekko]

I just found a youtube with little chiptunes from ONE line of C code. I could see generating samples this way

C plus Music? YAY, I can my two favourite things together