# Writing Djent?



## JamieB (Jan 14, 2011)

Recently Being throwing in Djent riffs, left right and centre into my songs but they always seem to have a form of cheeseyness (Cant think of the correct term to use) to them. Anybody got any techniques or ways that they write djent style riffs.


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## troyguitar (Jan 14, 2011)

0 0 00 000 00000 00000000 00 0 0 0 0 0 0 00 00 0 10100100010010101001010


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## JamieB (Jan 14, 2011)

Nice reply but im not a 0 0 0 person unless its heavily accentuated and beefs up some progressive brilliance.

But thanks for gettin back much apreciated


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## Tones (Jan 14, 2011)

troyguitar said:


> 0 0 00 000 00000 00000000 00 0 0 0 0 0 0 00 00 0 10100100010010101001010




make sure you have 4 Tubescreamers and at least 3 noise gates. 
but really.. you can spice it up with some bends and sudden breaks here and there. i guess


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## vampiregenocide (Jan 14, 2011)

I start with clean sections or lead parts, and write djent rhythms over them.


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## Winspear (Jan 14, 2011)

vampiregenocide said:


> I start with clean sections or lead parts, and write djent rhythms over them.



I'm definately thinking this is the way to go. You probably come from a metal 'write a riff' background like me and are approaching this music the same way.

I'm listenting to a lot of melodic ambient type djent like Chimp Spanner and Jakub Zytecki and definately think the best approach would be to come up with chord progresions on clean guitar or synth pad, or lead melodies. A 'random' (but effective) rhythm can easily be thrown underneath on bass guitar and drums.


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## JamesM (Jan 14, 2011)

My 

"I wanna write a djent riff here..." is a terrible way of writing music.


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## loktide (Jan 14, 2011)

troyguitar said:


> 0 0 00 000 00000 00000000 00 0 0 0 0 0 0 00 00 0 10100100010010101001010


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## Stealthdjentstic (Jan 14, 2011)

EtherealEntity said:


> I'm definately thinking this is the way to go. You probably come from a metal 'write a riff' background like me and are approaching this music the same way.
> 
> I'm listenting to a lot of melodic ambient type djent like Chimp Spanner and Jakub Zytecki and definately think the best approach would be to come up with chord progresions on clean guitar or synth pad, or lead melodies. A 'random' (but effective) rhythm can easily be thrown underneath on bass guitar and drums.



Jakub is much more of a progressive metal musician with a similar tone as those math metal guys..


If you want to learn to write in the style by best suggestion would be to learn some of the most popular artists songs. Obviously that means loads of Periphery.


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## elite8 (Jan 14, 2011)

The Armada said:


> My
> 
> "I wanna write a djent riff here..." is a terrible way of writing music.



and your just such a genius, magic just comes to you the second your fingers lay across the fretboard...


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## clouds (Jan 14, 2011)

elite8 said:


> and your just such a genius, magic just comes to you the second your fingers lay across the fretboard...


 That's not even what he said anyway.


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## Quax (Jan 14, 2011)

The Armada said:


> My
> 
> "I wanna write a djent riff here..." is a terrible way of writing music.


/sign

You should base your riffs, licks and ideas on you emotions, not the need to write in a certain style and/or getting appreciated. If that comes out as Djent, that's fine, but if it comes out as, well, I don't know, progressive R'n'b - that should be also fine.

Also, just my


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## JamieB (Jan 14, 2011)

Ok to answer everyone im not a metal write a riff guy

Ive never wrote as such a metal song i was brought up on pink floyd so ive always been a progressive writer and usually write things in my head then put in on instruments but thanks for your input i like the idea of working off of a chord progression i do this alot of the time anyway

and i always base my music off of emotions and ways im feeling never to fit a style. My enitial question was how do you guys aproach writing such riffs. I also said that djent riffs are just happening but coming out a little bit cheesey.

and what the hell are the 

Thanks to everyone for there input by the way really appreciate it been a n00b to seven string.org


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## All_¥our_Bass (Jan 14, 2011)

Tones said:


> 3 noise gates.


Bulb *actually has*(or had) 3 noise gates in his rig!!

Although one is/was built into the amp so it didn't exactly count but still.


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## JamesM (Jan 14, 2011)

clouds said:


> That's not even what he said anyway.



 

Didn't even imply that.


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## Eric Christian (Jan 15, 2011)

JamieB said:


> Recently Being throwing in Djent riffs, left right and centre into my songs but they always seem to have a form of cheeseyness (Cant think of the correct term to use) to them. Anybody got any techniques or ways that they write djent style riffs.


 
How about just play a bunch of completely random notes in odd timings with lots of 1/8 & 1/16 rests and you should be good.


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## Barney (Jan 15, 2011)

"djent" is lame. It's a stupid trend that will be over in a few years. 
Of course the "genre" will breed some good and original bands, but this kind of attitude 
("let's write some djent") won't get you anywhere...


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## alexguge (Jan 15, 2011)

Maybe this will help Urban Dictionary, January 15: wall an hb


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## clouds (Jan 15, 2011)

The Armada said:


> Didn't even imply that.


Actually I was referring to you, when you mentioned how wanting to write a djent riff was a bad approach. The op was only asking for tips/guidance, and I got the impression metal isn't a genre he is particularly familiar with writing, as confirmed by a later post. Never mind .


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## Hallic (Jan 15, 2011)

something that fellsilent/monuments do is using some deadnotes rhythmic parts. Other than that: using odd timing can spice it a bit up indeed.


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## ZackP3750 (Jan 15, 2011)

Play what sounds good and is fun to play. Don't be intimidated by other music; for the longest time I've been dead-set on metal and writing heavy riffs, but it can get repetitive fast. Just try mixing it up, if you can't come up with something on an ERG, pick up an acoustic and fiddle around, you'd be surprised how your thinking process changes when you switch guitars


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## Tomo009 (Jan 15, 2011)

A lot of people seem to be missing what I think the OP is trying to do.

A lot of it comes from the tone, I'm no regular with the sound, but I believe a lot of it has to do with EQ settings, compression and a heavy picking technique. From there it's mostly just playing any groove that comes into your head. Usually sounds better accompanying a melody or chord progression.


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## JamieB (Jan 15, 2011)

The whole lets write some djent attitude thing is not a fad or a trend

If you enjoy a particular style of music and want to play something like then thats cool

but to say its a trend and stuff like that is a bit pathetic to be fair. I imagine someone who would say that is to be a really generic normal musician stuck in there ways who are willing to move with the development of genres and find it sad

I think the people who hate on "Djent" not the onamatapia that everyone refers to but the style of music as in the grooves and chord progressions are just people who are jealous of it and try to hate it to be the diffrent and unique.

Reminds me of when scene and hardcore music came in and everybody hated it but now look everyone is playing it.

Jealousy is a bad thing and everybody should be open to any kind of genre 

Me personally i beleive to become a "MUSICIAN" not some idiot hating on other peoples likes, is to enjoy all aspects of music and to love to hear new things which "Djent" or whatever it is becoming is.

Anybody who disagree's please do state your reasons i would love to hear what you have to say


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## JamieB (Jan 15, 2011)

Tomo009 said:


> A lot of people seem to be missing what I think the OP is trying to do.



OP?


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## Winspear (Jan 15, 2011)

JamieB said:


> OP?



Original poster. That's you


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## ArtDecade (Jan 15, 2011)

Did I get here in time to argue about Djent?! Just kidding! 

If you are thinking that the riffs are coming off cheesy... maybe its not the riff so much as the placement. It's possible that what you are hearing in your head is not what is coming out of the amp. I would back away from the tune and ask yourself what the song needs. Maybe it doesn't need a dose of djent djent djent at all. 

Its hard from this end to know what it is about the section that is coming off as cheesy without hearing it. Maybe you can provide a link for us...


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## kylendm (Jan 15, 2011)

Meh, I do think Djent is kinda a trend. Someone figured out how to play something a bit differently and people liked it. It's gonna get old after a while. That said, it works well in certain amounts but if you do a whole song in just Djent then it's boring as fack. Animals as Leaders does a good job using Djent tastefully.


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## a1a2a3a4 (Jan 16, 2011)

To me a djent groove should be just like a bass line. It should go right along with the drums. When I listen for good djent, I listen for creativity the more complex the better. If i'm sitting there and trying to figure out what the fuck the dude is doing on the drums i'm probably going to like it. That's of course if it's acoustic drumming.


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## Demiurge (Jan 16, 2011)

JamieB said:


> I think the people who hate on "Djent" not the onamatapia that everyone refers to but the style of music as in the grooves and chord progressions are just people who are jealous of it and try to hate it to be the diffrent and unique.



I think that people who get overly butthurt by people not liking *[controversial new sub-genre]* are front-running bandwagoneers who are jealous of the people comfortable enough in their musicianship to not have to kiss the ass of _every single god-damned "new thing" in music_ for fear of being ostracized for not saying _"ooh, me too"_ fast enough.

 Okay, I don't really mean that (totally), but see where glib characterizations get you?

Advice for the OP- the best way to learn to write like a certain type of music is to just listen to it and learn the "logic" behind the structures and musical ideas.


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## Katrina (Jan 16, 2011)

Listen to atonal classical pieces, djent seems to have a lot in common with them, apart from using different default instruments.


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## Scar Symmetry (Jan 16, 2011)

Listen to things that aren't djent for inspiration.


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## NaYoN (Jan 16, 2011)

Barney said:


> "djent" is lame. It's a stupid trend that will be over in a few years.



People have been saying that for a few years now... And it's only getting bigger, see Periphery. I don't personally like djent, but we can't deny that it is on a rise, not a fall.



JamieB said:


> I think the people who hate on "Djent" not the onamatapia that everyone refers to but the style of music as in the grooves and chord progressions are just people who are jealous of it and try to hate it to be the diffrent and unique.
> 
> Reminds me of when scene and hardcore music came in and everybody hated it but now look everyone is playing it.
> 
> ...



Aside from the bad grammar and spelling, I disagree with your point.

1- Just because everyone is playing scenecore doesn't make scenecore less awful.

2- The whole "jealousy" argument is, in my opinion, pointless. Why would anyone hate a genre out of jealousy? It's not like you even hate a particular band, but an entire genre in itself.

"I hate tech death because they play their instruments better than I ever can" I've never heard anyone say something like this.

3- I can understand people disliking something popular, because it's a hipster thing to do, but using the word jealousy just takes it all out of context, I don't think jealousy has anything to do with it.

4- Me and many others hate most djent because (talking about bad djent here) it's only a small step up from scenecore, especially your average run-of-the-mill djent is really uninspired (as someone jokingly stated above, 000 000 000 010 000 00) and everybody says it's the best thing since the invention of fire in spite of that. Just write a "mathy" breakdown (fill a bar with 16th notes of zeros in guitar pro, and then insert random rests), and then take a 7th chord or something and arpeggiate the chord over 4 bars of "mathiness". That's what most djent bands amount to, and everyone thinking it's awesome or new is what pisses most people off.

To contrast, good djent can be really good, just like many other genres. Good music is usually good regardless of genre. Bad music is bad regardless of genre, but when people mention djent, they usually mean the generic bands, not the unique artists like the one I've posted below or Chimp Spanner or Zytecki or AAL.

Here's an example of good djent I just encountered today in the general music forum here:

Link to thread: http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/general-music-discussion/143496-who-what.html





Scar Symmetry said:


> Listen to things that aren't djent for inspiration.



Nailed it. If you listen to Djent to write Djent, it will be uninspired. You need to take in different sounds and make your own.


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## gr8Har V (Jan 16, 2011)

it should come naturally. play what ever you would normally play and trow in heavy palm mutes and accentations. you could also learn some keih merrow


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## Demiurge (Jan 16, 2011)

NaYoN said:


> 2- The whole "jealousy" argument is, in my opinion, pointless. Why would anyone hate a genre out of jealousy? It's not like you even hate a particular band, but an entire genre in itself.



The accusation of jealousy seems to be one of the oldest tropes associated with arguing music on the internetz. I've been on the internet for a long time, so I'm sure in some remote internet cache, my apparent jealousy of Mark Tremonti, Kirk Hammett, and Fred Durst is well-documented. 

The funny thing is, the only time I find myself jealous of an artist is when it's part of my admiration of them: _"damn, I wish I came up with that!"_ I have no quarrel with any so-called djent artists out there- they do what they do and that's cool if they're happy; however, I'm terribly, horribly green-in-the-fucking-face jealous of artists like Steve Wilson and Trent Reznor because their raw talent, work ethic, and awesome ideas are equally humbling and inspiring.


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## lookralphsbak (Jan 16, 2011)

Barney said:


> "djent" is lame. It's a stupid trend that will be over in a few years.
> Of course the "genre" will breed some good and original bands, but this kind of attitude
> ("let's write some djent") won't get you anywhere...


That's what my guitarist is doing, we're supposed to have a foundation in doom metal and him and the bass player wrote a catchy djent song. At first they were joking about it but then they got serious. It fucking sucks. I'm hoping this flavor of the week fucking dies already. I'm not hating on the genre at all. I fucking love tesseract and I appreciate the talent that goes into writing djent but when it starts affecting my band and our music then it becomes personal. It sucks because my band members are all open minded and are willing to try different shit, on one hand it's awesome that they are but on the other hand it's not awesome because you write music that just doesn't fit with anything else you write. When you pop everything on a cd or play them live you have 5 songs that are similar in style and one curve ball that makes the listener go "WTF?" Plus the fact that everyone and their mom is all about djent makes it worse. I am just not a fan of the "I'm gonna write a complex and technical riff for the sake of it": 000 00 0 10 0 00 1 1 0 1010 1 0 10 101 0 00 10 1 ^^0 1 00022 020300^ 10 10 30

That's exactly the shit my guitarist does at practice. When he finishes setting up the first riff that he plays is some open note chuggy nu metal sounding "jump da fuck up" riff other wise known as "djent"


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## UltraParanoia (Jan 17, 2011)

troyguitar said:


> 0 0 00 000 00000 00000000 00 0 0 0 0 0 0 00 00 0 10100100010010101001010


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## Universe74 (Jan 18, 2011)

Barney said:


> "djent" is lame. It's a stupid trend that will be over in a few years.
> Of course the "genre" will breed some good and original bands, but this kind of attitude
> ("let's write some djent") won't get you anywhere...



I wish the same could be said about 'pop'.


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## JamieB (Jan 18, 2011)

I think that people who hate on djent shouldnt bother looking at the djent threads

cos know one will ever agree its music ffs so know one will ever agree.
Everyone should agree to disagree

And thanks for some of the comments intresting to see your views on it?


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## All_¥our_Bass (Jan 18, 2011)

Katrina said:


> Listen to atonal classical pieces, djent seems to have a lot in common with them, apart from using different default instruments.


And for some inspiration in the rhythm department listen to some Stravinsky. "Rite Of Spring" is probably the best example to follow for djent stuff, and try some of Schoenberg's 12 note tonerow system or Jarbonzeck's "Circle Of 12 Tones" on for size for some rather different approaches to note chioce.


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## rythmic_pulses (Jan 18, 2011)

JamieB said:


> Recently Being throwing in Djent riffs, left right and centre into my songs but they always seem to have a form of cheeseyness (Cant think of the correct term to use) to them. Anybody got any techniques or ways that they write djent style riffs.


 
Basically man i try to write stuff over a straight 4/4 beat no odd timings because i like to syncopate the phrasing of riffs over it kind of like meshuggah minus the eight string, i tune my seven to G or G# standard i can't really remember so the strings sound boingy as fuck thanks to my 26.5" scale, dont force it because it takes time and i should know i've been working on a single song for 3 months now, i use a lot of hammer on sort of riffs with off beat tremolo picking as well as using a lot of spamming of the low G/G# open string with single string bends and slides and the hardest part is putting them all together on top of the timing in a "correct" sequence which took me a month to figure out, i hope this helped


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## JamieB (Jan 24, 2011)

rythmic_pulses said:


> Basically man i try to write stuff over a straight 4/4 beat no odd timings because i like to syncopate the phrasing of riffs over it kind of like meshuggah minus the eight string, i tune my seven to G or G# standard i can't really remember so the strings sound boingy as fuck thanks to my 26.5" scale, dont force it because it takes time and i should know i've been working on a single song for 3 months now, i use a lot of hammer on sort of riffs with off beat tremolo picking as well as using a lot of spamming of the low G/G# open string with single string bends and slides and the hardest part is putting them all together on top of the timing in a "correct" sequence which took me a month to figure out, i hope this helped



This could possibly be the first straight answer out of them all

thank you very much.

And for people who are picky on grammar its a forum mate not a essay 

and tbh some points i do agree with people but jealousy in most cases is the term. Not in ability but alot of stereotypical "METAL" kids hate on things due to the fact that they build up their hatred for everything that isnt their music.

Which isnt cool, and theyre jealous cos theyve dug a hole.

Saying that people follow trends isnt cool either. Like the music! want to play it! isnt that the reason why alot of people started playing in the first place and went the step forwad by getting a ERG.

Some people are just missing point and this has nothing to do with djent or what ever

Thanks alot for all the input guys.


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## GTailly (Jan 25, 2011)

I guess the answer to this thread has a part of natural feeling in music wrtting and a second part wich is more like knowing a basic definition of "Djent" music.

Let me explain the "natural feeling". Actually, I believe djent is just like any other genres of music wich finds its sources in many other styles of music. For instance, I don't think you should try writting it but mainly focus on writting what sounds cool to you and make you feel good. Best way for you to achieve a djenty type of writting? Listen to bands that are classified as "djent" groups. Without even noticing it, you will get more and more influenced by those bands as time goes on.

Second aspect of writting this type of music would be to trully and fully understand its caracteristics in order to be able to play with those.
Look for what is common in this music. I.E different time signature studies and rhythmic progressions. Try experimenting with unusual time signatures you usually wouldn't use. That will help you get even tighter and give such that djenty sound you are looking for. I recommend you have an advanced understanding of music rhythmic figures and time signatures thought.

On another note, I think djent guitars are not really what comes first in writting. There is this whole other atmosphere that should give you the actual and principal feeling of the tune. Then, it is easier to write solid guitar parts over this atmosphere.
I recommend writting the guitars parts with a metronome on for the beginning so that you really are conscious of the tempo and rhythmn going on and can play and twist your mind with it.

Have fun.


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## rythmic_pulses (Jan 25, 2011)

JamieB said:


> This could possibly be the first straight answer out of them all
> 
> thank you very much.
> 
> ...


 

It's cool man and I agree Djent is a hated genre for one reason: most people in metal can't handle change.

It's the same with the 8 string guitar, people just think it is a fad and will die off soon, if it was a fad then why are all the company's jumping on the 8 string band wagon and making them more affordable to the masses like Agile with their Intrepid or Schecter with their new Omen 8 or even ESP with Stephen Carpenters not even released yet SC 208 you see!

Music is adapting and evolving all the time and the instruments with it, metal has possibly the most subgenre's to date and it is record breaking,
Djent is another step of evolution in metal created in Sweden by the one tone of Meshuggah, their tight and fat yet articulated tone has been recognised by one of the worlds biggest metal bands Metallica and has spawned many acts such as Periphery+Bulb, Tesseract and Vildjharta to name a few.

So don't let a stupid comment take the shine off your day my friend.


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