Vaporwave is an indie genre of electronic music. Oftentimes, this music is inspired by genres popular in the mid to late 1900s, such as smooth jazz, R&B, and lounge. In addition, this music usually takes samples or snippets of these genres. The aesthetic generally includes graphic design elements that were trending in the 1980s and 1990s, web page designs in the early 1990s, and glitch and cyberpunk artwork. In this article, you will find out how to make vaporwave music.
Step
Step 1. Decide on the vaporwave subgenre you want to try
In fact, no vaporwave genre is truly “pure” because the genre itself is a derivative of several subgenres. You can find out more about each subgenre by looking up the information on the Vaporwave subreddit wiki page.
Step 2. Search the internet for music from the 70's, 80's, and 90's
Music from that era is the music that is most often chosen as a sample of vaporwave music. One thing to keep in mind is that vaporwave uses a lot of music samples (if not completely samples). One of the music genres that is often sampled is the new wave genre which focuses heavily on the use of synthesizer noise and the main melody of the saxophone.
Step 3. Open the song via the desired DAW program
DAW is an acronym for Digital Audio Workstation (eg FL Studio, Ableton Live, Logic, Cubase, Pro Tools, Sonar, Reason, etc.) and is a tool commonly used today for making music. After importing into your DAW program again, you should try to match the tempo (in BPM) of the project and synchronize it so that you can cut it into samples or loops more easily.
Step 4. Slow down the tempo of the music
The most common tempo size chosen for slowing music to be used in a vaporwave project is 20-60 BPM of the original tempo. If the music you're using has vocals, make sure the tempo is slow enough that the vocals sound quite weird and almost "scary". After that, use that tempo as a reference to find out how much tempo is needed to slow down other tracks.
Step 5. Select and cut the preferred part of the track
Step 6. Try experimenting
You can repeat parts, add effects, or remove parts you don't like until the music sounds right to your ears.
Step 7. Save the project into a file of the desired format
The FLAC extension is the best type, but it's a very heavy format (and has an impact on file size). Generally, the mp3 or mp4 extension is most often chosen, especially if you want to upload a project to YouTube.
Step 8. Add artwork or album
Vaporwave was one of the first genres of the internet music movement (though not the first to be popularized) and has a unique graphic design style and aesthetic culture. Many vaporwave designs feature Roman statues, computers and tech products from the 90s, distorted and low-quality nature photos, and incredibly beautiful backgrounds, like a world only seen in dreams or imagination. Look for some popular vaporwave designs and take the time to use a popular creation program (eg GIMP or Photoshop) to understand what is often displayed and the structure of a vaporwave design.
Step 9. Share your work
Soundcloud and Bandcamp are two of the most popular websites for sharing vaporwave music and other internet music genres. If you don't have an account yet, try creating an account on one or both of these platforms and follow the instructions shown to upload music to the vaporwave community !
Tips
- Try using samples from other media (eg Voice Clips or SFX) to enrich the music you create.
- Try listening to lots of vaporwave albums so you can understand them better.
