Andrew Bayer - Let's Hear That B Section Again!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKIBY7aJZoc

as far as dance music goes, Jamie XX - Hold Tight
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cumIVrQN5QM

+1 for a lot of James Holden's stuff. super detailed

Bibio constantly inspires...been re-listening to this one a lot though---inspired to try to evoke similar types of emotions in house music

Been messing around with clearsky's tips

found out the best patch to start with (may have been what he started with too) is Brassinski in Ableton's Operator>Brass patches...gotta change the oscillator envelopes a bit and follow his guidance and my sound is coming out real nice

I also have the 2i2 and KRK5s. Sometimes if the USB chord gets moved or if the 2i2 gets moved too much when im adjusting knobs, the audio cuts out like you described...its kind of random how it happens but I'm in a similar boat. I've heard the 2i2 is just pretty sensitive...

Kiasmos - awesome attention to detail, really interesting sound design, and simple but emotional melodies and chord progressions
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Mount Kimbie - awesome attention to detail, interesting rhythms/percussion, great sampling/sound design
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Jamie XX - he's a fucking genius and produces incredible work in so many genres. his album is a masterpiece
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCxpwylKFNE

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Bonobo - incredible arrangement, basically owns his genre, performed an entire album with a live band/ochestra after producing it digitally...


+1 for Andrew Bayer...his artist album is amazing--really shows his depth
+1 for Matt Lange
+1 for Floating Points...newest album is incredible

I signed up for a 99 cent month in November and didn't renew...some of the videos were pretty useful--others were 20 minutes of content that could have been shortened to 3 minutes...certain uploaders are much better teachers and are much more organized and prepared while others just waste time talking, etc. I'm the kind of person that watches youtube tutorials at 1.5 or 2x speed because most videos only have a few minutes of actual useful content.

I didn't renew moreso because I wasnt going to have the time to explore all of their videos the following month. There's a ton of content on there so if you have a ton of free time it is probably worth it if you're a beginner producer, or at least wait for a good deal--they always have promotions going on. You also have to be honest with yourself and realize if you're going to be impatient and want to just produce while your watching them, or if you actually can sit down and watch a 2 hour masterclass on mixing without getting bored/wanting to apply the tools to your own work, etc.

EDIT: Sorry, just saw you asked about music theory...if thats all you want to learn, I would recommend this instead: http://www.hooktheory.com/music-theory-for-songwriting

pretty cool...as a huge fan of tennyson, imo it's their chord progressions and composition that makes them so unique and awesome. Yeah their sounds are quirky and cool, but it's the jazzy chord progressions and interesting rhythms that impress me. As musicians, they're extremely talented (theory-wise)--they also record their songs live (even the drums are done live, just on electronic pads) and then finetune it after.

So the natural human element in the timing and velocities is a huge aspect of their music. That can all be done within just a DAW too though.

I think from a sound design perspective you got some really good sounds that are pretty similar--the bass is awesome (any tips on getting that woozy sound?)--as mentioned before though, its not nearly as laidback and chill as their music. This is like halfway between that and like glitch-hop or something. You could mess with the rhythym more to go half-time and double-time at certain parts and in general just tone down the synths a little bit to make it more chill.

From a composition/musical theory perspective, I think you could definitely work on making more interesting, weird, and complex progressions with jazz influences

Cool track though for sure.

Thanks, yeah I really gotta just keep experimenting with the cutoff LFOs/envelopes...but yeah, that anjunadeep sound is what ive been going for lately.

*Your drums are fine BTW. I'd like some tips on those shakers in Example 2 - they sound sick.

for those shakers I layered a tambourine sample from Deadmau5's Xfer pack with another shaker sample and some EQing to give it the nice tone...and then adding swing + varying the velocities and timings (so it's not strictly to a 16th grid) does wonders...