And it usually depends on which type of genre i am working on..

Hip Hop : The beat
Commercial Trance: The melody
Swedish Psy-trance: The effects
Goa : The lead/leads
Ambient : The pads

i didnt realize you made so much varied styles there 303....

how bout uploading some tracks somewhere so we can have a listen! actually that goes for eveyone here that hasnt got anything on-line yet. i like listening to new music!

by the way, hows the hand 303...

oops, gone off topic. maybe answer in PM 303 :)

Not to forget classical music which is first started with the strings.

From that 3o3's list came to my mind that how many of you guys make some different and/or strange projects just for fun? For example trying to make banjo bluegrass or something like that.

I think everyone should try out thos strange projects. They are very educating because you'll have to use methods you wouldn't probably have to use in your "real" music. Hmm... I just realised that I haven't done anything serious in... err... two years.

when i first came to japan i made a track remixing japanese enka (very weird traditional music)...bloody twisted!

its fun making different styles though....full electronic pureists tend to make the most plain forgetable music IMO!

The probelm with puritanism is that you don't bring anything new to the genre. You just use the old tricks and that way don't get personal sound. You're just part of the mass without a chance to stand out in any way.

That's why I advice people to make experiment instead of sticking with old stuff.

Especially in bigger genres (for example hard trance) there's million artists and they all tend to sound identical. None of them has a personal sound. They just have that hard trance sound and that's all. If someone would do something unexpected in that genre, he/she would stand out of the mass and probably get a record contract faster.