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Something pretty neat has occurred to me, and I shall thusly describe said neat thing in this post.
I'm a fan of classic rock - AC/DC, Led Z, Metallica, Aerosmith, ZZ Top, and the like. Pretty much what you would hear on a "classic rock" station. I read a bunch of threads saying music helps one play better, so I decided to make a Pandora station based on Enter Sandman (my favorite song ever). I enjoyed the music, but never really felt if changed my performance.
A friend of mine on my vent (who also happens to be a fan of good ol' rock) told me that he tried listening to techno during his StarCraft II sessions, and he felt the beat helped him keep focus and play better. After having listened to rock during my playtime, I figured it was a load of BS, since my pandora rock station is now ****ing awesome, but it does nothing besides make good music appear in my ear.
A few days later, I came into contact with one of the few techno songs I knew - the famous Sandstorm. I noticed that the song gave my head a very strong compulsion to bob in a Jim Carrey fashion. This was quite late at night and I wasn't thinking straight, so I decided to make a Pandora techno channel and play some starcraft.
I played a couple games on ladder (I'm high diamond, I assume I'd be masters if I spent off my bonus pool of over 1k). I did fairly well, but I was tired and went to sleep, and didn't think much on it.
The following morning, for no real reason, I decided I'd drive and walk to class while listening to my Pandora techno station on my iPhone. However, the piece of crap decided AT&T doesn't exist. Once my class was over, I tried again, and luckily, AT&T once more existed. I put on my headphones, and walked (full across campus) to my car. Once I arrived, I noticed something strange. My legs hurt. I looked at my watch. I was at my car 4 minutes faster than usual (I time how long it takes to get from car to class so that I know how early I need to arrive).
I moved faster because I was subconsciously following the beat. I decided to look at the APM in the replays from the night before and compared them to other replays. Typically, I average 100-110 Blizzard apm, but in the games I played with the techno channel on, my apm was averaging at least 130.
So, my conclusion for the moment is that indeed, techno beats do make your APM go higher. However, whether this is more spamming or more actual actions I am unsure.
Anyway, that's pretty much it. I'm going to probably listen to techno while playing sc2 now, and see if I can come to more conclusions.
 
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Haha I used to listen to a techno station on Pandora while I played that I was working on for months so it got pretty awesome, but then I was introduced to Dubstep and omg thats now my shit. I have a Pandora radio station thats based just off Dubstep genre (since I dont actually kno any Dubstep artists) Try it out if you like techno, play some games to it you might really like it.
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It's not so much the electronic music itself but the bass that really gets to people. That's why techno stirs up the blood, even though on the surface it seems cold and robotic. The deep, pulsating rhythms tap into our primal instincts, taking us back to when we were cave-dudes, banging drums around a fire.
Go play some Simian Mobile Disco and wipe the floor with some peeps.
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On February 11 2011 17:06 NukeTheStars wrote:
It's not so much the electronic music itself but the bass that really gets to people. That's why techno stirs up the blood, even though on the surface it seems cold and robotic. The deep, pulsating rhythms tap into our primal instincts, taking us back to when we were cave-dudes, banging drums around a fire.
Go play some Simian Mobile Disco and wipe the floor with some peeps.
I rofled at this, awesome description man, pure win!
I have SKY.FM / DI.FM premium so, heaps of access to electronic music. I, like you, mostly listen to Classic Rock station on Sky.FM and anything on DI really. Drum n Bass is pretty good stuff when playing but sometimes I just put the ambient channel on, depends on what I'm doing.
Highly recommend for 5 bucks a month 
Edit: Sympathy for the Devil just started playing, Win
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These results are unscientific.
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Isn't that some sort of doping?
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Darude is not a techno producer.
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On February 11 2011 16:37 FlashIsHigh wrote:
Haha I used to listen to a techno station on Pandora while I played that I was working on for months so it got pretty awesome, but then I was introduced to Dubstep and omg thats now my shit. I have a Pandora radio station thats based just off Dubstep genre (since I dont actually kno any Dubstep artists) Try it out if you like techno, play some games to it you might really like it.
I tried Dubstep already and it literally gave me a headache ><
On February 11 2011 19:45 Lemonwalrus wrote:
These results are unscientific.
I never claimed they were. This is something that happened to me and I am thus wondering if it is common.
On February 11 2011 21:04 NiTenIchiRyu wrote:
Darude is not a techno producer.
I'm sorry if this offends you in any way, but I classify techno as electronic music. As such, Sandstorm is techno as far as I'm aware. I'm not familiar with any specific definitions.
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You should check out the EDM thread on TL. There's a huge variety of electronic music there so you can educate yourself on different genres and find a better idea of what you like.
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United States4796 Posts
Drum'N'Bass pops your APM up really high. For some reason, I listen to a lot of minimal (m-nus, Heartthrob, Houle, Magda, Loco) and a lot of glitch IDM while playing too. Makes me think.
@darthcaesar: Techno is pretty strictly designated as a relatively melodyless mass of beats hovering from 130-160bpm. Buildups and breakdowns and bass. Rolling rhythms. Darude can be classified as kind of a trancey anthem. Deadmau5 is progressive and electro house mainly. Techno being cast over the entire EDM shadow is a definite misnomer.
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I listen to trance about 10 hours a day. In college, I NEVER studied or did any work of any kind without listening to it. I'm currently a "business analyst" and I listen to trance from 9-5 every day. When I play sc2, I also listen to it. Whether or not my APM is higher or I learn better with it I can't say. I'm pretty sure I've seen something somewhere about how if the music is at a certain bpm it helps you focus.. but I can't recall the source. I know it had something to do with flow (a concept by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi). I think flow is slightly related to this topic, so perhaps you should check it out.
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Slightly unrelated, I listen to a lot of goa/psytrance... a group that not many people know about is called "UX"
Check their album "Ultimate Experience" It's a really evil / dark psytrance album that came out in 97. Holy shit this album is awesome if you're into this sort of electronic music. It's a one-time collab between an ex Juno Reactor and a Slide band member, it's really moving stuff.
http://paranoidsounds.com/2010/08/17/ux-ultimate-experience-1997/
Also Infected Mushroom is good too, if you like the bizarre / goa stuff.
wtf is goa? It's music built around drug use, so it can be strange sometimes, depending on what group you're listening to. lol. Psytrance is the lighter, less...whacked out version of goa. Like the difference between Devin Townsend and AC/DC lol.
And another random bit of crap, check out slacker.com, I used Pandora for a long time but the nice thing about Slacker is that you can pick your "likes" and "dislikes" before you encounter the song...so it's a little more flexible in terms of that, as well as it has a LOT more artists and stuff in the library...so give them a try as well, if you find Pandora is a little too repetitive or goes too fringy on it's music search...I had a flogging molly station on Pandora and after like...an hour it got me into Spanish polka-type music. _-_
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i think generally it can be attributed to a higher bpm. rock music tends to be much slower than "techno" therefore your mind is working in quicker brackets. as for DnB, i think we all know the tempo that dictates. but i can totally agree that music will help you keep focused. i feel i play better when i play with music or even while just being slightly distracted because my muscle memory takes over and my hands will do the things ive trained them to do without all of the over thinking.
ps: check out my music xD
http://www.soundcloud.com/tapedeckbros
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listen to drum and bass while playing sc -> win 90% of your games
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EPT
