Page: 1 The Dubstep Forum Production Bible V2.0 The old version of the bible is still available there. Index: (Please help with the unlinked chapters by going here - http://www.dubstepforum.com/the- dubstep-production-bible-updated-2009-06-03-t14797.html and updating missing info as needed). 1. Basic Studio Setup 1.1 – Monitors 1.2 – Headphones 1.3 – MIDI controllers 1.4 – Soundcards 2. Tools 2.1 – Free software 2.2 – DAWs 2.2.1 – Ableton Live 2.2.2 – Cubase 2.2.3 – FL Studio 2.2.4 – Logic 2.2.5 – Reaper 2.2.6 – Reason 2.2.7 – Renoise 2.3 – Production effects explained 2.4 – Hardware (later) 2.5 – Samples 2.6 – Free frequency analyzers 3. Techniques 3.1 – Bass 3.1.1 – Sub-bass 3.1.2 – Wobble 3.1.3 – Reese 3.1.4 – Random bass tips 3.2 - Resampling 3.3 – Drums 3.4 – Sidechain Compression (later) 3.5 – Gain Structure AKA the Money-shot Thread 4. Theory 4.1 – Song Structure 4.2 – Mixdown (later) 4.3 – Mastering (later) 4.4 – Music Theory 4.5 – Random tips & best piece of advice thread 5. Resources 5.1 – Books & Magazines 5.2 – Wiki 5.3 – Other recommended production forums 6. Distributing Your Music (later) 1. Basic Studio Setup 1.1 Monitors
Transcript
Page 1
The Dubstep Forum Production Bible V20
The old version of the bible is still available there
Index
(Please help with the unlinked chapters by going here - httpwwwdubstepforumcomthe-dubstep-production-bible-updated-2009-06-03-t14797html and updating missing info as needed)
3 Techniques31 ndash Bass311 ndash Sub-bass312 ndash Wobble313 ndash Reese314 ndash Random bass tips32 - Resampling33 ndash Drums34 ndash Sidechain Compression (later)35 ndash Gain Structure AKA the Money-shot Thread
4 Theory41 ndash Song Structure42 ndash Mixdown (later)43 ndash Mastering (later)44 ndash Music Theory45 ndash Random tips amp best piece of advice thread
5 Resources51 ndash Books amp Magazines52 ndash Wiki53 ndash Other recommended production forums
6 Distributing Your Music (later)
1 Basic Studio Setup11 Monitors
Page 2
I see a lot of questions on studio monitors so Ill do my best to share some knowledge
Section 0 - What is a Studio Monitor and Why do I Need Them to Make Killer Beats that would make my big boned Italian grandmother shit in her diaper
You can skip this part if you know the dynamics of making grandma shit her diaper
Studio reference monitors are like your ears They let you hear the music If I cut your ears off or stick pencils through your eardrums you dont really know what your music sounds like That is an extreme If you have ears that dont work well you will write music that sounds good to you but that probably wont sound good to other peoples ears This wont make my grandmother shit in her diaper
Ill get more technical about getting grandmother to shit in her diaper now
Let us say you are writing a song on speakers that accentuate 10khz by 2 db and cut 100hz by 2 db You have wrote your tune and now you are trying to make your track sound really really good - grandma shit herself good when you mix down you will be trying to get the sound to sound good on your speakers Because your speakers accentuate 10khz by 2db you will tend to find the sound harsher here or too loud so you may cut these frequencies with eq Likewise when you are mixing the bass frequencies you will be trying to get the kick to make grandma shit without boom But because the speakers cut the sound at 100 hz you will tend to incease the ammount of frequency at 100hz
When you then take that song in your car and drive around with grandma the extra 2db of 100hz that you added to your mix to account for the lack of 100hz in your speakers at home will be noticable in your car It will make your track sound boomy You wont know why - it sounded so good at home Grandma no shit because of boom Likewise there will be a big gap in the upper frequencies so granma cant make out the lyrics - she turn up her hearing aid and keep turning over to you going huh huh because she cant figure out what is the music and what is her own farting and what is your voice
So basically by writing on good quality monitors (preferrably in an environment with some sound treatment and with proper speaker placement) you will create a mix that will transfer well on to other systems rather than it only sounding good on the system you are working on You wont really understand this unless youve had a lot of problems mixing down in your music If youre reading this likely youve had problems with translation and now see the advantages
Hopefully this clarifies
Section 1 - I dont know a god damn thing about monitors but I want to learn more - what the fuck do I do Jesus Christ
First if you want to learn a bit about monitors the best place for reviews imo is sound on sound (wwwsoundonsoundcom) It should truly be your first source of reference for looking for information on any potential purchase
Now here are the big boys that youll hear everyone talking about
ENTRY LEVEL MONITORS
Behringer B2030B2031 series
The Behringer series are really fucking entry level If youre seriously strapped for cash these might do Ive spent a very small ammount of time on the smaller ver and theyre not smooth but theyre a bit better option than hi-fi Similar to most of Behringers other gear thier market stance is low quality low price with a lot of un-needed bells and whistles I would recommend against these
KRK RP5RP6RP8 series
I own a pair of RP5s and have spent a small ammount of time with the RP8s The KRKs have a slight aggressiveness in the mid-highs which most people find very pleasing (myself included) Theyre a real joy to work on I notice that the RP5s definately have have a boxy quality which becomes extremely obvious next to my HRs They have a pretty average bass response (RP8s go down to 45hz RP5s down to 57hz I think - check SOS) Good speakers - great value
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Event TR8
These things are bass frequency response down to 35hz - which is lower than pretty much every other 8 reference monitor around Due to the nature of speakers deeper bass response means an inhibited ability to produce higher frequency sound The result is a slightly unclear mid range All speaker design is about compromise and balance These guys go for the deep tones rather than clarity Not a bad choice necessarily for dubstep producers My recommendation would be the KRK RP8s or Samson Rubicon 6As and save for a sub instead of going for these - a bit more long term and youll get a more physical bass response with better mid and high end image but it will obviously cost you more
Tapco S5S8s
The new guys on the block Ive spend a bit of time with these - had the S8s in my studio for a bit but brought them back to the store Ill discuss the S8s I think mackie have managed to create some hype with these (Tapco is mackies entry level brand) Dont listen to the hypereviews These speakers have a really hollow and far away quality that is exactly the opposite to the KRKs and Rubicons visible image These do have good bass response - down to 40hz They really lack the ability to show you whats going on even if the frequency response is deep and flat Not a bad choice on a budget if you really want the deeper bass but listen to them first I would really recommend against them if youve never spent time with reference monitors Again would recommend a speaker with better imageless bass paired with a sub
Samson Rubicon 5A6A
The least talked about reference monitors No one seems to consider these youre going to pay more for the woofer cone size than the others listed here but theyre my fav of the lot These dont use a cone for the tweeter - they use a traditional ribbon tweeter design (different than adams ART ribbon tweeter) The design is good - a bit too above my head to express but apparently these lack a lot of the negatives associated with ribbons (delicate quiet) These speakers give an incredible image of equisite quality Theyre very airy - you can see really deep into the sound Best bang for the buck IMO - these are fantastic with the 6As at $600 Go listen to them - youll see what I mean The only problem is the bass response is not deep at all Grab a sub - when people come over and look at your monitors and go what are those theyll walk out talking about how your studio is the best sounding joint around
MID RANGE
Im just going to discuss a couple big ones here
Adam A7
Now were breaking the $1000 mark These are a compromise between cost and quality Adam have stuck thier infamous(ly expensive) new fangled ribbon tweeter design into a less ideal enclosurewoofer combo Youre going to get that impressive depth and visibility on the highs but you might find some holes in the rest Youll probably want a sub as these guys are only 6+s and wont have a real deep bass response although it is still impressive for a smaller woofer ( I think 47hz)
Mackie HR624HR824 (MKI or MKII)
Mackie recently redesigned thier HR series Theyre now quite possibly the sexiest looking monitors on the market I own a pair of the HR824MKIIs and I love them These use a different design than all of the above Theyre unported with a radiator which is basically a big oval inside the enclosure which you cant see This allows deep bass response (37hz on the mkIIs I believe or 39hz) The design is good the quality is reliable While Mackie may have you believe theyre the best on the market theyre not A lot of people find them brash - I think theyre quite smooth so listen to them The tweeters are aluminumtitanium depending on the version which colours the sound differently than the silk and ribbon designs in above speakers These are very flat very reliable The image is reasonably upfront - not hyped or aggressive The image could be a bit easier to look in to I like the ribbon design of the SamsonAdam for this All in all looking at price vs quality these are probably more on the price side with speakers like the KRKs popping up
TOP END SHIT
Im not getting into this stuff If youre looking at Dynaudio Genelec top level adam shit then you know what youre doing and dont need my help[b]
Page 4
12 Headphones
If you want to add a model plz give its name pros cons amp average price (new) Thanks everybody
AKG K-240s ~120$ Pros Wide frequency response removable cables used a lot Much better for producing (than the HD-25s) a lot flatter so it doesnt have the beautiful (but fake) bass of the 25s Also doesnt crush my ears like a 150kg boxer Cons Tend to make you a bit hot lol
Beyerdynamic DT990 PRO ~220$ or 150 Euro Pros comfortable very solid bass response wide frequency range Cons havent found any so far I find them suitable for mixdowns
Samson RH300 Pros Cost-effective auto-adjust mechanism so very light and comfortable can balance well bass levels on it Sounds muddy if mixdown is not well balanced Cons Aggressive fatiguing high end I shelf highs while producing because theyre pinching This is not to be compared with AKG-240s and likes its a bargain (can find it as low as 25euro)
CH70700 Pros The most cost-effective studio headphone Enough comfortable similar in behaviour to rh300 Very small the ideal for the nomadic producer I think Not fatiguing as the RH300 CH700 is the bigger brother of CH70 you only get bass and more distinct stereo image Gets VERY muddy if mix is not perfect Its difficult to calibrate decaying sounds on it (reverbdelays) Cons It costs really low so its cons are a consequence of it
Sennheiser HD-25 ~ euro150 Pros solid built great for djing good for producing by night if you have thin walls and neighbours on the other side Cons not suitable for mixdowns some people complain they cant wear for more than a couple of hours (tho I have no problem after several hours)
HD 600 ~ pound180 Pros Sound like sex Comfortable Frequency range is amazing goes all the way from 20-2000 Hz (and made my ears bleed at 15000Hz ) Cons Expensive at around pound180 HD 600 crew - get the HD650 cable makes a very nice difference for only pound20 or so
13 Midi Controllers
If you want to add a model plz give its name pros cons amp average price (new) Thanks everybody
________________________________
KEYBOARDS ________________________________
AKAI MPK49 pound280 new 49-key semi-weighted keyboard with aftertouch and full-sized keys 8 360 degree rotary dials each with 3 banks = 24 total 12 MPC style pads velocity and pressure sensitive 4 banks = 48 total 8 sliders each with 3 controller banks = 24 total note repeat and arpeggiator 8 assignable switches with 3 banks each = 24 total MMCMIDI Start Stop transport buttons USB powered
Page 5
great all in one midi controllerkeyboard although you do pay a bit typical price is around pound280 new Also as someone who has owned an MPC I can testify that the drum pads do note respond like an MPC although they are the closest out of all the keyboard controllers I looked at apart from that I cant fault it
Evolution MK-449C Pros 9 faders 8 knobs 10 assignable buttons pitch and mod wheel add up to 29 controls works as a charm cheap Cons Configuring it can be annoying as fuck(I mean the configuring of presets and other stuff)
Evolution MK-425C It the same as MK-449C but without the faders and with only 2 octaves Id say that it is an awesome starter controller Keys are a bit plastic ish and light but it is good for its price
Korg K24 ~ pound40 Pros well its Bus powered + Plenty of octaves (5 up and down if i remember rightly) Cons none it does exactly everything you expect from a basic midi controller more expensive ones seem to have no better functions other than more of the sameunless you want weighted keys
Korg Nano Series all usb $5999 nanopad - 12 pad drum controls + xy pad $5999 nanokontrol - 9 knobs 9 faders 18 switches $4999 nanokey - 25 key midi keyboard pitch and podulation controls adjustable velocity curves suited for portable rigs and saving space + low cost
M-Audio Axiom pound150-pound170 Pros The keys are FANTASTIC Aftertouch is great Pitchbend and mod feel very nice Having transport controls was enough to convince me to sell my UC33e to buy this The tap pads also were a strong selling point Cons The knobs are straight useless You cant go from 0-127 in one turn Theyre loud as well All of the output from the keyboard seems random and alot of people have trouble setting them up
M-Audio Keystation 61es ~ pound115 euro135 It has got one volume fader and 5 octaves Its keys are much better than the MK-425C ones
M-Audio MidAir25 Around 200 in all currency I got it for 70 in a deal though wouldnt say its worth 200 new but cheap 2nd hand bargin Pros 8 Assignable knobs Mod wheel sustain button amp jack for sustain peddle pitch shift assignable slider too (note I havent used all the functions of it you can go into select mode but I dont know how to use it so if someone did it might be of use) its wireless too so you can go sit across the room in another room and play might be good for live work if you want a little controller quite far away from the laptop or something Cons Only 2 Octaves plastic-feel to the keys drivers were a trouble to get working only midi out
M-Audio Oxygen Possibly one of the most classic portable midi keyboards in existence Ive had my Oxygen 8 for years and its still going strong Well worth the 80 buff I spent on it
Novation RemoteSL
Novation Remote Zero Price seen em go for pound150 -pound199 i paid 120 from ebay Pros Infinate and 270 degree assignable knobs drum pads and faders and togglegate buttons Good for controlling everything i use in reaktor for live gigs (automap assignment function for big named applications) automap software for creating your own midi maps on screen which is useful for when you make your own synths in something like reaktor its also Bus powered Cons faders a bit small and bit plasticneeds a bit more length on the fade
Novation X-Station
________________________________
OTHERS ________________________________
Page 6
Behringer BCR2000 (knobs controller) ~ 150 EUR Pros user friendly cheap 32 user presets (assign 24 knobs per instrument for up to 32 instruments) Cons have to do more than 1 rotation to go from 0 to 100 cheap built
Behringer BCF2000 (faders controller) ~ 180 EUR Same as BCR2000 but with 8 faders instead
Evolution UC-33 (knobs amp faders) ~ pound140 Pros easy way to use cheap easy portable Cons If youre a goof itll break quite soon In other words With lots of traveling the thing gets paranoid after some bumps
14 Soundcards
If you want to add a model plz give its name pros cons amp average price (new) Thanks everybody
Apogee Duet Pros Good quality 24bit converters Small and portable easy to setup works within Logic Cons Only has 2 XLR inputs and 2 hi-z jack inputs pricey FW400 input to computer
Audiotrak Maya 44 USB $96-120 SOS review pros analog rca insout easy to connect turntables too cons no 24 bit converters
Digidesign Mbox 2 does the job as the audio sound much more crisp and theres no static in the background
E-MU 0404 USB ~ 200 $ Pros good DA converters driver support for many OS volume knobs for headphone and monitors simple and user friendly control good headphone amplifier Cons ASIO drivers and multimedia drivers not working at the same time I bought it mainly for the driver support works with Win XP x64 and also OSX Leopard Would I buy it again yes
E-MU 1212m ~ euro140 Pros the sound quality the price the DSP effects Cons takes 2 PCI slots the Patchmix software is a bit tricky at the beginning
E-MU 1616mRad basically
E-MU 1820m have the emu 1820m which is basically then same as the other two nbut with lovely mic pres and an external box most of the problems ive had with it can be traced back to the cable for the external IO other than that the card is wonderful so therefore can recommend the other two
M-Audio 1010LT ~ euro190 Ive had an Maudio 1010LT for 5 years and have had no problems with it More than enough ins and outs for most home studio uses and had been totaly stable
M-Audio Delta 1010 with the breakout box solid solid as a rock and it sounds great loads of IO as well in fact too much for me tbh
M-Audio Audiophile 2469 around $120 Quite a nice soundcard easy enough to set up Had some trouble with it once though My PC kind of stopped recognizing it (and this is where MY own personal mistake comes in) and I tried reinstalling it without removing it when the manual clearly says that you should install the drivers before plugging the card in The only drawback of the card is lack of IOs I really need a second out and it only has one analog and one digital out The digital one seems kind of useless to me right now So yeah thats the only drawback I can mention
M-Audio Delta Audiophile 192
Page 7
NI Audio Kontrol 1 ~ euro300 NI Audio Kontrol 1 is well worth a look Rock solid done untold gigs with it built like a tank and sounds excellent Cirrus Logics 2nd best convertor chips in there well designed three big buttons a big knob and flashing lights Bosh
The Big Thread of Free VST Plugins-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Everyone likes free software
Below you will find a list of sites dedicated to providing free music software They are listed in order of useability and the amount of free plugins they list httpwwwgersiccomplugins truly excels in listing every new freeware plugin released
Some Other Good Sites to Browse Through (If you really need too)httpwwwhitsquadcomsmmfreewarehttpwwwdontcrackcomfreewarehttpwwwaudiomastermindcombrowse-free_vst_plugins-5886988-1htmlhttpwwwsadgladcomfreevstplugins6htmlhttpwwwapplecomdownloadsmacosxaudio (Mac only)
Some Alright Sites (These sites simply repeat the ones listed above yet are more difficult to navigate and feature fewer links)httpfreemusicsoftwareorghttpwwwvstplanetcomInstrumentsVST_Synthesizershtmhttpwwwfree-plugin-listcomhttpwwwsonicspotcomindexhtmlhttpwwwvstcentralcompluginsaspxhttpwwwaudioraclecomfreetrialsphp
Some Desperate Sites (Poorly laid out and pretty boring Only dig through these if youre a audioware junkie)httpenwikipediaorgwikiFree_audio_softwarehttpnoolmusiccomlinksshtml
Threads Concerning Free VSTs (Lists individual plugins and plenty of plugin developers Provides links to many of the plugins that can be found more easily above)httpwwwdubstepforumcomviewtopicphpt=24153amphighlight=httpwwwdubstepforumcomfree-vst-uberlist-t139352htmlhttpwwwkvraudiocomforumviewtopicphpt=9780
22 DAWS (Digital Audio Workstation)
DAW Question specific threads221 ndash Ableton Live222 ndash Cubase223 ndash FL Studio
23 Production effects explained-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Common Production Effects-------------------------------------------------------------------------Click on each link for more in-depth information about each effect
------ Filter Effects ------
EQ - (EQ types - Graphic EQ Parametric EQ Shelving EQ Linear Phase EQ)Filters - (Filter types - Low Pass filter High Pass filter Band Pass filter Band Reject filter Notch filter Comb filter All Pass filter State Variable filter Peaking filter Moog filter FormantVowel filter)Phase InverterVocodersHarmonic Exciters
------ Delay Effects ------
DelayEcho - (Delay types - Ping Pong delay Multi Tap delay Slapback delay Bucket delay Crossfeedback delay)Reverb - (Reverb types - Spring reverb Plate reverb Convolution reverb Impulse Response reverb)
------ Modulation Effects ------
ChorusFlangersPhasers
------ Dynamics Processing Tools ------
CompressorsLimiters (Brick Wall)Transient ShaperSignal ModellersGatesExpandersCompanders Noise reduction units
Here is a list of the most popular freeware analysers available
Voxengo SPAN
Bluecat Audio Freqanalyst
Roger Nichols Inspector
Page 20
For a long list of other free analysers visit httpwwwgersiccompluginsindexphpdaCat=2
3 Techniques
31 Bass311 Sub Bass
Sub-bass is a term used to describe audible sounds below 90Hz - sound in the range below this (under 16-17Hz) would be termed infrasound Sound systems often feature a subwoofer that is dedicated solely to amplifying sounds in the lower bass and sub-bass range Source Wikipedia
So the idea is to have the sub going up to ~90Hz The exact frequency it should be cut at depend on the kicks frequency Lets say you HP your kick at 100Hz then the sub should be LPed at 100Hz so they compliment each other without clashing
There are several ways of creating a sub here are the most common 1 - using a unique waveform (sine saw square or triangle) will give you a nice linear sub NB You dont need to filter out a sine wave as it doesnt have overtones 2 - using detuned waveforms take 2 identical waves (sine saw square or triangle) and detune them - lets say -25 +25 semitone This will produce a phase effect and give movement to your sub but itll also cause large volume amplitude and youll need to compress it after filtering Great Massive tutorial by Subfocus here 3 - using a 808 kick you dont have a TR-808 Grab that pack
jobbanaught wroteAn easy option to get a powerful subbass is to take a 808 kick sample put it in your favorite sampler and loop a single cycle of the waverform somewhere in the middle of the sample The 808 kick is made of a sine and some additional white noise The sine gives your sub that rattling low end pressure and the noise adds overtonesgrittiness = instant badass subbass
You can find more tips about mixing your kick n sub in the Random bass tips thread
312 lsquoWobblersquo
Page 21
Wobble GuideWobble Bass
Wobble Bass as it is known is simply a bassline that has an LFO assigned to a Low Pass Filter as an insert effect LFOstands for Low Frequency Oscillator and is used to change a sound by a defined speed (measured in either Hz or synced to the Tempo in relation to the barsnotes through quantization) The way the LFO changes the sound is up to you you can make the LFO adjust the Volume the amount of Saturation Filter Cutoff etc Basically any parameter you link it to Essentially you are just using the LFO to send a changing value to a parameter
--------------------
How to get a simple wobble bass
1) Choose a simple sound on your synth (Anything apart from a Sine wave )
2) Select your LFO and set it to the speed you want (18 would be a good starting point)
3) Now assign the LFO to the Filter Cutoff Which should for this example be a Low Pass Filter as the sound were going for is a deep bass
4) You now have a basic wobble bass from here the possibilities for tweaking this sound are endless
--------------------
A quick breakdown of whats actually going on Essentially you are taking a sound (that can be an audio files generated by a synth etc) and then passing it through a Low Pass Filter Now what exactly does a Low Pass Filter do you ask
A Low Pass Filter allows Low Frequency signals to pass through it but reduces the amplitude (volume) of all the Frequencies above the cutoff point In general most plug-ins have various Low Pass Filter settings where the more poles it has the more Dbs it will cut and will yield a harder knee to it Example 1 Pole Filter with a -6dBOct reduction Vs a 2 Pole Filter reducing -12DbOct However you dont necessarily need a LFO controlling your Low Pass Filter Cutoff frequency value you could just draw in the Automation yourself but a LFO will yield a loop of consistent values and prevents the possibility of human error All the LFO is doing is sending a value to your frequency cutoff to keep it consistently changing
--------------------
Tips amp Advice
1) Sub bass wobble would normally be a Sine wave at around the 40-50 Hz range which would repeat the same chords as the mid-range bass wobble The only difference being that with a sub bass wobble there is no point in assigning the LFO to a Low Pass Filter because the sound is too low for the low pass filter to have any effect so theLFO is assigned to the amplitude (volume) instead Another reason for not applying a Low Pass Filter to the Sub bass is because it would typically be a Sine wave which possesses no Harmonics to be adjusted by the Filter
2) The sound of an LFO can also be adjusted by the wave type you choose The default setting for an LFO generator is a Sine wave although on most synths you can chose from Triangle Sawtooth Square wave Random Noise To get a nice sounding bass it is a good idea to use as many oscillators as possible on different octaves
3) Try messing around with the attack and release of your sound as this can have an impact on the sound of the bass Long attacks tend to create a more ambient sound and is a technique traditionally used with ambient pads
Page 22
4) Something that I find useful is to bounce the bassline to a wav file so that it can be chopped up and put in-sync with other elements of the song because the majority of the time you will find the first wave of sound in the wobble bassline will will be half the length of the other waves due to attack rates So the best thing to do is to chop that freak sound off the beginning of the file in your DAW (Logic Pro Reason Cubase etc) and start off with the second wave which should be fully formed This way it will not be too early of late when keeping in sync with other elements such as a second bassline
5) Another method you can use is creating a clone layer of your original sound and setting up a new LFO setup for that to beat alternatively in the space left by the original LFO Or go that crazy Drum amp Bass Reese route and split the frequencies to Low Mid and High then set different LFO rates for each band then recombine into one sound
6) For more variation automate your LFO speed and intensity
7) Where you place insert effects in relation to the filter (pre or post) will yield different sounding results
8) Other methods to achieve a wobble like sound Tremolo (This effects volume rather than frequency) FM Synthesis Modulation of PWM Oscillator Pitch assigned (in a liberal amount) to LFO Filter Envelope assigned to LFO (using a re-triggered envelope) (submitted by Faun2500)
9) Assign a second LFO to modulate the speed of the first LFO
LFO Shapes
Sine wave The smooth value change possible
Triangle Similar to a Sine wave but slightly more ramped amp synthetic sounding
Random A mixed bag
Sawtooth Will have a very fast attack with a slower release which will sound very rugged
Square wave Will be a simple open close style Very harsh and will generally cause a very harsh sound (Often used in DJ Hazard style bass-lines) Detune two square waves for a nice dark sounding bass
Waveforms submitted by Skells wrotehttpi228photobucketcomalbumsee83 cleanjpgSimple Filter Sweep
httpi228photobucketcomalbumsee83 wobblejpgSine Wave LFO assigned to Filter Cutoff
LINKS etc
Fruity Loops Wobble Tutorial (Link submitted by Wub) Massive Wobble YouTube Tutorial (Video created by thesynthesist) Pause amp Play Wobble Tutorial (Link submitted by dubmo) Albino3 Wobble Guide (Guide created by axon)
By Rendr amp Deadly Habit and a little help from Macc
313 lsquoReecersquo
The Reese Bass
Page 23
History Lesson
The Reese bass was a form of huge sounding synth-bass first used by the Detroit Techno producer Kevin Saunderson aka Master Reese aka Reese Project aka on the track Just Want Another Chance and immortalised in the classic DnB track Terrorist by Renegade Since then it has been (over)used in many a DnB track and continues to evolve even nowadays through Dubstep and Jungle It is said to be as influential to DnB as the Amen break and probably as used and abused as the Amen
Capturing the Beast
1The Oscillator Stage
To nail the Reese you need a synth with at least 2 oscillators but for better-bigger results use as many oscillators as you can (not really but 4 oscillators give a nice deep rumble - ahhhhhh) All the oscillators are playing sawtooth waves and all except one are detuned by 25-50 cents so that all oscillators are out of phase with each other
2 The Filter Stage
The signal is then sent to a low-pass filter with the cutoff freq set around 150-200Hz (experiment with that you want the growl of the mid-frequencies but you also want it as deep as possible without sacrificing the midrange) The resonance of the filter should be cranked up almost all the way (but again tweak accordingly to your filtersynth)
3 Fuzz it Up
The second most important aspect of the Reese (after the detuned sawtooths) is distortion Tube distortion and tape saturation work extremely well but dont hesitate to use other more extreme distortion units (dont forget that the Reese has been done a million times you have to add something original to it) Again adjust to taste
4 Spices and Herbs
Now that is the main recipe for the sound but like all haute-cuisine there are more things you can do to spice up the Reese Namely effects Effects that have been associated with the Reese are
Phasers - to accentuate the phase-shifting effect of the detuned sawtooths Unison - a great way to make it even bigger Chorus - again a good way to phatten it up
5 And Some More Synth Magic
Another thing to do so you can bring out the old-school jungle character of the Reese is to use Legato and PortamentoGlide if your syth of choice has them available These are both great ways to move from one note to the next without listening to the transition To put it simply when legato is on and you play a sustained E followed by a sustained G the transition between the two notes gives the listener the impression that they heard a single note being sustained that has just changed its pitch from E to G without pausing at a certain point
Always remember though that if you use Legato you have to turn the polyphony of your synth down to 1 (something you should almost always do with basslines because two bass-notes playing together almost never sound good in electronic music bass chords are more the realm of prog-rock shit than dubstep)
For the more technical minded legato in synthesizers is a variation of monophonic operation In contrast to monophonic mode where every new note restarts the ADSR envelopes in legato mode they are not if the previous note remains depressed when the new note is played This causes the initial transient from the attack and decay phases to sound only once and the ADSRs to remain at sustain stage for the whole sequence of notes until the final note is released (Wikipedia)
EDIT I just found out that in one of the free vst links on the bible there is a thing called the Hotelsinus Reese Bassline Synth So I didnt miss the opportunity for a mini review The software itself is small (like most free vst-is) and quite easy to install (you just drop the dll in the vst folder) As for the sound weeeeeeell the sounds it produces are definitely Reese But weak somehow Its like listening to Terrorist from a battered cheap old cassette from 93 or something It has a tinny and tiny sound when compared to what you can achieve with powerhouses like Albino or
Page 24
Massive or (one of my personal favorites for Reese) Cakewalk Rupture You can try it if you want but i dont think it will impress steppers that much we are bass-headed folk
314 Random Bass Tips
Plz add yours or others youve spotted on the forum
miss_molinari wrotebasically i have been experimenting with cutting (not sidechaining) a notch (band reject) in the bass starting at 60hz and ending just before 70 this is only for those bass lines which only hit on the kick (quite specific) also the bass is then high passed at about 220hz to pretty much 0db which is where the kick starts (ending the kick with a non-too-aggressive-cut at about 2khz) this essentially means that the kick and the bass do not share any frequencies above abot 200hz but also between 60 and 70 and with them always hitting at the same time this gets around the fact that sidechaining this type of sequencing would leave you with no or little bass
this has worked well so far but is useful mainly for sub basses ending at around 250hz would not be as good for full spectrum wubsanyone else got any tech tips regarding the bass and kick
futures_untold wroteI simply cut everything under 90Hz on my kicks and roll off slightly at 1KHz
Sub I cut under 40Hz and roll off at 200Hz
I always compress both seperately and keep my levels low in the mix to create plenty of head room later whilst adding sounds with higher frequency content
Anything above 150Hz is what I consider midrange Anything above 150Hz can be heard on mobile phone speakers We all know that theyre designed to play heavy bass lol Wink
miss_molinari wroteDaft Cunt wroteTo me it feels like cutting the kick above 80 hz makes it sound weak I guess it depends on the style I rather cut below 60 to 80 depending on the tune
yeah its all about context in a dry minimal setting im of the opinion you can make a kick punch right up to about 180-200hz but yeah depends on when and on what kind of punch (im usually talking a bass hit at about 200hz coupled with a knock hit anywhere up to about 1200hz) i imagine you true dubsteppers prefer a denser thump from 60 through to about 300hz
Daft Cunt wroteI began recently the band-reject thing on the sub Little details that make big difference
And do you people cut the bass where the snare peaks
my basses arent usually middy enough to need that but yeah a slight sidechain on the main snare and say midbasspadwothavyer is nice especially if the limelight is stolen by a deeper sidechain on the kick and midbasspadwothavyer can create a nice flow (especially when used with long decay reveb linked to the midbasspadwothavyer so that it sounds louder and longer the higher the frequency played - might
have to post some piccies of that one )
Shonky wroteWhat Ive been doing lately is bouncing down the kick track lowpassing one somewhere between 100-140 depending on the highest frequencies of the low sub and then sidechaining the sub to the low kick
Then take a copy of the kick track highpass between 300-1000 and this will give you the beater noise to make the kick cut through I then sidechain this to the more middly basses You can also send a small amount to a reverb bus which allows you to avoid mud on the lower frequencies whilst still giving you the space
Doing it this way seems to make sense to me cause the sidechains work on the corresponding kicks in the same frequency range so it doesnt cause loads of unnecessary compression where you dont need it
Page 25
boh wroteAlways make sure your kicks are in tune with the rest of the track ull hear it pitching up and down and make sure if ur layering that the transients dont conflict(good monitors make this easy) It all comes down to kick selection Whats the point in cutting a kick at 80hz with a fundemental freq of say 60hz Sure you get whats happening before it but u wont get the nice thump of the fundemental freq Choose other kicks that hit the freq u want (80hz say) instead of cutting them when theres no need to Unless you really really know what your doing getting technical like this complicates the situation Esp for people with little experience
sullyharmitage wrote50 hz hi pass seems a bit high to me maybe gd for kicky techno or house but for subby stuff it seems a bit muchdefo roll off past 30-35 (most well engineered systems will do this anyways so any content below this is definately getting wasted)if yr gonna go higher make sure its a soft curvei find levelling subs is the hardest part of a mix - cos more always sounds better i remember reading breakage saying yr subs shouldnt add more than 3db to yr mix thats seems like a good guide
btw sub in kick an bassline simultaeously is gonna cause clashes (n maybe disortion) id either decrease the attack on the bass or cut the sub from the kick
unklefesta wroteI rolloff EVERYTHING at 40hz except my bass
standard
wang wroteAlways do it
Dont forget youre ROLLING off the frequencies not cutting them off all together Just a couple of dB of bass down there is enough to get some girth without removing all your headroom
Also analyse and cut off the lows on everything even if it doesnt appear to have messy lows -Youd be surprised how much bass there is in some high hats
Jtransition wroteAll of your tracks are going to be different so dont restrict yourself to a certain techniquetry different things and listen to the results
Shonky wrotewang wroteAlso analyse and cut off the lows on everything even if it doesnt appear to have messy lows -Youd be surprised how much bass there is in some high hats
Yep this is very true also worth filtering out the inaudible highs on low sounds as well found some of my subs which Id low passed still showed frequency activity much higher than expected
Jtransition wroteStick a high pass filter on everything apart form the kick drum and bass line70 hertz is a good starting point move up or down to tasteAnd remember try to mix at low levels(Walls not vibrating)
Deadly Habit wroteRendr wroteBasslines in my experience should be mono due to the fact that humans cannot easily decoded the stereo positioning of low frequencys so panning basslines (excluding bass sounds with high pitch sounds at around 500Hz+) is not recommended not only are the low frequencys hard to position with the human ear the low frequency sound waves are absorbed by the human head at a much higher ratio than high pitch sounds which tend to be reflected Another thing to note is that club systems are
mono Basslines that pan only belong in Psytrance
sub range should be mono especially if going to be cut to vinylmidrange bass on the other hand you can pan and add stereo fx to your hearts content
Page 26
32 Re-sampling
SafeAfter a few months of experimenting with resampling not really getting anywhere in terms of sound quality i came up with a pretty simple way of getting on the right track Ive got so much help since getting on this forum in terms of production i thought id share this for those who like myself are looking into the elusive yet highly rewarding technique of resamplingAll the vsts i use on this (save for the synth itself) are freenative plugs im using FL but itll transfer onto every DAW pretty much the same Ill explain it for a bassline but it can be applied to any sound
Step 1Make yourself a nice bassline get it sounding dirty with whatever you can within the synth Im using Albino so i tend to play about with the saturation modesFXs until its sounding pretty good
Step 2Hook up to a mixer channel then send this channel to a second mixer channel (FL users just click on another channel towards the bottom of the strip) On the second channel that the synth is hooked to from the first add CMt bitcrusher and downsample 3-16x (thanks to all the production forum users who pointed this out to me when i posted a few months ago on dirtying up basslines) Then add a chorus Turn the LFOs off and set the depthdelayetc to whatever sounds best Also set the crossover pretty high so only the treblehigh mids are being affected Then add Camel Audio Camel Crusher Turn the compressor off and set the tubemech to taste Add a parametric EQ if needs be to boost the high freqs Experiment with the chain of these effects swapping them according to the sound The choruscameleq in different orders should alter the sound quite alot depending on where their placed
Step 3 Set the level of the second affected channel with the original depending on whatever suits Play about with adding extra effects to both channels The way the second channel behaves once an effect is added to the first is quite extreme in even light application of effects So its possible to create a whole array of different sounds just from say adding a flangerchorusetc to the first channel then listening to how much it affects the sound as a whole as it goes through both channels By now it should be sounding pretty girthy
Step 4Export the riffsample (i use edison on the master channel in FL but whatever method will do) Reload and place into a mixer channel Add another Camel Crusher for abit more grit EQ and compress Set up a reverbdelay send and resample again for extra depth
Obviously this technique can be applied a 2nd3rd4th time to fuck the sound up even more so Which is what ive moved onto doing now into the territory of splitting the sound into basslow midhigh midtreble sections for ultimate control over each part Something which i was attempting to do before coming up with the above method but being left with a pile of unlistenable mushy shite
Hope this is a help to some peeps I know theres no secret technique to resamping only a whole load of practice and using your ears but this method got me on the right track in terms of hearing the benefits of it and encouraging me to experiment more in depth and realise that the possiblities are endless Im hooked now i resample pretty much every sound in one way or another Kick and snares benefit hugley from it for mega face melting wide drum sounds aswell so its worth trying it on some nice drum hits
Keep up the good work folksPeaceDC_WT
33 Drums
Read before reading on I am in no way entitled to any of those opinions It is up to you to decide whether you would like to incorporate them in your workflow I have just collected them from all the threads in this forum and will try to keep everything updated
I will update as regularly as I find updates
Page 27
Misc tips and tricks bull Good drums are usually layered - example 3 snares sounding as onebull The hats are often panned or widenedbull Pick great sounding samples different ones for different parts of the sounds you want 1
for snap and bite 1 for body 1 for thump distort and MAYBE EQ each to make them sound the best that they can separately combine in a bus MAYBE compress them together maybe accent the front and shorten the sound with a transient modifier 10 minutes tops
bull Do as little as possible with great-sounding bits and your basic sounds will be slamming leaves you time to focus on the arrangement people dont go around thinking wow that tune has an amazing snare as long as its thumping and not masked by a bunch of other stuff itll keep the dance moving
bull Listen to other producers work As its playing imagine the 1 2 3 4 on the step sequencer running in time to what youre listening to Try to visualize where the producer put their hits Not to say you should copy peoples drum patterns but learn from them
bull Ive noticed a lot of tunes (more minimal stuff where you can distinctly hear whats seperately going on) seem to use two differently pitched hi-hats that alternate to sound shuffley if you know what I mean and a less dramatic snare used sparsely in between the main lazy kick and snare An easy trick if you havent worked it out (which to be honest you should have if youre at all serious about producing dubstep) is to stick a smaller snare or hat the 116th before the kick or snare so it steps if you get me For example Bengas Night does this for all four beats in the bar which is part of what makes it so danceable But dont get stuck in always having kick on 1 and snare on 3 some tracks work with a kick on every beat others with a couple big snares etc The trick (unless you want proper lazy spaced out tunes) is to make sure youre nodding your head on all four beats of the bar Play around with a hat on every quaver (ie 8 per bar on the beat) compared to just four but on the off beat as well as adding in the steppy ones every now and then Theres often no need to over-complicate things though one of the my favourite drum tracks is the incredibly simplistic V by Distance Its a rhythm that could easilly be played by one guy on a real kit yet its so banging - check the use of hats and lower velocity kicks in this to make it nice and bouncy Also I once had a four bar drum loop and accidentally moved the sequence one bar to the right for one section and it ended up nicely varying the drums in a way you wouldnt expect
bull Really tight delays can help claps and snaps sound natural 5-20ms etcbull Recycle or phatmatik is your break-chopping friendbull Basically Hatrixxs method involved chopping everything from the main hits into a sample
Say you had a 2-step funk beat like the Amen Youd start your selection from the start of the first kick and select everything up to the start of the first snare Cut paste theres your first slice Then take everything from the start of the first snare up to the start of the second kick - including all the little hats and ghost hits - cut paste second sample and so on Then just map the samples onto some keys and bash away Both of them are quick compared to chopping Recycled slices where you have to copy and drag loads of little notes (one every little fucking tiny hit in the break arranged chromatically up the keyboard) around the piano roll These methods let you just concentrate on the main hits which can be both good or bad You can get a solid beat down with just a handful of hits but youre limited to the patterns already in the original break For a beginner to breakbeat science like yourself Id say try these methods first but dont rule out the really anal methods like RecyclePhatmatikFruity Slicer Sometimes they are a necessary evil Of course some of the drumfunk guys especially those who post on Subvert Central swear by these methods or the next one There are those who prefer to chop up the raw audio rather than bothering with MIDI and samplers They literally just drop the break file into Cubase or Logic and start chopping with the scissors tool and copying and pasting I can see the benefits of this You can see the waveform as youre chopping and youre not as restriced to the quantize grid as you are with MIDI But it takes aaaaages to build a drum track this way and theres the risk of RSI from all that Ctrl+C Ctrl+V youll be doing Then of course theres trackers They really are tailor-made for chopping up loops amongst other things They give you Sample Offset meaning that when you trigger a sample you can set it to start from 256 evenly spaced points throughout the sample So by starting a sample a quarter of the way through youre triggering the first snare (obviously you can fine-tune it when the snare isnt perfectly on the beat) You can edit breaks in a tracker without ever having to cut up a waveform and you can do all sorts of other nifty things like reverse the sample retrigger it to make drum rolls and so on
If recycles having trouble switch the break to mono in your sample editor and then apply tiny fades between the drum hits (especially useful if there are lots of rides that play over the other hits to keep things separate) This should help recycle pick up the start points and with any luck should leave you with a cleaner break
Page 28
Snaresbull Tune the snares so they all hit around the same pitch bull Change the Amp Envelopes of each to bring the strongest parts from each separate sample
and build up your sound like that bull Compressing all together is a good idea but dont over do it bull EQ the master out for the snare as well so you wont have to fuck about when you use the
sample in the future bull Donrsquot just use snares fling some random sound effects in there Claps and rim shots also
work well when layered bull Make subtle changes to them and export a few snares from the same setup this helps
when you need a ghost hit or a reverse that sounds similar but not identicalbull Watch that frequencies dont build up and make the layered bit sound overly whatever
is building up Really easy to get too much 200hz or 500hz or even 12k if youve got samples that are all beefythicksmack-y
bull If its peaking run it through a Spectrum Analyzer and see where its peaking I guess its peaking in the tune rather than just the snare sample playing on its own
bull Sometimes snare samples have a very short peak that doesnt seem to make them sound any better and keeps you from getting them louder without cliping Reduce that part by a few dBs and youre sorted
bull Make sure you are using subtractive eq to pull out the frequencies that could be clashing with other sounds If your frequencies are clashing that can hide the snare and then you end up turning it up to compensate and there you are with your snare peakingThe key is making the frequencies sit right in the mix so that they dont clash and you can set them right and not have to turn them up
bull You could always try clipping the snare normalise it in a wave editor amplify it as much as you can before it sounds distorted then sample it out Then replace the snare with the clipped version it will almost always sound louder with more body at a lower volume I would still point out that although this can be used as a replacement to compression compression is a vital tool to learn how to use Also a lot of peeps will say this does bad things to the waveform and it does but unless you intend to listen to your tune to be heard at home on an amazing hifi then it doesnt really matter that much IMO
bull Hi-pass overdrive limit and cut away space from other sounds for itbull Layer with its self or a different snare Layer with sub add effect to one layer add effect
to both layers layer zoom right in drag one wave form back or forth very slightly to create new snare sound Pitch updown EQ Filter distort reverb delay reverse
bull Record yourself beat boxing your best snare sounds then layer with snare samplesbull A good handclap never goes a miss or use a nice drum synth to get a very differentdigital
soundbull Try reversing the snare sample then changing the envelope settings so it only hits on the
beat Layer that with the same sample this time not reversed Add a little delay to the the reversed snare Change the settings til it sounds how you like
bull Particularly snares I layer up a lot I look for one that has the qualities that I want when run through verb and then I look for something shorter with more mid punch to keep things physical After someone notied snares were weak in a tune Ive really made a point of ensuring that when the snares hit its physical as well as textural You need to feel them a bit - so I look for some snares that have that real punch when layering but usually keep the more textural snappy one as the focus last couple tunes I did the standard kick snare hats w odd percussion and then I took an amen chopped it processed it and layered it overtop for more aggression and step (goddess being a perfect example) By removing a layer and adding it you can create a sense of progression through the tune Make sure the bottom layer is sounding really good and then add the top so that youre not mixing them to be reliant on one another - instead you want synergy Make sure the EQ on the top and bottom make sense with each other
Kicksbull Building a kick in Ableton Lives Impulse machine Provides some essential information
about layering that can be used with any DAWbull Making fat kicks
remixmag wroteWhether creating Miami Bass music is your lifes fantasy or your greatest fear you probably crave the know-how to manifest those car-rattling trunk-full-of-funk kick drums In the arenas of hip-hop house techno downtempo and almost any other electronic genre molding fat kick drums is absolutely essential Like grandmas homemade apple pie the recipe for kick drums is partially a matter of taste However theres no substitute for quality ingredients And just like every pie has its staple ingredients every slamming kick drum requires some common elements Lets take a look at the
Page 29
shopping list for killer kick drumsTHE CRUST
Youll need a basic shell to begin creating a thick strong kick The classics always work if youre fortunate enough to own a real Roland TR-808 909 or other famous drum machine with a killer kick use it copiously If youre not one of those chosen few pay close attention to your original source For example if you use a sampler understand that not all ldquo808 Kickrdquo samples are the same some sound great and some just plain suck There are a lot of reasons for that including how many generations from the original the sample is the sampling rate and bit depth of the sampler how the kick was first sampled and so on Be as choosy as possible with your individual samples mdash dont use a mediocre sample just because it has 808 in the name and therefore is ldquosupposedrdquo to sound fat Seek out a better 808 sample or use something else that is simply bigger sounding Remember the time you spend finding sweet original sources wont be in vain especially if you reuse the resulting samples for multiple songsBORROW SOME SUGAR
An old saying goes ldquoGood art borrows great art stealsrdquo A nice way to start out with great raw kick material is to sample directly from the source If you dont own but have access to a 909 then sample it directly Or take one of your favorite producers tracks on vinyl or CD find a naked kick drum in there and sample it Be cautious with that approach for a couple of reasons Copyright issues around sampling even small bits have become a dangerously gray area and I would never personally advise using any source straight out of the can even from a royalty-free sample library While it may be an excellent start its unoriginal Customize whatever you bite Treat your samples as a sculptor would treat clay mold each one to create a trademark sound for yourself One effective way to customize a fat kick is to take a tip from the synth manufacturers If a sound is thin pile another (or a few more) on top When doing so its important to use different sounds layering two identical kicks will result in a louder kick but it wont change the basic tone Remember the sculptor approach here Even if you are using two good-sounding individual samples they may not instantly sound great together For example I find that when layering kicks while the thickness may be good sustain is often overkill The final result often benefits from a little doctoring on the tail of one (or both) of the samples and other hands-on sonic surgeryADD THE FILLING
Once a nice basic kick is achieved treating it with two of the mastering engineers favorite tools is often the next step Artfully applying a compressor (to just the kick) can go a long way toward creating a signature sound and a huge kick Compression is one of those ldquosecret spicesrdquo and how to apply it is a whole topic in itself One recommendation I will make however is to use a multiband compressor With one of those you can isolate compression on certain frequency ranges That is perfect if for example you want to push the sub of your kick without emphasizing the higher frequencies (which often affect the tone of the attack) or vice-versa EQ comes after compression in my signal chain By now the kick should already sound pretty fat I aim to shave unnecessary frequencies here rather than artificially boosting too much This is also where you can actualize trademark sounds while also fine-tuning them to work alongside other elements in specific tracks I often scoop out mids and highs especially frequencies above about 500 Hz Even though I like thick deep kicks unless Im going for a really dublike sound I often truncate the lowest frequencies (usually the sub-50 Hz frequencies) Even when you cant hear the difference when trimming frequencies doing so can really tighten up your kicksEVEN IT OUT
You may ask why when youre trying to fatten up a kick would you want to trim frequencies That is one of the keys to achieving great mixes both in the case of kick drums and in general You want to avoid too many overlapping frequencies The more sonic separation you have between elements the more focused the entire mix will sound That can be especially important for club music which often gets played on huge not necessarily audiophile-quality sound systems If you havent run into the following scenario already I assure you at some point you will Your bass line and kick drum are competing and it sounds like you have a weak kick You boost the kick but it still sounds muddy Take the bass out and suddenly the kick doesnt sound so bad In a scenario like that solo the two sounds listen carefully for where frequencies are overlapping and then try subtractive EQ on one element then the other and sometimes a bit on both By scooping out overlapping frequencies you will often find that both elements seem to magically come forward in the mix before even touching their respective volume levels
Hi hatsbull Realism
Ive been a professional touring and recording drummer for 25 years and just thought I might share a couple of really simple ways to use fruity loops or fruity studio to create more realistic drum patterns
For what its worth try this out with Fruity Loops
Page 30
Take your hi hat tracks (are any tracks for that matter including melodic synth bubbles)
Drop down the bar graph box that allows you to scroll between velocity (volume) pitch panning cutoff resonance and a thing called shift which allows you to use each of these categories to effect each individual note that youve programmed (note this can be accomplished in other ways in most of the good midi sequencing apps or softwarehardware drum machines)
Drummers no matter how good they are just arent perfect and we can use the fact that each of these drop down bar graphs can make veryvery small changes in a sound to do some subtle things to a rolling drum groove like 16th notes on a hi hat
Not all drummers but many tend to favor their strong hand in a single stroke (hand over hand) drum roll Consequently if you make all odd numbered hi hats be slightly louder than their even numbered hits it will sound more realistic Start by making velocity differences that are really clearly audible Then lower the velocity until you can barely feel the difference We are going to make very subtle changes like this on each of the parameters of velocity pitch cutoff resonance and importantly shift
I cant stress enough that you should make these changes be so subtle that you can hardly notice them
Just going on the fact that the right handed players start their rolls with the right hand and favor it ever so slightly (or grossly for effect as well) means that the stroke will be harder with the right hand than the left hand
When a percussion instrument is hit harder the difference between the transient (or hi pitched attack) of the sound and the body of the instrument (or the sound that comes after the attack) becomes greater In general on drums that means that a harder attack tensions the drum very imperceptably (sp) and it also means that there will be more treble in the sound Consequently the pitch goes up a little teensy bit and their is more attack to the sound (increased resonance and slightly higher cutoff frequency)
Consequently you can make the pitch of each right hand be just barely noticeably higher the resonance should be just one or two of those little teeny bars higher The cutoff should be just a few bars lower (allowing less high frequencies through) on the left handed or even numbered strokes
Typically if drums have time inaccuracies they tend to drag the left hand a litte bit I have to keep stressing that if you can hear the changes you make you arent being realistic You need to make the changes subtle enough that you just barely feel that they arent perfect You can consequently make each left hand note shifted one or two bars late
Tigure out how much you can tweak each parameter before it becomes obvious and then you can just randomly tweak each one up to that limit With a little bit of variance in each stroke from parameter to parameter you will create more of a percolating texture in your programming - this is a great technique to make synth bubbles (the kind used in techno and house) more interesting and less mechanical feeling
Now you can avoid the biggest mistake that non-drummers do when trying to write realistic programs turn the overall volume of the hihats until you CANT hear them and then slowly bring up the volume until you just begin to hear them
Professional producers have spent countless hours trying to figure out how to gate and mix hihats OUT of tracks The reason is two fold1) Human beings have such a radical peak in their hearing around the 1-2khz range (or the intelligibility range of human speech) that we can play the hihats at incredible low volumes and they are still audible You cant do that with a bass drumI tell my drum students that you cannot play a hi hat or a snare drum so quietly that a person sitting in a room with you cant hear it2) Hi Hats the snare of snare drums and cymbals all seriously MASK human vocal intellibility How many people have gone to see live shows where they can hear the singer is singing but cant for the life of them figure out what they are actually singing That is ususally because drummers (or mixers which is frequently the case) are not hip to thisimportant fact
So turn down your hi hat tracks (or any track with a strong mid rangeshort envelope attack) and you have much more room for other musical goodies in your mix When in doubt make your hi hats quieter than you think they should be Trust me theyll come through the mix even at a quiet volume
Swingbull Dont know if you can do this in your sequencer but in Logic you can create a groove
template from your drums and then apply that to your other instruments If youre using separate midi channels for snares kicks and hats take the 8 bar loop youre using glue it together and then take the groove from that and then mute that track When you click down the quantize list youll see the template there and you can apply it to your other tracks Also if you do want to change the groove you can just change the hits in the muted template and itll automatically change all other hits to the new changes
bull Think if youre clever and organized you can basically cut breaks up in recycle load them into the exs24 (extract sequence) and then do the same with them That way if there are breaks you like the feel of you can just apply that swing to anything If you make a folder called grooves in your logic folder they should load up each time so that youll have loads to choose from Havent done this myself yet but always helpful to have a choice of feels available
bull Some things sound better rigid and robotic with equal velocities Some things sound better rigid and robotic with differing velocities Some things sound better with swing Some things sound better with everything ever-so-slightly off Its down to what the track needs
bull Drum Break Swing ProgrammingNicolas Hall wwwbreakbeat-cafenet wroteI think most people who make anything funk breakbeat drum amp bass or hip-hop would agree that Swing is crucial to the effectiveness of a beat The other key factors in a programming sense are dynamic and accent So many people get wound up when their beats sound sterile or mechanical this is due to the fact that computers and sequencers lock to perfect BPM A computer on its own does not interpret rhythm the way a good drummer does There are however certain machines that have their own swing parameters like the Akai MPC range of sampling drum machines which are used extensively by hip hop producers
Swing is not the easiest thing in the world to analyze but as a general rule good drummers will play slightly late and thats why in all funky records you get that slight dip at the start of the bar take Superstition by Stevie Wonder or Billie Jean by Michael Jackson these are both very simple beats Superstition is of course live drums whilst Billie Jean was programmed but no less funky than Superstition I emphasize this point to demonstrate that a programmed beat can be every bit at groovy as a beat played on a drum kit
Expanding on the Billie Jean point Hip Hop beats are really very simple If you listen to the Neptunes they tend to create the swing in their beats by quantizing the kicks and snares and playing the hi hats in by hand this creates a very tight beat which is off set by a loose hi hat try it works but dont forget your accents - As a starting point just take the first snare of your beat and turn the velocity down then notice how your head starts nodding and your foot starts tapping a little more you are giving the beat feel Also remember that if you are using reverb the louder snare will push the reverb harder than the soft snare so your creating more ambience that way Then try your kick drums if your not sure which hits to adjust just pick apart a beat your feeling I remember me and friend picking apart a Gangstarr beat and were able to almost replicate it by adjusting the velocities of each hit (admittedly it took a while to get it right)
If youre a newbie then a common trick when learning to make good grooves is to create a template with an existing loop The idea is take a loop you like thats got a good feel to it and then place your own hits over the break then take the break out and see if your hits are sounding funky This can take a while and its crucial to think about the strength of each hit or the dynamic Each kick will not be the same strength nor will the snares or the hats pick the loop apart dissect it and youll soon see that there are certain consistencies in all good beats
If youre using live loops and like to layer them with drum sequences you should be thinking about time space and frequencies So if you have a fairly heavy loop then layering it with heavy kick drums is probably not gonna sound good Think about filling holes are their any frequencies that could be filled up Or is there space in the loop for extra hits Try working in layers just adding one hit at a time also filtering works well you could take some of the frequencies out of your loop as you drop your drum sequences in to make room for them I think one the masters of this technique is Liam Howlett of the Prodigy He runs breakbeats and gives them extra balls by laying a kick drum underneath to add extra intensity to certain passages in his set but hes careful not to overlap frequencies to much A good place to start if you using breakbeats is the Roland Tr-808 kick drum which is around the 50hz mark which is sub bass territory so it will sit underneath most breaks very well
If your hell bent on making killer beats and loops then perseverance is crucial keep at it it will come together listen to beats you like and pick them apart identify the subtleties that make it happen I know some producers get fed up when their beats sound to clean or they are trying to create a new breakbeat and then compare it to sample they took from vinyl and get down on there own beat Think about what a breakbeat really is think about its history what has happened to it to make it sound the way it does Im
Page 32
sure youve noticed how some breaks have a certain something like a magic dust you cant put your finger on Let me share what I know with you about that
Most breaks though not all are taken from recordings of live drums some of them are pretty old so you have the ambience of live drums and the room they were recorded in you have the fact that natural decay and reverb of each drum is likely to have bled into the other mics on the kit and that most engineers used overhead mics which pick up the whole kit with two mics Then consider that many of these breaks will have been recorded to analogue tape with saturation which will create extra warmth and harmonics The next step comes from old sampling technology like the SP-1200 and the Akai s-950 mpc -60 these samplers sampled at 12- bit (bear in mind that most computers now are at least 24-bit if not more) and that the samples themselves where taken from vinyl and on and on the process goes with each new reverb and eq adding more and more to the break In terms of giving your breaks that character there are a number of things you can try for example buying an old four track cassette machine to dump your beats onto then re-sample it if your using a sampler like the s-950 then try pushing the input meters a little harder than usual add reverbs and resample it each time you put your loop through a new channel you will be adding something to it Also distortion is fantastic for breaks if you have any amp plug ins then try them the Amplitude one is particularly good you dont need to go mad with it just used subtly it works great
To finish I would just like to say again stick with it keep trying keep listening to records if you like to read about technique then do so you can learn so much from other producers Remember the strength of your hits is important as is the way it swings good luck
UPDATE 08092008
ENHANCE SYNTHESIZED DRUM PARTS WITH FOUND SOUNDS
emusiciancom wroteLayering real-world sounds with synthesized drum parts puts a new spin on your drum tracks You probably already have usable sound effects on your hard drive because most commercial samplers have at least a modest collection in their factory library Beyond that youll find thousands of royalty-free sound effects online Soundsnapcom is one of my favorite sources and its free The recordings dont need to be pristine for layering over drums so dont overlook cheap sampling CDs and consider grabbing your own sounds with a portable recorderCollect and Save
Start by assembling a small Foley library of short percussive sounds divided into typical drum-sound categories kicks snares toms cymbals percussion and so on Youll generally want to layer drum sounds with Foley sounds that have a similar volume contour and frequency range If you layer a Foley sound that resembles a kick drum with the sound of your hi-hat for example youll quickly fill up all the space in your drum track
Industrial household military transportation and vocal sounds make excellent fodder but you will often want to extract a small slice such as the last shot in a volley of machine-gun fire (snare) or the first bounce of a plastic bottle on concrete (tom) A browsing tool like Audio Finder (icedaudiocom) is invaluable if you have a large sample library That lets you quickly audition clips make basic edits and drag-and-drop slices to your library
Sticks UpIf your synthesized drum part is step sequenced youll need to export its step sequences as MIDI files Many drum synths do that including Sonic Charge Tonic (sonicchargecom) Apple Logic UltraBeat (applecom) and Submersible DrumCore (submersiblemusiccom) All of those come with a large collection of patterns exportable as MIDI sequences Youll also need a sampler to play the Foley sounds drum-oriented samplers are handier for that but are by no means necessary
Start by loading a kit in the drum synth Export one of its sequenced patterns or create your own and place it on the sampler track For some of the drum synth sounds select compatible Foley sounds and map them to the same notes in the sampler that theyre mapped to in the drum synth Next solo the doubled voices one by one in both the drum synth and the sampler start the sequence playing and tweak the samplers voice parameters (filter level pan envelope and so on) to make the sounds work together (see Fig 1 and Web Clip 1) Dont tweak global parameters such as effects because that will affect all sounds played by the sampler
High HoopsOnce youve configured your Foley track you can do several things to add interest I frequently use a
Page 33
second sampler for short vocal sounds Ill have some notes trigger sounds in both samplers and others in only one Many samplers let you group sounds and assign notes and controllers to choose among them You can then sequence these notes and controllers or you can play them live to alter your Foley tracks
Try applying DSP effects to individual Foley sounds Multitap delays distortion phasing and granular effects all work well when used sparingly (see Web Clip 2) You can apply DSP effects inside your sampler or route the voices to a separate output for DSP processing in your DAW If your sampler doesnt offer either possibility spread the Foley parts over several sampler instances on different tracks
Sidechain compression or gating of the drum track with one or more of the Foley parts will highlight the Foley part as well as add variety to the drums With compression peaks in the sidechain signal will reduce the level of the drum track Use a high compression level say 201 and balance the sidechain-gain and the compression-threshold -attack and -release controls to get the ducking contour you want (see Web Clip 3) Gating has the opposite effect the drum track will be heard during peaks in the sidechain signal (see Web Clip 4) Here too the sidechain-gain and gate-threshold controls work in tandem to determine when the gate is opened Use envelope parameters (attack release and hold) to shape the gates contour
Keep in mind that once youve created a sampler instrument to complement your drum kit you can reuse it with other sequences You can also change one or more sounds in the sampler instrument without repeating the whole process
34 Sidechain Compression (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
4 Theory41 ndash Song Structure42 ndash Mixdown (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)43 ndash Mastering (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
44 Music Theory
The first thing to remember about music theory is that generally if it sounds right it probably is There are no rules in music and Music Theory is not about telling you how to write music Its about understanding the music
Broadly speaking it is fair to say that most music is essentially based upon two crucial factors scales and rhythm Scales make up melodies chords harmonies and basslines to name but a few whereas rhythm makes up the beat of the song In this part of the Production Bible you will learn the basics of Music Theory that will serve you not only in the production of Dubstep but for any of your future musical pursuits This information is intended to be easy to read and understand so I wonrsquot be mincing sentences But firstly please make sure you learn every single note on the keyboard by studying the image below Otherwise yoursquoll be completely lost here
Page 34
Scales Wersquoll begin with scales As I mentioned before scales are the building blocks of your song and without them your track will be atonal and completely unlistenable (probably not the effect yoursquore going for)
There are two main scales that you should learn inside out ndash the major scale and the minor scale A generalisation yoursquore bound to have heard before is that the major scale sounds ldquohappyrdquo and the minor scale sounds ldquodarkrdquo Although this is not always the case it is mostly true ndash and therefore yoursquoll usually be focussing on the minor scale when producing Dubstep However just in case yoursquore writing happy-dubstep (if that exists) here is a quick overview of both scales and how they are made up
Major Scale
The major scale is really easy to create It is made by a single rule that is simple to put in to place
ldquoTone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
In case you donrsquot know what a Tone or Semi-Tone is here is a quick explanation
Picture a keyboard (or if you canrsquot see the image above) Say you go from C to C that would be a semi-tone The same thing goes for if you go from an E to an F ndash it is still a semi-tone because you
Page 35
have gone up one key
A tone is two semi-tones ndash for example from C to D is a tone and the same goes for from G to A
The scalersquos name is taken from the note that it starts on For example C major will start on the note of C Similarly A major will start on the note of A and this is the case with every single scale
Here is a quick list of a few major scales After having seen a few try working the rest out for yourself in order to understand how the major scale is formulated Ideally you should practice your scales on a piano or keyboard so that you can physically see how to make the scale It might sound boring but itrsquos a small price to pay for a much deeper understanding of your music
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Major C D E F G A B C
C Major C D E F G A B C
D Major D E F G A B C D
D Major D E F G A B C D
E Major E F G A B C D E
F Major F G A Bb C D E F
F Major F G A B C D E F
G Major G A B C D E F G
G Major G A B C D E F G
A Major A B C D E F G A
A Major A B C D E F G A
B major B C D E F G A B
Now by arranging the different notes of each of these scales in any order you please you can create a melody bassline or harmony with extreme ease Rearranging the notes in the scale will give you a flawlessly in-key result and it is then up to you to use the notes in the scale as you see fit for your tune
Minor Scale
As was the case with the Major Scale the Minor is made up from a set rule or formula By knowing this formula you can understand how the Minor is made and how to use it to itrsquos maximum effect
ldquoTone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
As is the case with the major scales you should practice your scales as much as possible to make sure that you know them all like the back of your hand Here are a few Minor Scales see if you can
Page 36
work out the rest
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Minor C D Eb F G Ab B C
D Minor D E F G A Bb C D
F Minor F G A B C D E F
G Minor G A Bb C D Eb F G
Similarly to the Major now that you know your Minor Scales you can quickly just take any note from the scale rearrange it with another few notes in the scale and there you have a fat melody or bassline ready to be played at maximum volume
Diminished Chords
Diminished Chords are really quite spooky and dark chords that are made up of four different notes all a minor third apart from each other That means that for example the Diminished Chord starting on C would be C Eb F A because to get from one note to the next you have to use ldquoTone Semi-Tonerdquo (known as a minor third)
Because of the mathematical nature of the Diminished chord there are only three ldquoclustersrdquo of notes which can then be rearranged like the Major and Minor Scales
Cluster 1 C Eb F A
Cluster 2 C E G Bb
Cluster 3 D F Ab B
Use these clusters and rearrange them as you please For example you could rearrange cluster 1 as Eb F A C etc
Generally speaking you canrsquot make a song based entirely on Diminished Chords due to the fact that each cluster only has 4 notes However a Diminished Chord is perfect for adding a hint of darkness to your tune and is brilliant when mixed with some Minor Scales
Chords
Chords are basically two or more notes played together They are made up from a specific scale ndash for example the C major chord is made up of notes in the C major scale
Usually chords will include the first third and fifth note of the scale as well as possibly using other notes to give them colour For example the basic chord of C major would be C E G Then you could add the seventh note to it (in this case it is B) Really it is up to the producerrsquos discretion how heshe goes about making a chord ndash just remember to stick to the scale you are using
Chords will more than likely sound like shit if you play them on a complicated or layered synth patch You want to be playing chords on sustained sounds such as strings or pads Chords will really fill out your sound if used properly You want your chords to be supporting the melody or bassline and more than likely want to add some reverb so that it doesnrsquot sound too sharp Make
Page 37
your chords blend in with the music and yoursquoll have mastered them
Chord Inversions
Quite simply chord inversions are when you rearrange the notes in a chord so that it sounds a bit different and suits your arrangement better
For example if you were in the key of C major you could have a drone of E playing underneath some strings playing the notes E G C E
Due to the fact that the notes are the same and have only been inverted the chord will still be in key with the rest of the music This is a great way to add a touch of variation to your music instead of using the same chord structure all the time
Arpeggios
Arpeggios are much easier to understand than they sound They are quite simply the first third and fifth note of the scale played as individual notes For example the arpeggio of C minor would be C Eb G C etc
A great example of an arpeggio is the bassline in Bengarsquos ldquoCrunked Uprdquo He goes from playing the F minor arpeggio backwards to playing the F minor arpeggio backwards In other words he is playing
C A F and then C Ab F
Experiment with a few Minor Arpeggios and a couple of Diminished Arpeggios and you canrsquot go wrong in writing a huge bassline
Suggested Reading
List of All Scales With Finger Charts Included
Well thatrsquos it folks Thatrsquos basically all the music theory you need to know to start off with As you grow more used to the various scales yoursquoll notice that certain notes sound good with each other whilst others donrsquot Irsquom not here to tell you how to write music Irsquom here to teach you the language
of music Itrsquos up to you to write the poetry
copy Bruno Crosier (klimaxx) 2008
45 Random Tips
Random tips amp best piece of advice thread
5 Resources
Page 38
51 Books amp Magazines
Hello again people
Does anyone know of more music production books magazines or authors we can add to these lists
Thanks
------------------------------------------------
Music Production Magazines Computer Music - httpwwwcomputermusiccouk Music Tech Magazine - httpwwwmusictechmagcouk Future Music - httpwwwfuturemusiccouk Sound on Sound - httpwwwsoundonsoundcom Remix Magazine - httpremixmagcom Mix Magazine - httpmixonlinecom Electronic Musician - httpemusiciancom EQ Magazine - httpwwweqmagcom Audio Technology - wwwaudiotechnologycomau Tape Op - httpwwwtapeopcom
------------------------------------------------
Music Books
Authors Curtis Roads httpmitpressmiteducatalogauthor aspaid=93 - The Computer Music Tutorial (Really really really good book) Paul White - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea ul20White - Basic Series + more Rick Snowman - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea k20Snoman - The Dance Music Manual Tools Toys and Techniques Bobby Owsinski - httpbooksgooglecoukbooksas_auth=Bobby+Owsinski - The MixingRecording amp Mastering Engineers Handbooks Michael Paul Stavrou - httpwwwmixingwithyourmindcom
Publishers Thomson Course Technology - httpcoursecengagecom (Click on the Music Technology tab) - Series published include Power Overdrive Ignite and CSI Series + many more Backbeat Books - httpwwwbackbeatbookscom ndash Power Tools Series + many more Wiley Publishing - httpwwwdummiescom (Enter music in their search bar) - For Dummies Series Penguin Books - httpuspenguingroupcom (Enter music in their search bar) - The Complete Idiots Guide Series + many more MIT Press - httpmitpressmitedu - Many books on music theory Focal Press - httpwwwfocalpresscom - (Enter music in their search bar)
------------------------------------------------
Online Music Book Stores (We need more links here Do you know of any that we can add)
httpwwwmixbookscom ndash Excellent source that sells only books about music
Page 39
httpwwwamazoncom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
httpwwwbarnesandnoblecom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
------------------------------------------------
52 Wikipedia
A good music lexicon wiki Search for your term in the search bar ---gt httpenaudiolexicorgwikiMain_Page
0-9
14rdquo Jack - httpenwikipediaorgwikiJack_plug 3rd Bridge - httpenwikipediaorgwiki3rd_Bridge
Zero Crossing - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_crossing Zero Crossing Rate - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_Crossing_Rate
53 Other recommended production forums
for Logic users this is the shit httpwwwlogicprohelpcom
Ive found both these forums to be full of knowledgeable producers amp musicians
httpwwwkvraudiocomforum
httpacapellaharmony-centralcomforumsindexphp
httpwwwgearslutzcomboard
httpwwwsoundonsoundcomforum
httpwwwmusicradarcomforum
httpwwwidmforumscom
httpwwwdance-industriescomphpBB2 8cffbb3b02
httpwwwsubvertcentralcomforumindexphp
httpwwwbreakbeatcouk
httpwwwtweakheadzcom
httpwwwabletoncompagesforum
Explains lots about the music industry ---gt httpwwwbemusocom
Page 47
Ok so a massive thanks to all the contributors there are literally too many to mention But Thanks to Futures Untold Johnny Beat Klimaxx Deadly Habit amp JunglistRendr Daft Cunt in perticular
Thanks to all the artists producers and general music geeks making this early revision of the production bible an essential read
There are links missing and will be included in version 21(Please help with the unlinked chapters by going here - httpwwwdubstepforumcomthe-dubstep-production-bible-updated-2009-06-03-t14797html and updating missing info as needed)
Compiled by Daft Cunt and Futures Untold PDF Compiled by Depone
Page 2
I see a lot of questions on studio monitors so Ill do my best to share some knowledge
Section 0 - What is a Studio Monitor and Why do I Need Them to Make Killer Beats that would make my big boned Italian grandmother shit in her diaper
You can skip this part if you know the dynamics of making grandma shit her diaper
Studio reference monitors are like your ears They let you hear the music If I cut your ears off or stick pencils through your eardrums you dont really know what your music sounds like That is an extreme If you have ears that dont work well you will write music that sounds good to you but that probably wont sound good to other peoples ears This wont make my grandmother shit in her diaper
Ill get more technical about getting grandmother to shit in her diaper now
Let us say you are writing a song on speakers that accentuate 10khz by 2 db and cut 100hz by 2 db You have wrote your tune and now you are trying to make your track sound really really good - grandma shit herself good when you mix down you will be trying to get the sound to sound good on your speakers Because your speakers accentuate 10khz by 2db you will tend to find the sound harsher here or too loud so you may cut these frequencies with eq Likewise when you are mixing the bass frequencies you will be trying to get the kick to make grandma shit without boom But because the speakers cut the sound at 100 hz you will tend to incease the ammount of frequency at 100hz
When you then take that song in your car and drive around with grandma the extra 2db of 100hz that you added to your mix to account for the lack of 100hz in your speakers at home will be noticable in your car It will make your track sound boomy You wont know why - it sounded so good at home Grandma no shit because of boom Likewise there will be a big gap in the upper frequencies so granma cant make out the lyrics - she turn up her hearing aid and keep turning over to you going huh huh because she cant figure out what is the music and what is her own farting and what is your voice
So basically by writing on good quality monitors (preferrably in an environment with some sound treatment and with proper speaker placement) you will create a mix that will transfer well on to other systems rather than it only sounding good on the system you are working on You wont really understand this unless youve had a lot of problems mixing down in your music If youre reading this likely youve had problems with translation and now see the advantages
Hopefully this clarifies
Section 1 - I dont know a god damn thing about monitors but I want to learn more - what the fuck do I do Jesus Christ
First if you want to learn a bit about monitors the best place for reviews imo is sound on sound (wwwsoundonsoundcom) It should truly be your first source of reference for looking for information on any potential purchase
Now here are the big boys that youll hear everyone talking about
ENTRY LEVEL MONITORS
Behringer B2030B2031 series
The Behringer series are really fucking entry level If youre seriously strapped for cash these might do Ive spent a very small ammount of time on the smaller ver and theyre not smooth but theyre a bit better option than hi-fi Similar to most of Behringers other gear thier market stance is low quality low price with a lot of un-needed bells and whistles I would recommend against these
KRK RP5RP6RP8 series
I own a pair of RP5s and have spent a small ammount of time with the RP8s The KRKs have a slight aggressiveness in the mid-highs which most people find very pleasing (myself included) Theyre a real joy to work on I notice that the RP5s definately have have a boxy quality which becomes extremely obvious next to my HRs They have a pretty average bass response (RP8s go down to 45hz RP5s down to 57hz I think - check SOS) Good speakers - great value
Page 3
Event TR8
These things are bass frequency response down to 35hz - which is lower than pretty much every other 8 reference monitor around Due to the nature of speakers deeper bass response means an inhibited ability to produce higher frequency sound The result is a slightly unclear mid range All speaker design is about compromise and balance These guys go for the deep tones rather than clarity Not a bad choice necessarily for dubstep producers My recommendation would be the KRK RP8s or Samson Rubicon 6As and save for a sub instead of going for these - a bit more long term and youll get a more physical bass response with better mid and high end image but it will obviously cost you more
Tapco S5S8s
The new guys on the block Ive spend a bit of time with these - had the S8s in my studio for a bit but brought them back to the store Ill discuss the S8s I think mackie have managed to create some hype with these (Tapco is mackies entry level brand) Dont listen to the hypereviews These speakers have a really hollow and far away quality that is exactly the opposite to the KRKs and Rubicons visible image These do have good bass response - down to 40hz They really lack the ability to show you whats going on even if the frequency response is deep and flat Not a bad choice on a budget if you really want the deeper bass but listen to them first I would really recommend against them if youve never spent time with reference monitors Again would recommend a speaker with better imageless bass paired with a sub
Samson Rubicon 5A6A
The least talked about reference monitors No one seems to consider these youre going to pay more for the woofer cone size than the others listed here but theyre my fav of the lot These dont use a cone for the tweeter - they use a traditional ribbon tweeter design (different than adams ART ribbon tweeter) The design is good - a bit too above my head to express but apparently these lack a lot of the negatives associated with ribbons (delicate quiet) These speakers give an incredible image of equisite quality Theyre very airy - you can see really deep into the sound Best bang for the buck IMO - these are fantastic with the 6As at $600 Go listen to them - youll see what I mean The only problem is the bass response is not deep at all Grab a sub - when people come over and look at your monitors and go what are those theyll walk out talking about how your studio is the best sounding joint around
MID RANGE
Im just going to discuss a couple big ones here
Adam A7
Now were breaking the $1000 mark These are a compromise between cost and quality Adam have stuck thier infamous(ly expensive) new fangled ribbon tweeter design into a less ideal enclosurewoofer combo Youre going to get that impressive depth and visibility on the highs but you might find some holes in the rest Youll probably want a sub as these guys are only 6+s and wont have a real deep bass response although it is still impressive for a smaller woofer ( I think 47hz)
Mackie HR624HR824 (MKI or MKII)
Mackie recently redesigned thier HR series Theyre now quite possibly the sexiest looking monitors on the market I own a pair of the HR824MKIIs and I love them These use a different design than all of the above Theyre unported with a radiator which is basically a big oval inside the enclosure which you cant see This allows deep bass response (37hz on the mkIIs I believe or 39hz) The design is good the quality is reliable While Mackie may have you believe theyre the best on the market theyre not A lot of people find them brash - I think theyre quite smooth so listen to them The tweeters are aluminumtitanium depending on the version which colours the sound differently than the silk and ribbon designs in above speakers These are very flat very reliable The image is reasonably upfront - not hyped or aggressive The image could be a bit easier to look in to I like the ribbon design of the SamsonAdam for this All in all looking at price vs quality these are probably more on the price side with speakers like the KRKs popping up
TOP END SHIT
Im not getting into this stuff If youre looking at Dynaudio Genelec top level adam shit then you know what youre doing and dont need my help[b]
Page 4
12 Headphones
If you want to add a model plz give its name pros cons amp average price (new) Thanks everybody
AKG K-240s ~120$ Pros Wide frequency response removable cables used a lot Much better for producing (than the HD-25s) a lot flatter so it doesnt have the beautiful (but fake) bass of the 25s Also doesnt crush my ears like a 150kg boxer Cons Tend to make you a bit hot lol
Beyerdynamic DT990 PRO ~220$ or 150 Euro Pros comfortable very solid bass response wide frequency range Cons havent found any so far I find them suitable for mixdowns
Samson RH300 Pros Cost-effective auto-adjust mechanism so very light and comfortable can balance well bass levels on it Sounds muddy if mixdown is not well balanced Cons Aggressive fatiguing high end I shelf highs while producing because theyre pinching This is not to be compared with AKG-240s and likes its a bargain (can find it as low as 25euro)
CH70700 Pros The most cost-effective studio headphone Enough comfortable similar in behaviour to rh300 Very small the ideal for the nomadic producer I think Not fatiguing as the RH300 CH700 is the bigger brother of CH70 you only get bass and more distinct stereo image Gets VERY muddy if mix is not perfect Its difficult to calibrate decaying sounds on it (reverbdelays) Cons It costs really low so its cons are a consequence of it
Sennheiser HD-25 ~ euro150 Pros solid built great for djing good for producing by night if you have thin walls and neighbours on the other side Cons not suitable for mixdowns some people complain they cant wear for more than a couple of hours (tho I have no problem after several hours)
HD 600 ~ pound180 Pros Sound like sex Comfortable Frequency range is amazing goes all the way from 20-2000 Hz (and made my ears bleed at 15000Hz ) Cons Expensive at around pound180 HD 600 crew - get the HD650 cable makes a very nice difference for only pound20 or so
13 Midi Controllers
If you want to add a model plz give its name pros cons amp average price (new) Thanks everybody
________________________________
KEYBOARDS ________________________________
AKAI MPK49 pound280 new 49-key semi-weighted keyboard with aftertouch and full-sized keys 8 360 degree rotary dials each with 3 banks = 24 total 12 MPC style pads velocity and pressure sensitive 4 banks = 48 total 8 sliders each with 3 controller banks = 24 total note repeat and arpeggiator 8 assignable switches with 3 banks each = 24 total MMCMIDI Start Stop transport buttons USB powered
Page 5
great all in one midi controllerkeyboard although you do pay a bit typical price is around pound280 new Also as someone who has owned an MPC I can testify that the drum pads do note respond like an MPC although they are the closest out of all the keyboard controllers I looked at apart from that I cant fault it
Evolution MK-449C Pros 9 faders 8 knobs 10 assignable buttons pitch and mod wheel add up to 29 controls works as a charm cheap Cons Configuring it can be annoying as fuck(I mean the configuring of presets and other stuff)
Evolution MK-425C It the same as MK-449C but without the faders and with only 2 octaves Id say that it is an awesome starter controller Keys are a bit plastic ish and light but it is good for its price
Korg K24 ~ pound40 Pros well its Bus powered + Plenty of octaves (5 up and down if i remember rightly) Cons none it does exactly everything you expect from a basic midi controller more expensive ones seem to have no better functions other than more of the sameunless you want weighted keys
Korg Nano Series all usb $5999 nanopad - 12 pad drum controls + xy pad $5999 nanokontrol - 9 knobs 9 faders 18 switches $4999 nanokey - 25 key midi keyboard pitch and podulation controls adjustable velocity curves suited for portable rigs and saving space + low cost
M-Audio Axiom pound150-pound170 Pros The keys are FANTASTIC Aftertouch is great Pitchbend and mod feel very nice Having transport controls was enough to convince me to sell my UC33e to buy this The tap pads also were a strong selling point Cons The knobs are straight useless You cant go from 0-127 in one turn Theyre loud as well All of the output from the keyboard seems random and alot of people have trouble setting them up
M-Audio Keystation 61es ~ pound115 euro135 It has got one volume fader and 5 octaves Its keys are much better than the MK-425C ones
M-Audio MidAir25 Around 200 in all currency I got it for 70 in a deal though wouldnt say its worth 200 new but cheap 2nd hand bargin Pros 8 Assignable knobs Mod wheel sustain button amp jack for sustain peddle pitch shift assignable slider too (note I havent used all the functions of it you can go into select mode but I dont know how to use it so if someone did it might be of use) its wireless too so you can go sit across the room in another room and play might be good for live work if you want a little controller quite far away from the laptop or something Cons Only 2 Octaves plastic-feel to the keys drivers were a trouble to get working only midi out
M-Audio Oxygen Possibly one of the most classic portable midi keyboards in existence Ive had my Oxygen 8 for years and its still going strong Well worth the 80 buff I spent on it
Novation RemoteSL
Novation Remote Zero Price seen em go for pound150 -pound199 i paid 120 from ebay Pros Infinate and 270 degree assignable knobs drum pads and faders and togglegate buttons Good for controlling everything i use in reaktor for live gigs (automap assignment function for big named applications) automap software for creating your own midi maps on screen which is useful for when you make your own synths in something like reaktor its also Bus powered Cons faders a bit small and bit plasticneeds a bit more length on the fade
Novation X-Station
________________________________
OTHERS ________________________________
Page 6
Behringer BCR2000 (knobs controller) ~ 150 EUR Pros user friendly cheap 32 user presets (assign 24 knobs per instrument for up to 32 instruments) Cons have to do more than 1 rotation to go from 0 to 100 cheap built
Behringer BCF2000 (faders controller) ~ 180 EUR Same as BCR2000 but with 8 faders instead
Evolution UC-33 (knobs amp faders) ~ pound140 Pros easy way to use cheap easy portable Cons If youre a goof itll break quite soon In other words With lots of traveling the thing gets paranoid after some bumps
14 Soundcards
If you want to add a model plz give its name pros cons amp average price (new) Thanks everybody
Apogee Duet Pros Good quality 24bit converters Small and portable easy to setup works within Logic Cons Only has 2 XLR inputs and 2 hi-z jack inputs pricey FW400 input to computer
Audiotrak Maya 44 USB $96-120 SOS review pros analog rca insout easy to connect turntables too cons no 24 bit converters
Digidesign Mbox 2 does the job as the audio sound much more crisp and theres no static in the background
E-MU 0404 USB ~ 200 $ Pros good DA converters driver support for many OS volume knobs for headphone and monitors simple and user friendly control good headphone amplifier Cons ASIO drivers and multimedia drivers not working at the same time I bought it mainly for the driver support works with Win XP x64 and also OSX Leopard Would I buy it again yes
E-MU 1212m ~ euro140 Pros the sound quality the price the DSP effects Cons takes 2 PCI slots the Patchmix software is a bit tricky at the beginning
E-MU 1616mRad basically
E-MU 1820m have the emu 1820m which is basically then same as the other two nbut with lovely mic pres and an external box most of the problems ive had with it can be traced back to the cable for the external IO other than that the card is wonderful so therefore can recommend the other two
M-Audio 1010LT ~ euro190 Ive had an Maudio 1010LT for 5 years and have had no problems with it More than enough ins and outs for most home studio uses and had been totaly stable
M-Audio Delta 1010 with the breakout box solid solid as a rock and it sounds great loads of IO as well in fact too much for me tbh
M-Audio Audiophile 2469 around $120 Quite a nice soundcard easy enough to set up Had some trouble with it once though My PC kind of stopped recognizing it (and this is where MY own personal mistake comes in) and I tried reinstalling it without removing it when the manual clearly says that you should install the drivers before plugging the card in The only drawback of the card is lack of IOs I really need a second out and it only has one analog and one digital out The digital one seems kind of useless to me right now So yeah thats the only drawback I can mention
M-Audio Delta Audiophile 192
Page 7
NI Audio Kontrol 1 ~ euro300 NI Audio Kontrol 1 is well worth a look Rock solid done untold gigs with it built like a tank and sounds excellent Cirrus Logics 2nd best convertor chips in there well designed three big buttons a big knob and flashing lights Bosh
The Big Thread of Free VST Plugins-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Everyone likes free software
Below you will find a list of sites dedicated to providing free music software They are listed in order of useability and the amount of free plugins they list httpwwwgersiccomplugins truly excels in listing every new freeware plugin released
Some Other Good Sites to Browse Through (If you really need too)httpwwwhitsquadcomsmmfreewarehttpwwwdontcrackcomfreewarehttpwwwaudiomastermindcombrowse-free_vst_plugins-5886988-1htmlhttpwwwsadgladcomfreevstplugins6htmlhttpwwwapplecomdownloadsmacosxaudio (Mac only)
Some Alright Sites (These sites simply repeat the ones listed above yet are more difficult to navigate and feature fewer links)httpfreemusicsoftwareorghttpwwwvstplanetcomInstrumentsVST_Synthesizershtmhttpwwwfree-plugin-listcomhttpwwwsonicspotcomindexhtmlhttpwwwvstcentralcompluginsaspxhttpwwwaudioraclecomfreetrialsphp
Some Desperate Sites (Poorly laid out and pretty boring Only dig through these if youre a audioware junkie)httpenwikipediaorgwikiFree_audio_softwarehttpnoolmusiccomlinksshtml
Threads Concerning Free VSTs (Lists individual plugins and plenty of plugin developers Provides links to many of the plugins that can be found more easily above)httpwwwdubstepforumcomviewtopicphpt=24153amphighlight=httpwwwdubstepforumcomfree-vst-uberlist-t139352htmlhttpwwwkvraudiocomforumviewtopicphpt=9780
22 DAWS (Digital Audio Workstation)
DAW Question specific threads221 ndash Ableton Live222 ndash Cubase223 ndash FL Studio
23 Production effects explained-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Common Production Effects-------------------------------------------------------------------------Click on each link for more in-depth information about each effect
------ Filter Effects ------
EQ - (EQ types - Graphic EQ Parametric EQ Shelving EQ Linear Phase EQ)Filters - (Filter types - Low Pass filter High Pass filter Band Pass filter Band Reject filter Notch filter Comb filter All Pass filter State Variable filter Peaking filter Moog filter FormantVowel filter)Phase InverterVocodersHarmonic Exciters
------ Delay Effects ------
DelayEcho - (Delay types - Ping Pong delay Multi Tap delay Slapback delay Bucket delay Crossfeedback delay)Reverb - (Reverb types - Spring reverb Plate reverb Convolution reverb Impulse Response reverb)
------ Modulation Effects ------
ChorusFlangersPhasers
------ Dynamics Processing Tools ------
CompressorsLimiters (Brick Wall)Transient ShaperSignal ModellersGatesExpandersCompanders Noise reduction units
Here is a list of the most popular freeware analysers available
Voxengo SPAN
Bluecat Audio Freqanalyst
Roger Nichols Inspector
Page 20
For a long list of other free analysers visit httpwwwgersiccompluginsindexphpdaCat=2
3 Techniques
31 Bass311 Sub Bass
Sub-bass is a term used to describe audible sounds below 90Hz - sound in the range below this (under 16-17Hz) would be termed infrasound Sound systems often feature a subwoofer that is dedicated solely to amplifying sounds in the lower bass and sub-bass range Source Wikipedia
So the idea is to have the sub going up to ~90Hz The exact frequency it should be cut at depend on the kicks frequency Lets say you HP your kick at 100Hz then the sub should be LPed at 100Hz so they compliment each other without clashing
There are several ways of creating a sub here are the most common 1 - using a unique waveform (sine saw square or triangle) will give you a nice linear sub NB You dont need to filter out a sine wave as it doesnt have overtones 2 - using detuned waveforms take 2 identical waves (sine saw square or triangle) and detune them - lets say -25 +25 semitone This will produce a phase effect and give movement to your sub but itll also cause large volume amplitude and youll need to compress it after filtering Great Massive tutorial by Subfocus here 3 - using a 808 kick you dont have a TR-808 Grab that pack
jobbanaught wroteAn easy option to get a powerful subbass is to take a 808 kick sample put it in your favorite sampler and loop a single cycle of the waverform somewhere in the middle of the sample The 808 kick is made of a sine and some additional white noise The sine gives your sub that rattling low end pressure and the noise adds overtonesgrittiness = instant badass subbass
You can find more tips about mixing your kick n sub in the Random bass tips thread
312 lsquoWobblersquo
Page 21
Wobble GuideWobble Bass
Wobble Bass as it is known is simply a bassline that has an LFO assigned to a Low Pass Filter as an insert effect LFOstands for Low Frequency Oscillator and is used to change a sound by a defined speed (measured in either Hz or synced to the Tempo in relation to the barsnotes through quantization) The way the LFO changes the sound is up to you you can make the LFO adjust the Volume the amount of Saturation Filter Cutoff etc Basically any parameter you link it to Essentially you are just using the LFO to send a changing value to a parameter
--------------------
How to get a simple wobble bass
1) Choose a simple sound on your synth (Anything apart from a Sine wave )
2) Select your LFO and set it to the speed you want (18 would be a good starting point)
3) Now assign the LFO to the Filter Cutoff Which should for this example be a Low Pass Filter as the sound were going for is a deep bass
4) You now have a basic wobble bass from here the possibilities for tweaking this sound are endless
--------------------
A quick breakdown of whats actually going on Essentially you are taking a sound (that can be an audio files generated by a synth etc) and then passing it through a Low Pass Filter Now what exactly does a Low Pass Filter do you ask
A Low Pass Filter allows Low Frequency signals to pass through it but reduces the amplitude (volume) of all the Frequencies above the cutoff point In general most plug-ins have various Low Pass Filter settings where the more poles it has the more Dbs it will cut and will yield a harder knee to it Example 1 Pole Filter with a -6dBOct reduction Vs a 2 Pole Filter reducing -12DbOct However you dont necessarily need a LFO controlling your Low Pass Filter Cutoff frequency value you could just draw in the Automation yourself but a LFO will yield a loop of consistent values and prevents the possibility of human error All the LFO is doing is sending a value to your frequency cutoff to keep it consistently changing
--------------------
Tips amp Advice
1) Sub bass wobble would normally be a Sine wave at around the 40-50 Hz range which would repeat the same chords as the mid-range bass wobble The only difference being that with a sub bass wobble there is no point in assigning the LFO to a Low Pass Filter because the sound is too low for the low pass filter to have any effect so theLFO is assigned to the amplitude (volume) instead Another reason for not applying a Low Pass Filter to the Sub bass is because it would typically be a Sine wave which possesses no Harmonics to be adjusted by the Filter
2) The sound of an LFO can also be adjusted by the wave type you choose The default setting for an LFO generator is a Sine wave although on most synths you can chose from Triangle Sawtooth Square wave Random Noise To get a nice sounding bass it is a good idea to use as many oscillators as possible on different octaves
3) Try messing around with the attack and release of your sound as this can have an impact on the sound of the bass Long attacks tend to create a more ambient sound and is a technique traditionally used with ambient pads
Page 22
4) Something that I find useful is to bounce the bassline to a wav file so that it can be chopped up and put in-sync with other elements of the song because the majority of the time you will find the first wave of sound in the wobble bassline will will be half the length of the other waves due to attack rates So the best thing to do is to chop that freak sound off the beginning of the file in your DAW (Logic Pro Reason Cubase etc) and start off with the second wave which should be fully formed This way it will not be too early of late when keeping in sync with other elements such as a second bassline
5) Another method you can use is creating a clone layer of your original sound and setting up a new LFO setup for that to beat alternatively in the space left by the original LFO Or go that crazy Drum amp Bass Reese route and split the frequencies to Low Mid and High then set different LFO rates for each band then recombine into one sound
6) For more variation automate your LFO speed and intensity
7) Where you place insert effects in relation to the filter (pre or post) will yield different sounding results
8) Other methods to achieve a wobble like sound Tremolo (This effects volume rather than frequency) FM Synthesis Modulation of PWM Oscillator Pitch assigned (in a liberal amount) to LFO Filter Envelope assigned to LFO (using a re-triggered envelope) (submitted by Faun2500)
9) Assign a second LFO to modulate the speed of the first LFO
LFO Shapes
Sine wave The smooth value change possible
Triangle Similar to a Sine wave but slightly more ramped amp synthetic sounding
Random A mixed bag
Sawtooth Will have a very fast attack with a slower release which will sound very rugged
Square wave Will be a simple open close style Very harsh and will generally cause a very harsh sound (Often used in DJ Hazard style bass-lines) Detune two square waves for a nice dark sounding bass
Waveforms submitted by Skells wrotehttpi228photobucketcomalbumsee83 cleanjpgSimple Filter Sweep
httpi228photobucketcomalbumsee83 wobblejpgSine Wave LFO assigned to Filter Cutoff
LINKS etc
Fruity Loops Wobble Tutorial (Link submitted by Wub) Massive Wobble YouTube Tutorial (Video created by thesynthesist) Pause amp Play Wobble Tutorial (Link submitted by dubmo) Albino3 Wobble Guide (Guide created by axon)
By Rendr amp Deadly Habit and a little help from Macc
313 lsquoReecersquo
The Reese Bass
Page 23
History Lesson
The Reese bass was a form of huge sounding synth-bass first used by the Detroit Techno producer Kevin Saunderson aka Master Reese aka Reese Project aka on the track Just Want Another Chance and immortalised in the classic DnB track Terrorist by Renegade Since then it has been (over)used in many a DnB track and continues to evolve even nowadays through Dubstep and Jungle It is said to be as influential to DnB as the Amen break and probably as used and abused as the Amen
Capturing the Beast
1The Oscillator Stage
To nail the Reese you need a synth with at least 2 oscillators but for better-bigger results use as many oscillators as you can (not really but 4 oscillators give a nice deep rumble - ahhhhhh) All the oscillators are playing sawtooth waves and all except one are detuned by 25-50 cents so that all oscillators are out of phase with each other
2 The Filter Stage
The signal is then sent to a low-pass filter with the cutoff freq set around 150-200Hz (experiment with that you want the growl of the mid-frequencies but you also want it as deep as possible without sacrificing the midrange) The resonance of the filter should be cranked up almost all the way (but again tweak accordingly to your filtersynth)
3 Fuzz it Up
The second most important aspect of the Reese (after the detuned sawtooths) is distortion Tube distortion and tape saturation work extremely well but dont hesitate to use other more extreme distortion units (dont forget that the Reese has been done a million times you have to add something original to it) Again adjust to taste
4 Spices and Herbs
Now that is the main recipe for the sound but like all haute-cuisine there are more things you can do to spice up the Reese Namely effects Effects that have been associated with the Reese are
Phasers - to accentuate the phase-shifting effect of the detuned sawtooths Unison - a great way to make it even bigger Chorus - again a good way to phatten it up
5 And Some More Synth Magic
Another thing to do so you can bring out the old-school jungle character of the Reese is to use Legato and PortamentoGlide if your syth of choice has them available These are both great ways to move from one note to the next without listening to the transition To put it simply when legato is on and you play a sustained E followed by a sustained G the transition between the two notes gives the listener the impression that they heard a single note being sustained that has just changed its pitch from E to G without pausing at a certain point
Always remember though that if you use Legato you have to turn the polyphony of your synth down to 1 (something you should almost always do with basslines because two bass-notes playing together almost never sound good in electronic music bass chords are more the realm of prog-rock shit than dubstep)
For the more technical minded legato in synthesizers is a variation of monophonic operation In contrast to monophonic mode where every new note restarts the ADSR envelopes in legato mode they are not if the previous note remains depressed when the new note is played This causes the initial transient from the attack and decay phases to sound only once and the ADSRs to remain at sustain stage for the whole sequence of notes until the final note is released (Wikipedia)
EDIT I just found out that in one of the free vst links on the bible there is a thing called the Hotelsinus Reese Bassline Synth So I didnt miss the opportunity for a mini review The software itself is small (like most free vst-is) and quite easy to install (you just drop the dll in the vst folder) As for the sound weeeeeeell the sounds it produces are definitely Reese But weak somehow Its like listening to Terrorist from a battered cheap old cassette from 93 or something It has a tinny and tiny sound when compared to what you can achieve with powerhouses like Albino or
Page 24
Massive or (one of my personal favorites for Reese) Cakewalk Rupture You can try it if you want but i dont think it will impress steppers that much we are bass-headed folk
314 Random Bass Tips
Plz add yours or others youve spotted on the forum
miss_molinari wrotebasically i have been experimenting with cutting (not sidechaining) a notch (band reject) in the bass starting at 60hz and ending just before 70 this is only for those bass lines which only hit on the kick (quite specific) also the bass is then high passed at about 220hz to pretty much 0db which is where the kick starts (ending the kick with a non-too-aggressive-cut at about 2khz) this essentially means that the kick and the bass do not share any frequencies above abot 200hz but also between 60 and 70 and with them always hitting at the same time this gets around the fact that sidechaining this type of sequencing would leave you with no or little bass
this has worked well so far but is useful mainly for sub basses ending at around 250hz would not be as good for full spectrum wubsanyone else got any tech tips regarding the bass and kick
futures_untold wroteI simply cut everything under 90Hz on my kicks and roll off slightly at 1KHz
Sub I cut under 40Hz and roll off at 200Hz
I always compress both seperately and keep my levels low in the mix to create plenty of head room later whilst adding sounds with higher frequency content
Anything above 150Hz is what I consider midrange Anything above 150Hz can be heard on mobile phone speakers We all know that theyre designed to play heavy bass lol Wink
miss_molinari wroteDaft Cunt wroteTo me it feels like cutting the kick above 80 hz makes it sound weak I guess it depends on the style I rather cut below 60 to 80 depending on the tune
yeah its all about context in a dry minimal setting im of the opinion you can make a kick punch right up to about 180-200hz but yeah depends on when and on what kind of punch (im usually talking a bass hit at about 200hz coupled with a knock hit anywhere up to about 1200hz) i imagine you true dubsteppers prefer a denser thump from 60 through to about 300hz
Daft Cunt wroteI began recently the band-reject thing on the sub Little details that make big difference
And do you people cut the bass where the snare peaks
my basses arent usually middy enough to need that but yeah a slight sidechain on the main snare and say midbasspadwothavyer is nice especially if the limelight is stolen by a deeper sidechain on the kick and midbasspadwothavyer can create a nice flow (especially when used with long decay reveb linked to the midbasspadwothavyer so that it sounds louder and longer the higher the frequency played - might
have to post some piccies of that one )
Shonky wroteWhat Ive been doing lately is bouncing down the kick track lowpassing one somewhere between 100-140 depending on the highest frequencies of the low sub and then sidechaining the sub to the low kick
Then take a copy of the kick track highpass between 300-1000 and this will give you the beater noise to make the kick cut through I then sidechain this to the more middly basses You can also send a small amount to a reverb bus which allows you to avoid mud on the lower frequencies whilst still giving you the space
Doing it this way seems to make sense to me cause the sidechains work on the corresponding kicks in the same frequency range so it doesnt cause loads of unnecessary compression where you dont need it
Page 25
boh wroteAlways make sure your kicks are in tune with the rest of the track ull hear it pitching up and down and make sure if ur layering that the transients dont conflict(good monitors make this easy) It all comes down to kick selection Whats the point in cutting a kick at 80hz with a fundemental freq of say 60hz Sure you get whats happening before it but u wont get the nice thump of the fundemental freq Choose other kicks that hit the freq u want (80hz say) instead of cutting them when theres no need to Unless you really really know what your doing getting technical like this complicates the situation Esp for people with little experience
sullyharmitage wrote50 hz hi pass seems a bit high to me maybe gd for kicky techno or house but for subby stuff it seems a bit muchdefo roll off past 30-35 (most well engineered systems will do this anyways so any content below this is definately getting wasted)if yr gonna go higher make sure its a soft curvei find levelling subs is the hardest part of a mix - cos more always sounds better i remember reading breakage saying yr subs shouldnt add more than 3db to yr mix thats seems like a good guide
btw sub in kick an bassline simultaeously is gonna cause clashes (n maybe disortion) id either decrease the attack on the bass or cut the sub from the kick
unklefesta wroteI rolloff EVERYTHING at 40hz except my bass
standard
wang wroteAlways do it
Dont forget youre ROLLING off the frequencies not cutting them off all together Just a couple of dB of bass down there is enough to get some girth without removing all your headroom
Also analyse and cut off the lows on everything even if it doesnt appear to have messy lows -Youd be surprised how much bass there is in some high hats
Jtransition wroteAll of your tracks are going to be different so dont restrict yourself to a certain techniquetry different things and listen to the results
Shonky wrotewang wroteAlso analyse and cut off the lows on everything even if it doesnt appear to have messy lows -Youd be surprised how much bass there is in some high hats
Yep this is very true also worth filtering out the inaudible highs on low sounds as well found some of my subs which Id low passed still showed frequency activity much higher than expected
Jtransition wroteStick a high pass filter on everything apart form the kick drum and bass line70 hertz is a good starting point move up or down to tasteAnd remember try to mix at low levels(Walls not vibrating)
Deadly Habit wroteRendr wroteBasslines in my experience should be mono due to the fact that humans cannot easily decoded the stereo positioning of low frequencys so panning basslines (excluding bass sounds with high pitch sounds at around 500Hz+) is not recommended not only are the low frequencys hard to position with the human ear the low frequency sound waves are absorbed by the human head at a much higher ratio than high pitch sounds which tend to be reflected Another thing to note is that club systems are
mono Basslines that pan only belong in Psytrance
sub range should be mono especially if going to be cut to vinylmidrange bass on the other hand you can pan and add stereo fx to your hearts content
Page 26
32 Re-sampling
SafeAfter a few months of experimenting with resampling not really getting anywhere in terms of sound quality i came up with a pretty simple way of getting on the right track Ive got so much help since getting on this forum in terms of production i thought id share this for those who like myself are looking into the elusive yet highly rewarding technique of resamplingAll the vsts i use on this (save for the synth itself) are freenative plugs im using FL but itll transfer onto every DAW pretty much the same Ill explain it for a bassline but it can be applied to any sound
Step 1Make yourself a nice bassline get it sounding dirty with whatever you can within the synth Im using Albino so i tend to play about with the saturation modesFXs until its sounding pretty good
Step 2Hook up to a mixer channel then send this channel to a second mixer channel (FL users just click on another channel towards the bottom of the strip) On the second channel that the synth is hooked to from the first add CMt bitcrusher and downsample 3-16x (thanks to all the production forum users who pointed this out to me when i posted a few months ago on dirtying up basslines) Then add a chorus Turn the LFOs off and set the depthdelayetc to whatever sounds best Also set the crossover pretty high so only the treblehigh mids are being affected Then add Camel Audio Camel Crusher Turn the compressor off and set the tubemech to taste Add a parametric EQ if needs be to boost the high freqs Experiment with the chain of these effects swapping them according to the sound The choruscameleq in different orders should alter the sound quite alot depending on where their placed
Step 3 Set the level of the second affected channel with the original depending on whatever suits Play about with adding extra effects to both channels The way the second channel behaves once an effect is added to the first is quite extreme in even light application of effects So its possible to create a whole array of different sounds just from say adding a flangerchorusetc to the first channel then listening to how much it affects the sound as a whole as it goes through both channels By now it should be sounding pretty girthy
Step 4Export the riffsample (i use edison on the master channel in FL but whatever method will do) Reload and place into a mixer channel Add another Camel Crusher for abit more grit EQ and compress Set up a reverbdelay send and resample again for extra depth
Obviously this technique can be applied a 2nd3rd4th time to fuck the sound up even more so Which is what ive moved onto doing now into the territory of splitting the sound into basslow midhigh midtreble sections for ultimate control over each part Something which i was attempting to do before coming up with the above method but being left with a pile of unlistenable mushy shite
Hope this is a help to some peeps I know theres no secret technique to resamping only a whole load of practice and using your ears but this method got me on the right track in terms of hearing the benefits of it and encouraging me to experiment more in depth and realise that the possiblities are endless Im hooked now i resample pretty much every sound in one way or another Kick and snares benefit hugley from it for mega face melting wide drum sounds aswell so its worth trying it on some nice drum hits
Keep up the good work folksPeaceDC_WT
33 Drums
Read before reading on I am in no way entitled to any of those opinions It is up to you to decide whether you would like to incorporate them in your workflow I have just collected them from all the threads in this forum and will try to keep everything updated
I will update as regularly as I find updates
Page 27
Misc tips and tricks bull Good drums are usually layered - example 3 snares sounding as onebull The hats are often panned or widenedbull Pick great sounding samples different ones for different parts of the sounds you want 1
for snap and bite 1 for body 1 for thump distort and MAYBE EQ each to make them sound the best that they can separately combine in a bus MAYBE compress them together maybe accent the front and shorten the sound with a transient modifier 10 minutes tops
bull Do as little as possible with great-sounding bits and your basic sounds will be slamming leaves you time to focus on the arrangement people dont go around thinking wow that tune has an amazing snare as long as its thumping and not masked by a bunch of other stuff itll keep the dance moving
bull Listen to other producers work As its playing imagine the 1 2 3 4 on the step sequencer running in time to what youre listening to Try to visualize where the producer put their hits Not to say you should copy peoples drum patterns but learn from them
bull Ive noticed a lot of tunes (more minimal stuff where you can distinctly hear whats seperately going on) seem to use two differently pitched hi-hats that alternate to sound shuffley if you know what I mean and a less dramatic snare used sparsely in between the main lazy kick and snare An easy trick if you havent worked it out (which to be honest you should have if youre at all serious about producing dubstep) is to stick a smaller snare or hat the 116th before the kick or snare so it steps if you get me For example Bengas Night does this for all four beats in the bar which is part of what makes it so danceable But dont get stuck in always having kick on 1 and snare on 3 some tracks work with a kick on every beat others with a couple big snares etc The trick (unless you want proper lazy spaced out tunes) is to make sure youre nodding your head on all four beats of the bar Play around with a hat on every quaver (ie 8 per bar on the beat) compared to just four but on the off beat as well as adding in the steppy ones every now and then Theres often no need to over-complicate things though one of the my favourite drum tracks is the incredibly simplistic V by Distance Its a rhythm that could easilly be played by one guy on a real kit yet its so banging - check the use of hats and lower velocity kicks in this to make it nice and bouncy Also I once had a four bar drum loop and accidentally moved the sequence one bar to the right for one section and it ended up nicely varying the drums in a way you wouldnt expect
bull Really tight delays can help claps and snaps sound natural 5-20ms etcbull Recycle or phatmatik is your break-chopping friendbull Basically Hatrixxs method involved chopping everything from the main hits into a sample
Say you had a 2-step funk beat like the Amen Youd start your selection from the start of the first kick and select everything up to the start of the first snare Cut paste theres your first slice Then take everything from the start of the first snare up to the start of the second kick - including all the little hats and ghost hits - cut paste second sample and so on Then just map the samples onto some keys and bash away Both of them are quick compared to chopping Recycled slices where you have to copy and drag loads of little notes (one every little fucking tiny hit in the break arranged chromatically up the keyboard) around the piano roll These methods let you just concentrate on the main hits which can be both good or bad You can get a solid beat down with just a handful of hits but youre limited to the patterns already in the original break For a beginner to breakbeat science like yourself Id say try these methods first but dont rule out the really anal methods like RecyclePhatmatikFruity Slicer Sometimes they are a necessary evil Of course some of the drumfunk guys especially those who post on Subvert Central swear by these methods or the next one There are those who prefer to chop up the raw audio rather than bothering with MIDI and samplers They literally just drop the break file into Cubase or Logic and start chopping with the scissors tool and copying and pasting I can see the benefits of this You can see the waveform as youre chopping and youre not as restriced to the quantize grid as you are with MIDI But it takes aaaaages to build a drum track this way and theres the risk of RSI from all that Ctrl+C Ctrl+V youll be doing Then of course theres trackers They really are tailor-made for chopping up loops amongst other things They give you Sample Offset meaning that when you trigger a sample you can set it to start from 256 evenly spaced points throughout the sample So by starting a sample a quarter of the way through youre triggering the first snare (obviously you can fine-tune it when the snare isnt perfectly on the beat) You can edit breaks in a tracker without ever having to cut up a waveform and you can do all sorts of other nifty things like reverse the sample retrigger it to make drum rolls and so on
If recycles having trouble switch the break to mono in your sample editor and then apply tiny fades between the drum hits (especially useful if there are lots of rides that play over the other hits to keep things separate) This should help recycle pick up the start points and with any luck should leave you with a cleaner break
Page 28
Snaresbull Tune the snares so they all hit around the same pitch bull Change the Amp Envelopes of each to bring the strongest parts from each separate sample
and build up your sound like that bull Compressing all together is a good idea but dont over do it bull EQ the master out for the snare as well so you wont have to fuck about when you use the
sample in the future bull Donrsquot just use snares fling some random sound effects in there Claps and rim shots also
work well when layered bull Make subtle changes to them and export a few snares from the same setup this helps
when you need a ghost hit or a reverse that sounds similar but not identicalbull Watch that frequencies dont build up and make the layered bit sound overly whatever
is building up Really easy to get too much 200hz or 500hz or even 12k if youve got samples that are all beefythicksmack-y
bull If its peaking run it through a Spectrum Analyzer and see where its peaking I guess its peaking in the tune rather than just the snare sample playing on its own
bull Sometimes snare samples have a very short peak that doesnt seem to make them sound any better and keeps you from getting them louder without cliping Reduce that part by a few dBs and youre sorted
bull Make sure you are using subtractive eq to pull out the frequencies that could be clashing with other sounds If your frequencies are clashing that can hide the snare and then you end up turning it up to compensate and there you are with your snare peakingThe key is making the frequencies sit right in the mix so that they dont clash and you can set them right and not have to turn them up
bull You could always try clipping the snare normalise it in a wave editor amplify it as much as you can before it sounds distorted then sample it out Then replace the snare with the clipped version it will almost always sound louder with more body at a lower volume I would still point out that although this can be used as a replacement to compression compression is a vital tool to learn how to use Also a lot of peeps will say this does bad things to the waveform and it does but unless you intend to listen to your tune to be heard at home on an amazing hifi then it doesnt really matter that much IMO
bull Hi-pass overdrive limit and cut away space from other sounds for itbull Layer with its self or a different snare Layer with sub add effect to one layer add effect
to both layers layer zoom right in drag one wave form back or forth very slightly to create new snare sound Pitch updown EQ Filter distort reverb delay reverse
bull Record yourself beat boxing your best snare sounds then layer with snare samplesbull A good handclap never goes a miss or use a nice drum synth to get a very differentdigital
soundbull Try reversing the snare sample then changing the envelope settings so it only hits on the
beat Layer that with the same sample this time not reversed Add a little delay to the the reversed snare Change the settings til it sounds how you like
bull Particularly snares I layer up a lot I look for one that has the qualities that I want when run through verb and then I look for something shorter with more mid punch to keep things physical After someone notied snares were weak in a tune Ive really made a point of ensuring that when the snares hit its physical as well as textural You need to feel them a bit - so I look for some snares that have that real punch when layering but usually keep the more textural snappy one as the focus last couple tunes I did the standard kick snare hats w odd percussion and then I took an amen chopped it processed it and layered it overtop for more aggression and step (goddess being a perfect example) By removing a layer and adding it you can create a sense of progression through the tune Make sure the bottom layer is sounding really good and then add the top so that youre not mixing them to be reliant on one another - instead you want synergy Make sure the EQ on the top and bottom make sense with each other
Kicksbull Building a kick in Ableton Lives Impulse machine Provides some essential information
about layering that can be used with any DAWbull Making fat kicks
remixmag wroteWhether creating Miami Bass music is your lifes fantasy or your greatest fear you probably crave the know-how to manifest those car-rattling trunk-full-of-funk kick drums In the arenas of hip-hop house techno downtempo and almost any other electronic genre molding fat kick drums is absolutely essential Like grandmas homemade apple pie the recipe for kick drums is partially a matter of taste However theres no substitute for quality ingredients And just like every pie has its staple ingredients every slamming kick drum requires some common elements Lets take a look at the
Page 29
shopping list for killer kick drumsTHE CRUST
Youll need a basic shell to begin creating a thick strong kick The classics always work if youre fortunate enough to own a real Roland TR-808 909 or other famous drum machine with a killer kick use it copiously If youre not one of those chosen few pay close attention to your original source For example if you use a sampler understand that not all ldquo808 Kickrdquo samples are the same some sound great and some just plain suck There are a lot of reasons for that including how many generations from the original the sample is the sampling rate and bit depth of the sampler how the kick was first sampled and so on Be as choosy as possible with your individual samples mdash dont use a mediocre sample just because it has 808 in the name and therefore is ldquosupposedrdquo to sound fat Seek out a better 808 sample or use something else that is simply bigger sounding Remember the time you spend finding sweet original sources wont be in vain especially if you reuse the resulting samples for multiple songsBORROW SOME SUGAR
An old saying goes ldquoGood art borrows great art stealsrdquo A nice way to start out with great raw kick material is to sample directly from the source If you dont own but have access to a 909 then sample it directly Or take one of your favorite producers tracks on vinyl or CD find a naked kick drum in there and sample it Be cautious with that approach for a couple of reasons Copyright issues around sampling even small bits have become a dangerously gray area and I would never personally advise using any source straight out of the can even from a royalty-free sample library While it may be an excellent start its unoriginal Customize whatever you bite Treat your samples as a sculptor would treat clay mold each one to create a trademark sound for yourself One effective way to customize a fat kick is to take a tip from the synth manufacturers If a sound is thin pile another (or a few more) on top When doing so its important to use different sounds layering two identical kicks will result in a louder kick but it wont change the basic tone Remember the sculptor approach here Even if you are using two good-sounding individual samples they may not instantly sound great together For example I find that when layering kicks while the thickness may be good sustain is often overkill The final result often benefits from a little doctoring on the tail of one (or both) of the samples and other hands-on sonic surgeryADD THE FILLING
Once a nice basic kick is achieved treating it with two of the mastering engineers favorite tools is often the next step Artfully applying a compressor (to just the kick) can go a long way toward creating a signature sound and a huge kick Compression is one of those ldquosecret spicesrdquo and how to apply it is a whole topic in itself One recommendation I will make however is to use a multiband compressor With one of those you can isolate compression on certain frequency ranges That is perfect if for example you want to push the sub of your kick without emphasizing the higher frequencies (which often affect the tone of the attack) or vice-versa EQ comes after compression in my signal chain By now the kick should already sound pretty fat I aim to shave unnecessary frequencies here rather than artificially boosting too much This is also where you can actualize trademark sounds while also fine-tuning them to work alongside other elements in specific tracks I often scoop out mids and highs especially frequencies above about 500 Hz Even though I like thick deep kicks unless Im going for a really dublike sound I often truncate the lowest frequencies (usually the sub-50 Hz frequencies) Even when you cant hear the difference when trimming frequencies doing so can really tighten up your kicksEVEN IT OUT
You may ask why when youre trying to fatten up a kick would you want to trim frequencies That is one of the keys to achieving great mixes both in the case of kick drums and in general You want to avoid too many overlapping frequencies The more sonic separation you have between elements the more focused the entire mix will sound That can be especially important for club music which often gets played on huge not necessarily audiophile-quality sound systems If you havent run into the following scenario already I assure you at some point you will Your bass line and kick drum are competing and it sounds like you have a weak kick You boost the kick but it still sounds muddy Take the bass out and suddenly the kick doesnt sound so bad In a scenario like that solo the two sounds listen carefully for where frequencies are overlapping and then try subtractive EQ on one element then the other and sometimes a bit on both By scooping out overlapping frequencies you will often find that both elements seem to magically come forward in the mix before even touching their respective volume levels
Hi hatsbull Realism
Ive been a professional touring and recording drummer for 25 years and just thought I might share a couple of really simple ways to use fruity loops or fruity studio to create more realistic drum patterns
For what its worth try this out with Fruity Loops
Page 30
Take your hi hat tracks (are any tracks for that matter including melodic synth bubbles)
Drop down the bar graph box that allows you to scroll between velocity (volume) pitch panning cutoff resonance and a thing called shift which allows you to use each of these categories to effect each individual note that youve programmed (note this can be accomplished in other ways in most of the good midi sequencing apps or softwarehardware drum machines)
Drummers no matter how good they are just arent perfect and we can use the fact that each of these drop down bar graphs can make veryvery small changes in a sound to do some subtle things to a rolling drum groove like 16th notes on a hi hat
Not all drummers but many tend to favor their strong hand in a single stroke (hand over hand) drum roll Consequently if you make all odd numbered hi hats be slightly louder than their even numbered hits it will sound more realistic Start by making velocity differences that are really clearly audible Then lower the velocity until you can barely feel the difference We are going to make very subtle changes like this on each of the parameters of velocity pitch cutoff resonance and importantly shift
I cant stress enough that you should make these changes be so subtle that you can hardly notice them
Just going on the fact that the right handed players start their rolls with the right hand and favor it ever so slightly (or grossly for effect as well) means that the stroke will be harder with the right hand than the left hand
When a percussion instrument is hit harder the difference between the transient (or hi pitched attack) of the sound and the body of the instrument (or the sound that comes after the attack) becomes greater In general on drums that means that a harder attack tensions the drum very imperceptably (sp) and it also means that there will be more treble in the sound Consequently the pitch goes up a little teensy bit and their is more attack to the sound (increased resonance and slightly higher cutoff frequency)
Consequently you can make the pitch of each right hand be just barely noticeably higher the resonance should be just one or two of those little teeny bars higher The cutoff should be just a few bars lower (allowing less high frequencies through) on the left handed or even numbered strokes
Typically if drums have time inaccuracies they tend to drag the left hand a litte bit I have to keep stressing that if you can hear the changes you make you arent being realistic You need to make the changes subtle enough that you just barely feel that they arent perfect You can consequently make each left hand note shifted one or two bars late
Tigure out how much you can tweak each parameter before it becomes obvious and then you can just randomly tweak each one up to that limit With a little bit of variance in each stroke from parameter to parameter you will create more of a percolating texture in your programming - this is a great technique to make synth bubbles (the kind used in techno and house) more interesting and less mechanical feeling
Now you can avoid the biggest mistake that non-drummers do when trying to write realistic programs turn the overall volume of the hihats until you CANT hear them and then slowly bring up the volume until you just begin to hear them
Professional producers have spent countless hours trying to figure out how to gate and mix hihats OUT of tracks The reason is two fold1) Human beings have such a radical peak in their hearing around the 1-2khz range (or the intelligibility range of human speech) that we can play the hihats at incredible low volumes and they are still audible You cant do that with a bass drumI tell my drum students that you cannot play a hi hat or a snare drum so quietly that a person sitting in a room with you cant hear it2) Hi Hats the snare of snare drums and cymbals all seriously MASK human vocal intellibility How many people have gone to see live shows where they can hear the singer is singing but cant for the life of them figure out what they are actually singing That is ususally because drummers (or mixers which is frequently the case) are not hip to thisimportant fact
So turn down your hi hat tracks (or any track with a strong mid rangeshort envelope attack) and you have much more room for other musical goodies in your mix When in doubt make your hi hats quieter than you think they should be Trust me theyll come through the mix even at a quiet volume
Swingbull Dont know if you can do this in your sequencer but in Logic you can create a groove
template from your drums and then apply that to your other instruments If youre using separate midi channels for snares kicks and hats take the 8 bar loop youre using glue it together and then take the groove from that and then mute that track When you click down the quantize list youll see the template there and you can apply it to your other tracks Also if you do want to change the groove you can just change the hits in the muted template and itll automatically change all other hits to the new changes
bull Think if youre clever and organized you can basically cut breaks up in recycle load them into the exs24 (extract sequence) and then do the same with them That way if there are breaks you like the feel of you can just apply that swing to anything If you make a folder called grooves in your logic folder they should load up each time so that youll have loads to choose from Havent done this myself yet but always helpful to have a choice of feels available
bull Some things sound better rigid and robotic with equal velocities Some things sound better rigid and robotic with differing velocities Some things sound better with swing Some things sound better with everything ever-so-slightly off Its down to what the track needs
bull Drum Break Swing ProgrammingNicolas Hall wwwbreakbeat-cafenet wroteI think most people who make anything funk breakbeat drum amp bass or hip-hop would agree that Swing is crucial to the effectiveness of a beat The other key factors in a programming sense are dynamic and accent So many people get wound up when their beats sound sterile or mechanical this is due to the fact that computers and sequencers lock to perfect BPM A computer on its own does not interpret rhythm the way a good drummer does There are however certain machines that have their own swing parameters like the Akai MPC range of sampling drum machines which are used extensively by hip hop producers
Swing is not the easiest thing in the world to analyze but as a general rule good drummers will play slightly late and thats why in all funky records you get that slight dip at the start of the bar take Superstition by Stevie Wonder or Billie Jean by Michael Jackson these are both very simple beats Superstition is of course live drums whilst Billie Jean was programmed but no less funky than Superstition I emphasize this point to demonstrate that a programmed beat can be every bit at groovy as a beat played on a drum kit
Expanding on the Billie Jean point Hip Hop beats are really very simple If you listen to the Neptunes they tend to create the swing in their beats by quantizing the kicks and snares and playing the hi hats in by hand this creates a very tight beat which is off set by a loose hi hat try it works but dont forget your accents - As a starting point just take the first snare of your beat and turn the velocity down then notice how your head starts nodding and your foot starts tapping a little more you are giving the beat feel Also remember that if you are using reverb the louder snare will push the reverb harder than the soft snare so your creating more ambience that way Then try your kick drums if your not sure which hits to adjust just pick apart a beat your feeling I remember me and friend picking apart a Gangstarr beat and were able to almost replicate it by adjusting the velocities of each hit (admittedly it took a while to get it right)
If youre a newbie then a common trick when learning to make good grooves is to create a template with an existing loop The idea is take a loop you like thats got a good feel to it and then place your own hits over the break then take the break out and see if your hits are sounding funky This can take a while and its crucial to think about the strength of each hit or the dynamic Each kick will not be the same strength nor will the snares or the hats pick the loop apart dissect it and youll soon see that there are certain consistencies in all good beats
If youre using live loops and like to layer them with drum sequences you should be thinking about time space and frequencies So if you have a fairly heavy loop then layering it with heavy kick drums is probably not gonna sound good Think about filling holes are their any frequencies that could be filled up Or is there space in the loop for extra hits Try working in layers just adding one hit at a time also filtering works well you could take some of the frequencies out of your loop as you drop your drum sequences in to make room for them I think one the masters of this technique is Liam Howlett of the Prodigy He runs breakbeats and gives them extra balls by laying a kick drum underneath to add extra intensity to certain passages in his set but hes careful not to overlap frequencies to much A good place to start if you using breakbeats is the Roland Tr-808 kick drum which is around the 50hz mark which is sub bass territory so it will sit underneath most breaks very well
If your hell bent on making killer beats and loops then perseverance is crucial keep at it it will come together listen to beats you like and pick them apart identify the subtleties that make it happen I know some producers get fed up when their beats sound to clean or they are trying to create a new breakbeat and then compare it to sample they took from vinyl and get down on there own beat Think about what a breakbeat really is think about its history what has happened to it to make it sound the way it does Im
Page 32
sure youve noticed how some breaks have a certain something like a magic dust you cant put your finger on Let me share what I know with you about that
Most breaks though not all are taken from recordings of live drums some of them are pretty old so you have the ambience of live drums and the room they were recorded in you have the fact that natural decay and reverb of each drum is likely to have bled into the other mics on the kit and that most engineers used overhead mics which pick up the whole kit with two mics Then consider that many of these breaks will have been recorded to analogue tape with saturation which will create extra warmth and harmonics The next step comes from old sampling technology like the SP-1200 and the Akai s-950 mpc -60 these samplers sampled at 12- bit (bear in mind that most computers now are at least 24-bit if not more) and that the samples themselves where taken from vinyl and on and on the process goes with each new reverb and eq adding more and more to the break In terms of giving your breaks that character there are a number of things you can try for example buying an old four track cassette machine to dump your beats onto then re-sample it if your using a sampler like the s-950 then try pushing the input meters a little harder than usual add reverbs and resample it each time you put your loop through a new channel you will be adding something to it Also distortion is fantastic for breaks if you have any amp plug ins then try them the Amplitude one is particularly good you dont need to go mad with it just used subtly it works great
To finish I would just like to say again stick with it keep trying keep listening to records if you like to read about technique then do so you can learn so much from other producers Remember the strength of your hits is important as is the way it swings good luck
UPDATE 08092008
ENHANCE SYNTHESIZED DRUM PARTS WITH FOUND SOUNDS
emusiciancom wroteLayering real-world sounds with synthesized drum parts puts a new spin on your drum tracks You probably already have usable sound effects on your hard drive because most commercial samplers have at least a modest collection in their factory library Beyond that youll find thousands of royalty-free sound effects online Soundsnapcom is one of my favorite sources and its free The recordings dont need to be pristine for layering over drums so dont overlook cheap sampling CDs and consider grabbing your own sounds with a portable recorderCollect and Save
Start by assembling a small Foley library of short percussive sounds divided into typical drum-sound categories kicks snares toms cymbals percussion and so on Youll generally want to layer drum sounds with Foley sounds that have a similar volume contour and frequency range If you layer a Foley sound that resembles a kick drum with the sound of your hi-hat for example youll quickly fill up all the space in your drum track
Industrial household military transportation and vocal sounds make excellent fodder but you will often want to extract a small slice such as the last shot in a volley of machine-gun fire (snare) or the first bounce of a plastic bottle on concrete (tom) A browsing tool like Audio Finder (icedaudiocom) is invaluable if you have a large sample library That lets you quickly audition clips make basic edits and drag-and-drop slices to your library
Sticks UpIf your synthesized drum part is step sequenced youll need to export its step sequences as MIDI files Many drum synths do that including Sonic Charge Tonic (sonicchargecom) Apple Logic UltraBeat (applecom) and Submersible DrumCore (submersiblemusiccom) All of those come with a large collection of patterns exportable as MIDI sequences Youll also need a sampler to play the Foley sounds drum-oriented samplers are handier for that but are by no means necessary
Start by loading a kit in the drum synth Export one of its sequenced patterns or create your own and place it on the sampler track For some of the drum synth sounds select compatible Foley sounds and map them to the same notes in the sampler that theyre mapped to in the drum synth Next solo the doubled voices one by one in both the drum synth and the sampler start the sequence playing and tweak the samplers voice parameters (filter level pan envelope and so on) to make the sounds work together (see Fig 1 and Web Clip 1) Dont tweak global parameters such as effects because that will affect all sounds played by the sampler
High HoopsOnce youve configured your Foley track you can do several things to add interest I frequently use a
Page 33
second sampler for short vocal sounds Ill have some notes trigger sounds in both samplers and others in only one Many samplers let you group sounds and assign notes and controllers to choose among them You can then sequence these notes and controllers or you can play them live to alter your Foley tracks
Try applying DSP effects to individual Foley sounds Multitap delays distortion phasing and granular effects all work well when used sparingly (see Web Clip 2) You can apply DSP effects inside your sampler or route the voices to a separate output for DSP processing in your DAW If your sampler doesnt offer either possibility spread the Foley parts over several sampler instances on different tracks
Sidechain compression or gating of the drum track with one or more of the Foley parts will highlight the Foley part as well as add variety to the drums With compression peaks in the sidechain signal will reduce the level of the drum track Use a high compression level say 201 and balance the sidechain-gain and the compression-threshold -attack and -release controls to get the ducking contour you want (see Web Clip 3) Gating has the opposite effect the drum track will be heard during peaks in the sidechain signal (see Web Clip 4) Here too the sidechain-gain and gate-threshold controls work in tandem to determine when the gate is opened Use envelope parameters (attack release and hold) to shape the gates contour
Keep in mind that once youve created a sampler instrument to complement your drum kit you can reuse it with other sequences You can also change one or more sounds in the sampler instrument without repeating the whole process
34 Sidechain Compression (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
4 Theory41 ndash Song Structure42 ndash Mixdown (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)43 ndash Mastering (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
44 Music Theory
The first thing to remember about music theory is that generally if it sounds right it probably is There are no rules in music and Music Theory is not about telling you how to write music Its about understanding the music
Broadly speaking it is fair to say that most music is essentially based upon two crucial factors scales and rhythm Scales make up melodies chords harmonies and basslines to name but a few whereas rhythm makes up the beat of the song In this part of the Production Bible you will learn the basics of Music Theory that will serve you not only in the production of Dubstep but for any of your future musical pursuits This information is intended to be easy to read and understand so I wonrsquot be mincing sentences But firstly please make sure you learn every single note on the keyboard by studying the image below Otherwise yoursquoll be completely lost here
Page 34
Scales Wersquoll begin with scales As I mentioned before scales are the building blocks of your song and without them your track will be atonal and completely unlistenable (probably not the effect yoursquore going for)
There are two main scales that you should learn inside out ndash the major scale and the minor scale A generalisation yoursquore bound to have heard before is that the major scale sounds ldquohappyrdquo and the minor scale sounds ldquodarkrdquo Although this is not always the case it is mostly true ndash and therefore yoursquoll usually be focussing on the minor scale when producing Dubstep However just in case yoursquore writing happy-dubstep (if that exists) here is a quick overview of both scales and how they are made up
Major Scale
The major scale is really easy to create It is made by a single rule that is simple to put in to place
ldquoTone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
In case you donrsquot know what a Tone or Semi-Tone is here is a quick explanation
Picture a keyboard (or if you canrsquot see the image above) Say you go from C to C that would be a semi-tone The same thing goes for if you go from an E to an F ndash it is still a semi-tone because you
Page 35
have gone up one key
A tone is two semi-tones ndash for example from C to D is a tone and the same goes for from G to A
The scalersquos name is taken from the note that it starts on For example C major will start on the note of C Similarly A major will start on the note of A and this is the case with every single scale
Here is a quick list of a few major scales After having seen a few try working the rest out for yourself in order to understand how the major scale is formulated Ideally you should practice your scales on a piano or keyboard so that you can physically see how to make the scale It might sound boring but itrsquos a small price to pay for a much deeper understanding of your music
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Major C D E F G A B C
C Major C D E F G A B C
D Major D E F G A B C D
D Major D E F G A B C D
E Major E F G A B C D E
F Major F G A Bb C D E F
F Major F G A B C D E F
G Major G A B C D E F G
G Major G A B C D E F G
A Major A B C D E F G A
A Major A B C D E F G A
B major B C D E F G A B
Now by arranging the different notes of each of these scales in any order you please you can create a melody bassline or harmony with extreme ease Rearranging the notes in the scale will give you a flawlessly in-key result and it is then up to you to use the notes in the scale as you see fit for your tune
Minor Scale
As was the case with the Major Scale the Minor is made up from a set rule or formula By knowing this formula you can understand how the Minor is made and how to use it to itrsquos maximum effect
ldquoTone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
As is the case with the major scales you should practice your scales as much as possible to make sure that you know them all like the back of your hand Here are a few Minor Scales see if you can
Page 36
work out the rest
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Minor C D Eb F G Ab B C
D Minor D E F G A Bb C D
F Minor F G A B C D E F
G Minor G A Bb C D Eb F G
Similarly to the Major now that you know your Minor Scales you can quickly just take any note from the scale rearrange it with another few notes in the scale and there you have a fat melody or bassline ready to be played at maximum volume
Diminished Chords
Diminished Chords are really quite spooky and dark chords that are made up of four different notes all a minor third apart from each other That means that for example the Diminished Chord starting on C would be C Eb F A because to get from one note to the next you have to use ldquoTone Semi-Tonerdquo (known as a minor third)
Because of the mathematical nature of the Diminished chord there are only three ldquoclustersrdquo of notes which can then be rearranged like the Major and Minor Scales
Cluster 1 C Eb F A
Cluster 2 C E G Bb
Cluster 3 D F Ab B
Use these clusters and rearrange them as you please For example you could rearrange cluster 1 as Eb F A C etc
Generally speaking you canrsquot make a song based entirely on Diminished Chords due to the fact that each cluster only has 4 notes However a Diminished Chord is perfect for adding a hint of darkness to your tune and is brilliant when mixed with some Minor Scales
Chords
Chords are basically two or more notes played together They are made up from a specific scale ndash for example the C major chord is made up of notes in the C major scale
Usually chords will include the first third and fifth note of the scale as well as possibly using other notes to give them colour For example the basic chord of C major would be C E G Then you could add the seventh note to it (in this case it is B) Really it is up to the producerrsquos discretion how heshe goes about making a chord ndash just remember to stick to the scale you are using
Chords will more than likely sound like shit if you play them on a complicated or layered synth patch You want to be playing chords on sustained sounds such as strings or pads Chords will really fill out your sound if used properly You want your chords to be supporting the melody or bassline and more than likely want to add some reverb so that it doesnrsquot sound too sharp Make
Page 37
your chords blend in with the music and yoursquoll have mastered them
Chord Inversions
Quite simply chord inversions are when you rearrange the notes in a chord so that it sounds a bit different and suits your arrangement better
For example if you were in the key of C major you could have a drone of E playing underneath some strings playing the notes E G C E
Due to the fact that the notes are the same and have only been inverted the chord will still be in key with the rest of the music This is a great way to add a touch of variation to your music instead of using the same chord structure all the time
Arpeggios
Arpeggios are much easier to understand than they sound They are quite simply the first third and fifth note of the scale played as individual notes For example the arpeggio of C minor would be C Eb G C etc
A great example of an arpeggio is the bassline in Bengarsquos ldquoCrunked Uprdquo He goes from playing the F minor arpeggio backwards to playing the F minor arpeggio backwards In other words he is playing
C A F and then C Ab F
Experiment with a few Minor Arpeggios and a couple of Diminished Arpeggios and you canrsquot go wrong in writing a huge bassline
Suggested Reading
List of All Scales With Finger Charts Included
Well thatrsquos it folks Thatrsquos basically all the music theory you need to know to start off with As you grow more used to the various scales yoursquoll notice that certain notes sound good with each other whilst others donrsquot Irsquom not here to tell you how to write music Irsquom here to teach you the language
of music Itrsquos up to you to write the poetry
copy Bruno Crosier (klimaxx) 2008
45 Random Tips
Random tips amp best piece of advice thread
5 Resources
Page 38
51 Books amp Magazines
Hello again people
Does anyone know of more music production books magazines or authors we can add to these lists
Thanks
------------------------------------------------
Music Production Magazines Computer Music - httpwwwcomputermusiccouk Music Tech Magazine - httpwwwmusictechmagcouk Future Music - httpwwwfuturemusiccouk Sound on Sound - httpwwwsoundonsoundcom Remix Magazine - httpremixmagcom Mix Magazine - httpmixonlinecom Electronic Musician - httpemusiciancom EQ Magazine - httpwwweqmagcom Audio Technology - wwwaudiotechnologycomau Tape Op - httpwwwtapeopcom
------------------------------------------------
Music Books
Authors Curtis Roads httpmitpressmiteducatalogauthor aspaid=93 - The Computer Music Tutorial (Really really really good book) Paul White - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea ul20White - Basic Series + more Rick Snowman - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea k20Snoman - The Dance Music Manual Tools Toys and Techniques Bobby Owsinski - httpbooksgooglecoukbooksas_auth=Bobby+Owsinski - The MixingRecording amp Mastering Engineers Handbooks Michael Paul Stavrou - httpwwwmixingwithyourmindcom
Publishers Thomson Course Technology - httpcoursecengagecom (Click on the Music Technology tab) - Series published include Power Overdrive Ignite and CSI Series + many more Backbeat Books - httpwwwbackbeatbookscom ndash Power Tools Series + many more Wiley Publishing - httpwwwdummiescom (Enter music in their search bar) - For Dummies Series Penguin Books - httpuspenguingroupcom (Enter music in their search bar) - The Complete Idiots Guide Series + many more MIT Press - httpmitpressmitedu - Many books on music theory Focal Press - httpwwwfocalpresscom - (Enter music in their search bar)
------------------------------------------------
Online Music Book Stores (We need more links here Do you know of any that we can add)
httpwwwmixbookscom ndash Excellent source that sells only books about music
Page 39
httpwwwamazoncom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
httpwwwbarnesandnoblecom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
------------------------------------------------
52 Wikipedia
A good music lexicon wiki Search for your term in the search bar ---gt httpenaudiolexicorgwikiMain_Page
0-9
14rdquo Jack - httpenwikipediaorgwikiJack_plug 3rd Bridge - httpenwikipediaorgwiki3rd_Bridge
Zero Crossing - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_crossing Zero Crossing Rate - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_Crossing_Rate
53 Other recommended production forums
for Logic users this is the shit httpwwwlogicprohelpcom
Ive found both these forums to be full of knowledgeable producers amp musicians
httpwwwkvraudiocomforum
httpacapellaharmony-centralcomforumsindexphp
httpwwwgearslutzcomboard
httpwwwsoundonsoundcomforum
httpwwwmusicradarcomforum
httpwwwidmforumscom
httpwwwdance-industriescomphpBB2 8cffbb3b02
httpwwwsubvertcentralcomforumindexphp
httpwwwbreakbeatcouk
httpwwwtweakheadzcom
httpwwwabletoncompagesforum
Explains lots about the music industry ---gt httpwwwbemusocom
Page 47
Ok so a massive thanks to all the contributors there are literally too many to mention But Thanks to Futures Untold Johnny Beat Klimaxx Deadly Habit amp JunglistRendr Daft Cunt in perticular
Thanks to all the artists producers and general music geeks making this early revision of the production bible an essential read
There are links missing and will be included in version 21(Please help with the unlinked chapters by going here - httpwwwdubstepforumcomthe-dubstep-production-bible-updated-2009-06-03-t14797html and updating missing info as needed)
Compiled by Daft Cunt and Futures Untold PDF Compiled by Depone
Page 3
Event TR8
These things are bass frequency response down to 35hz - which is lower than pretty much every other 8 reference monitor around Due to the nature of speakers deeper bass response means an inhibited ability to produce higher frequency sound The result is a slightly unclear mid range All speaker design is about compromise and balance These guys go for the deep tones rather than clarity Not a bad choice necessarily for dubstep producers My recommendation would be the KRK RP8s or Samson Rubicon 6As and save for a sub instead of going for these - a bit more long term and youll get a more physical bass response with better mid and high end image but it will obviously cost you more
Tapco S5S8s
The new guys on the block Ive spend a bit of time with these - had the S8s in my studio for a bit but brought them back to the store Ill discuss the S8s I think mackie have managed to create some hype with these (Tapco is mackies entry level brand) Dont listen to the hypereviews These speakers have a really hollow and far away quality that is exactly the opposite to the KRKs and Rubicons visible image These do have good bass response - down to 40hz They really lack the ability to show you whats going on even if the frequency response is deep and flat Not a bad choice on a budget if you really want the deeper bass but listen to them first I would really recommend against them if youve never spent time with reference monitors Again would recommend a speaker with better imageless bass paired with a sub
Samson Rubicon 5A6A
The least talked about reference monitors No one seems to consider these youre going to pay more for the woofer cone size than the others listed here but theyre my fav of the lot These dont use a cone for the tweeter - they use a traditional ribbon tweeter design (different than adams ART ribbon tweeter) The design is good - a bit too above my head to express but apparently these lack a lot of the negatives associated with ribbons (delicate quiet) These speakers give an incredible image of equisite quality Theyre very airy - you can see really deep into the sound Best bang for the buck IMO - these are fantastic with the 6As at $600 Go listen to them - youll see what I mean The only problem is the bass response is not deep at all Grab a sub - when people come over and look at your monitors and go what are those theyll walk out talking about how your studio is the best sounding joint around
MID RANGE
Im just going to discuss a couple big ones here
Adam A7
Now were breaking the $1000 mark These are a compromise between cost and quality Adam have stuck thier infamous(ly expensive) new fangled ribbon tweeter design into a less ideal enclosurewoofer combo Youre going to get that impressive depth and visibility on the highs but you might find some holes in the rest Youll probably want a sub as these guys are only 6+s and wont have a real deep bass response although it is still impressive for a smaller woofer ( I think 47hz)
Mackie HR624HR824 (MKI or MKII)
Mackie recently redesigned thier HR series Theyre now quite possibly the sexiest looking monitors on the market I own a pair of the HR824MKIIs and I love them These use a different design than all of the above Theyre unported with a radiator which is basically a big oval inside the enclosure which you cant see This allows deep bass response (37hz on the mkIIs I believe or 39hz) The design is good the quality is reliable While Mackie may have you believe theyre the best on the market theyre not A lot of people find them brash - I think theyre quite smooth so listen to them The tweeters are aluminumtitanium depending on the version which colours the sound differently than the silk and ribbon designs in above speakers These are very flat very reliable The image is reasonably upfront - not hyped or aggressive The image could be a bit easier to look in to I like the ribbon design of the SamsonAdam for this All in all looking at price vs quality these are probably more on the price side with speakers like the KRKs popping up
TOP END SHIT
Im not getting into this stuff If youre looking at Dynaudio Genelec top level adam shit then you know what youre doing and dont need my help[b]
Page 4
12 Headphones
If you want to add a model plz give its name pros cons amp average price (new) Thanks everybody
AKG K-240s ~120$ Pros Wide frequency response removable cables used a lot Much better for producing (than the HD-25s) a lot flatter so it doesnt have the beautiful (but fake) bass of the 25s Also doesnt crush my ears like a 150kg boxer Cons Tend to make you a bit hot lol
Beyerdynamic DT990 PRO ~220$ or 150 Euro Pros comfortable very solid bass response wide frequency range Cons havent found any so far I find them suitable for mixdowns
Samson RH300 Pros Cost-effective auto-adjust mechanism so very light and comfortable can balance well bass levels on it Sounds muddy if mixdown is not well balanced Cons Aggressive fatiguing high end I shelf highs while producing because theyre pinching This is not to be compared with AKG-240s and likes its a bargain (can find it as low as 25euro)
CH70700 Pros The most cost-effective studio headphone Enough comfortable similar in behaviour to rh300 Very small the ideal for the nomadic producer I think Not fatiguing as the RH300 CH700 is the bigger brother of CH70 you only get bass and more distinct stereo image Gets VERY muddy if mix is not perfect Its difficult to calibrate decaying sounds on it (reverbdelays) Cons It costs really low so its cons are a consequence of it
Sennheiser HD-25 ~ euro150 Pros solid built great for djing good for producing by night if you have thin walls and neighbours on the other side Cons not suitable for mixdowns some people complain they cant wear for more than a couple of hours (tho I have no problem after several hours)
HD 600 ~ pound180 Pros Sound like sex Comfortable Frequency range is amazing goes all the way from 20-2000 Hz (and made my ears bleed at 15000Hz ) Cons Expensive at around pound180 HD 600 crew - get the HD650 cable makes a very nice difference for only pound20 or so
13 Midi Controllers
If you want to add a model plz give its name pros cons amp average price (new) Thanks everybody
________________________________
KEYBOARDS ________________________________
AKAI MPK49 pound280 new 49-key semi-weighted keyboard with aftertouch and full-sized keys 8 360 degree rotary dials each with 3 banks = 24 total 12 MPC style pads velocity and pressure sensitive 4 banks = 48 total 8 sliders each with 3 controller banks = 24 total note repeat and arpeggiator 8 assignable switches with 3 banks each = 24 total MMCMIDI Start Stop transport buttons USB powered
Page 5
great all in one midi controllerkeyboard although you do pay a bit typical price is around pound280 new Also as someone who has owned an MPC I can testify that the drum pads do note respond like an MPC although they are the closest out of all the keyboard controllers I looked at apart from that I cant fault it
Evolution MK-449C Pros 9 faders 8 knobs 10 assignable buttons pitch and mod wheel add up to 29 controls works as a charm cheap Cons Configuring it can be annoying as fuck(I mean the configuring of presets and other stuff)
Evolution MK-425C It the same as MK-449C but without the faders and with only 2 octaves Id say that it is an awesome starter controller Keys are a bit plastic ish and light but it is good for its price
Korg K24 ~ pound40 Pros well its Bus powered + Plenty of octaves (5 up and down if i remember rightly) Cons none it does exactly everything you expect from a basic midi controller more expensive ones seem to have no better functions other than more of the sameunless you want weighted keys
Korg Nano Series all usb $5999 nanopad - 12 pad drum controls + xy pad $5999 nanokontrol - 9 knobs 9 faders 18 switches $4999 nanokey - 25 key midi keyboard pitch and podulation controls adjustable velocity curves suited for portable rigs and saving space + low cost
M-Audio Axiom pound150-pound170 Pros The keys are FANTASTIC Aftertouch is great Pitchbend and mod feel very nice Having transport controls was enough to convince me to sell my UC33e to buy this The tap pads also were a strong selling point Cons The knobs are straight useless You cant go from 0-127 in one turn Theyre loud as well All of the output from the keyboard seems random and alot of people have trouble setting them up
M-Audio Keystation 61es ~ pound115 euro135 It has got one volume fader and 5 octaves Its keys are much better than the MK-425C ones
M-Audio MidAir25 Around 200 in all currency I got it for 70 in a deal though wouldnt say its worth 200 new but cheap 2nd hand bargin Pros 8 Assignable knobs Mod wheel sustain button amp jack for sustain peddle pitch shift assignable slider too (note I havent used all the functions of it you can go into select mode but I dont know how to use it so if someone did it might be of use) its wireless too so you can go sit across the room in another room and play might be good for live work if you want a little controller quite far away from the laptop or something Cons Only 2 Octaves plastic-feel to the keys drivers were a trouble to get working only midi out
M-Audio Oxygen Possibly one of the most classic portable midi keyboards in existence Ive had my Oxygen 8 for years and its still going strong Well worth the 80 buff I spent on it
Novation RemoteSL
Novation Remote Zero Price seen em go for pound150 -pound199 i paid 120 from ebay Pros Infinate and 270 degree assignable knobs drum pads and faders and togglegate buttons Good for controlling everything i use in reaktor for live gigs (automap assignment function for big named applications) automap software for creating your own midi maps on screen which is useful for when you make your own synths in something like reaktor its also Bus powered Cons faders a bit small and bit plasticneeds a bit more length on the fade
Novation X-Station
________________________________
OTHERS ________________________________
Page 6
Behringer BCR2000 (knobs controller) ~ 150 EUR Pros user friendly cheap 32 user presets (assign 24 knobs per instrument for up to 32 instruments) Cons have to do more than 1 rotation to go from 0 to 100 cheap built
Behringer BCF2000 (faders controller) ~ 180 EUR Same as BCR2000 but with 8 faders instead
Evolution UC-33 (knobs amp faders) ~ pound140 Pros easy way to use cheap easy portable Cons If youre a goof itll break quite soon In other words With lots of traveling the thing gets paranoid after some bumps
14 Soundcards
If you want to add a model plz give its name pros cons amp average price (new) Thanks everybody
Apogee Duet Pros Good quality 24bit converters Small and portable easy to setup works within Logic Cons Only has 2 XLR inputs and 2 hi-z jack inputs pricey FW400 input to computer
Audiotrak Maya 44 USB $96-120 SOS review pros analog rca insout easy to connect turntables too cons no 24 bit converters
Digidesign Mbox 2 does the job as the audio sound much more crisp and theres no static in the background
E-MU 0404 USB ~ 200 $ Pros good DA converters driver support for many OS volume knobs for headphone and monitors simple and user friendly control good headphone amplifier Cons ASIO drivers and multimedia drivers not working at the same time I bought it mainly for the driver support works with Win XP x64 and also OSX Leopard Would I buy it again yes
E-MU 1212m ~ euro140 Pros the sound quality the price the DSP effects Cons takes 2 PCI slots the Patchmix software is a bit tricky at the beginning
E-MU 1616mRad basically
E-MU 1820m have the emu 1820m which is basically then same as the other two nbut with lovely mic pres and an external box most of the problems ive had with it can be traced back to the cable for the external IO other than that the card is wonderful so therefore can recommend the other two
M-Audio 1010LT ~ euro190 Ive had an Maudio 1010LT for 5 years and have had no problems with it More than enough ins and outs for most home studio uses and had been totaly stable
M-Audio Delta 1010 with the breakout box solid solid as a rock and it sounds great loads of IO as well in fact too much for me tbh
M-Audio Audiophile 2469 around $120 Quite a nice soundcard easy enough to set up Had some trouble with it once though My PC kind of stopped recognizing it (and this is where MY own personal mistake comes in) and I tried reinstalling it without removing it when the manual clearly says that you should install the drivers before plugging the card in The only drawback of the card is lack of IOs I really need a second out and it only has one analog and one digital out The digital one seems kind of useless to me right now So yeah thats the only drawback I can mention
M-Audio Delta Audiophile 192
Page 7
NI Audio Kontrol 1 ~ euro300 NI Audio Kontrol 1 is well worth a look Rock solid done untold gigs with it built like a tank and sounds excellent Cirrus Logics 2nd best convertor chips in there well designed three big buttons a big knob and flashing lights Bosh
The Big Thread of Free VST Plugins-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Everyone likes free software
Below you will find a list of sites dedicated to providing free music software They are listed in order of useability and the amount of free plugins they list httpwwwgersiccomplugins truly excels in listing every new freeware plugin released
Some Other Good Sites to Browse Through (If you really need too)httpwwwhitsquadcomsmmfreewarehttpwwwdontcrackcomfreewarehttpwwwaudiomastermindcombrowse-free_vst_plugins-5886988-1htmlhttpwwwsadgladcomfreevstplugins6htmlhttpwwwapplecomdownloadsmacosxaudio (Mac only)
Some Alright Sites (These sites simply repeat the ones listed above yet are more difficult to navigate and feature fewer links)httpfreemusicsoftwareorghttpwwwvstplanetcomInstrumentsVST_Synthesizershtmhttpwwwfree-plugin-listcomhttpwwwsonicspotcomindexhtmlhttpwwwvstcentralcompluginsaspxhttpwwwaudioraclecomfreetrialsphp
Some Desperate Sites (Poorly laid out and pretty boring Only dig through these if youre a audioware junkie)httpenwikipediaorgwikiFree_audio_softwarehttpnoolmusiccomlinksshtml
Threads Concerning Free VSTs (Lists individual plugins and plenty of plugin developers Provides links to many of the plugins that can be found more easily above)httpwwwdubstepforumcomviewtopicphpt=24153amphighlight=httpwwwdubstepforumcomfree-vst-uberlist-t139352htmlhttpwwwkvraudiocomforumviewtopicphpt=9780
22 DAWS (Digital Audio Workstation)
DAW Question specific threads221 ndash Ableton Live222 ndash Cubase223 ndash FL Studio
23 Production effects explained-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Common Production Effects-------------------------------------------------------------------------Click on each link for more in-depth information about each effect
------ Filter Effects ------
EQ - (EQ types - Graphic EQ Parametric EQ Shelving EQ Linear Phase EQ)Filters - (Filter types - Low Pass filter High Pass filter Band Pass filter Band Reject filter Notch filter Comb filter All Pass filter State Variable filter Peaking filter Moog filter FormantVowel filter)Phase InverterVocodersHarmonic Exciters
------ Delay Effects ------
DelayEcho - (Delay types - Ping Pong delay Multi Tap delay Slapback delay Bucket delay Crossfeedback delay)Reverb - (Reverb types - Spring reverb Plate reverb Convolution reverb Impulse Response reverb)
------ Modulation Effects ------
ChorusFlangersPhasers
------ Dynamics Processing Tools ------
CompressorsLimiters (Brick Wall)Transient ShaperSignal ModellersGatesExpandersCompanders Noise reduction units
Here is a list of the most popular freeware analysers available
Voxengo SPAN
Bluecat Audio Freqanalyst
Roger Nichols Inspector
Page 20
For a long list of other free analysers visit httpwwwgersiccompluginsindexphpdaCat=2
3 Techniques
31 Bass311 Sub Bass
Sub-bass is a term used to describe audible sounds below 90Hz - sound in the range below this (under 16-17Hz) would be termed infrasound Sound systems often feature a subwoofer that is dedicated solely to amplifying sounds in the lower bass and sub-bass range Source Wikipedia
So the idea is to have the sub going up to ~90Hz The exact frequency it should be cut at depend on the kicks frequency Lets say you HP your kick at 100Hz then the sub should be LPed at 100Hz so they compliment each other without clashing
There are several ways of creating a sub here are the most common 1 - using a unique waveform (sine saw square or triangle) will give you a nice linear sub NB You dont need to filter out a sine wave as it doesnt have overtones 2 - using detuned waveforms take 2 identical waves (sine saw square or triangle) and detune them - lets say -25 +25 semitone This will produce a phase effect and give movement to your sub but itll also cause large volume amplitude and youll need to compress it after filtering Great Massive tutorial by Subfocus here 3 - using a 808 kick you dont have a TR-808 Grab that pack
jobbanaught wroteAn easy option to get a powerful subbass is to take a 808 kick sample put it in your favorite sampler and loop a single cycle of the waverform somewhere in the middle of the sample The 808 kick is made of a sine and some additional white noise The sine gives your sub that rattling low end pressure and the noise adds overtonesgrittiness = instant badass subbass
You can find more tips about mixing your kick n sub in the Random bass tips thread
312 lsquoWobblersquo
Page 21
Wobble GuideWobble Bass
Wobble Bass as it is known is simply a bassline that has an LFO assigned to a Low Pass Filter as an insert effect LFOstands for Low Frequency Oscillator and is used to change a sound by a defined speed (measured in either Hz or synced to the Tempo in relation to the barsnotes through quantization) The way the LFO changes the sound is up to you you can make the LFO adjust the Volume the amount of Saturation Filter Cutoff etc Basically any parameter you link it to Essentially you are just using the LFO to send a changing value to a parameter
--------------------
How to get a simple wobble bass
1) Choose a simple sound on your synth (Anything apart from a Sine wave )
2) Select your LFO and set it to the speed you want (18 would be a good starting point)
3) Now assign the LFO to the Filter Cutoff Which should for this example be a Low Pass Filter as the sound were going for is a deep bass
4) You now have a basic wobble bass from here the possibilities for tweaking this sound are endless
--------------------
A quick breakdown of whats actually going on Essentially you are taking a sound (that can be an audio files generated by a synth etc) and then passing it through a Low Pass Filter Now what exactly does a Low Pass Filter do you ask
A Low Pass Filter allows Low Frequency signals to pass through it but reduces the amplitude (volume) of all the Frequencies above the cutoff point In general most plug-ins have various Low Pass Filter settings where the more poles it has the more Dbs it will cut and will yield a harder knee to it Example 1 Pole Filter with a -6dBOct reduction Vs a 2 Pole Filter reducing -12DbOct However you dont necessarily need a LFO controlling your Low Pass Filter Cutoff frequency value you could just draw in the Automation yourself but a LFO will yield a loop of consistent values and prevents the possibility of human error All the LFO is doing is sending a value to your frequency cutoff to keep it consistently changing
--------------------
Tips amp Advice
1) Sub bass wobble would normally be a Sine wave at around the 40-50 Hz range which would repeat the same chords as the mid-range bass wobble The only difference being that with a sub bass wobble there is no point in assigning the LFO to a Low Pass Filter because the sound is too low for the low pass filter to have any effect so theLFO is assigned to the amplitude (volume) instead Another reason for not applying a Low Pass Filter to the Sub bass is because it would typically be a Sine wave which possesses no Harmonics to be adjusted by the Filter
2) The sound of an LFO can also be adjusted by the wave type you choose The default setting for an LFO generator is a Sine wave although on most synths you can chose from Triangle Sawtooth Square wave Random Noise To get a nice sounding bass it is a good idea to use as many oscillators as possible on different octaves
3) Try messing around with the attack and release of your sound as this can have an impact on the sound of the bass Long attacks tend to create a more ambient sound and is a technique traditionally used with ambient pads
Page 22
4) Something that I find useful is to bounce the bassline to a wav file so that it can be chopped up and put in-sync with other elements of the song because the majority of the time you will find the first wave of sound in the wobble bassline will will be half the length of the other waves due to attack rates So the best thing to do is to chop that freak sound off the beginning of the file in your DAW (Logic Pro Reason Cubase etc) and start off with the second wave which should be fully formed This way it will not be too early of late when keeping in sync with other elements such as a second bassline
5) Another method you can use is creating a clone layer of your original sound and setting up a new LFO setup for that to beat alternatively in the space left by the original LFO Or go that crazy Drum amp Bass Reese route and split the frequencies to Low Mid and High then set different LFO rates for each band then recombine into one sound
6) For more variation automate your LFO speed and intensity
7) Where you place insert effects in relation to the filter (pre or post) will yield different sounding results
8) Other methods to achieve a wobble like sound Tremolo (This effects volume rather than frequency) FM Synthesis Modulation of PWM Oscillator Pitch assigned (in a liberal amount) to LFO Filter Envelope assigned to LFO (using a re-triggered envelope) (submitted by Faun2500)
9) Assign a second LFO to modulate the speed of the first LFO
LFO Shapes
Sine wave The smooth value change possible
Triangle Similar to a Sine wave but slightly more ramped amp synthetic sounding
Random A mixed bag
Sawtooth Will have a very fast attack with a slower release which will sound very rugged
Square wave Will be a simple open close style Very harsh and will generally cause a very harsh sound (Often used in DJ Hazard style bass-lines) Detune two square waves for a nice dark sounding bass
Waveforms submitted by Skells wrotehttpi228photobucketcomalbumsee83 cleanjpgSimple Filter Sweep
httpi228photobucketcomalbumsee83 wobblejpgSine Wave LFO assigned to Filter Cutoff
LINKS etc
Fruity Loops Wobble Tutorial (Link submitted by Wub) Massive Wobble YouTube Tutorial (Video created by thesynthesist) Pause amp Play Wobble Tutorial (Link submitted by dubmo) Albino3 Wobble Guide (Guide created by axon)
By Rendr amp Deadly Habit and a little help from Macc
313 lsquoReecersquo
The Reese Bass
Page 23
History Lesson
The Reese bass was a form of huge sounding synth-bass first used by the Detroit Techno producer Kevin Saunderson aka Master Reese aka Reese Project aka on the track Just Want Another Chance and immortalised in the classic DnB track Terrorist by Renegade Since then it has been (over)used in many a DnB track and continues to evolve even nowadays through Dubstep and Jungle It is said to be as influential to DnB as the Amen break and probably as used and abused as the Amen
Capturing the Beast
1The Oscillator Stage
To nail the Reese you need a synth with at least 2 oscillators but for better-bigger results use as many oscillators as you can (not really but 4 oscillators give a nice deep rumble - ahhhhhh) All the oscillators are playing sawtooth waves and all except one are detuned by 25-50 cents so that all oscillators are out of phase with each other
2 The Filter Stage
The signal is then sent to a low-pass filter with the cutoff freq set around 150-200Hz (experiment with that you want the growl of the mid-frequencies but you also want it as deep as possible without sacrificing the midrange) The resonance of the filter should be cranked up almost all the way (but again tweak accordingly to your filtersynth)
3 Fuzz it Up
The second most important aspect of the Reese (after the detuned sawtooths) is distortion Tube distortion and tape saturation work extremely well but dont hesitate to use other more extreme distortion units (dont forget that the Reese has been done a million times you have to add something original to it) Again adjust to taste
4 Spices and Herbs
Now that is the main recipe for the sound but like all haute-cuisine there are more things you can do to spice up the Reese Namely effects Effects that have been associated with the Reese are
Phasers - to accentuate the phase-shifting effect of the detuned sawtooths Unison - a great way to make it even bigger Chorus - again a good way to phatten it up
5 And Some More Synth Magic
Another thing to do so you can bring out the old-school jungle character of the Reese is to use Legato and PortamentoGlide if your syth of choice has them available These are both great ways to move from one note to the next without listening to the transition To put it simply when legato is on and you play a sustained E followed by a sustained G the transition between the two notes gives the listener the impression that they heard a single note being sustained that has just changed its pitch from E to G without pausing at a certain point
Always remember though that if you use Legato you have to turn the polyphony of your synth down to 1 (something you should almost always do with basslines because two bass-notes playing together almost never sound good in electronic music bass chords are more the realm of prog-rock shit than dubstep)
For the more technical minded legato in synthesizers is a variation of monophonic operation In contrast to monophonic mode where every new note restarts the ADSR envelopes in legato mode they are not if the previous note remains depressed when the new note is played This causes the initial transient from the attack and decay phases to sound only once and the ADSRs to remain at sustain stage for the whole sequence of notes until the final note is released (Wikipedia)
EDIT I just found out that in one of the free vst links on the bible there is a thing called the Hotelsinus Reese Bassline Synth So I didnt miss the opportunity for a mini review The software itself is small (like most free vst-is) and quite easy to install (you just drop the dll in the vst folder) As for the sound weeeeeeell the sounds it produces are definitely Reese But weak somehow Its like listening to Terrorist from a battered cheap old cassette from 93 or something It has a tinny and tiny sound when compared to what you can achieve with powerhouses like Albino or
Page 24
Massive or (one of my personal favorites for Reese) Cakewalk Rupture You can try it if you want but i dont think it will impress steppers that much we are bass-headed folk
314 Random Bass Tips
Plz add yours or others youve spotted on the forum
miss_molinari wrotebasically i have been experimenting with cutting (not sidechaining) a notch (band reject) in the bass starting at 60hz and ending just before 70 this is only for those bass lines which only hit on the kick (quite specific) also the bass is then high passed at about 220hz to pretty much 0db which is where the kick starts (ending the kick with a non-too-aggressive-cut at about 2khz) this essentially means that the kick and the bass do not share any frequencies above abot 200hz but also between 60 and 70 and with them always hitting at the same time this gets around the fact that sidechaining this type of sequencing would leave you with no or little bass
this has worked well so far but is useful mainly for sub basses ending at around 250hz would not be as good for full spectrum wubsanyone else got any tech tips regarding the bass and kick
futures_untold wroteI simply cut everything under 90Hz on my kicks and roll off slightly at 1KHz
Sub I cut under 40Hz and roll off at 200Hz
I always compress both seperately and keep my levels low in the mix to create plenty of head room later whilst adding sounds with higher frequency content
Anything above 150Hz is what I consider midrange Anything above 150Hz can be heard on mobile phone speakers We all know that theyre designed to play heavy bass lol Wink
miss_molinari wroteDaft Cunt wroteTo me it feels like cutting the kick above 80 hz makes it sound weak I guess it depends on the style I rather cut below 60 to 80 depending on the tune
yeah its all about context in a dry minimal setting im of the opinion you can make a kick punch right up to about 180-200hz but yeah depends on when and on what kind of punch (im usually talking a bass hit at about 200hz coupled with a knock hit anywhere up to about 1200hz) i imagine you true dubsteppers prefer a denser thump from 60 through to about 300hz
Daft Cunt wroteI began recently the band-reject thing on the sub Little details that make big difference
And do you people cut the bass where the snare peaks
my basses arent usually middy enough to need that but yeah a slight sidechain on the main snare and say midbasspadwothavyer is nice especially if the limelight is stolen by a deeper sidechain on the kick and midbasspadwothavyer can create a nice flow (especially when used with long decay reveb linked to the midbasspadwothavyer so that it sounds louder and longer the higher the frequency played - might
have to post some piccies of that one )
Shonky wroteWhat Ive been doing lately is bouncing down the kick track lowpassing one somewhere between 100-140 depending on the highest frequencies of the low sub and then sidechaining the sub to the low kick
Then take a copy of the kick track highpass between 300-1000 and this will give you the beater noise to make the kick cut through I then sidechain this to the more middly basses You can also send a small amount to a reverb bus which allows you to avoid mud on the lower frequencies whilst still giving you the space
Doing it this way seems to make sense to me cause the sidechains work on the corresponding kicks in the same frequency range so it doesnt cause loads of unnecessary compression where you dont need it
Page 25
boh wroteAlways make sure your kicks are in tune with the rest of the track ull hear it pitching up and down and make sure if ur layering that the transients dont conflict(good monitors make this easy) It all comes down to kick selection Whats the point in cutting a kick at 80hz with a fundemental freq of say 60hz Sure you get whats happening before it but u wont get the nice thump of the fundemental freq Choose other kicks that hit the freq u want (80hz say) instead of cutting them when theres no need to Unless you really really know what your doing getting technical like this complicates the situation Esp for people with little experience
sullyharmitage wrote50 hz hi pass seems a bit high to me maybe gd for kicky techno or house but for subby stuff it seems a bit muchdefo roll off past 30-35 (most well engineered systems will do this anyways so any content below this is definately getting wasted)if yr gonna go higher make sure its a soft curvei find levelling subs is the hardest part of a mix - cos more always sounds better i remember reading breakage saying yr subs shouldnt add more than 3db to yr mix thats seems like a good guide
btw sub in kick an bassline simultaeously is gonna cause clashes (n maybe disortion) id either decrease the attack on the bass or cut the sub from the kick
unklefesta wroteI rolloff EVERYTHING at 40hz except my bass
standard
wang wroteAlways do it
Dont forget youre ROLLING off the frequencies not cutting them off all together Just a couple of dB of bass down there is enough to get some girth without removing all your headroom
Also analyse and cut off the lows on everything even if it doesnt appear to have messy lows -Youd be surprised how much bass there is in some high hats
Jtransition wroteAll of your tracks are going to be different so dont restrict yourself to a certain techniquetry different things and listen to the results
Shonky wrotewang wroteAlso analyse and cut off the lows on everything even if it doesnt appear to have messy lows -Youd be surprised how much bass there is in some high hats
Yep this is very true also worth filtering out the inaudible highs on low sounds as well found some of my subs which Id low passed still showed frequency activity much higher than expected
Jtransition wroteStick a high pass filter on everything apart form the kick drum and bass line70 hertz is a good starting point move up or down to tasteAnd remember try to mix at low levels(Walls not vibrating)
Deadly Habit wroteRendr wroteBasslines in my experience should be mono due to the fact that humans cannot easily decoded the stereo positioning of low frequencys so panning basslines (excluding bass sounds with high pitch sounds at around 500Hz+) is not recommended not only are the low frequencys hard to position with the human ear the low frequency sound waves are absorbed by the human head at a much higher ratio than high pitch sounds which tend to be reflected Another thing to note is that club systems are
mono Basslines that pan only belong in Psytrance
sub range should be mono especially if going to be cut to vinylmidrange bass on the other hand you can pan and add stereo fx to your hearts content
Page 26
32 Re-sampling
SafeAfter a few months of experimenting with resampling not really getting anywhere in terms of sound quality i came up with a pretty simple way of getting on the right track Ive got so much help since getting on this forum in terms of production i thought id share this for those who like myself are looking into the elusive yet highly rewarding technique of resamplingAll the vsts i use on this (save for the synth itself) are freenative plugs im using FL but itll transfer onto every DAW pretty much the same Ill explain it for a bassline but it can be applied to any sound
Step 1Make yourself a nice bassline get it sounding dirty with whatever you can within the synth Im using Albino so i tend to play about with the saturation modesFXs until its sounding pretty good
Step 2Hook up to a mixer channel then send this channel to a second mixer channel (FL users just click on another channel towards the bottom of the strip) On the second channel that the synth is hooked to from the first add CMt bitcrusher and downsample 3-16x (thanks to all the production forum users who pointed this out to me when i posted a few months ago on dirtying up basslines) Then add a chorus Turn the LFOs off and set the depthdelayetc to whatever sounds best Also set the crossover pretty high so only the treblehigh mids are being affected Then add Camel Audio Camel Crusher Turn the compressor off and set the tubemech to taste Add a parametric EQ if needs be to boost the high freqs Experiment with the chain of these effects swapping them according to the sound The choruscameleq in different orders should alter the sound quite alot depending on where their placed
Step 3 Set the level of the second affected channel with the original depending on whatever suits Play about with adding extra effects to both channels The way the second channel behaves once an effect is added to the first is quite extreme in even light application of effects So its possible to create a whole array of different sounds just from say adding a flangerchorusetc to the first channel then listening to how much it affects the sound as a whole as it goes through both channels By now it should be sounding pretty girthy
Step 4Export the riffsample (i use edison on the master channel in FL but whatever method will do) Reload and place into a mixer channel Add another Camel Crusher for abit more grit EQ and compress Set up a reverbdelay send and resample again for extra depth
Obviously this technique can be applied a 2nd3rd4th time to fuck the sound up even more so Which is what ive moved onto doing now into the territory of splitting the sound into basslow midhigh midtreble sections for ultimate control over each part Something which i was attempting to do before coming up with the above method but being left with a pile of unlistenable mushy shite
Hope this is a help to some peeps I know theres no secret technique to resamping only a whole load of practice and using your ears but this method got me on the right track in terms of hearing the benefits of it and encouraging me to experiment more in depth and realise that the possiblities are endless Im hooked now i resample pretty much every sound in one way or another Kick and snares benefit hugley from it for mega face melting wide drum sounds aswell so its worth trying it on some nice drum hits
Keep up the good work folksPeaceDC_WT
33 Drums
Read before reading on I am in no way entitled to any of those opinions It is up to you to decide whether you would like to incorporate them in your workflow I have just collected them from all the threads in this forum and will try to keep everything updated
I will update as regularly as I find updates
Page 27
Misc tips and tricks bull Good drums are usually layered - example 3 snares sounding as onebull The hats are often panned or widenedbull Pick great sounding samples different ones for different parts of the sounds you want 1
for snap and bite 1 for body 1 for thump distort and MAYBE EQ each to make them sound the best that they can separately combine in a bus MAYBE compress them together maybe accent the front and shorten the sound with a transient modifier 10 minutes tops
bull Do as little as possible with great-sounding bits and your basic sounds will be slamming leaves you time to focus on the arrangement people dont go around thinking wow that tune has an amazing snare as long as its thumping and not masked by a bunch of other stuff itll keep the dance moving
bull Listen to other producers work As its playing imagine the 1 2 3 4 on the step sequencer running in time to what youre listening to Try to visualize where the producer put their hits Not to say you should copy peoples drum patterns but learn from them
bull Ive noticed a lot of tunes (more minimal stuff where you can distinctly hear whats seperately going on) seem to use two differently pitched hi-hats that alternate to sound shuffley if you know what I mean and a less dramatic snare used sparsely in between the main lazy kick and snare An easy trick if you havent worked it out (which to be honest you should have if youre at all serious about producing dubstep) is to stick a smaller snare or hat the 116th before the kick or snare so it steps if you get me For example Bengas Night does this for all four beats in the bar which is part of what makes it so danceable But dont get stuck in always having kick on 1 and snare on 3 some tracks work with a kick on every beat others with a couple big snares etc The trick (unless you want proper lazy spaced out tunes) is to make sure youre nodding your head on all four beats of the bar Play around with a hat on every quaver (ie 8 per bar on the beat) compared to just four but on the off beat as well as adding in the steppy ones every now and then Theres often no need to over-complicate things though one of the my favourite drum tracks is the incredibly simplistic V by Distance Its a rhythm that could easilly be played by one guy on a real kit yet its so banging - check the use of hats and lower velocity kicks in this to make it nice and bouncy Also I once had a four bar drum loop and accidentally moved the sequence one bar to the right for one section and it ended up nicely varying the drums in a way you wouldnt expect
bull Really tight delays can help claps and snaps sound natural 5-20ms etcbull Recycle or phatmatik is your break-chopping friendbull Basically Hatrixxs method involved chopping everything from the main hits into a sample
Say you had a 2-step funk beat like the Amen Youd start your selection from the start of the first kick and select everything up to the start of the first snare Cut paste theres your first slice Then take everything from the start of the first snare up to the start of the second kick - including all the little hats and ghost hits - cut paste second sample and so on Then just map the samples onto some keys and bash away Both of them are quick compared to chopping Recycled slices where you have to copy and drag loads of little notes (one every little fucking tiny hit in the break arranged chromatically up the keyboard) around the piano roll These methods let you just concentrate on the main hits which can be both good or bad You can get a solid beat down with just a handful of hits but youre limited to the patterns already in the original break For a beginner to breakbeat science like yourself Id say try these methods first but dont rule out the really anal methods like RecyclePhatmatikFruity Slicer Sometimes they are a necessary evil Of course some of the drumfunk guys especially those who post on Subvert Central swear by these methods or the next one There are those who prefer to chop up the raw audio rather than bothering with MIDI and samplers They literally just drop the break file into Cubase or Logic and start chopping with the scissors tool and copying and pasting I can see the benefits of this You can see the waveform as youre chopping and youre not as restriced to the quantize grid as you are with MIDI But it takes aaaaages to build a drum track this way and theres the risk of RSI from all that Ctrl+C Ctrl+V youll be doing Then of course theres trackers They really are tailor-made for chopping up loops amongst other things They give you Sample Offset meaning that when you trigger a sample you can set it to start from 256 evenly spaced points throughout the sample So by starting a sample a quarter of the way through youre triggering the first snare (obviously you can fine-tune it when the snare isnt perfectly on the beat) You can edit breaks in a tracker without ever having to cut up a waveform and you can do all sorts of other nifty things like reverse the sample retrigger it to make drum rolls and so on
If recycles having trouble switch the break to mono in your sample editor and then apply tiny fades between the drum hits (especially useful if there are lots of rides that play over the other hits to keep things separate) This should help recycle pick up the start points and with any luck should leave you with a cleaner break
Page 28
Snaresbull Tune the snares so they all hit around the same pitch bull Change the Amp Envelopes of each to bring the strongest parts from each separate sample
and build up your sound like that bull Compressing all together is a good idea but dont over do it bull EQ the master out for the snare as well so you wont have to fuck about when you use the
sample in the future bull Donrsquot just use snares fling some random sound effects in there Claps and rim shots also
work well when layered bull Make subtle changes to them and export a few snares from the same setup this helps
when you need a ghost hit or a reverse that sounds similar but not identicalbull Watch that frequencies dont build up and make the layered bit sound overly whatever
is building up Really easy to get too much 200hz or 500hz or even 12k if youve got samples that are all beefythicksmack-y
bull If its peaking run it through a Spectrum Analyzer and see where its peaking I guess its peaking in the tune rather than just the snare sample playing on its own
bull Sometimes snare samples have a very short peak that doesnt seem to make them sound any better and keeps you from getting them louder without cliping Reduce that part by a few dBs and youre sorted
bull Make sure you are using subtractive eq to pull out the frequencies that could be clashing with other sounds If your frequencies are clashing that can hide the snare and then you end up turning it up to compensate and there you are with your snare peakingThe key is making the frequencies sit right in the mix so that they dont clash and you can set them right and not have to turn them up
bull You could always try clipping the snare normalise it in a wave editor amplify it as much as you can before it sounds distorted then sample it out Then replace the snare with the clipped version it will almost always sound louder with more body at a lower volume I would still point out that although this can be used as a replacement to compression compression is a vital tool to learn how to use Also a lot of peeps will say this does bad things to the waveform and it does but unless you intend to listen to your tune to be heard at home on an amazing hifi then it doesnt really matter that much IMO
bull Hi-pass overdrive limit and cut away space from other sounds for itbull Layer with its self or a different snare Layer with sub add effect to one layer add effect
to both layers layer zoom right in drag one wave form back or forth very slightly to create new snare sound Pitch updown EQ Filter distort reverb delay reverse
bull Record yourself beat boxing your best snare sounds then layer with snare samplesbull A good handclap never goes a miss or use a nice drum synth to get a very differentdigital
soundbull Try reversing the snare sample then changing the envelope settings so it only hits on the
beat Layer that with the same sample this time not reversed Add a little delay to the the reversed snare Change the settings til it sounds how you like
bull Particularly snares I layer up a lot I look for one that has the qualities that I want when run through verb and then I look for something shorter with more mid punch to keep things physical After someone notied snares were weak in a tune Ive really made a point of ensuring that when the snares hit its physical as well as textural You need to feel them a bit - so I look for some snares that have that real punch when layering but usually keep the more textural snappy one as the focus last couple tunes I did the standard kick snare hats w odd percussion and then I took an amen chopped it processed it and layered it overtop for more aggression and step (goddess being a perfect example) By removing a layer and adding it you can create a sense of progression through the tune Make sure the bottom layer is sounding really good and then add the top so that youre not mixing them to be reliant on one another - instead you want synergy Make sure the EQ on the top and bottom make sense with each other
Kicksbull Building a kick in Ableton Lives Impulse machine Provides some essential information
about layering that can be used with any DAWbull Making fat kicks
remixmag wroteWhether creating Miami Bass music is your lifes fantasy or your greatest fear you probably crave the know-how to manifest those car-rattling trunk-full-of-funk kick drums In the arenas of hip-hop house techno downtempo and almost any other electronic genre molding fat kick drums is absolutely essential Like grandmas homemade apple pie the recipe for kick drums is partially a matter of taste However theres no substitute for quality ingredients And just like every pie has its staple ingredients every slamming kick drum requires some common elements Lets take a look at the
Page 29
shopping list for killer kick drumsTHE CRUST
Youll need a basic shell to begin creating a thick strong kick The classics always work if youre fortunate enough to own a real Roland TR-808 909 or other famous drum machine with a killer kick use it copiously If youre not one of those chosen few pay close attention to your original source For example if you use a sampler understand that not all ldquo808 Kickrdquo samples are the same some sound great and some just plain suck There are a lot of reasons for that including how many generations from the original the sample is the sampling rate and bit depth of the sampler how the kick was first sampled and so on Be as choosy as possible with your individual samples mdash dont use a mediocre sample just because it has 808 in the name and therefore is ldquosupposedrdquo to sound fat Seek out a better 808 sample or use something else that is simply bigger sounding Remember the time you spend finding sweet original sources wont be in vain especially if you reuse the resulting samples for multiple songsBORROW SOME SUGAR
An old saying goes ldquoGood art borrows great art stealsrdquo A nice way to start out with great raw kick material is to sample directly from the source If you dont own but have access to a 909 then sample it directly Or take one of your favorite producers tracks on vinyl or CD find a naked kick drum in there and sample it Be cautious with that approach for a couple of reasons Copyright issues around sampling even small bits have become a dangerously gray area and I would never personally advise using any source straight out of the can even from a royalty-free sample library While it may be an excellent start its unoriginal Customize whatever you bite Treat your samples as a sculptor would treat clay mold each one to create a trademark sound for yourself One effective way to customize a fat kick is to take a tip from the synth manufacturers If a sound is thin pile another (or a few more) on top When doing so its important to use different sounds layering two identical kicks will result in a louder kick but it wont change the basic tone Remember the sculptor approach here Even if you are using two good-sounding individual samples they may not instantly sound great together For example I find that when layering kicks while the thickness may be good sustain is often overkill The final result often benefits from a little doctoring on the tail of one (or both) of the samples and other hands-on sonic surgeryADD THE FILLING
Once a nice basic kick is achieved treating it with two of the mastering engineers favorite tools is often the next step Artfully applying a compressor (to just the kick) can go a long way toward creating a signature sound and a huge kick Compression is one of those ldquosecret spicesrdquo and how to apply it is a whole topic in itself One recommendation I will make however is to use a multiband compressor With one of those you can isolate compression on certain frequency ranges That is perfect if for example you want to push the sub of your kick without emphasizing the higher frequencies (which often affect the tone of the attack) or vice-versa EQ comes after compression in my signal chain By now the kick should already sound pretty fat I aim to shave unnecessary frequencies here rather than artificially boosting too much This is also where you can actualize trademark sounds while also fine-tuning them to work alongside other elements in specific tracks I often scoop out mids and highs especially frequencies above about 500 Hz Even though I like thick deep kicks unless Im going for a really dublike sound I often truncate the lowest frequencies (usually the sub-50 Hz frequencies) Even when you cant hear the difference when trimming frequencies doing so can really tighten up your kicksEVEN IT OUT
You may ask why when youre trying to fatten up a kick would you want to trim frequencies That is one of the keys to achieving great mixes both in the case of kick drums and in general You want to avoid too many overlapping frequencies The more sonic separation you have between elements the more focused the entire mix will sound That can be especially important for club music which often gets played on huge not necessarily audiophile-quality sound systems If you havent run into the following scenario already I assure you at some point you will Your bass line and kick drum are competing and it sounds like you have a weak kick You boost the kick but it still sounds muddy Take the bass out and suddenly the kick doesnt sound so bad In a scenario like that solo the two sounds listen carefully for where frequencies are overlapping and then try subtractive EQ on one element then the other and sometimes a bit on both By scooping out overlapping frequencies you will often find that both elements seem to magically come forward in the mix before even touching their respective volume levels
Hi hatsbull Realism
Ive been a professional touring and recording drummer for 25 years and just thought I might share a couple of really simple ways to use fruity loops or fruity studio to create more realistic drum patterns
For what its worth try this out with Fruity Loops
Page 30
Take your hi hat tracks (are any tracks for that matter including melodic synth bubbles)
Drop down the bar graph box that allows you to scroll between velocity (volume) pitch panning cutoff resonance and a thing called shift which allows you to use each of these categories to effect each individual note that youve programmed (note this can be accomplished in other ways in most of the good midi sequencing apps or softwarehardware drum machines)
Drummers no matter how good they are just arent perfect and we can use the fact that each of these drop down bar graphs can make veryvery small changes in a sound to do some subtle things to a rolling drum groove like 16th notes on a hi hat
Not all drummers but many tend to favor their strong hand in a single stroke (hand over hand) drum roll Consequently if you make all odd numbered hi hats be slightly louder than their even numbered hits it will sound more realistic Start by making velocity differences that are really clearly audible Then lower the velocity until you can barely feel the difference We are going to make very subtle changes like this on each of the parameters of velocity pitch cutoff resonance and importantly shift
I cant stress enough that you should make these changes be so subtle that you can hardly notice them
Just going on the fact that the right handed players start their rolls with the right hand and favor it ever so slightly (or grossly for effect as well) means that the stroke will be harder with the right hand than the left hand
When a percussion instrument is hit harder the difference between the transient (or hi pitched attack) of the sound and the body of the instrument (or the sound that comes after the attack) becomes greater In general on drums that means that a harder attack tensions the drum very imperceptably (sp) and it also means that there will be more treble in the sound Consequently the pitch goes up a little teensy bit and their is more attack to the sound (increased resonance and slightly higher cutoff frequency)
Consequently you can make the pitch of each right hand be just barely noticeably higher the resonance should be just one or two of those little teeny bars higher The cutoff should be just a few bars lower (allowing less high frequencies through) on the left handed or even numbered strokes
Typically if drums have time inaccuracies they tend to drag the left hand a litte bit I have to keep stressing that if you can hear the changes you make you arent being realistic You need to make the changes subtle enough that you just barely feel that they arent perfect You can consequently make each left hand note shifted one or two bars late
Tigure out how much you can tweak each parameter before it becomes obvious and then you can just randomly tweak each one up to that limit With a little bit of variance in each stroke from parameter to parameter you will create more of a percolating texture in your programming - this is a great technique to make synth bubbles (the kind used in techno and house) more interesting and less mechanical feeling
Now you can avoid the biggest mistake that non-drummers do when trying to write realistic programs turn the overall volume of the hihats until you CANT hear them and then slowly bring up the volume until you just begin to hear them
Professional producers have spent countless hours trying to figure out how to gate and mix hihats OUT of tracks The reason is two fold1) Human beings have such a radical peak in their hearing around the 1-2khz range (or the intelligibility range of human speech) that we can play the hihats at incredible low volumes and they are still audible You cant do that with a bass drumI tell my drum students that you cannot play a hi hat or a snare drum so quietly that a person sitting in a room with you cant hear it2) Hi Hats the snare of snare drums and cymbals all seriously MASK human vocal intellibility How many people have gone to see live shows where they can hear the singer is singing but cant for the life of them figure out what they are actually singing That is ususally because drummers (or mixers which is frequently the case) are not hip to thisimportant fact
So turn down your hi hat tracks (or any track with a strong mid rangeshort envelope attack) and you have much more room for other musical goodies in your mix When in doubt make your hi hats quieter than you think they should be Trust me theyll come through the mix even at a quiet volume
Swingbull Dont know if you can do this in your sequencer but in Logic you can create a groove
template from your drums and then apply that to your other instruments If youre using separate midi channels for snares kicks and hats take the 8 bar loop youre using glue it together and then take the groove from that and then mute that track When you click down the quantize list youll see the template there and you can apply it to your other tracks Also if you do want to change the groove you can just change the hits in the muted template and itll automatically change all other hits to the new changes
bull Think if youre clever and organized you can basically cut breaks up in recycle load them into the exs24 (extract sequence) and then do the same with them That way if there are breaks you like the feel of you can just apply that swing to anything If you make a folder called grooves in your logic folder they should load up each time so that youll have loads to choose from Havent done this myself yet but always helpful to have a choice of feels available
bull Some things sound better rigid and robotic with equal velocities Some things sound better rigid and robotic with differing velocities Some things sound better with swing Some things sound better with everything ever-so-slightly off Its down to what the track needs
bull Drum Break Swing ProgrammingNicolas Hall wwwbreakbeat-cafenet wroteI think most people who make anything funk breakbeat drum amp bass or hip-hop would agree that Swing is crucial to the effectiveness of a beat The other key factors in a programming sense are dynamic and accent So many people get wound up when their beats sound sterile or mechanical this is due to the fact that computers and sequencers lock to perfect BPM A computer on its own does not interpret rhythm the way a good drummer does There are however certain machines that have their own swing parameters like the Akai MPC range of sampling drum machines which are used extensively by hip hop producers
Swing is not the easiest thing in the world to analyze but as a general rule good drummers will play slightly late and thats why in all funky records you get that slight dip at the start of the bar take Superstition by Stevie Wonder or Billie Jean by Michael Jackson these are both very simple beats Superstition is of course live drums whilst Billie Jean was programmed but no less funky than Superstition I emphasize this point to demonstrate that a programmed beat can be every bit at groovy as a beat played on a drum kit
Expanding on the Billie Jean point Hip Hop beats are really very simple If you listen to the Neptunes they tend to create the swing in their beats by quantizing the kicks and snares and playing the hi hats in by hand this creates a very tight beat which is off set by a loose hi hat try it works but dont forget your accents - As a starting point just take the first snare of your beat and turn the velocity down then notice how your head starts nodding and your foot starts tapping a little more you are giving the beat feel Also remember that if you are using reverb the louder snare will push the reverb harder than the soft snare so your creating more ambience that way Then try your kick drums if your not sure which hits to adjust just pick apart a beat your feeling I remember me and friend picking apart a Gangstarr beat and were able to almost replicate it by adjusting the velocities of each hit (admittedly it took a while to get it right)
If youre a newbie then a common trick when learning to make good grooves is to create a template with an existing loop The idea is take a loop you like thats got a good feel to it and then place your own hits over the break then take the break out and see if your hits are sounding funky This can take a while and its crucial to think about the strength of each hit or the dynamic Each kick will not be the same strength nor will the snares or the hats pick the loop apart dissect it and youll soon see that there are certain consistencies in all good beats
If youre using live loops and like to layer them with drum sequences you should be thinking about time space and frequencies So if you have a fairly heavy loop then layering it with heavy kick drums is probably not gonna sound good Think about filling holes are their any frequencies that could be filled up Or is there space in the loop for extra hits Try working in layers just adding one hit at a time also filtering works well you could take some of the frequencies out of your loop as you drop your drum sequences in to make room for them I think one the masters of this technique is Liam Howlett of the Prodigy He runs breakbeats and gives them extra balls by laying a kick drum underneath to add extra intensity to certain passages in his set but hes careful not to overlap frequencies to much A good place to start if you using breakbeats is the Roland Tr-808 kick drum which is around the 50hz mark which is sub bass territory so it will sit underneath most breaks very well
If your hell bent on making killer beats and loops then perseverance is crucial keep at it it will come together listen to beats you like and pick them apart identify the subtleties that make it happen I know some producers get fed up when their beats sound to clean or they are trying to create a new breakbeat and then compare it to sample they took from vinyl and get down on there own beat Think about what a breakbeat really is think about its history what has happened to it to make it sound the way it does Im
Page 32
sure youve noticed how some breaks have a certain something like a magic dust you cant put your finger on Let me share what I know with you about that
Most breaks though not all are taken from recordings of live drums some of them are pretty old so you have the ambience of live drums and the room they were recorded in you have the fact that natural decay and reverb of each drum is likely to have bled into the other mics on the kit and that most engineers used overhead mics which pick up the whole kit with two mics Then consider that many of these breaks will have been recorded to analogue tape with saturation which will create extra warmth and harmonics The next step comes from old sampling technology like the SP-1200 and the Akai s-950 mpc -60 these samplers sampled at 12- bit (bear in mind that most computers now are at least 24-bit if not more) and that the samples themselves where taken from vinyl and on and on the process goes with each new reverb and eq adding more and more to the break In terms of giving your breaks that character there are a number of things you can try for example buying an old four track cassette machine to dump your beats onto then re-sample it if your using a sampler like the s-950 then try pushing the input meters a little harder than usual add reverbs and resample it each time you put your loop through a new channel you will be adding something to it Also distortion is fantastic for breaks if you have any amp plug ins then try them the Amplitude one is particularly good you dont need to go mad with it just used subtly it works great
To finish I would just like to say again stick with it keep trying keep listening to records if you like to read about technique then do so you can learn so much from other producers Remember the strength of your hits is important as is the way it swings good luck
UPDATE 08092008
ENHANCE SYNTHESIZED DRUM PARTS WITH FOUND SOUNDS
emusiciancom wroteLayering real-world sounds with synthesized drum parts puts a new spin on your drum tracks You probably already have usable sound effects on your hard drive because most commercial samplers have at least a modest collection in their factory library Beyond that youll find thousands of royalty-free sound effects online Soundsnapcom is one of my favorite sources and its free The recordings dont need to be pristine for layering over drums so dont overlook cheap sampling CDs and consider grabbing your own sounds with a portable recorderCollect and Save
Start by assembling a small Foley library of short percussive sounds divided into typical drum-sound categories kicks snares toms cymbals percussion and so on Youll generally want to layer drum sounds with Foley sounds that have a similar volume contour and frequency range If you layer a Foley sound that resembles a kick drum with the sound of your hi-hat for example youll quickly fill up all the space in your drum track
Industrial household military transportation and vocal sounds make excellent fodder but you will often want to extract a small slice such as the last shot in a volley of machine-gun fire (snare) or the first bounce of a plastic bottle on concrete (tom) A browsing tool like Audio Finder (icedaudiocom) is invaluable if you have a large sample library That lets you quickly audition clips make basic edits and drag-and-drop slices to your library
Sticks UpIf your synthesized drum part is step sequenced youll need to export its step sequences as MIDI files Many drum synths do that including Sonic Charge Tonic (sonicchargecom) Apple Logic UltraBeat (applecom) and Submersible DrumCore (submersiblemusiccom) All of those come with a large collection of patterns exportable as MIDI sequences Youll also need a sampler to play the Foley sounds drum-oriented samplers are handier for that but are by no means necessary
Start by loading a kit in the drum synth Export one of its sequenced patterns or create your own and place it on the sampler track For some of the drum synth sounds select compatible Foley sounds and map them to the same notes in the sampler that theyre mapped to in the drum synth Next solo the doubled voices one by one in both the drum synth and the sampler start the sequence playing and tweak the samplers voice parameters (filter level pan envelope and so on) to make the sounds work together (see Fig 1 and Web Clip 1) Dont tweak global parameters such as effects because that will affect all sounds played by the sampler
High HoopsOnce youve configured your Foley track you can do several things to add interest I frequently use a
Page 33
second sampler for short vocal sounds Ill have some notes trigger sounds in both samplers and others in only one Many samplers let you group sounds and assign notes and controllers to choose among them You can then sequence these notes and controllers or you can play them live to alter your Foley tracks
Try applying DSP effects to individual Foley sounds Multitap delays distortion phasing and granular effects all work well when used sparingly (see Web Clip 2) You can apply DSP effects inside your sampler or route the voices to a separate output for DSP processing in your DAW If your sampler doesnt offer either possibility spread the Foley parts over several sampler instances on different tracks
Sidechain compression or gating of the drum track with one or more of the Foley parts will highlight the Foley part as well as add variety to the drums With compression peaks in the sidechain signal will reduce the level of the drum track Use a high compression level say 201 and balance the sidechain-gain and the compression-threshold -attack and -release controls to get the ducking contour you want (see Web Clip 3) Gating has the opposite effect the drum track will be heard during peaks in the sidechain signal (see Web Clip 4) Here too the sidechain-gain and gate-threshold controls work in tandem to determine when the gate is opened Use envelope parameters (attack release and hold) to shape the gates contour
Keep in mind that once youve created a sampler instrument to complement your drum kit you can reuse it with other sequences You can also change one or more sounds in the sampler instrument without repeating the whole process
34 Sidechain Compression (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
4 Theory41 ndash Song Structure42 ndash Mixdown (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)43 ndash Mastering (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
44 Music Theory
The first thing to remember about music theory is that generally if it sounds right it probably is There are no rules in music and Music Theory is not about telling you how to write music Its about understanding the music
Broadly speaking it is fair to say that most music is essentially based upon two crucial factors scales and rhythm Scales make up melodies chords harmonies and basslines to name but a few whereas rhythm makes up the beat of the song In this part of the Production Bible you will learn the basics of Music Theory that will serve you not only in the production of Dubstep but for any of your future musical pursuits This information is intended to be easy to read and understand so I wonrsquot be mincing sentences But firstly please make sure you learn every single note on the keyboard by studying the image below Otherwise yoursquoll be completely lost here
Page 34
Scales Wersquoll begin with scales As I mentioned before scales are the building blocks of your song and without them your track will be atonal and completely unlistenable (probably not the effect yoursquore going for)
There are two main scales that you should learn inside out ndash the major scale and the minor scale A generalisation yoursquore bound to have heard before is that the major scale sounds ldquohappyrdquo and the minor scale sounds ldquodarkrdquo Although this is not always the case it is mostly true ndash and therefore yoursquoll usually be focussing on the minor scale when producing Dubstep However just in case yoursquore writing happy-dubstep (if that exists) here is a quick overview of both scales and how they are made up
Major Scale
The major scale is really easy to create It is made by a single rule that is simple to put in to place
ldquoTone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
In case you donrsquot know what a Tone or Semi-Tone is here is a quick explanation
Picture a keyboard (or if you canrsquot see the image above) Say you go from C to C that would be a semi-tone The same thing goes for if you go from an E to an F ndash it is still a semi-tone because you
Page 35
have gone up one key
A tone is two semi-tones ndash for example from C to D is a tone and the same goes for from G to A
The scalersquos name is taken from the note that it starts on For example C major will start on the note of C Similarly A major will start on the note of A and this is the case with every single scale
Here is a quick list of a few major scales After having seen a few try working the rest out for yourself in order to understand how the major scale is formulated Ideally you should practice your scales on a piano or keyboard so that you can physically see how to make the scale It might sound boring but itrsquos a small price to pay for a much deeper understanding of your music
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Major C D E F G A B C
C Major C D E F G A B C
D Major D E F G A B C D
D Major D E F G A B C D
E Major E F G A B C D E
F Major F G A Bb C D E F
F Major F G A B C D E F
G Major G A B C D E F G
G Major G A B C D E F G
A Major A B C D E F G A
A Major A B C D E F G A
B major B C D E F G A B
Now by arranging the different notes of each of these scales in any order you please you can create a melody bassline or harmony with extreme ease Rearranging the notes in the scale will give you a flawlessly in-key result and it is then up to you to use the notes in the scale as you see fit for your tune
Minor Scale
As was the case with the Major Scale the Minor is made up from a set rule or formula By knowing this formula you can understand how the Minor is made and how to use it to itrsquos maximum effect
ldquoTone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
As is the case with the major scales you should practice your scales as much as possible to make sure that you know them all like the back of your hand Here are a few Minor Scales see if you can
Page 36
work out the rest
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Minor C D Eb F G Ab B C
D Minor D E F G A Bb C D
F Minor F G A B C D E F
G Minor G A Bb C D Eb F G
Similarly to the Major now that you know your Minor Scales you can quickly just take any note from the scale rearrange it with another few notes in the scale and there you have a fat melody or bassline ready to be played at maximum volume
Diminished Chords
Diminished Chords are really quite spooky and dark chords that are made up of four different notes all a minor third apart from each other That means that for example the Diminished Chord starting on C would be C Eb F A because to get from one note to the next you have to use ldquoTone Semi-Tonerdquo (known as a minor third)
Because of the mathematical nature of the Diminished chord there are only three ldquoclustersrdquo of notes which can then be rearranged like the Major and Minor Scales
Cluster 1 C Eb F A
Cluster 2 C E G Bb
Cluster 3 D F Ab B
Use these clusters and rearrange them as you please For example you could rearrange cluster 1 as Eb F A C etc
Generally speaking you canrsquot make a song based entirely on Diminished Chords due to the fact that each cluster only has 4 notes However a Diminished Chord is perfect for adding a hint of darkness to your tune and is brilliant when mixed with some Minor Scales
Chords
Chords are basically two or more notes played together They are made up from a specific scale ndash for example the C major chord is made up of notes in the C major scale
Usually chords will include the first third and fifth note of the scale as well as possibly using other notes to give them colour For example the basic chord of C major would be C E G Then you could add the seventh note to it (in this case it is B) Really it is up to the producerrsquos discretion how heshe goes about making a chord ndash just remember to stick to the scale you are using
Chords will more than likely sound like shit if you play them on a complicated or layered synth patch You want to be playing chords on sustained sounds such as strings or pads Chords will really fill out your sound if used properly You want your chords to be supporting the melody or bassline and more than likely want to add some reverb so that it doesnrsquot sound too sharp Make
Page 37
your chords blend in with the music and yoursquoll have mastered them
Chord Inversions
Quite simply chord inversions are when you rearrange the notes in a chord so that it sounds a bit different and suits your arrangement better
For example if you were in the key of C major you could have a drone of E playing underneath some strings playing the notes E G C E
Due to the fact that the notes are the same and have only been inverted the chord will still be in key with the rest of the music This is a great way to add a touch of variation to your music instead of using the same chord structure all the time
Arpeggios
Arpeggios are much easier to understand than they sound They are quite simply the first third and fifth note of the scale played as individual notes For example the arpeggio of C minor would be C Eb G C etc
A great example of an arpeggio is the bassline in Bengarsquos ldquoCrunked Uprdquo He goes from playing the F minor arpeggio backwards to playing the F minor arpeggio backwards In other words he is playing
C A F and then C Ab F
Experiment with a few Minor Arpeggios and a couple of Diminished Arpeggios and you canrsquot go wrong in writing a huge bassline
Suggested Reading
List of All Scales With Finger Charts Included
Well thatrsquos it folks Thatrsquos basically all the music theory you need to know to start off with As you grow more used to the various scales yoursquoll notice that certain notes sound good with each other whilst others donrsquot Irsquom not here to tell you how to write music Irsquom here to teach you the language
of music Itrsquos up to you to write the poetry
copy Bruno Crosier (klimaxx) 2008
45 Random Tips
Random tips amp best piece of advice thread
5 Resources
Page 38
51 Books amp Magazines
Hello again people
Does anyone know of more music production books magazines or authors we can add to these lists
Thanks
------------------------------------------------
Music Production Magazines Computer Music - httpwwwcomputermusiccouk Music Tech Magazine - httpwwwmusictechmagcouk Future Music - httpwwwfuturemusiccouk Sound on Sound - httpwwwsoundonsoundcom Remix Magazine - httpremixmagcom Mix Magazine - httpmixonlinecom Electronic Musician - httpemusiciancom EQ Magazine - httpwwweqmagcom Audio Technology - wwwaudiotechnologycomau Tape Op - httpwwwtapeopcom
------------------------------------------------
Music Books
Authors Curtis Roads httpmitpressmiteducatalogauthor aspaid=93 - The Computer Music Tutorial (Really really really good book) Paul White - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea ul20White - Basic Series + more Rick Snowman - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea k20Snoman - The Dance Music Manual Tools Toys and Techniques Bobby Owsinski - httpbooksgooglecoukbooksas_auth=Bobby+Owsinski - The MixingRecording amp Mastering Engineers Handbooks Michael Paul Stavrou - httpwwwmixingwithyourmindcom
Publishers Thomson Course Technology - httpcoursecengagecom (Click on the Music Technology tab) - Series published include Power Overdrive Ignite and CSI Series + many more Backbeat Books - httpwwwbackbeatbookscom ndash Power Tools Series + many more Wiley Publishing - httpwwwdummiescom (Enter music in their search bar) - For Dummies Series Penguin Books - httpuspenguingroupcom (Enter music in their search bar) - The Complete Idiots Guide Series + many more MIT Press - httpmitpressmitedu - Many books on music theory Focal Press - httpwwwfocalpresscom - (Enter music in their search bar)
------------------------------------------------
Online Music Book Stores (We need more links here Do you know of any that we can add)
httpwwwmixbookscom ndash Excellent source that sells only books about music
Page 39
httpwwwamazoncom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
httpwwwbarnesandnoblecom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
------------------------------------------------
52 Wikipedia
A good music lexicon wiki Search for your term in the search bar ---gt httpenaudiolexicorgwikiMain_Page
0-9
14rdquo Jack - httpenwikipediaorgwikiJack_plug 3rd Bridge - httpenwikipediaorgwiki3rd_Bridge
Zero Crossing - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_crossing Zero Crossing Rate - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_Crossing_Rate
53 Other recommended production forums
for Logic users this is the shit httpwwwlogicprohelpcom
Ive found both these forums to be full of knowledgeable producers amp musicians
httpwwwkvraudiocomforum
httpacapellaharmony-centralcomforumsindexphp
httpwwwgearslutzcomboard
httpwwwsoundonsoundcomforum
httpwwwmusicradarcomforum
httpwwwidmforumscom
httpwwwdance-industriescomphpBB2 8cffbb3b02
httpwwwsubvertcentralcomforumindexphp
httpwwwbreakbeatcouk
httpwwwtweakheadzcom
httpwwwabletoncompagesforum
Explains lots about the music industry ---gt httpwwwbemusocom
Page 47
Ok so a massive thanks to all the contributors there are literally too many to mention But Thanks to Futures Untold Johnny Beat Klimaxx Deadly Habit amp JunglistRendr Daft Cunt in perticular
Thanks to all the artists producers and general music geeks making this early revision of the production bible an essential read
There are links missing and will be included in version 21(Please help with the unlinked chapters by going here - httpwwwdubstepforumcomthe-dubstep-production-bible-updated-2009-06-03-t14797html and updating missing info as needed)
Compiled by Daft Cunt and Futures Untold PDF Compiled by Depone
Page 4
12 Headphones
If you want to add a model plz give its name pros cons amp average price (new) Thanks everybody
AKG K-240s ~120$ Pros Wide frequency response removable cables used a lot Much better for producing (than the HD-25s) a lot flatter so it doesnt have the beautiful (but fake) bass of the 25s Also doesnt crush my ears like a 150kg boxer Cons Tend to make you a bit hot lol
Beyerdynamic DT990 PRO ~220$ or 150 Euro Pros comfortable very solid bass response wide frequency range Cons havent found any so far I find them suitable for mixdowns
Samson RH300 Pros Cost-effective auto-adjust mechanism so very light and comfortable can balance well bass levels on it Sounds muddy if mixdown is not well balanced Cons Aggressive fatiguing high end I shelf highs while producing because theyre pinching This is not to be compared with AKG-240s and likes its a bargain (can find it as low as 25euro)
CH70700 Pros The most cost-effective studio headphone Enough comfortable similar in behaviour to rh300 Very small the ideal for the nomadic producer I think Not fatiguing as the RH300 CH700 is the bigger brother of CH70 you only get bass and more distinct stereo image Gets VERY muddy if mix is not perfect Its difficult to calibrate decaying sounds on it (reverbdelays) Cons It costs really low so its cons are a consequence of it
Sennheiser HD-25 ~ euro150 Pros solid built great for djing good for producing by night if you have thin walls and neighbours on the other side Cons not suitable for mixdowns some people complain they cant wear for more than a couple of hours (tho I have no problem after several hours)
HD 600 ~ pound180 Pros Sound like sex Comfortable Frequency range is amazing goes all the way from 20-2000 Hz (and made my ears bleed at 15000Hz ) Cons Expensive at around pound180 HD 600 crew - get the HD650 cable makes a very nice difference for only pound20 or so
13 Midi Controllers
If you want to add a model plz give its name pros cons amp average price (new) Thanks everybody
________________________________
KEYBOARDS ________________________________
AKAI MPK49 pound280 new 49-key semi-weighted keyboard with aftertouch and full-sized keys 8 360 degree rotary dials each with 3 banks = 24 total 12 MPC style pads velocity and pressure sensitive 4 banks = 48 total 8 sliders each with 3 controller banks = 24 total note repeat and arpeggiator 8 assignable switches with 3 banks each = 24 total MMCMIDI Start Stop transport buttons USB powered
Page 5
great all in one midi controllerkeyboard although you do pay a bit typical price is around pound280 new Also as someone who has owned an MPC I can testify that the drum pads do note respond like an MPC although they are the closest out of all the keyboard controllers I looked at apart from that I cant fault it
Evolution MK-449C Pros 9 faders 8 knobs 10 assignable buttons pitch and mod wheel add up to 29 controls works as a charm cheap Cons Configuring it can be annoying as fuck(I mean the configuring of presets and other stuff)
Evolution MK-425C It the same as MK-449C but without the faders and with only 2 octaves Id say that it is an awesome starter controller Keys are a bit plastic ish and light but it is good for its price
Korg K24 ~ pound40 Pros well its Bus powered + Plenty of octaves (5 up and down if i remember rightly) Cons none it does exactly everything you expect from a basic midi controller more expensive ones seem to have no better functions other than more of the sameunless you want weighted keys
Korg Nano Series all usb $5999 nanopad - 12 pad drum controls + xy pad $5999 nanokontrol - 9 knobs 9 faders 18 switches $4999 nanokey - 25 key midi keyboard pitch and podulation controls adjustable velocity curves suited for portable rigs and saving space + low cost
M-Audio Axiom pound150-pound170 Pros The keys are FANTASTIC Aftertouch is great Pitchbend and mod feel very nice Having transport controls was enough to convince me to sell my UC33e to buy this The tap pads also were a strong selling point Cons The knobs are straight useless You cant go from 0-127 in one turn Theyre loud as well All of the output from the keyboard seems random and alot of people have trouble setting them up
M-Audio Keystation 61es ~ pound115 euro135 It has got one volume fader and 5 octaves Its keys are much better than the MK-425C ones
M-Audio MidAir25 Around 200 in all currency I got it for 70 in a deal though wouldnt say its worth 200 new but cheap 2nd hand bargin Pros 8 Assignable knobs Mod wheel sustain button amp jack for sustain peddle pitch shift assignable slider too (note I havent used all the functions of it you can go into select mode but I dont know how to use it so if someone did it might be of use) its wireless too so you can go sit across the room in another room and play might be good for live work if you want a little controller quite far away from the laptop or something Cons Only 2 Octaves plastic-feel to the keys drivers were a trouble to get working only midi out
M-Audio Oxygen Possibly one of the most classic portable midi keyboards in existence Ive had my Oxygen 8 for years and its still going strong Well worth the 80 buff I spent on it
Novation RemoteSL
Novation Remote Zero Price seen em go for pound150 -pound199 i paid 120 from ebay Pros Infinate and 270 degree assignable knobs drum pads and faders and togglegate buttons Good for controlling everything i use in reaktor for live gigs (automap assignment function for big named applications) automap software for creating your own midi maps on screen which is useful for when you make your own synths in something like reaktor its also Bus powered Cons faders a bit small and bit plasticneeds a bit more length on the fade
Novation X-Station
________________________________
OTHERS ________________________________
Page 6
Behringer BCR2000 (knobs controller) ~ 150 EUR Pros user friendly cheap 32 user presets (assign 24 knobs per instrument for up to 32 instruments) Cons have to do more than 1 rotation to go from 0 to 100 cheap built
Behringer BCF2000 (faders controller) ~ 180 EUR Same as BCR2000 but with 8 faders instead
Evolution UC-33 (knobs amp faders) ~ pound140 Pros easy way to use cheap easy portable Cons If youre a goof itll break quite soon In other words With lots of traveling the thing gets paranoid after some bumps
14 Soundcards
If you want to add a model plz give its name pros cons amp average price (new) Thanks everybody
Apogee Duet Pros Good quality 24bit converters Small and portable easy to setup works within Logic Cons Only has 2 XLR inputs and 2 hi-z jack inputs pricey FW400 input to computer
Audiotrak Maya 44 USB $96-120 SOS review pros analog rca insout easy to connect turntables too cons no 24 bit converters
Digidesign Mbox 2 does the job as the audio sound much more crisp and theres no static in the background
E-MU 0404 USB ~ 200 $ Pros good DA converters driver support for many OS volume knobs for headphone and monitors simple and user friendly control good headphone amplifier Cons ASIO drivers and multimedia drivers not working at the same time I bought it mainly for the driver support works with Win XP x64 and also OSX Leopard Would I buy it again yes
E-MU 1212m ~ euro140 Pros the sound quality the price the DSP effects Cons takes 2 PCI slots the Patchmix software is a bit tricky at the beginning
E-MU 1616mRad basically
E-MU 1820m have the emu 1820m which is basically then same as the other two nbut with lovely mic pres and an external box most of the problems ive had with it can be traced back to the cable for the external IO other than that the card is wonderful so therefore can recommend the other two
M-Audio 1010LT ~ euro190 Ive had an Maudio 1010LT for 5 years and have had no problems with it More than enough ins and outs for most home studio uses and had been totaly stable
M-Audio Delta 1010 with the breakout box solid solid as a rock and it sounds great loads of IO as well in fact too much for me tbh
M-Audio Audiophile 2469 around $120 Quite a nice soundcard easy enough to set up Had some trouble with it once though My PC kind of stopped recognizing it (and this is where MY own personal mistake comes in) and I tried reinstalling it without removing it when the manual clearly says that you should install the drivers before plugging the card in The only drawback of the card is lack of IOs I really need a second out and it only has one analog and one digital out The digital one seems kind of useless to me right now So yeah thats the only drawback I can mention
M-Audio Delta Audiophile 192
Page 7
NI Audio Kontrol 1 ~ euro300 NI Audio Kontrol 1 is well worth a look Rock solid done untold gigs with it built like a tank and sounds excellent Cirrus Logics 2nd best convertor chips in there well designed three big buttons a big knob and flashing lights Bosh
The Big Thread of Free VST Plugins-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Everyone likes free software
Below you will find a list of sites dedicated to providing free music software They are listed in order of useability and the amount of free plugins they list httpwwwgersiccomplugins truly excels in listing every new freeware plugin released
Some Other Good Sites to Browse Through (If you really need too)httpwwwhitsquadcomsmmfreewarehttpwwwdontcrackcomfreewarehttpwwwaudiomastermindcombrowse-free_vst_plugins-5886988-1htmlhttpwwwsadgladcomfreevstplugins6htmlhttpwwwapplecomdownloadsmacosxaudio (Mac only)
Some Alright Sites (These sites simply repeat the ones listed above yet are more difficult to navigate and feature fewer links)httpfreemusicsoftwareorghttpwwwvstplanetcomInstrumentsVST_Synthesizershtmhttpwwwfree-plugin-listcomhttpwwwsonicspotcomindexhtmlhttpwwwvstcentralcompluginsaspxhttpwwwaudioraclecomfreetrialsphp
Some Desperate Sites (Poorly laid out and pretty boring Only dig through these if youre a audioware junkie)httpenwikipediaorgwikiFree_audio_softwarehttpnoolmusiccomlinksshtml
Threads Concerning Free VSTs (Lists individual plugins and plenty of plugin developers Provides links to many of the plugins that can be found more easily above)httpwwwdubstepforumcomviewtopicphpt=24153amphighlight=httpwwwdubstepforumcomfree-vst-uberlist-t139352htmlhttpwwwkvraudiocomforumviewtopicphpt=9780
22 DAWS (Digital Audio Workstation)
DAW Question specific threads221 ndash Ableton Live222 ndash Cubase223 ndash FL Studio
23 Production effects explained-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Common Production Effects-------------------------------------------------------------------------Click on each link for more in-depth information about each effect
------ Filter Effects ------
EQ - (EQ types - Graphic EQ Parametric EQ Shelving EQ Linear Phase EQ)Filters - (Filter types - Low Pass filter High Pass filter Band Pass filter Band Reject filter Notch filter Comb filter All Pass filter State Variable filter Peaking filter Moog filter FormantVowel filter)Phase InverterVocodersHarmonic Exciters
------ Delay Effects ------
DelayEcho - (Delay types - Ping Pong delay Multi Tap delay Slapback delay Bucket delay Crossfeedback delay)Reverb - (Reverb types - Spring reverb Plate reverb Convolution reverb Impulse Response reverb)
------ Modulation Effects ------
ChorusFlangersPhasers
------ Dynamics Processing Tools ------
CompressorsLimiters (Brick Wall)Transient ShaperSignal ModellersGatesExpandersCompanders Noise reduction units
Here is a list of the most popular freeware analysers available
Voxengo SPAN
Bluecat Audio Freqanalyst
Roger Nichols Inspector
Page 20
For a long list of other free analysers visit httpwwwgersiccompluginsindexphpdaCat=2
3 Techniques
31 Bass311 Sub Bass
Sub-bass is a term used to describe audible sounds below 90Hz - sound in the range below this (under 16-17Hz) would be termed infrasound Sound systems often feature a subwoofer that is dedicated solely to amplifying sounds in the lower bass and sub-bass range Source Wikipedia
So the idea is to have the sub going up to ~90Hz The exact frequency it should be cut at depend on the kicks frequency Lets say you HP your kick at 100Hz then the sub should be LPed at 100Hz so they compliment each other without clashing
There are several ways of creating a sub here are the most common 1 - using a unique waveform (sine saw square or triangle) will give you a nice linear sub NB You dont need to filter out a sine wave as it doesnt have overtones 2 - using detuned waveforms take 2 identical waves (sine saw square or triangle) and detune them - lets say -25 +25 semitone This will produce a phase effect and give movement to your sub but itll also cause large volume amplitude and youll need to compress it after filtering Great Massive tutorial by Subfocus here 3 - using a 808 kick you dont have a TR-808 Grab that pack
jobbanaught wroteAn easy option to get a powerful subbass is to take a 808 kick sample put it in your favorite sampler and loop a single cycle of the waverform somewhere in the middle of the sample The 808 kick is made of a sine and some additional white noise The sine gives your sub that rattling low end pressure and the noise adds overtonesgrittiness = instant badass subbass
You can find more tips about mixing your kick n sub in the Random bass tips thread
312 lsquoWobblersquo
Page 21
Wobble GuideWobble Bass
Wobble Bass as it is known is simply a bassline that has an LFO assigned to a Low Pass Filter as an insert effect LFOstands for Low Frequency Oscillator and is used to change a sound by a defined speed (measured in either Hz or synced to the Tempo in relation to the barsnotes through quantization) The way the LFO changes the sound is up to you you can make the LFO adjust the Volume the amount of Saturation Filter Cutoff etc Basically any parameter you link it to Essentially you are just using the LFO to send a changing value to a parameter
--------------------
How to get a simple wobble bass
1) Choose a simple sound on your synth (Anything apart from a Sine wave )
2) Select your LFO and set it to the speed you want (18 would be a good starting point)
3) Now assign the LFO to the Filter Cutoff Which should for this example be a Low Pass Filter as the sound were going for is a deep bass
4) You now have a basic wobble bass from here the possibilities for tweaking this sound are endless
--------------------
A quick breakdown of whats actually going on Essentially you are taking a sound (that can be an audio files generated by a synth etc) and then passing it through a Low Pass Filter Now what exactly does a Low Pass Filter do you ask
A Low Pass Filter allows Low Frequency signals to pass through it but reduces the amplitude (volume) of all the Frequencies above the cutoff point In general most plug-ins have various Low Pass Filter settings where the more poles it has the more Dbs it will cut and will yield a harder knee to it Example 1 Pole Filter with a -6dBOct reduction Vs a 2 Pole Filter reducing -12DbOct However you dont necessarily need a LFO controlling your Low Pass Filter Cutoff frequency value you could just draw in the Automation yourself but a LFO will yield a loop of consistent values and prevents the possibility of human error All the LFO is doing is sending a value to your frequency cutoff to keep it consistently changing
--------------------
Tips amp Advice
1) Sub bass wobble would normally be a Sine wave at around the 40-50 Hz range which would repeat the same chords as the mid-range bass wobble The only difference being that with a sub bass wobble there is no point in assigning the LFO to a Low Pass Filter because the sound is too low for the low pass filter to have any effect so theLFO is assigned to the amplitude (volume) instead Another reason for not applying a Low Pass Filter to the Sub bass is because it would typically be a Sine wave which possesses no Harmonics to be adjusted by the Filter
2) The sound of an LFO can also be adjusted by the wave type you choose The default setting for an LFO generator is a Sine wave although on most synths you can chose from Triangle Sawtooth Square wave Random Noise To get a nice sounding bass it is a good idea to use as many oscillators as possible on different octaves
3) Try messing around with the attack and release of your sound as this can have an impact on the sound of the bass Long attacks tend to create a more ambient sound and is a technique traditionally used with ambient pads
Page 22
4) Something that I find useful is to bounce the bassline to a wav file so that it can be chopped up and put in-sync with other elements of the song because the majority of the time you will find the first wave of sound in the wobble bassline will will be half the length of the other waves due to attack rates So the best thing to do is to chop that freak sound off the beginning of the file in your DAW (Logic Pro Reason Cubase etc) and start off with the second wave which should be fully formed This way it will not be too early of late when keeping in sync with other elements such as a second bassline
5) Another method you can use is creating a clone layer of your original sound and setting up a new LFO setup for that to beat alternatively in the space left by the original LFO Or go that crazy Drum amp Bass Reese route and split the frequencies to Low Mid and High then set different LFO rates for each band then recombine into one sound
6) For more variation automate your LFO speed and intensity
7) Where you place insert effects in relation to the filter (pre or post) will yield different sounding results
8) Other methods to achieve a wobble like sound Tremolo (This effects volume rather than frequency) FM Synthesis Modulation of PWM Oscillator Pitch assigned (in a liberal amount) to LFO Filter Envelope assigned to LFO (using a re-triggered envelope) (submitted by Faun2500)
9) Assign a second LFO to modulate the speed of the first LFO
LFO Shapes
Sine wave The smooth value change possible
Triangle Similar to a Sine wave but slightly more ramped amp synthetic sounding
Random A mixed bag
Sawtooth Will have a very fast attack with a slower release which will sound very rugged
Square wave Will be a simple open close style Very harsh and will generally cause a very harsh sound (Often used in DJ Hazard style bass-lines) Detune two square waves for a nice dark sounding bass
Waveforms submitted by Skells wrotehttpi228photobucketcomalbumsee83 cleanjpgSimple Filter Sweep
httpi228photobucketcomalbumsee83 wobblejpgSine Wave LFO assigned to Filter Cutoff
LINKS etc
Fruity Loops Wobble Tutorial (Link submitted by Wub) Massive Wobble YouTube Tutorial (Video created by thesynthesist) Pause amp Play Wobble Tutorial (Link submitted by dubmo) Albino3 Wobble Guide (Guide created by axon)
By Rendr amp Deadly Habit and a little help from Macc
313 lsquoReecersquo
The Reese Bass
Page 23
History Lesson
The Reese bass was a form of huge sounding synth-bass first used by the Detroit Techno producer Kevin Saunderson aka Master Reese aka Reese Project aka on the track Just Want Another Chance and immortalised in the classic DnB track Terrorist by Renegade Since then it has been (over)used in many a DnB track and continues to evolve even nowadays through Dubstep and Jungle It is said to be as influential to DnB as the Amen break and probably as used and abused as the Amen
Capturing the Beast
1The Oscillator Stage
To nail the Reese you need a synth with at least 2 oscillators but for better-bigger results use as many oscillators as you can (not really but 4 oscillators give a nice deep rumble - ahhhhhh) All the oscillators are playing sawtooth waves and all except one are detuned by 25-50 cents so that all oscillators are out of phase with each other
2 The Filter Stage
The signal is then sent to a low-pass filter with the cutoff freq set around 150-200Hz (experiment with that you want the growl of the mid-frequencies but you also want it as deep as possible without sacrificing the midrange) The resonance of the filter should be cranked up almost all the way (but again tweak accordingly to your filtersynth)
3 Fuzz it Up
The second most important aspect of the Reese (after the detuned sawtooths) is distortion Tube distortion and tape saturation work extremely well but dont hesitate to use other more extreme distortion units (dont forget that the Reese has been done a million times you have to add something original to it) Again adjust to taste
4 Spices and Herbs
Now that is the main recipe for the sound but like all haute-cuisine there are more things you can do to spice up the Reese Namely effects Effects that have been associated with the Reese are
Phasers - to accentuate the phase-shifting effect of the detuned sawtooths Unison - a great way to make it even bigger Chorus - again a good way to phatten it up
5 And Some More Synth Magic
Another thing to do so you can bring out the old-school jungle character of the Reese is to use Legato and PortamentoGlide if your syth of choice has them available These are both great ways to move from one note to the next without listening to the transition To put it simply when legato is on and you play a sustained E followed by a sustained G the transition between the two notes gives the listener the impression that they heard a single note being sustained that has just changed its pitch from E to G without pausing at a certain point
Always remember though that if you use Legato you have to turn the polyphony of your synth down to 1 (something you should almost always do with basslines because two bass-notes playing together almost never sound good in electronic music bass chords are more the realm of prog-rock shit than dubstep)
For the more technical minded legato in synthesizers is a variation of monophonic operation In contrast to monophonic mode where every new note restarts the ADSR envelopes in legato mode they are not if the previous note remains depressed when the new note is played This causes the initial transient from the attack and decay phases to sound only once and the ADSRs to remain at sustain stage for the whole sequence of notes until the final note is released (Wikipedia)
EDIT I just found out that in one of the free vst links on the bible there is a thing called the Hotelsinus Reese Bassline Synth So I didnt miss the opportunity for a mini review The software itself is small (like most free vst-is) and quite easy to install (you just drop the dll in the vst folder) As for the sound weeeeeeell the sounds it produces are definitely Reese But weak somehow Its like listening to Terrorist from a battered cheap old cassette from 93 or something It has a tinny and tiny sound when compared to what you can achieve with powerhouses like Albino or
Page 24
Massive or (one of my personal favorites for Reese) Cakewalk Rupture You can try it if you want but i dont think it will impress steppers that much we are bass-headed folk
314 Random Bass Tips
Plz add yours or others youve spotted on the forum
miss_molinari wrotebasically i have been experimenting with cutting (not sidechaining) a notch (band reject) in the bass starting at 60hz and ending just before 70 this is only for those bass lines which only hit on the kick (quite specific) also the bass is then high passed at about 220hz to pretty much 0db which is where the kick starts (ending the kick with a non-too-aggressive-cut at about 2khz) this essentially means that the kick and the bass do not share any frequencies above abot 200hz but also between 60 and 70 and with them always hitting at the same time this gets around the fact that sidechaining this type of sequencing would leave you with no or little bass
this has worked well so far but is useful mainly for sub basses ending at around 250hz would not be as good for full spectrum wubsanyone else got any tech tips regarding the bass and kick
futures_untold wroteI simply cut everything under 90Hz on my kicks and roll off slightly at 1KHz
Sub I cut under 40Hz and roll off at 200Hz
I always compress both seperately and keep my levels low in the mix to create plenty of head room later whilst adding sounds with higher frequency content
Anything above 150Hz is what I consider midrange Anything above 150Hz can be heard on mobile phone speakers We all know that theyre designed to play heavy bass lol Wink
miss_molinari wroteDaft Cunt wroteTo me it feels like cutting the kick above 80 hz makes it sound weak I guess it depends on the style I rather cut below 60 to 80 depending on the tune
yeah its all about context in a dry minimal setting im of the opinion you can make a kick punch right up to about 180-200hz but yeah depends on when and on what kind of punch (im usually talking a bass hit at about 200hz coupled with a knock hit anywhere up to about 1200hz) i imagine you true dubsteppers prefer a denser thump from 60 through to about 300hz
Daft Cunt wroteI began recently the band-reject thing on the sub Little details that make big difference
And do you people cut the bass where the snare peaks
my basses arent usually middy enough to need that but yeah a slight sidechain on the main snare and say midbasspadwothavyer is nice especially if the limelight is stolen by a deeper sidechain on the kick and midbasspadwothavyer can create a nice flow (especially when used with long decay reveb linked to the midbasspadwothavyer so that it sounds louder and longer the higher the frequency played - might
have to post some piccies of that one )
Shonky wroteWhat Ive been doing lately is bouncing down the kick track lowpassing one somewhere between 100-140 depending on the highest frequencies of the low sub and then sidechaining the sub to the low kick
Then take a copy of the kick track highpass between 300-1000 and this will give you the beater noise to make the kick cut through I then sidechain this to the more middly basses You can also send a small amount to a reverb bus which allows you to avoid mud on the lower frequencies whilst still giving you the space
Doing it this way seems to make sense to me cause the sidechains work on the corresponding kicks in the same frequency range so it doesnt cause loads of unnecessary compression where you dont need it
Page 25
boh wroteAlways make sure your kicks are in tune with the rest of the track ull hear it pitching up and down and make sure if ur layering that the transients dont conflict(good monitors make this easy) It all comes down to kick selection Whats the point in cutting a kick at 80hz with a fundemental freq of say 60hz Sure you get whats happening before it but u wont get the nice thump of the fundemental freq Choose other kicks that hit the freq u want (80hz say) instead of cutting them when theres no need to Unless you really really know what your doing getting technical like this complicates the situation Esp for people with little experience
sullyharmitage wrote50 hz hi pass seems a bit high to me maybe gd for kicky techno or house but for subby stuff it seems a bit muchdefo roll off past 30-35 (most well engineered systems will do this anyways so any content below this is definately getting wasted)if yr gonna go higher make sure its a soft curvei find levelling subs is the hardest part of a mix - cos more always sounds better i remember reading breakage saying yr subs shouldnt add more than 3db to yr mix thats seems like a good guide
btw sub in kick an bassline simultaeously is gonna cause clashes (n maybe disortion) id either decrease the attack on the bass or cut the sub from the kick
unklefesta wroteI rolloff EVERYTHING at 40hz except my bass
standard
wang wroteAlways do it
Dont forget youre ROLLING off the frequencies not cutting them off all together Just a couple of dB of bass down there is enough to get some girth without removing all your headroom
Also analyse and cut off the lows on everything even if it doesnt appear to have messy lows -Youd be surprised how much bass there is in some high hats
Jtransition wroteAll of your tracks are going to be different so dont restrict yourself to a certain techniquetry different things and listen to the results
Shonky wrotewang wroteAlso analyse and cut off the lows on everything even if it doesnt appear to have messy lows -Youd be surprised how much bass there is in some high hats
Yep this is very true also worth filtering out the inaudible highs on low sounds as well found some of my subs which Id low passed still showed frequency activity much higher than expected
Jtransition wroteStick a high pass filter on everything apart form the kick drum and bass line70 hertz is a good starting point move up or down to tasteAnd remember try to mix at low levels(Walls not vibrating)
Deadly Habit wroteRendr wroteBasslines in my experience should be mono due to the fact that humans cannot easily decoded the stereo positioning of low frequencys so panning basslines (excluding bass sounds with high pitch sounds at around 500Hz+) is not recommended not only are the low frequencys hard to position with the human ear the low frequency sound waves are absorbed by the human head at a much higher ratio than high pitch sounds which tend to be reflected Another thing to note is that club systems are
mono Basslines that pan only belong in Psytrance
sub range should be mono especially if going to be cut to vinylmidrange bass on the other hand you can pan and add stereo fx to your hearts content
Page 26
32 Re-sampling
SafeAfter a few months of experimenting with resampling not really getting anywhere in terms of sound quality i came up with a pretty simple way of getting on the right track Ive got so much help since getting on this forum in terms of production i thought id share this for those who like myself are looking into the elusive yet highly rewarding technique of resamplingAll the vsts i use on this (save for the synth itself) are freenative plugs im using FL but itll transfer onto every DAW pretty much the same Ill explain it for a bassline but it can be applied to any sound
Step 1Make yourself a nice bassline get it sounding dirty with whatever you can within the synth Im using Albino so i tend to play about with the saturation modesFXs until its sounding pretty good
Step 2Hook up to a mixer channel then send this channel to a second mixer channel (FL users just click on another channel towards the bottom of the strip) On the second channel that the synth is hooked to from the first add CMt bitcrusher and downsample 3-16x (thanks to all the production forum users who pointed this out to me when i posted a few months ago on dirtying up basslines) Then add a chorus Turn the LFOs off and set the depthdelayetc to whatever sounds best Also set the crossover pretty high so only the treblehigh mids are being affected Then add Camel Audio Camel Crusher Turn the compressor off and set the tubemech to taste Add a parametric EQ if needs be to boost the high freqs Experiment with the chain of these effects swapping them according to the sound The choruscameleq in different orders should alter the sound quite alot depending on where their placed
Step 3 Set the level of the second affected channel with the original depending on whatever suits Play about with adding extra effects to both channels The way the second channel behaves once an effect is added to the first is quite extreme in even light application of effects So its possible to create a whole array of different sounds just from say adding a flangerchorusetc to the first channel then listening to how much it affects the sound as a whole as it goes through both channels By now it should be sounding pretty girthy
Step 4Export the riffsample (i use edison on the master channel in FL but whatever method will do) Reload and place into a mixer channel Add another Camel Crusher for abit more grit EQ and compress Set up a reverbdelay send and resample again for extra depth
Obviously this technique can be applied a 2nd3rd4th time to fuck the sound up even more so Which is what ive moved onto doing now into the territory of splitting the sound into basslow midhigh midtreble sections for ultimate control over each part Something which i was attempting to do before coming up with the above method but being left with a pile of unlistenable mushy shite
Hope this is a help to some peeps I know theres no secret technique to resamping only a whole load of practice and using your ears but this method got me on the right track in terms of hearing the benefits of it and encouraging me to experiment more in depth and realise that the possiblities are endless Im hooked now i resample pretty much every sound in one way or another Kick and snares benefit hugley from it for mega face melting wide drum sounds aswell so its worth trying it on some nice drum hits
Keep up the good work folksPeaceDC_WT
33 Drums
Read before reading on I am in no way entitled to any of those opinions It is up to you to decide whether you would like to incorporate them in your workflow I have just collected them from all the threads in this forum and will try to keep everything updated
I will update as regularly as I find updates
Page 27
Misc tips and tricks bull Good drums are usually layered - example 3 snares sounding as onebull The hats are often panned or widenedbull Pick great sounding samples different ones for different parts of the sounds you want 1
for snap and bite 1 for body 1 for thump distort and MAYBE EQ each to make them sound the best that they can separately combine in a bus MAYBE compress them together maybe accent the front and shorten the sound with a transient modifier 10 minutes tops
bull Do as little as possible with great-sounding bits and your basic sounds will be slamming leaves you time to focus on the arrangement people dont go around thinking wow that tune has an amazing snare as long as its thumping and not masked by a bunch of other stuff itll keep the dance moving
bull Listen to other producers work As its playing imagine the 1 2 3 4 on the step sequencer running in time to what youre listening to Try to visualize where the producer put their hits Not to say you should copy peoples drum patterns but learn from them
bull Ive noticed a lot of tunes (more minimal stuff where you can distinctly hear whats seperately going on) seem to use two differently pitched hi-hats that alternate to sound shuffley if you know what I mean and a less dramatic snare used sparsely in between the main lazy kick and snare An easy trick if you havent worked it out (which to be honest you should have if youre at all serious about producing dubstep) is to stick a smaller snare or hat the 116th before the kick or snare so it steps if you get me For example Bengas Night does this for all four beats in the bar which is part of what makes it so danceable But dont get stuck in always having kick on 1 and snare on 3 some tracks work with a kick on every beat others with a couple big snares etc The trick (unless you want proper lazy spaced out tunes) is to make sure youre nodding your head on all four beats of the bar Play around with a hat on every quaver (ie 8 per bar on the beat) compared to just four but on the off beat as well as adding in the steppy ones every now and then Theres often no need to over-complicate things though one of the my favourite drum tracks is the incredibly simplistic V by Distance Its a rhythm that could easilly be played by one guy on a real kit yet its so banging - check the use of hats and lower velocity kicks in this to make it nice and bouncy Also I once had a four bar drum loop and accidentally moved the sequence one bar to the right for one section and it ended up nicely varying the drums in a way you wouldnt expect
bull Really tight delays can help claps and snaps sound natural 5-20ms etcbull Recycle or phatmatik is your break-chopping friendbull Basically Hatrixxs method involved chopping everything from the main hits into a sample
Say you had a 2-step funk beat like the Amen Youd start your selection from the start of the first kick and select everything up to the start of the first snare Cut paste theres your first slice Then take everything from the start of the first snare up to the start of the second kick - including all the little hats and ghost hits - cut paste second sample and so on Then just map the samples onto some keys and bash away Both of them are quick compared to chopping Recycled slices where you have to copy and drag loads of little notes (one every little fucking tiny hit in the break arranged chromatically up the keyboard) around the piano roll These methods let you just concentrate on the main hits which can be both good or bad You can get a solid beat down with just a handful of hits but youre limited to the patterns already in the original break For a beginner to breakbeat science like yourself Id say try these methods first but dont rule out the really anal methods like RecyclePhatmatikFruity Slicer Sometimes they are a necessary evil Of course some of the drumfunk guys especially those who post on Subvert Central swear by these methods or the next one There are those who prefer to chop up the raw audio rather than bothering with MIDI and samplers They literally just drop the break file into Cubase or Logic and start chopping with the scissors tool and copying and pasting I can see the benefits of this You can see the waveform as youre chopping and youre not as restriced to the quantize grid as you are with MIDI But it takes aaaaages to build a drum track this way and theres the risk of RSI from all that Ctrl+C Ctrl+V youll be doing Then of course theres trackers They really are tailor-made for chopping up loops amongst other things They give you Sample Offset meaning that when you trigger a sample you can set it to start from 256 evenly spaced points throughout the sample So by starting a sample a quarter of the way through youre triggering the first snare (obviously you can fine-tune it when the snare isnt perfectly on the beat) You can edit breaks in a tracker without ever having to cut up a waveform and you can do all sorts of other nifty things like reverse the sample retrigger it to make drum rolls and so on
If recycles having trouble switch the break to mono in your sample editor and then apply tiny fades between the drum hits (especially useful if there are lots of rides that play over the other hits to keep things separate) This should help recycle pick up the start points and with any luck should leave you with a cleaner break
Page 28
Snaresbull Tune the snares so they all hit around the same pitch bull Change the Amp Envelopes of each to bring the strongest parts from each separate sample
and build up your sound like that bull Compressing all together is a good idea but dont over do it bull EQ the master out for the snare as well so you wont have to fuck about when you use the
sample in the future bull Donrsquot just use snares fling some random sound effects in there Claps and rim shots also
work well when layered bull Make subtle changes to them and export a few snares from the same setup this helps
when you need a ghost hit or a reverse that sounds similar but not identicalbull Watch that frequencies dont build up and make the layered bit sound overly whatever
is building up Really easy to get too much 200hz or 500hz or even 12k if youve got samples that are all beefythicksmack-y
bull If its peaking run it through a Spectrum Analyzer and see where its peaking I guess its peaking in the tune rather than just the snare sample playing on its own
bull Sometimes snare samples have a very short peak that doesnt seem to make them sound any better and keeps you from getting them louder without cliping Reduce that part by a few dBs and youre sorted
bull Make sure you are using subtractive eq to pull out the frequencies that could be clashing with other sounds If your frequencies are clashing that can hide the snare and then you end up turning it up to compensate and there you are with your snare peakingThe key is making the frequencies sit right in the mix so that they dont clash and you can set them right and not have to turn them up
bull You could always try clipping the snare normalise it in a wave editor amplify it as much as you can before it sounds distorted then sample it out Then replace the snare with the clipped version it will almost always sound louder with more body at a lower volume I would still point out that although this can be used as a replacement to compression compression is a vital tool to learn how to use Also a lot of peeps will say this does bad things to the waveform and it does but unless you intend to listen to your tune to be heard at home on an amazing hifi then it doesnt really matter that much IMO
bull Hi-pass overdrive limit and cut away space from other sounds for itbull Layer with its self or a different snare Layer with sub add effect to one layer add effect
to both layers layer zoom right in drag one wave form back or forth very slightly to create new snare sound Pitch updown EQ Filter distort reverb delay reverse
bull Record yourself beat boxing your best snare sounds then layer with snare samplesbull A good handclap never goes a miss or use a nice drum synth to get a very differentdigital
soundbull Try reversing the snare sample then changing the envelope settings so it only hits on the
beat Layer that with the same sample this time not reversed Add a little delay to the the reversed snare Change the settings til it sounds how you like
bull Particularly snares I layer up a lot I look for one that has the qualities that I want when run through verb and then I look for something shorter with more mid punch to keep things physical After someone notied snares were weak in a tune Ive really made a point of ensuring that when the snares hit its physical as well as textural You need to feel them a bit - so I look for some snares that have that real punch when layering but usually keep the more textural snappy one as the focus last couple tunes I did the standard kick snare hats w odd percussion and then I took an amen chopped it processed it and layered it overtop for more aggression and step (goddess being a perfect example) By removing a layer and adding it you can create a sense of progression through the tune Make sure the bottom layer is sounding really good and then add the top so that youre not mixing them to be reliant on one another - instead you want synergy Make sure the EQ on the top and bottom make sense with each other
Kicksbull Building a kick in Ableton Lives Impulse machine Provides some essential information
about layering that can be used with any DAWbull Making fat kicks
remixmag wroteWhether creating Miami Bass music is your lifes fantasy or your greatest fear you probably crave the know-how to manifest those car-rattling trunk-full-of-funk kick drums In the arenas of hip-hop house techno downtempo and almost any other electronic genre molding fat kick drums is absolutely essential Like grandmas homemade apple pie the recipe for kick drums is partially a matter of taste However theres no substitute for quality ingredients And just like every pie has its staple ingredients every slamming kick drum requires some common elements Lets take a look at the
Page 29
shopping list for killer kick drumsTHE CRUST
Youll need a basic shell to begin creating a thick strong kick The classics always work if youre fortunate enough to own a real Roland TR-808 909 or other famous drum machine with a killer kick use it copiously If youre not one of those chosen few pay close attention to your original source For example if you use a sampler understand that not all ldquo808 Kickrdquo samples are the same some sound great and some just plain suck There are a lot of reasons for that including how many generations from the original the sample is the sampling rate and bit depth of the sampler how the kick was first sampled and so on Be as choosy as possible with your individual samples mdash dont use a mediocre sample just because it has 808 in the name and therefore is ldquosupposedrdquo to sound fat Seek out a better 808 sample or use something else that is simply bigger sounding Remember the time you spend finding sweet original sources wont be in vain especially if you reuse the resulting samples for multiple songsBORROW SOME SUGAR
An old saying goes ldquoGood art borrows great art stealsrdquo A nice way to start out with great raw kick material is to sample directly from the source If you dont own but have access to a 909 then sample it directly Or take one of your favorite producers tracks on vinyl or CD find a naked kick drum in there and sample it Be cautious with that approach for a couple of reasons Copyright issues around sampling even small bits have become a dangerously gray area and I would never personally advise using any source straight out of the can even from a royalty-free sample library While it may be an excellent start its unoriginal Customize whatever you bite Treat your samples as a sculptor would treat clay mold each one to create a trademark sound for yourself One effective way to customize a fat kick is to take a tip from the synth manufacturers If a sound is thin pile another (or a few more) on top When doing so its important to use different sounds layering two identical kicks will result in a louder kick but it wont change the basic tone Remember the sculptor approach here Even if you are using two good-sounding individual samples they may not instantly sound great together For example I find that when layering kicks while the thickness may be good sustain is often overkill The final result often benefits from a little doctoring on the tail of one (or both) of the samples and other hands-on sonic surgeryADD THE FILLING
Once a nice basic kick is achieved treating it with two of the mastering engineers favorite tools is often the next step Artfully applying a compressor (to just the kick) can go a long way toward creating a signature sound and a huge kick Compression is one of those ldquosecret spicesrdquo and how to apply it is a whole topic in itself One recommendation I will make however is to use a multiband compressor With one of those you can isolate compression on certain frequency ranges That is perfect if for example you want to push the sub of your kick without emphasizing the higher frequencies (which often affect the tone of the attack) or vice-versa EQ comes after compression in my signal chain By now the kick should already sound pretty fat I aim to shave unnecessary frequencies here rather than artificially boosting too much This is also where you can actualize trademark sounds while also fine-tuning them to work alongside other elements in specific tracks I often scoop out mids and highs especially frequencies above about 500 Hz Even though I like thick deep kicks unless Im going for a really dublike sound I often truncate the lowest frequencies (usually the sub-50 Hz frequencies) Even when you cant hear the difference when trimming frequencies doing so can really tighten up your kicksEVEN IT OUT
You may ask why when youre trying to fatten up a kick would you want to trim frequencies That is one of the keys to achieving great mixes both in the case of kick drums and in general You want to avoid too many overlapping frequencies The more sonic separation you have between elements the more focused the entire mix will sound That can be especially important for club music which often gets played on huge not necessarily audiophile-quality sound systems If you havent run into the following scenario already I assure you at some point you will Your bass line and kick drum are competing and it sounds like you have a weak kick You boost the kick but it still sounds muddy Take the bass out and suddenly the kick doesnt sound so bad In a scenario like that solo the two sounds listen carefully for where frequencies are overlapping and then try subtractive EQ on one element then the other and sometimes a bit on both By scooping out overlapping frequencies you will often find that both elements seem to magically come forward in the mix before even touching their respective volume levels
Hi hatsbull Realism
Ive been a professional touring and recording drummer for 25 years and just thought I might share a couple of really simple ways to use fruity loops or fruity studio to create more realistic drum patterns
For what its worth try this out with Fruity Loops
Page 30
Take your hi hat tracks (are any tracks for that matter including melodic synth bubbles)
Drop down the bar graph box that allows you to scroll between velocity (volume) pitch panning cutoff resonance and a thing called shift which allows you to use each of these categories to effect each individual note that youve programmed (note this can be accomplished in other ways in most of the good midi sequencing apps or softwarehardware drum machines)
Drummers no matter how good they are just arent perfect and we can use the fact that each of these drop down bar graphs can make veryvery small changes in a sound to do some subtle things to a rolling drum groove like 16th notes on a hi hat
Not all drummers but many tend to favor their strong hand in a single stroke (hand over hand) drum roll Consequently if you make all odd numbered hi hats be slightly louder than their even numbered hits it will sound more realistic Start by making velocity differences that are really clearly audible Then lower the velocity until you can barely feel the difference We are going to make very subtle changes like this on each of the parameters of velocity pitch cutoff resonance and importantly shift
I cant stress enough that you should make these changes be so subtle that you can hardly notice them
Just going on the fact that the right handed players start their rolls with the right hand and favor it ever so slightly (or grossly for effect as well) means that the stroke will be harder with the right hand than the left hand
When a percussion instrument is hit harder the difference between the transient (or hi pitched attack) of the sound and the body of the instrument (or the sound that comes after the attack) becomes greater In general on drums that means that a harder attack tensions the drum very imperceptably (sp) and it also means that there will be more treble in the sound Consequently the pitch goes up a little teensy bit and their is more attack to the sound (increased resonance and slightly higher cutoff frequency)
Consequently you can make the pitch of each right hand be just barely noticeably higher the resonance should be just one or two of those little teeny bars higher The cutoff should be just a few bars lower (allowing less high frequencies through) on the left handed or even numbered strokes
Typically if drums have time inaccuracies they tend to drag the left hand a litte bit I have to keep stressing that if you can hear the changes you make you arent being realistic You need to make the changes subtle enough that you just barely feel that they arent perfect You can consequently make each left hand note shifted one or two bars late
Tigure out how much you can tweak each parameter before it becomes obvious and then you can just randomly tweak each one up to that limit With a little bit of variance in each stroke from parameter to parameter you will create more of a percolating texture in your programming - this is a great technique to make synth bubbles (the kind used in techno and house) more interesting and less mechanical feeling
Now you can avoid the biggest mistake that non-drummers do when trying to write realistic programs turn the overall volume of the hihats until you CANT hear them and then slowly bring up the volume until you just begin to hear them
Professional producers have spent countless hours trying to figure out how to gate and mix hihats OUT of tracks The reason is two fold1) Human beings have such a radical peak in their hearing around the 1-2khz range (or the intelligibility range of human speech) that we can play the hihats at incredible low volumes and they are still audible You cant do that with a bass drumI tell my drum students that you cannot play a hi hat or a snare drum so quietly that a person sitting in a room with you cant hear it2) Hi Hats the snare of snare drums and cymbals all seriously MASK human vocal intellibility How many people have gone to see live shows where they can hear the singer is singing but cant for the life of them figure out what they are actually singing That is ususally because drummers (or mixers which is frequently the case) are not hip to thisimportant fact
So turn down your hi hat tracks (or any track with a strong mid rangeshort envelope attack) and you have much more room for other musical goodies in your mix When in doubt make your hi hats quieter than you think they should be Trust me theyll come through the mix even at a quiet volume
Swingbull Dont know if you can do this in your sequencer but in Logic you can create a groove
template from your drums and then apply that to your other instruments If youre using separate midi channels for snares kicks and hats take the 8 bar loop youre using glue it together and then take the groove from that and then mute that track When you click down the quantize list youll see the template there and you can apply it to your other tracks Also if you do want to change the groove you can just change the hits in the muted template and itll automatically change all other hits to the new changes
bull Think if youre clever and organized you can basically cut breaks up in recycle load them into the exs24 (extract sequence) and then do the same with them That way if there are breaks you like the feel of you can just apply that swing to anything If you make a folder called grooves in your logic folder they should load up each time so that youll have loads to choose from Havent done this myself yet but always helpful to have a choice of feels available
bull Some things sound better rigid and robotic with equal velocities Some things sound better rigid and robotic with differing velocities Some things sound better with swing Some things sound better with everything ever-so-slightly off Its down to what the track needs
bull Drum Break Swing ProgrammingNicolas Hall wwwbreakbeat-cafenet wroteI think most people who make anything funk breakbeat drum amp bass or hip-hop would agree that Swing is crucial to the effectiveness of a beat The other key factors in a programming sense are dynamic and accent So many people get wound up when their beats sound sterile or mechanical this is due to the fact that computers and sequencers lock to perfect BPM A computer on its own does not interpret rhythm the way a good drummer does There are however certain machines that have their own swing parameters like the Akai MPC range of sampling drum machines which are used extensively by hip hop producers
Swing is not the easiest thing in the world to analyze but as a general rule good drummers will play slightly late and thats why in all funky records you get that slight dip at the start of the bar take Superstition by Stevie Wonder or Billie Jean by Michael Jackson these are both very simple beats Superstition is of course live drums whilst Billie Jean was programmed but no less funky than Superstition I emphasize this point to demonstrate that a programmed beat can be every bit at groovy as a beat played on a drum kit
Expanding on the Billie Jean point Hip Hop beats are really very simple If you listen to the Neptunes they tend to create the swing in their beats by quantizing the kicks and snares and playing the hi hats in by hand this creates a very tight beat which is off set by a loose hi hat try it works but dont forget your accents - As a starting point just take the first snare of your beat and turn the velocity down then notice how your head starts nodding and your foot starts tapping a little more you are giving the beat feel Also remember that if you are using reverb the louder snare will push the reverb harder than the soft snare so your creating more ambience that way Then try your kick drums if your not sure which hits to adjust just pick apart a beat your feeling I remember me and friend picking apart a Gangstarr beat and were able to almost replicate it by adjusting the velocities of each hit (admittedly it took a while to get it right)
If youre a newbie then a common trick when learning to make good grooves is to create a template with an existing loop The idea is take a loop you like thats got a good feel to it and then place your own hits over the break then take the break out and see if your hits are sounding funky This can take a while and its crucial to think about the strength of each hit or the dynamic Each kick will not be the same strength nor will the snares or the hats pick the loop apart dissect it and youll soon see that there are certain consistencies in all good beats
If youre using live loops and like to layer them with drum sequences you should be thinking about time space and frequencies So if you have a fairly heavy loop then layering it with heavy kick drums is probably not gonna sound good Think about filling holes are their any frequencies that could be filled up Or is there space in the loop for extra hits Try working in layers just adding one hit at a time also filtering works well you could take some of the frequencies out of your loop as you drop your drum sequences in to make room for them I think one the masters of this technique is Liam Howlett of the Prodigy He runs breakbeats and gives them extra balls by laying a kick drum underneath to add extra intensity to certain passages in his set but hes careful not to overlap frequencies to much A good place to start if you using breakbeats is the Roland Tr-808 kick drum which is around the 50hz mark which is sub bass territory so it will sit underneath most breaks very well
If your hell bent on making killer beats and loops then perseverance is crucial keep at it it will come together listen to beats you like and pick them apart identify the subtleties that make it happen I know some producers get fed up when their beats sound to clean or they are trying to create a new breakbeat and then compare it to sample they took from vinyl and get down on there own beat Think about what a breakbeat really is think about its history what has happened to it to make it sound the way it does Im
Page 32
sure youve noticed how some breaks have a certain something like a magic dust you cant put your finger on Let me share what I know with you about that
Most breaks though not all are taken from recordings of live drums some of them are pretty old so you have the ambience of live drums and the room they were recorded in you have the fact that natural decay and reverb of each drum is likely to have bled into the other mics on the kit and that most engineers used overhead mics which pick up the whole kit with two mics Then consider that many of these breaks will have been recorded to analogue tape with saturation which will create extra warmth and harmonics The next step comes from old sampling technology like the SP-1200 and the Akai s-950 mpc -60 these samplers sampled at 12- bit (bear in mind that most computers now are at least 24-bit if not more) and that the samples themselves where taken from vinyl and on and on the process goes with each new reverb and eq adding more and more to the break In terms of giving your breaks that character there are a number of things you can try for example buying an old four track cassette machine to dump your beats onto then re-sample it if your using a sampler like the s-950 then try pushing the input meters a little harder than usual add reverbs and resample it each time you put your loop through a new channel you will be adding something to it Also distortion is fantastic for breaks if you have any amp plug ins then try them the Amplitude one is particularly good you dont need to go mad with it just used subtly it works great
To finish I would just like to say again stick with it keep trying keep listening to records if you like to read about technique then do so you can learn so much from other producers Remember the strength of your hits is important as is the way it swings good luck
UPDATE 08092008
ENHANCE SYNTHESIZED DRUM PARTS WITH FOUND SOUNDS
emusiciancom wroteLayering real-world sounds with synthesized drum parts puts a new spin on your drum tracks You probably already have usable sound effects on your hard drive because most commercial samplers have at least a modest collection in their factory library Beyond that youll find thousands of royalty-free sound effects online Soundsnapcom is one of my favorite sources and its free The recordings dont need to be pristine for layering over drums so dont overlook cheap sampling CDs and consider grabbing your own sounds with a portable recorderCollect and Save
Start by assembling a small Foley library of short percussive sounds divided into typical drum-sound categories kicks snares toms cymbals percussion and so on Youll generally want to layer drum sounds with Foley sounds that have a similar volume contour and frequency range If you layer a Foley sound that resembles a kick drum with the sound of your hi-hat for example youll quickly fill up all the space in your drum track
Industrial household military transportation and vocal sounds make excellent fodder but you will often want to extract a small slice such as the last shot in a volley of machine-gun fire (snare) or the first bounce of a plastic bottle on concrete (tom) A browsing tool like Audio Finder (icedaudiocom) is invaluable if you have a large sample library That lets you quickly audition clips make basic edits and drag-and-drop slices to your library
Sticks UpIf your synthesized drum part is step sequenced youll need to export its step sequences as MIDI files Many drum synths do that including Sonic Charge Tonic (sonicchargecom) Apple Logic UltraBeat (applecom) and Submersible DrumCore (submersiblemusiccom) All of those come with a large collection of patterns exportable as MIDI sequences Youll also need a sampler to play the Foley sounds drum-oriented samplers are handier for that but are by no means necessary
Start by loading a kit in the drum synth Export one of its sequenced patterns or create your own and place it on the sampler track For some of the drum synth sounds select compatible Foley sounds and map them to the same notes in the sampler that theyre mapped to in the drum synth Next solo the doubled voices one by one in both the drum synth and the sampler start the sequence playing and tweak the samplers voice parameters (filter level pan envelope and so on) to make the sounds work together (see Fig 1 and Web Clip 1) Dont tweak global parameters such as effects because that will affect all sounds played by the sampler
High HoopsOnce youve configured your Foley track you can do several things to add interest I frequently use a
Page 33
second sampler for short vocal sounds Ill have some notes trigger sounds in both samplers and others in only one Many samplers let you group sounds and assign notes and controllers to choose among them You can then sequence these notes and controllers or you can play them live to alter your Foley tracks
Try applying DSP effects to individual Foley sounds Multitap delays distortion phasing and granular effects all work well when used sparingly (see Web Clip 2) You can apply DSP effects inside your sampler or route the voices to a separate output for DSP processing in your DAW If your sampler doesnt offer either possibility spread the Foley parts over several sampler instances on different tracks
Sidechain compression or gating of the drum track with one or more of the Foley parts will highlight the Foley part as well as add variety to the drums With compression peaks in the sidechain signal will reduce the level of the drum track Use a high compression level say 201 and balance the sidechain-gain and the compression-threshold -attack and -release controls to get the ducking contour you want (see Web Clip 3) Gating has the opposite effect the drum track will be heard during peaks in the sidechain signal (see Web Clip 4) Here too the sidechain-gain and gate-threshold controls work in tandem to determine when the gate is opened Use envelope parameters (attack release and hold) to shape the gates contour
Keep in mind that once youve created a sampler instrument to complement your drum kit you can reuse it with other sequences You can also change one or more sounds in the sampler instrument without repeating the whole process
34 Sidechain Compression (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
4 Theory41 ndash Song Structure42 ndash Mixdown (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)43 ndash Mastering (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
44 Music Theory
The first thing to remember about music theory is that generally if it sounds right it probably is There are no rules in music and Music Theory is not about telling you how to write music Its about understanding the music
Broadly speaking it is fair to say that most music is essentially based upon two crucial factors scales and rhythm Scales make up melodies chords harmonies and basslines to name but a few whereas rhythm makes up the beat of the song In this part of the Production Bible you will learn the basics of Music Theory that will serve you not only in the production of Dubstep but for any of your future musical pursuits This information is intended to be easy to read and understand so I wonrsquot be mincing sentences But firstly please make sure you learn every single note on the keyboard by studying the image below Otherwise yoursquoll be completely lost here
Page 34
Scales Wersquoll begin with scales As I mentioned before scales are the building blocks of your song and without them your track will be atonal and completely unlistenable (probably not the effect yoursquore going for)
There are two main scales that you should learn inside out ndash the major scale and the minor scale A generalisation yoursquore bound to have heard before is that the major scale sounds ldquohappyrdquo and the minor scale sounds ldquodarkrdquo Although this is not always the case it is mostly true ndash and therefore yoursquoll usually be focussing on the minor scale when producing Dubstep However just in case yoursquore writing happy-dubstep (if that exists) here is a quick overview of both scales and how they are made up
Major Scale
The major scale is really easy to create It is made by a single rule that is simple to put in to place
ldquoTone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
In case you donrsquot know what a Tone or Semi-Tone is here is a quick explanation
Picture a keyboard (or if you canrsquot see the image above) Say you go from C to C that would be a semi-tone The same thing goes for if you go from an E to an F ndash it is still a semi-tone because you
Page 35
have gone up one key
A tone is two semi-tones ndash for example from C to D is a tone and the same goes for from G to A
The scalersquos name is taken from the note that it starts on For example C major will start on the note of C Similarly A major will start on the note of A and this is the case with every single scale
Here is a quick list of a few major scales After having seen a few try working the rest out for yourself in order to understand how the major scale is formulated Ideally you should practice your scales on a piano or keyboard so that you can physically see how to make the scale It might sound boring but itrsquos a small price to pay for a much deeper understanding of your music
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Major C D E F G A B C
C Major C D E F G A B C
D Major D E F G A B C D
D Major D E F G A B C D
E Major E F G A B C D E
F Major F G A Bb C D E F
F Major F G A B C D E F
G Major G A B C D E F G
G Major G A B C D E F G
A Major A B C D E F G A
A Major A B C D E F G A
B major B C D E F G A B
Now by arranging the different notes of each of these scales in any order you please you can create a melody bassline or harmony with extreme ease Rearranging the notes in the scale will give you a flawlessly in-key result and it is then up to you to use the notes in the scale as you see fit for your tune
Minor Scale
As was the case with the Major Scale the Minor is made up from a set rule or formula By knowing this formula you can understand how the Minor is made and how to use it to itrsquos maximum effect
ldquoTone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
As is the case with the major scales you should practice your scales as much as possible to make sure that you know them all like the back of your hand Here are a few Minor Scales see if you can
Page 36
work out the rest
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Minor C D Eb F G Ab B C
D Minor D E F G A Bb C D
F Minor F G A B C D E F
G Minor G A Bb C D Eb F G
Similarly to the Major now that you know your Minor Scales you can quickly just take any note from the scale rearrange it with another few notes in the scale and there you have a fat melody or bassline ready to be played at maximum volume
Diminished Chords
Diminished Chords are really quite spooky and dark chords that are made up of four different notes all a minor third apart from each other That means that for example the Diminished Chord starting on C would be C Eb F A because to get from one note to the next you have to use ldquoTone Semi-Tonerdquo (known as a minor third)
Because of the mathematical nature of the Diminished chord there are only three ldquoclustersrdquo of notes which can then be rearranged like the Major and Minor Scales
Cluster 1 C Eb F A
Cluster 2 C E G Bb
Cluster 3 D F Ab B
Use these clusters and rearrange them as you please For example you could rearrange cluster 1 as Eb F A C etc
Generally speaking you canrsquot make a song based entirely on Diminished Chords due to the fact that each cluster only has 4 notes However a Diminished Chord is perfect for adding a hint of darkness to your tune and is brilliant when mixed with some Minor Scales
Chords
Chords are basically two or more notes played together They are made up from a specific scale ndash for example the C major chord is made up of notes in the C major scale
Usually chords will include the first third and fifth note of the scale as well as possibly using other notes to give them colour For example the basic chord of C major would be C E G Then you could add the seventh note to it (in this case it is B) Really it is up to the producerrsquos discretion how heshe goes about making a chord ndash just remember to stick to the scale you are using
Chords will more than likely sound like shit if you play them on a complicated or layered synth patch You want to be playing chords on sustained sounds such as strings or pads Chords will really fill out your sound if used properly You want your chords to be supporting the melody or bassline and more than likely want to add some reverb so that it doesnrsquot sound too sharp Make
Page 37
your chords blend in with the music and yoursquoll have mastered them
Chord Inversions
Quite simply chord inversions are when you rearrange the notes in a chord so that it sounds a bit different and suits your arrangement better
For example if you were in the key of C major you could have a drone of E playing underneath some strings playing the notes E G C E
Due to the fact that the notes are the same and have only been inverted the chord will still be in key with the rest of the music This is a great way to add a touch of variation to your music instead of using the same chord structure all the time
Arpeggios
Arpeggios are much easier to understand than they sound They are quite simply the first third and fifth note of the scale played as individual notes For example the arpeggio of C minor would be C Eb G C etc
A great example of an arpeggio is the bassline in Bengarsquos ldquoCrunked Uprdquo He goes from playing the F minor arpeggio backwards to playing the F minor arpeggio backwards In other words he is playing
C A F and then C Ab F
Experiment with a few Minor Arpeggios and a couple of Diminished Arpeggios and you canrsquot go wrong in writing a huge bassline
Suggested Reading
List of All Scales With Finger Charts Included
Well thatrsquos it folks Thatrsquos basically all the music theory you need to know to start off with As you grow more used to the various scales yoursquoll notice that certain notes sound good with each other whilst others donrsquot Irsquom not here to tell you how to write music Irsquom here to teach you the language
of music Itrsquos up to you to write the poetry
copy Bruno Crosier (klimaxx) 2008
45 Random Tips
Random tips amp best piece of advice thread
5 Resources
Page 38
51 Books amp Magazines
Hello again people
Does anyone know of more music production books magazines or authors we can add to these lists
Thanks
------------------------------------------------
Music Production Magazines Computer Music - httpwwwcomputermusiccouk Music Tech Magazine - httpwwwmusictechmagcouk Future Music - httpwwwfuturemusiccouk Sound on Sound - httpwwwsoundonsoundcom Remix Magazine - httpremixmagcom Mix Magazine - httpmixonlinecom Electronic Musician - httpemusiciancom EQ Magazine - httpwwweqmagcom Audio Technology - wwwaudiotechnologycomau Tape Op - httpwwwtapeopcom
------------------------------------------------
Music Books
Authors Curtis Roads httpmitpressmiteducatalogauthor aspaid=93 - The Computer Music Tutorial (Really really really good book) Paul White - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea ul20White - Basic Series + more Rick Snowman - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea k20Snoman - The Dance Music Manual Tools Toys and Techniques Bobby Owsinski - httpbooksgooglecoukbooksas_auth=Bobby+Owsinski - The MixingRecording amp Mastering Engineers Handbooks Michael Paul Stavrou - httpwwwmixingwithyourmindcom
Publishers Thomson Course Technology - httpcoursecengagecom (Click on the Music Technology tab) - Series published include Power Overdrive Ignite and CSI Series + many more Backbeat Books - httpwwwbackbeatbookscom ndash Power Tools Series + many more Wiley Publishing - httpwwwdummiescom (Enter music in their search bar) - For Dummies Series Penguin Books - httpuspenguingroupcom (Enter music in their search bar) - The Complete Idiots Guide Series + many more MIT Press - httpmitpressmitedu - Many books on music theory Focal Press - httpwwwfocalpresscom - (Enter music in their search bar)
------------------------------------------------
Online Music Book Stores (We need more links here Do you know of any that we can add)
httpwwwmixbookscom ndash Excellent source that sells only books about music
Page 39
httpwwwamazoncom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
httpwwwbarnesandnoblecom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
------------------------------------------------
52 Wikipedia
A good music lexicon wiki Search for your term in the search bar ---gt httpenaudiolexicorgwikiMain_Page
0-9
14rdquo Jack - httpenwikipediaorgwikiJack_plug 3rd Bridge - httpenwikipediaorgwiki3rd_Bridge
Zero Crossing - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_crossing Zero Crossing Rate - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_Crossing_Rate
53 Other recommended production forums
for Logic users this is the shit httpwwwlogicprohelpcom
Ive found both these forums to be full of knowledgeable producers amp musicians
httpwwwkvraudiocomforum
httpacapellaharmony-centralcomforumsindexphp
httpwwwgearslutzcomboard
httpwwwsoundonsoundcomforum
httpwwwmusicradarcomforum
httpwwwidmforumscom
httpwwwdance-industriescomphpBB2 8cffbb3b02
httpwwwsubvertcentralcomforumindexphp
httpwwwbreakbeatcouk
httpwwwtweakheadzcom
httpwwwabletoncompagesforum
Explains lots about the music industry ---gt httpwwwbemusocom
Page 47
Ok so a massive thanks to all the contributors there are literally too many to mention But Thanks to Futures Untold Johnny Beat Klimaxx Deadly Habit amp JunglistRendr Daft Cunt in perticular
Thanks to all the artists producers and general music geeks making this early revision of the production bible an essential read
There are links missing and will be included in version 21(Please help with the unlinked chapters by going here - httpwwwdubstepforumcomthe-dubstep-production-bible-updated-2009-06-03-t14797html and updating missing info as needed)
Compiled by Daft Cunt and Futures Untold PDF Compiled by Depone
Page 5
great all in one midi controllerkeyboard although you do pay a bit typical price is around pound280 new Also as someone who has owned an MPC I can testify that the drum pads do note respond like an MPC although they are the closest out of all the keyboard controllers I looked at apart from that I cant fault it
Evolution MK-449C Pros 9 faders 8 knobs 10 assignable buttons pitch and mod wheel add up to 29 controls works as a charm cheap Cons Configuring it can be annoying as fuck(I mean the configuring of presets and other stuff)
Evolution MK-425C It the same as MK-449C but without the faders and with only 2 octaves Id say that it is an awesome starter controller Keys are a bit plastic ish and light but it is good for its price
Korg K24 ~ pound40 Pros well its Bus powered + Plenty of octaves (5 up and down if i remember rightly) Cons none it does exactly everything you expect from a basic midi controller more expensive ones seem to have no better functions other than more of the sameunless you want weighted keys
Korg Nano Series all usb $5999 nanopad - 12 pad drum controls + xy pad $5999 nanokontrol - 9 knobs 9 faders 18 switches $4999 nanokey - 25 key midi keyboard pitch and podulation controls adjustable velocity curves suited for portable rigs and saving space + low cost
M-Audio Axiom pound150-pound170 Pros The keys are FANTASTIC Aftertouch is great Pitchbend and mod feel very nice Having transport controls was enough to convince me to sell my UC33e to buy this The tap pads also were a strong selling point Cons The knobs are straight useless You cant go from 0-127 in one turn Theyre loud as well All of the output from the keyboard seems random and alot of people have trouble setting them up
M-Audio Keystation 61es ~ pound115 euro135 It has got one volume fader and 5 octaves Its keys are much better than the MK-425C ones
M-Audio MidAir25 Around 200 in all currency I got it for 70 in a deal though wouldnt say its worth 200 new but cheap 2nd hand bargin Pros 8 Assignable knobs Mod wheel sustain button amp jack for sustain peddle pitch shift assignable slider too (note I havent used all the functions of it you can go into select mode but I dont know how to use it so if someone did it might be of use) its wireless too so you can go sit across the room in another room and play might be good for live work if you want a little controller quite far away from the laptop or something Cons Only 2 Octaves plastic-feel to the keys drivers were a trouble to get working only midi out
M-Audio Oxygen Possibly one of the most classic portable midi keyboards in existence Ive had my Oxygen 8 for years and its still going strong Well worth the 80 buff I spent on it
Novation RemoteSL
Novation Remote Zero Price seen em go for pound150 -pound199 i paid 120 from ebay Pros Infinate and 270 degree assignable knobs drum pads and faders and togglegate buttons Good for controlling everything i use in reaktor for live gigs (automap assignment function for big named applications) automap software for creating your own midi maps on screen which is useful for when you make your own synths in something like reaktor its also Bus powered Cons faders a bit small and bit plasticneeds a bit more length on the fade
Novation X-Station
________________________________
OTHERS ________________________________
Page 6
Behringer BCR2000 (knobs controller) ~ 150 EUR Pros user friendly cheap 32 user presets (assign 24 knobs per instrument for up to 32 instruments) Cons have to do more than 1 rotation to go from 0 to 100 cheap built
Behringer BCF2000 (faders controller) ~ 180 EUR Same as BCR2000 but with 8 faders instead
Evolution UC-33 (knobs amp faders) ~ pound140 Pros easy way to use cheap easy portable Cons If youre a goof itll break quite soon In other words With lots of traveling the thing gets paranoid after some bumps
14 Soundcards
If you want to add a model plz give its name pros cons amp average price (new) Thanks everybody
Apogee Duet Pros Good quality 24bit converters Small and portable easy to setup works within Logic Cons Only has 2 XLR inputs and 2 hi-z jack inputs pricey FW400 input to computer
Audiotrak Maya 44 USB $96-120 SOS review pros analog rca insout easy to connect turntables too cons no 24 bit converters
Digidesign Mbox 2 does the job as the audio sound much more crisp and theres no static in the background
E-MU 0404 USB ~ 200 $ Pros good DA converters driver support for many OS volume knobs for headphone and monitors simple and user friendly control good headphone amplifier Cons ASIO drivers and multimedia drivers not working at the same time I bought it mainly for the driver support works with Win XP x64 and also OSX Leopard Would I buy it again yes
E-MU 1212m ~ euro140 Pros the sound quality the price the DSP effects Cons takes 2 PCI slots the Patchmix software is a bit tricky at the beginning
E-MU 1616mRad basically
E-MU 1820m have the emu 1820m which is basically then same as the other two nbut with lovely mic pres and an external box most of the problems ive had with it can be traced back to the cable for the external IO other than that the card is wonderful so therefore can recommend the other two
M-Audio 1010LT ~ euro190 Ive had an Maudio 1010LT for 5 years and have had no problems with it More than enough ins and outs for most home studio uses and had been totaly stable
M-Audio Delta 1010 with the breakout box solid solid as a rock and it sounds great loads of IO as well in fact too much for me tbh
M-Audio Audiophile 2469 around $120 Quite a nice soundcard easy enough to set up Had some trouble with it once though My PC kind of stopped recognizing it (and this is where MY own personal mistake comes in) and I tried reinstalling it without removing it when the manual clearly says that you should install the drivers before plugging the card in The only drawback of the card is lack of IOs I really need a second out and it only has one analog and one digital out The digital one seems kind of useless to me right now So yeah thats the only drawback I can mention
M-Audio Delta Audiophile 192
Page 7
NI Audio Kontrol 1 ~ euro300 NI Audio Kontrol 1 is well worth a look Rock solid done untold gigs with it built like a tank and sounds excellent Cirrus Logics 2nd best convertor chips in there well designed three big buttons a big knob and flashing lights Bosh
The Big Thread of Free VST Plugins-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Everyone likes free software
Below you will find a list of sites dedicated to providing free music software They are listed in order of useability and the amount of free plugins they list httpwwwgersiccomplugins truly excels in listing every new freeware plugin released
Some Other Good Sites to Browse Through (If you really need too)httpwwwhitsquadcomsmmfreewarehttpwwwdontcrackcomfreewarehttpwwwaudiomastermindcombrowse-free_vst_plugins-5886988-1htmlhttpwwwsadgladcomfreevstplugins6htmlhttpwwwapplecomdownloadsmacosxaudio (Mac only)
Some Alright Sites (These sites simply repeat the ones listed above yet are more difficult to navigate and feature fewer links)httpfreemusicsoftwareorghttpwwwvstplanetcomInstrumentsVST_Synthesizershtmhttpwwwfree-plugin-listcomhttpwwwsonicspotcomindexhtmlhttpwwwvstcentralcompluginsaspxhttpwwwaudioraclecomfreetrialsphp
Some Desperate Sites (Poorly laid out and pretty boring Only dig through these if youre a audioware junkie)httpenwikipediaorgwikiFree_audio_softwarehttpnoolmusiccomlinksshtml
Threads Concerning Free VSTs (Lists individual plugins and plenty of plugin developers Provides links to many of the plugins that can be found more easily above)httpwwwdubstepforumcomviewtopicphpt=24153amphighlight=httpwwwdubstepforumcomfree-vst-uberlist-t139352htmlhttpwwwkvraudiocomforumviewtopicphpt=9780
22 DAWS (Digital Audio Workstation)
DAW Question specific threads221 ndash Ableton Live222 ndash Cubase223 ndash FL Studio
23 Production effects explained-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Common Production Effects-------------------------------------------------------------------------Click on each link for more in-depth information about each effect
------ Filter Effects ------
EQ - (EQ types - Graphic EQ Parametric EQ Shelving EQ Linear Phase EQ)Filters - (Filter types - Low Pass filter High Pass filter Band Pass filter Band Reject filter Notch filter Comb filter All Pass filter State Variable filter Peaking filter Moog filter FormantVowel filter)Phase InverterVocodersHarmonic Exciters
------ Delay Effects ------
DelayEcho - (Delay types - Ping Pong delay Multi Tap delay Slapback delay Bucket delay Crossfeedback delay)Reverb - (Reverb types - Spring reverb Plate reverb Convolution reverb Impulse Response reverb)
------ Modulation Effects ------
ChorusFlangersPhasers
------ Dynamics Processing Tools ------
CompressorsLimiters (Brick Wall)Transient ShaperSignal ModellersGatesExpandersCompanders Noise reduction units
Here is a list of the most popular freeware analysers available
Voxengo SPAN
Bluecat Audio Freqanalyst
Roger Nichols Inspector
Page 20
For a long list of other free analysers visit httpwwwgersiccompluginsindexphpdaCat=2
3 Techniques
31 Bass311 Sub Bass
Sub-bass is a term used to describe audible sounds below 90Hz - sound in the range below this (under 16-17Hz) would be termed infrasound Sound systems often feature a subwoofer that is dedicated solely to amplifying sounds in the lower bass and sub-bass range Source Wikipedia
So the idea is to have the sub going up to ~90Hz The exact frequency it should be cut at depend on the kicks frequency Lets say you HP your kick at 100Hz then the sub should be LPed at 100Hz so they compliment each other without clashing
There are several ways of creating a sub here are the most common 1 - using a unique waveform (sine saw square or triangle) will give you a nice linear sub NB You dont need to filter out a sine wave as it doesnt have overtones 2 - using detuned waveforms take 2 identical waves (sine saw square or triangle) and detune them - lets say -25 +25 semitone This will produce a phase effect and give movement to your sub but itll also cause large volume amplitude and youll need to compress it after filtering Great Massive tutorial by Subfocus here 3 - using a 808 kick you dont have a TR-808 Grab that pack
jobbanaught wroteAn easy option to get a powerful subbass is to take a 808 kick sample put it in your favorite sampler and loop a single cycle of the waverform somewhere in the middle of the sample The 808 kick is made of a sine and some additional white noise The sine gives your sub that rattling low end pressure and the noise adds overtonesgrittiness = instant badass subbass
You can find more tips about mixing your kick n sub in the Random bass tips thread
312 lsquoWobblersquo
Page 21
Wobble GuideWobble Bass
Wobble Bass as it is known is simply a bassline that has an LFO assigned to a Low Pass Filter as an insert effect LFOstands for Low Frequency Oscillator and is used to change a sound by a defined speed (measured in either Hz or synced to the Tempo in relation to the barsnotes through quantization) The way the LFO changes the sound is up to you you can make the LFO adjust the Volume the amount of Saturation Filter Cutoff etc Basically any parameter you link it to Essentially you are just using the LFO to send a changing value to a parameter
--------------------
How to get a simple wobble bass
1) Choose a simple sound on your synth (Anything apart from a Sine wave )
2) Select your LFO and set it to the speed you want (18 would be a good starting point)
3) Now assign the LFO to the Filter Cutoff Which should for this example be a Low Pass Filter as the sound were going for is a deep bass
4) You now have a basic wobble bass from here the possibilities for tweaking this sound are endless
--------------------
A quick breakdown of whats actually going on Essentially you are taking a sound (that can be an audio files generated by a synth etc) and then passing it through a Low Pass Filter Now what exactly does a Low Pass Filter do you ask
A Low Pass Filter allows Low Frequency signals to pass through it but reduces the amplitude (volume) of all the Frequencies above the cutoff point In general most plug-ins have various Low Pass Filter settings where the more poles it has the more Dbs it will cut and will yield a harder knee to it Example 1 Pole Filter with a -6dBOct reduction Vs a 2 Pole Filter reducing -12DbOct However you dont necessarily need a LFO controlling your Low Pass Filter Cutoff frequency value you could just draw in the Automation yourself but a LFO will yield a loop of consistent values and prevents the possibility of human error All the LFO is doing is sending a value to your frequency cutoff to keep it consistently changing
--------------------
Tips amp Advice
1) Sub bass wobble would normally be a Sine wave at around the 40-50 Hz range which would repeat the same chords as the mid-range bass wobble The only difference being that with a sub bass wobble there is no point in assigning the LFO to a Low Pass Filter because the sound is too low for the low pass filter to have any effect so theLFO is assigned to the amplitude (volume) instead Another reason for not applying a Low Pass Filter to the Sub bass is because it would typically be a Sine wave which possesses no Harmonics to be adjusted by the Filter
2) The sound of an LFO can also be adjusted by the wave type you choose The default setting for an LFO generator is a Sine wave although on most synths you can chose from Triangle Sawtooth Square wave Random Noise To get a nice sounding bass it is a good idea to use as many oscillators as possible on different octaves
3) Try messing around with the attack and release of your sound as this can have an impact on the sound of the bass Long attacks tend to create a more ambient sound and is a technique traditionally used with ambient pads
Page 22
4) Something that I find useful is to bounce the bassline to a wav file so that it can be chopped up and put in-sync with other elements of the song because the majority of the time you will find the first wave of sound in the wobble bassline will will be half the length of the other waves due to attack rates So the best thing to do is to chop that freak sound off the beginning of the file in your DAW (Logic Pro Reason Cubase etc) and start off with the second wave which should be fully formed This way it will not be too early of late when keeping in sync with other elements such as a second bassline
5) Another method you can use is creating a clone layer of your original sound and setting up a new LFO setup for that to beat alternatively in the space left by the original LFO Or go that crazy Drum amp Bass Reese route and split the frequencies to Low Mid and High then set different LFO rates for each band then recombine into one sound
6) For more variation automate your LFO speed and intensity
7) Where you place insert effects in relation to the filter (pre or post) will yield different sounding results
8) Other methods to achieve a wobble like sound Tremolo (This effects volume rather than frequency) FM Synthesis Modulation of PWM Oscillator Pitch assigned (in a liberal amount) to LFO Filter Envelope assigned to LFO (using a re-triggered envelope) (submitted by Faun2500)
9) Assign a second LFO to modulate the speed of the first LFO
LFO Shapes
Sine wave The smooth value change possible
Triangle Similar to a Sine wave but slightly more ramped amp synthetic sounding
Random A mixed bag
Sawtooth Will have a very fast attack with a slower release which will sound very rugged
Square wave Will be a simple open close style Very harsh and will generally cause a very harsh sound (Often used in DJ Hazard style bass-lines) Detune two square waves for a nice dark sounding bass
Waveforms submitted by Skells wrotehttpi228photobucketcomalbumsee83 cleanjpgSimple Filter Sweep
httpi228photobucketcomalbumsee83 wobblejpgSine Wave LFO assigned to Filter Cutoff
LINKS etc
Fruity Loops Wobble Tutorial (Link submitted by Wub) Massive Wobble YouTube Tutorial (Video created by thesynthesist) Pause amp Play Wobble Tutorial (Link submitted by dubmo) Albino3 Wobble Guide (Guide created by axon)
By Rendr amp Deadly Habit and a little help from Macc
313 lsquoReecersquo
The Reese Bass
Page 23
History Lesson
The Reese bass was a form of huge sounding synth-bass first used by the Detroit Techno producer Kevin Saunderson aka Master Reese aka Reese Project aka on the track Just Want Another Chance and immortalised in the classic DnB track Terrorist by Renegade Since then it has been (over)used in many a DnB track and continues to evolve even nowadays through Dubstep and Jungle It is said to be as influential to DnB as the Amen break and probably as used and abused as the Amen
Capturing the Beast
1The Oscillator Stage
To nail the Reese you need a synth with at least 2 oscillators but for better-bigger results use as many oscillators as you can (not really but 4 oscillators give a nice deep rumble - ahhhhhh) All the oscillators are playing sawtooth waves and all except one are detuned by 25-50 cents so that all oscillators are out of phase with each other
2 The Filter Stage
The signal is then sent to a low-pass filter with the cutoff freq set around 150-200Hz (experiment with that you want the growl of the mid-frequencies but you also want it as deep as possible without sacrificing the midrange) The resonance of the filter should be cranked up almost all the way (but again tweak accordingly to your filtersynth)
3 Fuzz it Up
The second most important aspect of the Reese (after the detuned sawtooths) is distortion Tube distortion and tape saturation work extremely well but dont hesitate to use other more extreme distortion units (dont forget that the Reese has been done a million times you have to add something original to it) Again adjust to taste
4 Spices and Herbs
Now that is the main recipe for the sound but like all haute-cuisine there are more things you can do to spice up the Reese Namely effects Effects that have been associated with the Reese are
Phasers - to accentuate the phase-shifting effect of the detuned sawtooths Unison - a great way to make it even bigger Chorus - again a good way to phatten it up
5 And Some More Synth Magic
Another thing to do so you can bring out the old-school jungle character of the Reese is to use Legato and PortamentoGlide if your syth of choice has them available These are both great ways to move from one note to the next without listening to the transition To put it simply when legato is on and you play a sustained E followed by a sustained G the transition between the two notes gives the listener the impression that they heard a single note being sustained that has just changed its pitch from E to G without pausing at a certain point
Always remember though that if you use Legato you have to turn the polyphony of your synth down to 1 (something you should almost always do with basslines because two bass-notes playing together almost never sound good in electronic music bass chords are more the realm of prog-rock shit than dubstep)
For the more technical minded legato in synthesizers is a variation of monophonic operation In contrast to monophonic mode where every new note restarts the ADSR envelopes in legato mode they are not if the previous note remains depressed when the new note is played This causes the initial transient from the attack and decay phases to sound only once and the ADSRs to remain at sustain stage for the whole sequence of notes until the final note is released (Wikipedia)
EDIT I just found out that in one of the free vst links on the bible there is a thing called the Hotelsinus Reese Bassline Synth So I didnt miss the opportunity for a mini review The software itself is small (like most free vst-is) and quite easy to install (you just drop the dll in the vst folder) As for the sound weeeeeeell the sounds it produces are definitely Reese But weak somehow Its like listening to Terrorist from a battered cheap old cassette from 93 or something It has a tinny and tiny sound when compared to what you can achieve with powerhouses like Albino or
Page 24
Massive or (one of my personal favorites for Reese) Cakewalk Rupture You can try it if you want but i dont think it will impress steppers that much we are bass-headed folk
314 Random Bass Tips
Plz add yours or others youve spotted on the forum
miss_molinari wrotebasically i have been experimenting with cutting (not sidechaining) a notch (band reject) in the bass starting at 60hz and ending just before 70 this is only for those bass lines which only hit on the kick (quite specific) also the bass is then high passed at about 220hz to pretty much 0db which is where the kick starts (ending the kick with a non-too-aggressive-cut at about 2khz) this essentially means that the kick and the bass do not share any frequencies above abot 200hz but also between 60 and 70 and with them always hitting at the same time this gets around the fact that sidechaining this type of sequencing would leave you with no or little bass
this has worked well so far but is useful mainly for sub basses ending at around 250hz would not be as good for full spectrum wubsanyone else got any tech tips regarding the bass and kick
futures_untold wroteI simply cut everything under 90Hz on my kicks and roll off slightly at 1KHz
Sub I cut under 40Hz and roll off at 200Hz
I always compress both seperately and keep my levels low in the mix to create plenty of head room later whilst adding sounds with higher frequency content
Anything above 150Hz is what I consider midrange Anything above 150Hz can be heard on mobile phone speakers We all know that theyre designed to play heavy bass lol Wink
miss_molinari wroteDaft Cunt wroteTo me it feels like cutting the kick above 80 hz makes it sound weak I guess it depends on the style I rather cut below 60 to 80 depending on the tune
yeah its all about context in a dry minimal setting im of the opinion you can make a kick punch right up to about 180-200hz but yeah depends on when and on what kind of punch (im usually talking a bass hit at about 200hz coupled with a knock hit anywhere up to about 1200hz) i imagine you true dubsteppers prefer a denser thump from 60 through to about 300hz
Daft Cunt wroteI began recently the band-reject thing on the sub Little details that make big difference
And do you people cut the bass where the snare peaks
my basses arent usually middy enough to need that but yeah a slight sidechain on the main snare and say midbasspadwothavyer is nice especially if the limelight is stolen by a deeper sidechain on the kick and midbasspadwothavyer can create a nice flow (especially when used with long decay reveb linked to the midbasspadwothavyer so that it sounds louder and longer the higher the frequency played - might
have to post some piccies of that one )
Shonky wroteWhat Ive been doing lately is bouncing down the kick track lowpassing one somewhere between 100-140 depending on the highest frequencies of the low sub and then sidechaining the sub to the low kick
Then take a copy of the kick track highpass between 300-1000 and this will give you the beater noise to make the kick cut through I then sidechain this to the more middly basses You can also send a small amount to a reverb bus which allows you to avoid mud on the lower frequencies whilst still giving you the space
Doing it this way seems to make sense to me cause the sidechains work on the corresponding kicks in the same frequency range so it doesnt cause loads of unnecessary compression where you dont need it
Page 25
boh wroteAlways make sure your kicks are in tune with the rest of the track ull hear it pitching up and down and make sure if ur layering that the transients dont conflict(good monitors make this easy) It all comes down to kick selection Whats the point in cutting a kick at 80hz with a fundemental freq of say 60hz Sure you get whats happening before it but u wont get the nice thump of the fundemental freq Choose other kicks that hit the freq u want (80hz say) instead of cutting them when theres no need to Unless you really really know what your doing getting technical like this complicates the situation Esp for people with little experience
sullyharmitage wrote50 hz hi pass seems a bit high to me maybe gd for kicky techno or house but for subby stuff it seems a bit muchdefo roll off past 30-35 (most well engineered systems will do this anyways so any content below this is definately getting wasted)if yr gonna go higher make sure its a soft curvei find levelling subs is the hardest part of a mix - cos more always sounds better i remember reading breakage saying yr subs shouldnt add more than 3db to yr mix thats seems like a good guide
btw sub in kick an bassline simultaeously is gonna cause clashes (n maybe disortion) id either decrease the attack on the bass or cut the sub from the kick
unklefesta wroteI rolloff EVERYTHING at 40hz except my bass
standard
wang wroteAlways do it
Dont forget youre ROLLING off the frequencies not cutting them off all together Just a couple of dB of bass down there is enough to get some girth without removing all your headroom
Also analyse and cut off the lows on everything even if it doesnt appear to have messy lows -Youd be surprised how much bass there is in some high hats
Jtransition wroteAll of your tracks are going to be different so dont restrict yourself to a certain techniquetry different things and listen to the results
Shonky wrotewang wroteAlso analyse and cut off the lows on everything even if it doesnt appear to have messy lows -Youd be surprised how much bass there is in some high hats
Yep this is very true also worth filtering out the inaudible highs on low sounds as well found some of my subs which Id low passed still showed frequency activity much higher than expected
Jtransition wroteStick a high pass filter on everything apart form the kick drum and bass line70 hertz is a good starting point move up or down to tasteAnd remember try to mix at low levels(Walls not vibrating)
Deadly Habit wroteRendr wroteBasslines in my experience should be mono due to the fact that humans cannot easily decoded the stereo positioning of low frequencys so panning basslines (excluding bass sounds with high pitch sounds at around 500Hz+) is not recommended not only are the low frequencys hard to position with the human ear the low frequency sound waves are absorbed by the human head at a much higher ratio than high pitch sounds which tend to be reflected Another thing to note is that club systems are
mono Basslines that pan only belong in Psytrance
sub range should be mono especially if going to be cut to vinylmidrange bass on the other hand you can pan and add stereo fx to your hearts content
Page 26
32 Re-sampling
SafeAfter a few months of experimenting with resampling not really getting anywhere in terms of sound quality i came up with a pretty simple way of getting on the right track Ive got so much help since getting on this forum in terms of production i thought id share this for those who like myself are looking into the elusive yet highly rewarding technique of resamplingAll the vsts i use on this (save for the synth itself) are freenative plugs im using FL but itll transfer onto every DAW pretty much the same Ill explain it for a bassline but it can be applied to any sound
Step 1Make yourself a nice bassline get it sounding dirty with whatever you can within the synth Im using Albino so i tend to play about with the saturation modesFXs until its sounding pretty good
Step 2Hook up to a mixer channel then send this channel to a second mixer channel (FL users just click on another channel towards the bottom of the strip) On the second channel that the synth is hooked to from the first add CMt bitcrusher and downsample 3-16x (thanks to all the production forum users who pointed this out to me when i posted a few months ago on dirtying up basslines) Then add a chorus Turn the LFOs off and set the depthdelayetc to whatever sounds best Also set the crossover pretty high so only the treblehigh mids are being affected Then add Camel Audio Camel Crusher Turn the compressor off and set the tubemech to taste Add a parametric EQ if needs be to boost the high freqs Experiment with the chain of these effects swapping them according to the sound The choruscameleq in different orders should alter the sound quite alot depending on where their placed
Step 3 Set the level of the second affected channel with the original depending on whatever suits Play about with adding extra effects to both channels The way the second channel behaves once an effect is added to the first is quite extreme in even light application of effects So its possible to create a whole array of different sounds just from say adding a flangerchorusetc to the first channel then listening to how much it affects the sound as a whole as it goes through both channels By now it should be sounding pretty girthy
Step 4Export the riffsample (i use edison on the master channel in FL but whatever method will do) Reload and place into a mixer channel Add another Camel Crusher for abit more grit EQ and compress Set up a reverbdelay send and resample again for extra depth
Obviously this technique can be applied a 2nd3rd4th time to fuck the sound up even more so Which is what ive moved onto doing now into the territory of splitting the sound into basslow midhigh midtreble sections for ultimate control over each part Something which i was attempting to do before coming up with the above method but being left with a pile of unlistenable mushy shite
Hope this is a help to some peeps I know theres no secret technique to resamping only a whole load of practice and using your ears but this method got me on the right track in terms of hearing the benefits of it and encouraging me to experiment more in depth and realise that the possiblities are endless Im hooked now i resample pretty much every sound in one way or another Kick and snares benefit hugley from it for mega face melting wide drum sounds aswell so its worth trying it on some nice drum hits
Keep up the good work folksPeaceDC_WT
33 Drums
Read before reading on I am in no way entitled to any of those opinions It is up to you to decide whether you would like to incorporate them in your workflow I have just collected them from all the threads in this forum and will try to keep everything updated
I will update as regularly as I find updates
Page 27
Misc tips and tricks bull Good drums are usually layered - example 3 snares sounding as onebull The hats are often panned or widenedbull Pick great sounding samples different ones for different parts of the sounds you want 1
for snap and bite 1 for body 1 for thump distort and MAYBE EQ each to make them sound the best that they can separately combine in a bus MAYBE compress them together maybe accent the front and shorten the sound with a transient modifier 10 minutes tops
bull Do as little as possible with great-sounding bits and your basic sounds will be slamming leaves you time to focus on the arrangement people dont go around thinking wow that tune has an amazing snare as long as its thumping and not masked by a bunch of other stuff itll keep the dance moving
bull Listen to other producers work As its playing imagine the 1 2 3 4 on the step sequencer running in time to what youre listening to Try to visualize where the producer put their hits Not to say you should copy peoples drum patterns but learn from them
bull Ive noticed a lot of tunes (more minimal stuff where you can distinctly hear whats seperately going on) seem to use two differently pitched hi-hats that alternate to sound shuffley if you know what I mean and a less dramatic snare used sparsely in between the main lazy kick and snare An easy trick if you havent worked it out (which to be honest you should have if youre at all serious about producing dubstep) is to stick a smaller snare or hat the 116th before the kick or snare so it steps if you get me For example Bengas Night does this for all four beats in the bar which is part of what makes it so danceable But dont get stuck in always having kick on 1 and snare on 3 some tracks work with a kick on every beat others with a couple big snares etc The trick (unless you want proper lazy spaced out tunes) is to make sure youre nodding your head on all four beats of the bar Play around with a hat on every quaver (ie 8 per bar on the beat) compared to just four but on the off beat as well as adding in the steppy ones every now and then Theres often no need to over-complicate things though one of the my favourite drum tracks is the incredibly simplistic V by Distance Its a rhythm that could easilly be played by one guy on a real kit yet its so banging - check the use of hats and lower velocity kicks in this to make it nice and bouncy Also I once had a four bar drum loop and accidentally moved the sequence one bar to the right for one section and it ended up nicely varying the drums in a way you wouldnt expect
bull Really tight delays can help claps and snaps sound natural 5-20ms etcbull Recycle or phatmatik is your break-chopping friendbull Basically Hatrixxs method involved chopping everything from the main hits into a sample
Say you had a 2-step funk beat like the Amen Youd start your selection from the start of the first kick and select everything up to the start of the first snare Cut paste theres your first slice Then take everything from the start of the first snare up to the start of the second kick - including all the little hats and ghost hits - cut paste second sample and so on Then just map the samples onto some keys and bash away Both of them are quick compared to chopping Recycled slices where you have to copy and drag loads of little notes (one every little fucking tiny hit in the break arranged chromatically up the keyboard) around the piano roll These methods let you just concentrate on the main hits which can be both good or bad You can get a solid beat down with just a handful of hits but youre limited to the patterns already in the original break For a beginner to breakbeat science like yourself Id say try these methods first but dont rule out the really anal methods like RecyclePhatmatikFruity Slicer Sometimes they are a necessary evil Of course some of the drumfunk guys especially those who post on Subvert Central swear by these methods or the next one There are those who prefer to chop up the raw audio rather than bothering with MIDI and samplers They literally just drop the break file into Cubase or Logic and start chopping with the scissors tool and copying and pasting I can see the benefits of this You can see the waveform as youre chopping and youre not as restriced to the quantize grid as you are with MIDI But it takes aaaaages to build a drum track this way and theres the risk of RSI from all that Ctrl+C Ctrl+V youll be doing Then of course theres trackers They really are tailor-made for chopping up loops amongst other things They give you Sample Offset meaning that when you trigger a sample you can set it to start from 256 evenly spaced points throughout the sample So by starting a sample a quarter of the way through youre triggering the first snare (obviously you can fine-tune it when the snare isnt perfectly on the beat) You can edit breaks in a tracker without ever having to cut up a waveform and you can do all sorts of other nifty things like reverse the sample retrigger it to make drum rolls and so on
If recycles having trouble switch the break to mono in your sample editor and then apply tiny fades between the drum hits (especially useful if there are lots of rides that play over the other hits to keep things separate) This should help recycle pick up the start points and with any luck should leave you with a cleaner break
Page 28
Snaresbull Tune the snares so they all hit around the same pitch bull Change the Amp Envelopes of each to bring the strongest parts from each separate sample
and build up your sound like that bull Compressing all together is a good idea but dont over do it bull EQ the master out for the snare as well so you wont have to fuck about when you use the
sample in the future bull Donrsquot just use snares fling some random sound effects in there Claps and rim shots also
work well when layered bull Make subtle changes to them and export a few snares from the same setup this helps
when you need a ghost hit or a reverse that sounds similar but not identicalbull Watch that frequencies dont build up and make the layered bit sound overly whatever
is building up Really easy to get too much 200hz or 500hz or even 12k if youve got samples that are all beefythicksmack-y
bull If its peaking run it through a Spectrum Analyzer and see where its peaking I guess its peaking in the tune rather than just the snare sample playing on its own
bull Sometimes snare samples have a very short peak that doesnt seem to make them sound any better and keeps you from getting them louder without cliping Reduce that part by a few dBs and youre sorted
bull Make sure you are using subtractive eq to pull out the frequencies that could be clashing with other sounds If your frequencies are clashing that can hide the snare and then you end up turning it up to compensate and there you are with your snare peakingThe key is making the frequencies sit right in the mix so that they dont clash and you can set them right and not have to turn them up
bull You could always try clipping the snare normalise it in a wave editor amplify it as much as you can before it sounds distorted then sample it out Then replace the snare with the clipped version it will almost always sound louder with more body at a lower volume I would still point out that although this can be used as a replacement to compression compression is a vital tool to learn how to use Also a lot of peeps will say this does bad things to the waveform and it does but unless you intend to listen to your tune to be heard at home on an amazing hifi then it doesnt really matter that much IMO
bull Hi-pass overdrive limit and cut away space from other sounds for itbull Layer with its self or a different snare Layer with sub add effect to one layer add effect
to both layers layer zoom right in drag one wave form back or forth very slightly to create new snare sound Pitch updown EQ Filter distort reverb delay reverse
bull Record yourself beat boxing your best snare sounds then layer with snare samplesbull A good handclap never goes a miss or use a nice drum synth to get a very differentdigital
soundbull Try reversing the snare sample then changing the envelope settings so it only hits on the
beat Layer that with the same sample this time not reversed Add a little delay to the the reversed snare Change the settings til it sounds how you like
bull Particularly snares I layer up a lot I look for one that has the qualities that I want when run through verb and then I look for something shorter with more mid punch to keep things physical After someone notied snares were weak in a tune Ive really made a point of ensuring that when the snares hit its physical as well as textural You need to feel them a bit - so I look for some snares that have that real punch when layering but usually keep the more textural snappy one as the focus last couple tunes I did the standard kick snare hats w odd percussion and then I took an amen chopped it processed it and layered it overtop for more aggression and step (goddess being a perfect example) By removing a layer and adding it you can create a sense of progression through the tune Make sure the bottom layer is sounding really good and then add the top so that youre not mixing them to be reliant on one another - instead you want synergy Make sure the EQ on the top and bottom make sense with each other
Kicksbull Building a kick in Ableton Lives Impulse machine Provides some essential information
about layering that can be used with any DAWbull Making fat kicks
remixmag wroteWhether creating Miami Bass music is your lifes fantasy or your greatest fear you probably crave the know-how to manifest those car-rattling trunk-full-of-funk kick drums In the arenas of hip-hop house techno downtempo and almost any other electronic genre molding fat kick drums is absolutely essential Like grandmas homemade apple pie the recipe for kick drums is partially a matter of taste However theres no substitute for quality ingredients And just like every pie has its staple ingredients every slamming kick drum requires some common elements Lets take a look at the
Page 29
shopping list for killer kick drumsTHE CRUST
Youll need a basic shell to begin creating a thick strong kick The classics always work if youre fortunate enough to own a real Roland TR-808 909 or other famous drum machine with a killer kick use it copiously If youre not one of those chosen few pay close attention to your original source For example if you use a sampler understand that not all ldquo808 Kickrdquo samples are the same some sound great and some just plain suck There are a lot of reasons for that including how many generations from the original the sample is the sampling rate and bit depth of the sampler how the kick was first sampled and so on Be as choosy as possible with your individual samples mdash dont use a mediocre sample just because it has 808 in the name and therefore is ldquosupposedrdquo to sound fat Seek out a better 808 sample or use something else that is simply bigger sounding Remember the time you spend finding sweet original sources wont be in vain especially if you reuse the resulting samples for multiple songsBORROW SOME SUGAR
An old saying goes ldquoGood art borrows great art stealsrdquo A nice way to start out with great raw kick material is to sample directly from the source If you dont own but have access to a 909 then sample it directly Or take one of your favorite producers tracks on vinyl or CD find a naked kick drum in there and sample it Be cautious with that approach for a couple of reasons Copyright issues around sampling even small bits have become a dangerously gray area and I would never personally advise using any source straight out of the can even from a royalty-free sample library While it may be an excellent start its unoriginal Customize whatever you bite Treat your samples as a sculptor would treat clay mold each one to create a trademark sound for yourself One effective way to customize a fat kick is to take a tip from the synth manufacturers If a sound is thin pile another (or a few more) on top When doing so its important to use different sounds layering two identical kicks will result in a louder kick but it wont change the basic tone Remember the sculptor approach here Even if you are using two good-sounding individual samples they may not instantly sound great together For example I find that when layering kicks while the thickness may be good sustain is often overkill The final result often benefits from a little doctoring on the tail of one (or both) of the samples and other hands-on sonic surgeryADD THE FILLING
Once a nice basic kick is achieved treating it with two of the mastering engineers favorite tools is often the next step Artfully applying a compressor (to just the kick) can go a long way toward creating a signature sound and a huge kick Compression is one of those ldquosecret spicesrdquo and how to apply it is a whole topic in itself One recommendation I will make however is to use a multiband compressor With one of those you can isolate compression on certain frequency ranges That is perfect if for example you want to push the sub of your kick without emphasizing the higher frequencies (which often affect the tone of the attack) or vice-versa EQ comes after compression in my signal chain By now the kick should already sound pretty fat I aim to shave unnecessary frequencies here rather than artificially boosting too much This is also where you can actualize trademark sounds while also fine-tuning them to work alongside other elements in specific tracks I often scoop out mids and highs especially frequencies above about 500 Hz Even though I like thick deep kicks unless Im going for a really dublike sound I often truncate the lowest frequencies (usually the sub-50 Hz frequencies) Even when you cant hear the difference when trimming frequencies doing so can really tighten up your kicksEVEN IT OUT
You may ask why when youre trying to fatten up a kick would you want to trim frequencies That is one of the keys to achieving great mixes both in the case of kick drums and in general You want to avoid too many overlapping frequencies The more sonic separation you have between elements the more focused the entire mix will sound That can be especially important for club music which often gets played on huge not necessarily audiophile-quality sound systems If you havent run into the following scenario already I assure you at some point you will Your bass line and kick drum are competing and it sounds like you have a weak kick You boost the kick but it still sounds muddy Take the bass out and suddenly the kick doesnt sound so bad In a scenario like that solo the two sounds listen carefully for where frequencies are overlapping and then try subtractive EQ on one element then the other and sometimes a bit on both By scooping out overlapping frequencies you will often find that both elements seem to magically come forward in the mix before even touching their respective volume levels
Hi hatsbull Realism
Ive been a professional touring and recording drummer for 25 years and just thought I might share a couple of really simple ways to use fruity loops or fruity studio to create more realistic drum patterns
For what its worth try this out with Fruity Loops
Page 30
Take your hi hat tracks (are any tracks for that matter including melodic synth bubbles)
Drop down the bar graph box that allows you to scroll between velocity (volume) pitch panning cutoff resonance and a thing called shift which allows you to use each of these categories to effect each individual note that youve programmed (note this can be accomplished in other ways in most of the good midi sequencing apps or softwarehardware drum machines)
Drummers no matter how good they are just arent perfect and we can use the fact that each of these drop down bar graphs can make veryvery small changes in a sound to do some subtle things to a rolling drum groove like 16th notes on a hi hat
Not all drummers but many tend to favor their strong hand in a single stroke (hand over hand) drum roll Consequently if you make all odd numbered hi hats be slightly louder than their even numbered hits it will sound more realistic Start by making velocity differences that are really clearly audible Then lower the velocity until you can barely feel the difference We are going to make very subtle changes like this on each of the parameters of velocity pitch cutoff resonance and importantly shift
I cant stress enough that you should make these changes be so subtle that you can hardly notice them
Just going on the fact that the right handed players start their rolls with the right hand and favor it ever so slightly (or grossly for effect as well) means that the stroke will be harder with the right hand than the left hand
When a percussion instrument is hit harder the difference between the transient (or hi pitched attack) of the sound and the body of the instrument (or the sound that comes after the attack) becomes greater In general on drums that means that a harder attack tensions the drum very imperceptably (sp) and it also means that there will be more treble in the sound Consequently the pitch goes up a little teensy bit and their is more attack to the sound (increased resonance and slightly higher cutoff frequency)
Consequently you can make the pitch of each right hand be just barely noticeably higher the resonance should be just one or two of those little teeny bars higher The cutoff should be just a few bars lower (allowing less high frequencies through) on the left handed or even numbered strokes
Typically if drums have time inaccuracies they tend to drag the left hand a litte bit I have to keep stressing that if you can hear the changes you make you arent being realistic You need to make the changes subtle enough that you just barely feel that they arent perfect You can consequently make each left hand note shifted one or two bars late
Tigure out how much you can tweak each parameter before it becomes obvious and then you can just randomly tweak each one up to that limit With a little bit of variance in each stroke from parameter to parameter you will create more of a percolating texture in your programming - this is a great technique to make synth bubbles (the kind used in techno and house) more interesting and less mechanical feeling
Now you can avoid the biggest mistake that non-drummers do when trying to write realistic programs turn the overall volume of the hihats until you CANT hear them and then slowly bring up the volume until you just begin to hear them
Professional producers have spent countless hours trying to figure out how to gate and mix hihats OUT of tracks The reason is two fold1) Human beings have such a radical peak in their hearing around the 1-2khz range (or the intelligibility range of human speech) that we can play the hihats at incredible low volumes and they are still audible You cant do that with a bass drumI tell my drum students that you cannot play a hi hat or a snare drum so quietly that a person sitting in a room with you cant hear it2) Hi Hats the snare of snare drums and cymbals all seriously MASK human vocal intellibility How many people have gone to see live shows where they can hear the singer is singing but cant for the life of them figure out what they are actually singing That is ususally because drummers (or mixers which is frequently the case) are not hip to thisimportant fact
So turn down your hi hat tracks (or any track with a strong mid rangeshort envelope attack) and you have much more room for other musical goodies in your mix When in doubt make your hi hats quieter than you think they should be Trust me theyll come through the mix even at a quiet volume
Swingbull Dont know if you can do this in your sequencer but in Logic you can create a groove
template from your drums and then apply that to your other instruments If youre using separate midi channels for snares kicks and hats take the 8 bar loop youre using glue it together and then take the groove from that and then mute that track When you click down the quantize list youll see the template there and you can apply it to your other tracks Also if you do want to change the groove you can just change the hits in the muted template and itll automatically change all other hits to the new changes
bull Think if youre clever and organized you can basically cut breaks up in recycle load them into the exs24 (extract sequence) and then do the same with them That way if there are breaks you like the feel of you can just apply that swing to anything If you make a folder called grooves in your logic folder they should load up each time so that youll have loads to choose from Havent done this myself yet but always helpful to have a choice of feels available
bull Some things sound better rigid and robotic with equal velocities Some things sound better rigid and robotic with differing velocities Some things sound better with swing Some things sound better with everything ever-so-slightly off Its down to what the track needs
bull Drum Break Swing ProgrammingNicolas Hall wwwbreakbeat-cafenet wroteI think most people who make anything funk breakbeat drum amp bass or hip-hop would agree that Swing is crucial to the effectiveness of a beat The other key factors in a programming sense are dynamic and accent So many people get wound up when their beats sound sterile or mechanical this is due to the fact that computers and sequencers lock to perfect BPM A computer on its own does not interpret rhythm the way a good drummer does There are however certain machines that have their own swing parameters like the Akai MPC range of sampling drum machines which are used extensively by hip hop producers
Swing is not the easiest thing in the world to analyze but as a general rule good drummers will play slightly late and thats why in all funky records you get that slight dip at the start of the bar take Superstition by Stevie Wonder or Billie Jean by Michael Jackson these are both very simple beats Superstition is of course live drums whilst Billie Jean was programmed but no less funky than Superstition I emphasize this point to demonstrate that a programmed beat can be every bit at groovy as a beat played on a drum kit
Expanding on the Billie Jean point Hip Hop beats are really very simple If you listen to the Neptunes they tend to create the swing in their beats by quantizing the kicks and snares and playing the hi hats in by hand this creates a very tight beat which is off set by a loose hi hat try it works but dont forget your accents - As a starting point just take the first snare of your beat and turn the velocity down then notice how your head starts nodding and your foot starts tapping a little more you are giving the beat feel Also remember that if you are using reverb the louder snare will push the reverb harder than the soft snare so your creating more ambience that way Then try your kick drums if your not sure which hits to adjust just pick apart a beat your feeling I remember me and friend picking apart a Gangstarr beat and were able to almost replicate it by adjusting the velocities of each hit (admittedly it took a while to get it right)
If youre a newbie then a common trick when learning to make good grooves is to create a template with an existing loop The idea is take a loop you like thats got a good feel to it and then place your own hits over the break then take the break out and see if your hits are sounding funky This can take a while and its crucial to think about the strength of each hit or the dynamic Each kick will not be the same strength nor will the snares or the hats pick the loop apart dissect it and youll soon see that there are certain consistencies in all good beats
If youre using live loops and like to layer them with drum sequences you should be thinking about time space and frequencies So if you have a fairly heavy loop then layering it with heavy kick drums is probably not gonna sound good Think about filling holes are their any frequencies that could be filled up Or is there space in the loop for extra hits Try working in layers just adding one hit at a time also filtering works well you could take some of the frequencies out of your loop as you drop your drum sequences in to make room for them I think one the masters of this technique is Liam Howlett of the Prodigy He runs breakbeats and gives them extra balls by laying a kick drum underneath to add extra intensity to certain passages in his set but hes careful not to overlap frequencies to much A good place to start if you using breakbeats is the Roland Tr-808 kick drum which is around the 50hz mark which is sub bass territory so it will sit underneath most breaks very well
If your hell bent on making killer beats and loops then perseverance is crucial keep at it it will come together listen to beats you like and pick them apart identify the subtleties that make it happen I know some producers get fed up when their beats sound to clean or they are trying to create a new breakbeat and then compare it to sample they took from vinyl and get down on there own beat Think about what a breakbeat really is think about its history what has happened to it to make it sound the way it does Im
Page 32
sure youve noticed how some breaks have a certain something like a magic dust you cant put your finger on Let me share what I know with you about that
Most breaks though not all are taken from recordings of live drums some of them are pretty old so you have the ambience of live drums and the room they were recorded in you have the fact that natural decay and reverb of each drum is likely to have bled into the other mics on the kit and that most engineers used overhead mics which pick up the whole kit with two mics Then consider that many of these breaks will have been recorded to analogue tape with saturation which will create extra warmth and harmonics The next step comes from old sampling technology like the SP-1200 and the Akai s-950 mpc -60 these samplers sampled at 12- bit (bear in mind that most computers now are at least 24-bit if not more) and that the samples themselves where taken from vinyl and on and on the process goes with each new reverb and eq adding more and more to the break In terms of giving your breaks that character there are a number of things you can try for example buying an old four track cassette machine to dump your beats onto then re-sample it if your using a sampler like the s-950 then try pushing the input meters a little harder than usual add reverbs and resample it each time you put your loop through a new channel you will be adding something to it Also distortion is fantastic for breaks if you have any amp plug ins then try them the Amplitude one is particularly good you dont need to go mad with it just used subtly it works great
To finish I would just like to say again stick with it keep trying keep listening to records if you like to read about technique then do so you can learn so much from other producers Remember the strength of your hits is important as is the way it swings good luck
UPDATE 08092008
ENHANCE SYNTHESIZED DRUM PARTS WITH FOUND SOUNDS
emusiciancom wroteLayering real-world sounds with synthesized drum parts puts a new spin on your drum tracks You probably already have usable sound effects on your hard drive because most commercial samplers have at least a modest collection in their factory library Beyond that youll find thousands of royalty-free sound effects online Soundsnapcom is one of my favorite sources and its free The recordings dont need to be pristine for layering over drums so dont overlook cheap sampling CDs and consider grabbing your own sounds with a portable recorderCollect and Save
Start by assembling a small Foley library of short percussive sounds divided into typical drum-sound categories kicks snares toms cymbals percussion and so on Youll generally want to layer drum sounds with Foley sounds that have a similar volume contour and frequency range If you layer a Foley sound that resembles a kick drum with the sound of your hi-hat for example youll quickly fill up all the space in your drum track
Industrial household military transportation and vocal sounds make excellent fodder but you will often want to extract a small slice such as the last shot in a volley of machine-gun fire (snare) or the first bounce of a plastic bottle on concrete (tom) A browsing tool like Audio Finder (icedaudiocom) is invaluable if you have a large sample library That lets you quickly audition clips make basic edits and drag-and-drop slices to your library
Sticks UpIf your synthesized drum part is step sequenced youll need to export its step sequences as MIDI files Many drum synths do that including Sonic Charge Tonic (sonicchargecom) Apple Logic UltraBeat (applecom) and Submersible DrumCore (submersiblemusiccom) All of those come with a large collection of patterns exportable as MIDI sequences Youll also need a sampler to play the Foley sounds drum-oriented samplers are handier for that but are by no means necessary
Start by loading a kit in the drum synth Export one of its sequenced patterns or create your own and place it on the sampler track For some of the drum synth sounds select compatible Foley sounds and map them to the same notes in the sampler that theyre mapped to in the drum synth Next solo the doubled voices one by one in both the drum synth and the sampler start the sequence playing and tweak the samplers voice parameters (filter level pan envelope and so on) to make the sounds work together (see Fig 1 and Web Clip 1) Dont tweak global parameters such as effects because that will affect all sounds played by the sampler
High HoopsOnce youve configured your Foley track you can do several things to add interest I frequently use a
Page 33
second sampler for short vocal sounds Ill have some notes trigger sounds in both samplers and others in only one Many samplers let you group sounds and assign notes and controllers to choose among them You can then sequence these notes and controllers or you can play them live to alter your Foley tracks
Try applying DSP effects to individual Foley sounds Multitap delays distortion phasing and granular effects all work well when used sparingly (see Web Clip 2) You can apply DSP effects inside your sampler or route the voices to a separate output for DSP processing in your DAW If your sampler doesnt offer either possibility spread the Foley parts over several sampler instances on different tracks
Sidechain compression or gating of the drum track with one or more of the Foley parts will highlight the Foley part as well as add variety to the drums With compression peaks in the sidechain signal will reduce the level of the drum track Use a high compression level say 201 and balance the sidechain-gain and the compression-threshold -attack and -release controls to get the ducking contour you want (see Web Clip 3) Gating has the opposite effect the drum track will be heard during peaks in the sidechain signal (see Web Clip 4) Here too the sidechain-gain and gate-threshold controls work in tandem to determine when the gate is opened Use envelope parameters (attack release and hold) to shape the gates contour
Keep in mind that once youve created a sampler instrument to complement your drum kit you can reuse it with other sequences You can also change one or more sounds in the sampler instrument without repeating the whole process
34 Sidechain Compression (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
4 Theory41 ndash Song Structure42 ndash Mixdown (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)43 ndash Mastering (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
44 Music Theory
The first thing to remember about music theory is that generally if it sounds right it probably is There are no rules in music and Music Theory is not about telling you how to write music Its about understanding the music
Broadly speaking it is fair to say that most music is essentially based upon two crucial factors scales and rhythm Scales make up melodies chords harmonies and basslines to name but a few whereas rhythm makes up the beat of the song In this part of the Production Bible you will learn the basics of Music Theory that will serve you not only in the production of Dubstep but for any of your future musical pursuits This information is intended to be easy to read and understand so I wonrsquot be mincing sentences But firstly please make sure you learn every single note on the keyboard by studying the image below Otherwise yoursquoll be completely lost here
Page 34
Scales Wersquoll begin with scales As I mentioned before scales are the building blocks of your song and without them your track will be atonal and completely unlistenable (probably not the effect yoursquore going for)
There are two main scales that you should learn inside out ndash the major scale and the minor scale A generalisation yoursquore bound to have heard before is that the major scale sounds ldquohappyrdquo and the minor scale sounds ldquodarkrdquo Although this is not always the case it is mostly true ndash and therefore yoursquoll usually be focussing on the minor scale when producing Dubstep However just in case yoursquore writing happy-dubstep (if that exists) here is a quick overview of both scales and how they are made up
Major Scale
The major scale is really easy to create It is made by a single rule that is simple to put in to place
ldquoTone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
In case you donrsquot know what a Tone or Semi-Tone is here is a quick explanation
Picture a keyboard (or if you canrsquot see the image above) Say you go from C to C that would be a semi-tone The same thing goes for if you go from an E to an F ndash it is still a semi-tone because you
Page 35
have gone up one key
A tone is two semi-tones ndash for example from C to D is a tone and the same goes for from G to A
The scalersquos name is taken from the note that it starts on For example C major will start on the note of C Similarly A major will start on the note of A and this is the case with every single scale
Here is a quick list of a few major scales After having seen a few try working the rest out for yourself in order to understand how the major scale is formulated Ideally you should practice your scales on a piano or keyboard so that you can physically see how to make the scale It might sound boring but itrsquos a small price to pay for a much deeper understanding of your music
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Major C D E F G A B C
C Major C D E F G A B C
D Major D E F G A B C D
D Major D E F G A B C D
E Major E F G A B C D E
F Major F G A Bb C D E F
F Major F G A B C D E F
G Major G A B C D E F G
G Major G A B C D E F G
A Major A B C D E F G A
A Major A B C D E F G A
B major B C D E F G A B
Now by arranging the different notes of each of these scales in any order you please you can create a melody bassline or harmony with extreme ease Rearranging the notes in the scale will give you a flawlessly in-key result and it is then up to you to use the notes in the scale as you see fit for your tune
Minor Scale
As was the case with the Major Scale the Minor is made up from a set rule or formula By knowing this formula you can understand how the Minor is made and how to use it to itrsquos maximum effect
ldquoTone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
As is the case with the major scales you should practice your scales as much as possible to make sure that you know them all like the back of your hand Here are a few Minor Scales see if you can
Page 36
work out the rest
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Minor C D Eb F G Ab B C
D Minor D E F G A Bb C D
F Minor F G A B C D E F
G Minor G A Bb C D Eb F G
Similarly to the Major now that you know your Minor Scales you can quickly just take any note from the scale rearrange it with another few notes in the scale and there you have a fat melody or bassline ready to be played at maximum volume
Diminished Chords
Diminished Chords are really quite spooky and dark chords that are made up of four different notes all a minor third apart from each other That means that for example the Diminished Chord starting on C would be C Eb F A because to get from one note to the next you have to use ldquoTone Semi-Tonerdquo (known as a minor third)
Because of the mathematical nature of the Diminished chord there are only three ldquoclustersrdquo of notes which can then be rearranged like the Major and Minor Scales
Cluster 1 C Eb F A
Cluster 2 C E G Bb
Cluster 3 D F Ab B
Use these clusters and rearrange them as you please For example you could rearrange cluster 1 as Eb F A C etc
Generally speaking you canrsquot make a song based entirely on Diminished Chords due to the fact that each cluster only has 4 notes However a Diminished Chord is perfect for adding a hint of darkness to your tune and is brilliant when mixed with some Minor Scales
Chords
Chords are basically two or more notes played together They are made up from a specific scale ndash for example the C major chord is made up of notes in the C major scale
Usually chords will include the first third and fifth note of the scale as well as possibly using other notes to give them colour For example the basic chord of C major would be C E G Then you could add the seventh note to it (in this case it is B) Really it is up to the producerrsquos discretion how heshe goes about making a chord ndash just remember to stick to the scale you are using
Chords will more than likely sound like shit if you play them on a complicated or layered synth patch You want to be playing chords on sustained sounds such as strings or pads Chords will really fill out your sound if used properly You want your chords to be supporting the melody or bassline and more than likely want to add some reverb so that it doesnrsquot sound too sharp Make
Page 37
your chords blend in with the music and yoursquoll have mastered them
Chord Inversions
Quite simply chord inversions are when you rearrange the notes in a chord so that it sounds a bit different and suits your arrangement better
For example if you were in the key of C major you could have a drone of E playing underneath some strings playing the notes E G C E
Due to the fact that the notes are the same and have only been inverted the chord will still be in key with the rest of the music This is a great way to add a touch of variation to your music instead of using the same chord structure all the time
Arpeggios
Arpeggios are much easier to understand than they sound They are quite simply the first third and fifth note of the scale played as individual notes For example the arpeggio of C minor would be C Eb G C etc
A great example of an arpeggio is the bassline in Bengarsquos ldquoCrunked Uprdquo He goes from playing the F minor arpeggio backwards to playing the F minor arpeggio backwards In other words he is playing
C A F and then C Ab F
Experiment with a few Minor Arpeggios and a couple of Diminished Arpeggios and you canrsquot go wrong in writing a huge bassline
Suggested Reading
List of All Scales With Finger Charts Included
Well thatrsquos it folks Thatrsquos basically all the music theory you need to know to start off with As you grow more used to the various scales yoursquoll notice that certain notes sound good with each other whilst others donrsquot Irsquom not here to tell you how to write music Irsquom here to teach you the language
of music Itrsquos up to you to write the poetry
copy Bruno Crosier (klimaxx) 2008
45 Random Tips
Random tips amp best piece of advice thread
5 Resources
Page 38
51 Books amp Magazines
Hello again people
Does anyone know of more music production books magazines or authors we can add to these lists
Thanks
------------------------------------------------
Music Production Magazines Computer Music - httpwwwcomputermusiccouk Music Tech Magazine - httpwwwmusictechmagcouk Future Music - httpwwwfuturemusiccouk Sound on Sound - httpwwwsoundonsoundcom Remix Magazine - httpremixmagcom Mix Magazine - httpmixonlinecom Electronic Musician - httpemusiciancom EQ Magazine - httpwwweqmagcom Audio Technology - wwwaudiotechnologycomau Tape Op - httpwwwtapeopcom
------------------------------------------------
Music Books
Authors Curtis Roads httpmitpressmiteducatalogauthor aspaid=93 - The Computer Music Tutorial (Really really really good book) Paul White - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea ul20White - Basic Series + more Rick Snowman - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea k20Snoman - The Dance Music Manual Tools Toys and Techniques Bobby Owsinski - httpbooksgooglecoukbooksas_auth=Bobby+Owsinski - The MixingRecording amp Mastering Engineers Handbooks Michael Paul Stavrou - httpwwwmixingwithyourmindcom
Publishers Thomson Course Technology - httpcoursecengagecom (Click on the Music Technology tab) - Series published include Power Overdrive Ignite and CSI Series + many more Backbeat Books - httpwwwbackbeatbookscom ndash Power Tools Series + many more Wiley Publishing - httpwwwdummiescom (Enter music in their search bar) - For Dummies Series Penguin Books - httpuspenguingroupcom (Enter music in their search bar) - The Complete Idiots Guide Series + many more MIT Press - httpmitpressmitedu - Many books on music theory Focal Press - httpwwwfocalpresscom - (Enter music in their search bar)
------------------------------------------------
Online Music Book Stores (We need more links here Do you know of any that we can add)
httpwwwmixbookscom ndash Excellent source that sells only books about music
Page 39
httpwwwamazoncom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
httpwwwbarnesandnoblecom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
------------------------------------------------
52 Wikipedia
A good music lexicon wiki Search for your term in the search bar ---gt httpenaudiolexicorgwikiMain_Page
0-9
14rdquo Jack - httpenwikipediaorgwikiJack_plug 3rd Bridge - httpenwikipediaorgwiki3rd_Bridge
Zero Crossing - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_crossing Zero Crossing Rate - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_Crossing_Rate
53 Other recommended production forums
for Logic users this is the shit httpwwwlogicprohelpcom
Ive found both these forums to be full of knowledgeable producers amp musicians
httpwwwkvraudiocomforum
httpacapellaharmony-centralcomforumsindexphp
httpwwwgearslutzcomboard
httpwwwsoundonsoundcomforum
httpwwwmusicradarcomforum
httpwwwidmforumscom
httpwwwdance-industriescomphpBB2 8cffbb3b02
httpwwwsubvertcentralcomforumindexphp
httpwwwbreakbeatcouk
httpwwwtweakheadzcom
httpwwwabletoncompagesforum
Explains lots about the music industry ---gt httpwwwbemusocom
Page 47
Ok so a massive thanks to all the contributors there are literally too many to mention But Thanks to Futures Untold Johnny Beat Klimaxx Deadly Habit amp JunglistRendr Daft Cunt in perticular
Thanks to all the artists producers and general music geeks making this early revision of the production bible an essential read
There are links missing and will be included in version 21(Please help with the unlinked chapters by going here - httpwwwdubstepforumcomthe-dubstep-production-bible-updated-2009-06-03-t14797html and updating missing info as needed)
Compiled by Daft Cunt and Futures Untold PDF Compiled by Depone
Page 6
Behringer BCR2000 (knobs controller) ~ 150 EUR Pros user friendly cheap 32 user presets (assign 24 knobs per instrument for up to 32 instruments) Cons have to do more than 1 rotation to go from 0 to 100 cheap built
Behringer BCF2000 (faders controller) ~ 180 EUR Same as BCR2000 but with 8 faders instead
Evolution UC-33 (knobs amp faders) ~ pound140 Pros easy way to use cheap easy portable Cons If youre a goof itll break quite soon In other words With lots of traveling the thing gets paranoid after some bumps
14 Soundcards
If you want to add a model plz give its name pros cons amp average price (new) Thanks everybody
Apogee Duet Pros Good quality 24bit converters Small and portable easy to setup works within Logic Cons Only has 2 XLR inputs and 2 hi-z jack inputs pricey FW400 input to computer
Audiotrak Maya 44 USB $96-120 SOS review pros analog rca insout easy to connect turntables too cons no 24 bit converters
Digidesign Mbox 2 does the job as the audio sound much more crisp and theres no static in the background
E-MU 0404 USB ~ 200 $ Pros good DA converters driver support for many OS volume knobs for headphone and monitors simple and user friendly control good headphone amplifier Cons ASIO drivers and multimedia drivers not working at the same time I bought it mainly for the driver support works with Win XP x64 and also OSX Leopard Would I buy it again yes
E-MU 1212m ~ euro140 Pros the sound quality the price the DSP effects Cons takes 2 PCI slots the Patchmix software is a bit tricky at the beginning
E-MU 1616mRad basically
E-MU 1820m have the emu 1820m which is basically then same as the other two nbut with lovely mic pres and an external box most of the problems ive had with it can be traced back to the cable for the external IO other than that the card is wonderful so therefore can recommend the other two
M-Audio 1010LT ~ euro190 Ive had an Maudio 1010LT for 5 years and have had no problems with it More than enough ins and outs for most home studio uses and had been totaly stable
M-Audio Delta 1010 with the breakout box solid solid as a rock and it sounds great loads of IO as well in fact too much for me tbh
M-Audio Audiophile 2469 around $120 Quite a nice soundcard easy enough to set up Had some trouble with it once though My PC kind of stopped recognizing it (and this is where MY own personal mistake comes in) and I tried reinstalling it without removing it when the manual clearly says that you should install the drivers before plugging the card in The only drawback of the card is lack of IOs I really need a second out and it only has one analog and one digital out The digital one seems kind of useless to me right now So yeah thats the only drawback I can mention
M-Audio Delta Audiophile 192
Page 7
NI Audio Kontrol 1 ~ euro300 NI Audio Kontrol 1 is well worth a look Rock solid done untold gigs with it built like a tank and sounds excellent Cirrus Logics 2nd best convertor chips in there well designed three big buttons a big knob and flashing lights Bosh
The Big Thread of Free VST Plugins-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Everyone likes free software
Below you will find a list of sites dedicated to providing free music software They are listed in order of useability and the amount of free plugins they list httpwwwgersiccomplugins truly excels in listing every new freeware plugin released
Some Other Good Sites to Browse Through (If you really need too)httpwwwhitsquadcomsmmfreewarehttpwwwdontcrackcomfreewarehttpwwwaudiomastermindcombrowse-free_vst_plugins-5886988-1htmlhttpwwwsadgladcomfreevstplugins6htmlhttpwwwapplecomdownloadsmacosxaudio (Mac only)
Some Alright Sites (These sites simply repeat the ones listed above yet are more difficult to navigate and feature fewer links)httpfreemusicsoftwareorghttpwwwvstplanetcomInstrumentsVST_Synthesizershtmhttpwwwfree-plugin-listcomhttpwwwsonicspotcomindexhtmlhttpwwwvstcentralcompluginsaspxhttpwwwaudioraclecomfreetrialsphp
Some Desperate Sites (Poorly laid out and pretty boring Only dig through these if youre a audioware junkie)httpenwikipediaorgwikiFree_audio_softwarehttpnoolmusiccomlinksshtml
Threads Concerning Free VSTs (Lists individual plugins and plenty of plugin developers Provides links to many of the plugins that can be found more easily above)httpwwwdubstepforumcomviewtopicphpt=24153amphighlight=httpwwwdubstepforumcomfree-vst-uberlist-t139352htmlhttpwwwkvraudiocomforumviewtopicphpt=9780
22 DAWS (Digital Audio Workstation)
DAW Question specific threads221 ndash Ableton Live222 ndash Cubase223 ndash FL Studio
23 Production effects explained-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Common Production Effects-------------------------------------------------------------------------Click on each link for more in-depth information about each effect
------ Filter Effects ------
EQ - (EQ types - Graphic EQ Parametric EQ Shelving EQ Linear Phase EQ)Filters - (Filter types - Low Pass filter High Pass filter Band Pass filter Band Reject filter Notch filter Comb filter All Pass filter State Variable filter Peaking filter Moog filter FormantVowel filter)Phase InverterVocodersHarmonic Exciters
------ Delay Effects ------
DelayEcho - (Delay types - Ping Pong delay Multi Tap delay Slapback delay Bucket delay Crossfeedback delay)Reverb - (Reverb types - Spring reverb Plate reverb Convolution reverb Impulse Response reverb)
------ Modulation Effects ------
ChorusFlangersPhasers
------ Dynamics Processing Tools ------
CompressorsLimiters (Brick Wall)Transient ShaperSignal ModellersGatesExpandersCompanders Noise reduction units
Here is a list of the most popular freeware analysers available
Voxengo SPAN
Bluecat Audio Freqanalyst
Roger Nichols Inspector
Page 20
For a long list of other free analysers visit httpwwwgersiccompluginsindexphpdaCat=2
3 Techniques
31 Bass311 Sub Bass
Sub-bass is a term used to describe audible sounds below 90Hz - sound in the range below this (under 16-17Hz) would be termed infrasound Sound systems often feature a subwoofer that is dedicated solely to amplifying sounds in the lower bass and sub-bass range Source Wikipedia
So the idea is to have the sub going up to ~90Hz The exact frequency it should be cut at depend on the kicks frequency Lets say you HP your kick at 100Hz then the sub should be LPed at 100Hz so they compliment each other without clashing
There are several ways of creating a sub here are the most common 1 - using a unique waveform (sine saw square or triangle) will give you a nice linear sub NB You dont need to filter out a sine wave as it doesnt have overtones 2 - using detuned waveforms take 2 identical waves (sine saw square or triangle) and detune them - lets say -25 +25 semitone This will produce a phase effect and give movement to your sub but itll also cause large volume amplitude and youll need to compress it after filtering Great Massive tutorial by Subfocus here 3 - using a 808 kick you dont have a TR-808 Grab that pack
jobbanaught wroteAn easy option to get a powerful subbass is to take a 808 kick sample put it in your favorite sampler and loop a single cycle of the waverform somewhere in the middle of the sample The 808 kick is made of a sine and some additional white noise The sine gives your sub that rattling low end pressure and the noise adds overtonesgrittiness = instant badass subbass
You can find more tips about mixing your kick n sub in the Random bass tips thread
312 lsquoWobblersquo
Page 21
Wobble GuideWobble Bass
Wobble Bass as it is known is simply a bassline that has an LFO assigned to a Low Pass Filter as an insert effect LFOstands for Low Frequency Oscillator and is used to change a sound by a defined speed (measured in either Hz or synced to the Tempo in relation to the barsnotes through quantization) The way the LFO changes the sound is up to you you can make the LFO adjust the Volume the amount of Saturation Filter Cutoff etc Basically any parameter you link it to Essentially you are just using the LFO to send a changing value to a parameter
--------------------
How to get a simple wobble bass
1) Choose a simple sound on your synth (Anything apart from a Sine wave )
2) Select your LFO and set it to the speed you want (18 would be a good starting point)
3) Now assign the LFO to the Filter Cutoff Which should for this example be a Low Pass Filter as the sound were going for is a deep bass
4) You now have a basic wobble bass from here the possibilities for tweaking this sound are endless
--------------------
A quick breakdown of whats actually going on Essentially you are taking a sound (that can be an audio files generated by a synth etc) and then passing it through a Low Pass Filter Now what exactly does a Low Pass Filter do you ask
A Low Pass Filter allows Low Frequency signals to pass through it but reduces the amplitude (volume) of all the Frequencies above the cutoff point In general most plug-ins have various Low Pass Filter settings where the more poles it has the more Dbs it will cut and will yield a harder knee to it Example 1 Pole Filter with a -6dBOct reduction Vs a 2 Pole Filter reducing -12DbOct However you dont necessarily need a LFO controlling your Low Pass Filter Cutoff frequency value you could just draw in the Automation yourself but a LFO will yield a loop of consistent values and prevents the possibility of human error All the LFO is doing is sending a value to your frequency cutoff to keep it consistently changing
--------------------
Tips amp Advice
1) Sub bass wobble would normally be a Sine wave at around the 40-50 Hz range which would repeat the same chords as the mid-range bass wobble The only difference being that with a sub bass wobble there is no point in assigning the LFO to a Low Pass Filter because the sound is too low for the low pass filter to have any effect so theLFO is assigned to the amplitude (volume) instead Another reason for not applying a Low Pass Filter to the Sub bass is because it would typically be a Sine wave which possesses no Harmonics to be adjusted by the Filter
2) The sound of an LFO can also be adjusted by the wave type you choose The default setting for an LFO generator is a Sine wave although on most synths you can chose from Triangle Sawtooth Square wave Random Noise To get a nice sounding bass it is a good idea to use as many oscillators as possible on different octaves
3) Try messing around with the attack and release of your sound as this can have an impact on the sound of the bass Long attacks tend to create a more ambient sound and is a technique traditionally used with ambient pads
Page 22
4) Something that I find useful is to bounce the bassline to a wav file so that it can be chopped up and put in-sync with other elements of the song because the majority of the time you will find the first wave of sound in the wobble bassline will will be half the length of the other waves due to attack rates So the best thing to do is to chop that freak sound off the beginning of the file in your DAW (Logic Pro Reason Cubase etc) and start off with the second wave which should be fully formed This way it will not be too early of late when keeping in sync with other elements such as a second bassline
5) Another method you can use is creating a clone layer of your original sound and setting up a new LFO setup for that to beat alternatively in the space left by the original LFO Or go that crazy Drum amp Bass Reese route and split the frequencies to Low Mid and High then set different LFO rates for each band then recombine into one sound
6) For more variation automate your LFO speed and intensity
7) Where you place insert effects in relation to the filter (pre or post) will yield different sounding results
8) Other methods to achieve a wobble like sound Tremolo (This effects volume rather than frequency) FM Synthesis Modulation of PWM Oscillator Pitch assigned (in a liberal amount) to LFO Filter Envelope assigned to LFO (using a re-triggered envelope) (submitted by Faun2500)
9) Assign a second LFO to modulate the speed of the first LFO
LFO Shapes
Sine wave The smooth value change possible
Triangle Similar to a Sine wave but slightly more ramped amp synthetic sounding
Random A mixed bag
Sawtooth Will have a very fast attack with a slower release which will sound very rugged
Square wave Will be a simple open close style Very harsh and will generally cause a very harsh sound (Often used in DJ Hazard style bass-lines) Detune two square waves for a nice dark sounding bass
Waveforms submitted by Skells wrotehttpi228photobucketcomalbumsee83 cleanjpgSimple Filter Sweep
httpi228photobucketcomalbumsee83 wobblejpgSine Wave LFO assigned to Filter Cutoff
LINKS etc
Fruity Loops Wobble Tutorial (Link submitted by Wub) Massive Wobble YouTube Tutorial (Video created by thesynthesist) Pause amp Play Wobble Tutorial (Link submitted by dubmo) Albino3 Wobble Guide (Guide created by axon)
By Rendr amp Deadly Habit and a little help from Macc
313 lsquoReecersquo
The Reese Bass
Page 23
History Lesson
The Reese bass was a form of huge sounding synth-bass first used by the Detroit Techno producer Kevin Saunderson aka Master Reese aka Reese Project aka on the track Just Want Another Chance and immortalised in the classic DnB track Terrorist by Renegade Since then it has been (over)used in many a DnB track and continues to evolve even nowadays through Dubstep and Jungle It is said to be as influential to DnB as the Amen break and probably as used and abused as the Amen
Capturing the Beast
1The Oscillator Stage
To nail the Reese you need a synth with at least 2 oscillators but for better-bigger results use as many oscillators as you can (not really but 4 oscillators give a nice deep rumble - ahhhhhh) All the oscillators are playing sawtooth waves and all except one are detuned by 25-50 cents so that all oscillators are out of phase with each other
2 The Filter Stage
The signal is then sent to a low-pass filter with the cutoff freq set around 150-200Hz (experiment with that you want the growl of the mid-frequencies but you also want it as deep as possible without sacrificing the midrange) The resonance of the filter should be cranked up almost all the way (but again tweak accordingly to your filtersynth)
3 Fuzz it Up
The second most important aspect of the Reese (after the detuned sawtooths) is distortion Tube distortion and tape saturation work extremely well but dont hesitate to use other more extreme distortion units (dont forget that the Reese has been done a million times you have to add something original to it) Again adjust to taste
4 Spices and Herbs
Now that is the main recipe for the sound but like all haute-cuisine there are more things you can do to spice up the Reese Namely effects Effects that have been associated with the Reese are
Phasers - to accentuate the phase-shifting effect of the detuned sawtooths Unison - a great way to make it even bigger Chorus - again a good way to phatten it up
5 And Some More Synth Magic
Another thing to do so you can bring out the old-school jungle character of the Reese is to use Legato and PortamentoGlide if your syth of choice has them available These are both great ways to move from one note to the next without listening to the transition To put it simply when legato is on and you play a sustained E followed by a sustained G the transition between the two notes gives the listener the impression that they heard a single note being sustained that has just changed its pitch from E to G without pausing at a certain point
Always remember though that if you use Legato you have to turn the polyphony of your synth down to 1 (something you should almost always do with basslines because two bass-notes playing together almost never sound good in electronic music bass chords are more the realm of prog-rock shit than dubstep)
For the more technical minded legato in synthesizers is a variation of monophonic operation In contrast to monophonic mode where every new note restarts the ADSR envelopes in legato mode they are not if the previous note remains depressed when the new note is played This causes the initial transient from the attack and decay phases to sound only once and the ADSRs to remain at sustain stage for the whole sequence of notes until the final note is released (Wikipedia)
EDIT I just found out that in one of the free vst links on the bible there is a thing called the Hotelsinus Reese Bassline Synth So I didnt miss the opportunity for a mini review The software itself is small (like most free vst-is) and quite easy to install (you just drop the dll in the vst folder) As for the sound weeeeeeell the sounds it produces are definitely Reese But weak somehow Its like listening to Terrorist from a battered cheap old cassette from 93 or something It has a tinny and tiny sound when compared to what you can achieve with powerhouses like Albino or
Page 24
Massive or (one of my personal favorites for Reese) Cakewalk Rupture You can try it if you want but i dont think it will impress steppers that much we are bass-headed folk
314 Random Bass Tips
Plz add yours or others youve spotted on the forum
miss_molinari wrotebasically i have been experimenting with cutting (not sidechaining) a notch (band reject) in the bass starting at 60hz and ending just before 70 this is only for those bass lines which only hit on the kick (quite specific) also the bass is then high passed at about 220hz to pretty much 0db which is where the kick starts (ending the kick with a non-too-aggressive-cut at about 2khz) this essentially means that the kick and the bass do not share any frequencies above abot 200hz but also between 60 and 70 and with them always hitting at the same time this gets around the fact that sidechaining this type of sequencing would leave you with no or little bass
this has worked well so far but is useful mainly for sub basses ending at around 250hz would not be as good for full spectrum wubsanyone else got any tech tips regarding the bass and kick
futures_untold wroteI simply cut everything under 90Hz on my kicks and roll off slightly at 1KHz
Sub I cut under 40Hz and roll off at 200Hz
I always compress both seperately and keep my levels low in the mix to create plenty of head room later whilst adding sounds with higher frequency content
Anything above 150Hz is what I consider midrange Anything above 150Hz can be heard on mobile phone speakers We all know that theyre designed to play heavy bass lol Wink
miss_molinari wroteDaft Cunt wroteTo me it feels like cutting the kick above 80 hz makes it sound weak I guess it depends on the style I rather cut below 60 to 80 depending on the tune
yeah its all about context in a dry minimal setting im of the opinion you can make a kick punch right up to about 180-200hz but yeah depends on when and on what kind of punch (im usually talking a bass hit at about 200hz coupled with a knock hit anywhere up to about 1200hz) i imagine you true dubsteppers prefer a denser thump from 60 through to about 300hz
Daft Cunt wroteI began recently the band-reject thing on the sub Little details that make big difference
And do you people cut the bass where the snare peaks
my basses arent usually middy enough to need that but yeah a slight sidechain on the main snare and say midbasspadwothavyer is nice especially if the limelight is stolen by a deeper sidechain on the kick and midbasspadwothavyer can create a nice flow (especially when used with long decay reveb linked to the midbasspadwothavyer so that it sounds louder and longer the higher the frequency played - might
have to post some piccies of that one )
Shonky wroteWhat Ive been doing lately is bouncing down the kick track lowpassing one somewhere between 100-140 depending on the highest frequencies of the low sub and then sidechaining the sub to the low kick
Then take a copy of the kick track highpass between 300-1000 and this will give you the beater noise to make the kick cut through I then sidechain this to the more middly basses You can also send a small amount to a reverb bus which allows you to avoid mud on the lower frequencies whilst still giving you the space
Doing it this way seems to make sense to me cause the sidechains work on the corresponding kicks in the same frequency range so it doesnt cause loads of unnecessary compression where you dont need it
Page 25
boh wroteAlways make sure your kicks are in tune with the rest of the track ull hear it pitching up and down and make sure if ur layering that the transients dont conflict(good monitors make this easy) It all comes down to kick selection Whats the point in cutting a kick at 80hz with a fundemental freq of say 60hz Sure you get whats happening before it but u wont get the nice thump of the fundemental freq Choose other kicks that hit the freq u want (80hz say) instead of cutting them when theres no need to Unless you really really know what your doing getting technical like this complicates the situation Esp for people with little experience
sullyharmitage wrote50 hz hi pass seems a bit high to me maybe gd for kicky techno or house but for subby stuff it seems a bit muchdefo roll off past 30-35 (most well engineered systems will do this anyways so any content below this is definately getting wasted)if yr gonna go higher make sure its a soft curvei find levelling subs is the hardest part of a mix - cos more always sounds better i remember reading breakage saying yr subs shouldnt add more than 3db to yr mix thats seems like a good guide
btw sub in kick an bassline simultaeously is gonna cause clashes (n maybe disortion) id either decrease the attack on the bass or cut the sub from the kick
unklefesta wroteI rolloff EVERYTHING at 40hz except my bass
standard
wang wroteAlways do it
Dont forget youre ROLLING off the frequencies not cutting them off all together Just a couple of dB of bass down there is enough to get some girth without removing all your headroom
Also analyse and cut off the lows on everything even if it doesnt appear to have messy lows -Youd be surprised how much bass there is in some high hats
Jtransition wroteAll of your tracks are going to be different so dont restrict yourself to a certain techniquetry different things and listen to the results
Shonky wrotewang wroteAlso analyse and cut off the lows on everything even if it doesnt appear to have messy lows -Youd be surprised how much bass there is in some high hats
Yep this is very true also worth filtering out the inaudible highs on low sounds as well found some of my subs which Id low passed still showed frequency activity much higher than expected
Jtransition wroteStick a high pass filter on everything apart form the kick drum and bass line70 hertz is a good starting point move up or down to tasteAnd remember try to mix at low levels(Walls not vibrating)
Deadly Habit wroteRendr wroteBasslines in my experience should be mono due to the fact that humans cannot easily decoded the stereo positioning of low frequencys so panning basslines (excluding bass sounds with high pitch sounds at around 500Hz+) is not recommended not only are the low frequencys hard to position with the human ear the low frequency sound waves are absorbed by the human head at a much higher ratio than high pitch sounds which tend to be reflected Another thing to note is that club systems are
mono Basslines that pan only belong in Psytrance
sub range should be mono especially if going to be cut to vinylmidrange bass on the other hand you can pan and add stereo fx to your hearts content
Page 26
32 Re-sampling
SafeAfter a few months of experimenting with resampling not really getting anywhere in terms of sound quality i came up with a pretty simple way of getting on the right track Ive got so much help since getting on this forum in terms of production i thought id share this for those who like myself are looking into the elusive yet highly rewarding technique of resamplingAll the vsts i use on this (save for the synth itself) are freenative plugs im using FL but itll transfer onto every DAW pretty much the same Ill explain it for a bassline but it can be applied to any sound
Step 1Make yourself a nice bassline get it sounding dirty with whatever you can within the synth Im using Albino so i tend to play about with the saturation modesFXs until its sounding pretty good
Step 2Hook up to a mixer channel then send this channel to a second mixer channel (FL users just click on another channel towards the bottom of the strip) On the second channel that the synth is hooked to from the first add CMt bitcrusher and downsample 3-16x (thanks to all the production forum users who pointed this out to me when i posted a few months ago on dirtying up basslines) Then add a chorus Turn the LFOs off and set the depthdelayetc to whatever sounds best Also set the crossover pretty high so only the treblehigh mids are being affected Then add Camel Audio Camel Crusher Turn the compressor off and set the tubemech to taste Add a parametric EQ if needs be to boost the high freqs Experiment with the chain of these effects swapping them according to the sound The choruscameleq in different orders should alter the sound quite alot depending on where their placed
Step 3 Set the level of the second affected channel with the original depending on whatever suits Play about with adding extra effects to both channels The way the second channel behaves once an effect is added to the first is quite extreme in even light application of effects So its possible to create a whole array of different sounds just from say adding a flangerchorusetc to the first channel then listening to how much it affects the sound as a whole as it goes through both channels By now it should be sounding pretty girthy
Step 4Export the riffsample (i use edison on the master channel in FL but whatever method will do) Reload and place into a mixer channel Add another Camel Crusher for abit more grit EQ and compress Set up a reverbdelay send and resample again for extra depth
Obviously this technique can be applied a 2nd3rd4th time to fuck the sound up even more so Which is what ive moved onto doing now into the territory of splitting the sound into basslow midhigh midtreble sections for ultimate control over each part Something which i was attempting to do before coming up with the above method but being left with a pile of unlistenable mushy shite
Hope this is a help to some peeps I know theres no secret technique to resamping only a whole load of practice and using your ears but this method got me on the right track in terms of hearing the benefits of it and encouraging me to experiment more in depth and realise that the possiblities are endless Im hooked now i resample pretty much every sound in one way or another Kick and snares benefit hugley from it for mega face melting wide drum sounds aswell so its worth trying it on some nice drum hits
Keep up the good work folksPeaceDC_WT
33 Drums
Read before reading on I am in no way entitled to any of those opinions It is up to you to decide whether you would like to incorporate them in your workflow I have just collected them from all the threads in this forum and will try to keep everything updated
I will update as regularly as I find updates
Page 27
Misc tips and tricks bull Good drums are usually layered - example 3 snares sounding as onebull The hats are often panned or widenedbull Pick great sounding samples different ones for different parts of the sounds you want 1
for snap and bite 1 for body 1 for thump distort and MAYBE EQ each to make them sound the best that they can separately combine in a bus MAYBE compress them together maybe accent the front and shorten the sound with a transient modifier 10 minutes tops
bull Do as little as possible with great-sounding bits and your basic sounds will be slamming leaves you time to focus on the arrangement people dont go around thinking wow that tune has an amazing snare as long as its thumping and not masked by a bunch of other stuff itll keep the dance moving
bull Listen to other producers work As its playing imagine the 1 2 3 4 on the step sequencer running in time to what youre listening to Try to visualize where the producer put their hits Not to say you should copy peoples drum patterns but learn from them
bull Ive noticed a lot of tunes (more minimal stuff where you can distinctly hear whats seperately going on) seem to use two differently pitched hi-hats that alternate to sound shuffley if you know what I mean and a less dramatic snare used sparsely in between the main lazy kick and snare An easy trick if you havent worked it out (which to be honest you should have if youre at all serious about producing dubstep) is to stick a smaller snare or hat the 116th before the kick or snare so it steps if you get me For example Bengas Night does this for all four beats in the bar which is part of what makes it so danceable But dont get stuck in always having kick on 1 and snare on 3 some tracks work with a kick on every beat others with a couple big snares etc The trick (unless you want proper lazy spaced out tunes) is to make sure youre nodding your head on all four beats of the bar Play around with a hat on every quaver (ie 8 per bar on the beat) compared to just four but on the off beat as well as adding in the steppy ones every now and then Theres often no need to over-complicate things though one of the my favourite drum tracks is the incredibly simplistic V by Distance Its a rhythm that could easilly be played by one guy on a real kit yet its so banging - check the use of hats and lower velocity kicks in this to make it nice and bouncy Also I once had a four bar drum loop and accidentally moved the sequence one bar to the right for one section and it ended up nicely varying the drums in a way you wouldnt expect
bull Really tight delays can help claps and snaps sound natural 5-20ms etcbull Recycle or phatmatik is your break-chopping friendbull Basically Hatrixxs method involved chopping everything from the main hits into a sample
Say you had a 2-step funk beat like the Amen Youd start your selection from the start of the first kick and select everything up to the start of the first snare Cut paste theres your first slice Then take everything from the start of the first snare up to the start of the second kick - including all the little hats and ghost hits - cut paste second sample and so on Then just map the samples onto some keys and bash away Both of them are quick compared to chopping Recycled slices where you have to copy and drag loads of little notes (one every little fucking tiny hit in the break arranged chromatically up the keyboard) around the piano roll These methods let you just concentrate on the main hits which can be both good or bad You can get a solid beat down with just a handful of hits but youre limited to the patterns already in the original break For a beginner to breakbeat science like yourself Id say try these methods first but dont rule out the really anal methods like RecyclePhatmatikFruity Slicer Sometimes they are a necessary evil Of course some of the drumfunk guys especially those who post on Subvert Central swear by these methods or the next one There are those who prefer to chop up the raw audio rather than bothering with MIDI and samplers They literally just drop the break file into Cubase or Logic and start chopping with the scissors tool and copying and pasting I can see the benefits of this You can see the waveform as youre chopping and youre not as restriced to the quantize grid as you are with MIDI But it takes aaaaages to build a drum track this way and theres the risk of RSI from all that Ctrl+C Ctrl+V youll be doing Then of course theres trackers They really are tailor-made for chopping up loops amongst other things They give you Sample Offset meaning that when you trigger a sample you can set it to start from 256 evenly spaced points throughout the sample So by starting a sample a quarter of the way through youre triggering the first snare (obviously you can fine-tune it when the snare isnt perfectly on the beat) You can edit breaks in a tracker without ever having to cut up a waveform and you can do all sorts of other nifty things like reverse the sample retrigger it to make drum rolls and so on
If recycles having trouble switch the break to mono in your sample editor and then apply tiny fades between the drum hits (especially useful if there are lots of rides that play over the other hits to keep things separate) This should help recycle pick up the start points and with any luck should leave you with a cleaner break
Page 28
Snaresbull Tune the snares so they all hit around the same pitch bull Change the Amp Envelopes of each to bring the strongest parts from each separate sample
and build up your sound like that bull Compressing all together is a good idea but dont over do it bull EQ the master out for the snare as well so you wont have to fuck about when you use the
sample in the future bull Donrsquot just use snares fling some random sound effects in there Claps and rim shots also
work well when layered bull Make subtle changes to them and export a few snares from the same setup this helps
when you need a ghost hit or a reverse that sounds similar but not identicalbull Watch that frequencies dont build up and make the layered bit sound overly whatever
is building up Really easy to get too much 200hz or 500hz or even 12k if youve got samples that are all beefythicksmack-y
bull If its peaking run it through a Spectrum Analyzer and see where its peaking I guess its peaking in the tune rather than just the snare sample playing on its own
bull Sometimes snare samples have a very short peak that doesnt seem to make them sound any better and keeps you from getting them louder without cliping Reduce that part by a few dBs and youre sorted
bull Make sure you are using subtractive eq to pull out the frequencies that could be clashing with other sounds If your frequencies are clashing that can hide the snare and then you end up turning it up to compensate and there you are with your snare peakingThe key is making the frequencies sit right in the mix so that they dont clash and you can set them right and not have to turn them up
bull You could always try clipping the snare normalise it in a wave editor amplify it as much as you can before it sounds distorted then sample it out Then replace the snare with the clipped version it will almost always sound louder with more body at a lower volume I would still point out that although this can be used as a replacement to compression compression is a vital tool to learn how to use Also a lot of peeps will say this does bad things to the waveform and it does but unless you intend to listen to your tune to be heard at home on an amazing hifi then it doesnt really matter that much IMO
bull Hi-pass overdrive limit and cut away space from other sounds for itbull Layer with its self or a different snare Layer with sub add effect to one layer add effect
to both layers layer zoom right in drag one wave form back or forth very slightly to create new snare sound Pitch updown EQ Filter distort reverb delay reverse
bull Record yourself beat boxing your best snare sounds then layer with snare samplesbull A good handclap never goes a miss or use a nice drum synth to get a very differentdigital
soundbull Try reversing the snare sample then changing the envelope settings so it only hits on the
beat Layer that with the same sample this time not reversed Add a little delay to the the reversed snare Change the settings til it sounds how you like
bull Particularly snares I layer up a lot I look for one that has the qualities that I want when run through verb and then I look for something shorter with more mid punch to keep things physical After someone notied snares were weak in a tune Ive really made a point of ensuring that when the snares hit its physical as well as textural You need to feel them a bit - so I look for some snares that have that real punch when layering but usually keep the more textural snappy one as the focus last couple tunes I did the standard kick snare hats w odd percussion and then I took an amen chopped it processed it and layered it overtop for more aggression and step (goddess being a perfect example) By removing a layer and adding it you can create a sense of progression through the tune Make sure the bottom layer is sounding really good and then add the top so that youre not mixing them to be reliant on one another - instead you want synergy Make sure the EQ on the top and bottom make sense with each other
Kicksbull Building a kick in Ableton Lives Impulse machine Provides some essential information
about layering that can be used with any DAWbull Making fat kicks
remixmag wroteWhether creating Miami Bass music is your lifes fantasy or your greatest fear you probably crave the know-how to manifest those car-rattling trunk-full-of-funk kick drums In the arenas of hip-hop house techno downtempo and almost any other electronic genre molding fat kick drums is absolutely essential Like grandmas homemade apple pie the recipe for kick drums is partially a matter of taste However theres no substitute for quality ingredients And just like every pie has its staple ingredients every slamming kick drum requires some common elements Lets take a look at the
Page 29
shopping list for killer kick drumsTHE CRUST
Youll need a basic shell to begin creating a thick strong kick The classics always work if youre fortunate enough to own a real Roland TR-808 909 or other famous drum machine with a killer kick use it copiously If youre not one of those chosen few pay close attention to your original source For example if you use a sampler understand that not all ldquo808 Kickrdquo samples are the same some sound great and some just plain suck There are a lot of reasons for that including how many generations from the original the sample is the sampling rate and bit depth of the sampler how the kick was first sampled and so on Be as choosy as possible with your individual samples mdash dont use a mediocre sample just because it has 808 in the name and therefore is ldquosupposedrdquo to sound fat Seek out a better 808 sample or use something else that is simply bigger sounding Remember the time you spend finding sweet original sources wont be in vain especially if you reuse the resulting samples for multiple songsBORROW SOME SUGAR
An old saying goes ldquoGood art borrows great art stealsrdquo A nice way to start out with great raw kick material is to sample directly from the source If you dont own but have access to a 909 then sample it directly Or take one of your favorite producers tracks on vinyl or CD find a naked kick drum in there and sample it Be cautious with that approach for a couple of reasons Copyright issues around sampling even small bits have become a dangerously gray area and I would never personally advise using any source straight out of the can even from a royalty-free sample library While it may be an excellent start its unoriginal Customize whatever you bite Treat your samples as a sculptor would treat clay mold each one to create a trademark sound for yourself One effective way to customize a fat kick is to take a tip from the synth manufacturers If a sound is thin pile another (or a few more) on top When doing so its important to use different sounds layering two identical kicks will result in a louder kick but it wont change the basic tone Remember the sculptor approach here Even if you are using two good-sounding individual samples they may not instantly sound great together For example I find that when layering kicks while the thickness may be good sustain is often overkill The final result often benefits from a little doctoring on the tail of one (or both) of the samples and other hands-on sonic surgeryADD THE FILLING
Once a nice basic kick is achieved treating it with two of the mastering engineers favorite tools is often the next step Artfully applying a compressor (to just the kick) can go a long way toward creating a signature sound and a huge kick Compression is one of those ldquosecret spicesrdquo and how to apply it is a whole topic in itself One recommendation I will make however is to use a multiband compressor With one of those you can isolate compression on certain frequency ranges That is perfect if for example you want to push the sub of your kick without emphasizing the higher frequencies (which often affect the tone of the attack) or vice-versa EQ comes after compression in my signal chain By now the kick should already sound pretty fat I aim to shave unnecessary frequencies here rather than artificially boosting too much This is also where you can actualize trademark sounds while also fine-tuning them to work alongside other elements in specific tracks I often scoop out mids and highs especially frequencies above about 500 Hz Even though I like thick deep kicks unless Im going for a really dublike sound I often truncate the lowest frequencies (usually the sub-50 Hz frequencies) Even when you cant hear the difference when trimming frequencies doing so can really tighten up your kicksEVEN IT OUT
You may ask why when youre trying to fatten up a kick would you want to trim frequencies That is one of the keys to achieving great mixes both in the case of kick drums and in general You want to avoid too many overlapping frequencies The more sonic separation you have between elements the more focused the entire mix will sound That can be especially important for club music which often gets played on huge not necessarily audiophile-quality sound systems If you havent run into the following scenario already I assure you at some point you will Your bass line and kick drum are competing and it sounds like you have a weak kick You boost the kick but it still sounds muddy Take the bass out and suddenly the kick doesnt sound so bad In a scenario like that solo the two sounds listen carefully for where frequencies are overlapping and then try subtractive EQ on one element then the other and sometimes a bit on both By scooping out overlapping frequencies you will often find that both elements seem to magically come forward in the mix before even touching their respective volume levels
Hi hatsbull Realism
Ive been a professional touring and recording drummer for 25 years and just thought I might share a couple of really simple ways to use fruity loops or fruity studio to create more realistic drum patterns
For what its worth try this out with Fruity Loops
Page 30
Take your hi hat tracks (are any tracks for that matter including melodic synth bubbles)
Drop down the bar graph box that allows you to scroll between velocity (volume) pitch panning cutoff resonance and a thing called shift which allows you to use each of these categories to effect each individual note that youve programmed (note this can be accomplished in other ways in most of the good midi sequencing apps or softwarehardware drum machines)
Drummers no matter how good they are just arent perfect and we can use the fact that each of these drop down bar graphs can make veryvery small changes in a sound to do some subtle things to a rolling drum groove like 16th notes on a hi hat
Not all drummers but many tend to favor their strong hand in a single stroke (hand over hand) drum roll Consequently if you make all odd numbered hi hats be slightly louder than their even numbered hits it will sound more realistic Start by making velocity differences that are really clearly audible Then lower the velocity until you can barely feel the difference We are going to make very subtle changes like this on each of the parameters of velocity pitch cutoff resonance and importantly shift
I cant stress enough that you should make these changes be so subtle that you can hardly notice them
Just going on the fact that the right handed players start their rolls with the right hand and favor it ever so slightly (or grossly for effect as well) means that the stroke will be harder with the right hand than the left hand
When a percussion instrument is hit harder the difference between the transient (or hi pitched attack) of the sound and the body of the instrument (or the sound that comes after the attack) becomes greater In general on drums that means that a harder attack tensions the drum very imperceptably (sp) and it also means that there will be more treble in the sound Consequently the pitch goes up a little teensy bit and their is more attack to the sound (increased resonance and slightly higher cutoff frequency)
Consequently you can make the pitch of each right hand be just barely noticeably higher the resonance should be just one or two of those little teeny bars higher The cutoff should be just a few bars lower (allowing less high frequencies through) on the left handed or even numbered strokes
Typically if drums have time inaccuracies they tend to drag the left hand a litte bit I have to keep stressing that if you can hear the changes you make you arent being realistic You need to make the changes subtle enough that you just barely feel that they arent perfect You can consequently make each left hand note shifted one or two bars late
Tigure out how much you can tweak each parameter before it becomes obvious and then you can just randomly tweak each one up to that limit With a little bit of variance in each stroke from parameter to parameter you will create more of a percolating texture in your programming - this is a great technique to make synth bubbles (the kind used in techno and house) more interesting and less mechanical feeling
Now you can avoid the biggest mistake that non-drummers do when trying to write realistic programs turn the overall volume of the hihats until you CANT hear them and then slowly bring up the volume until you just begin to hear them
Professional producers have spent countless hours trying to figure out how to gate and mix hihats OUT of tracks The reason is two fold1) Human beings have such a radical peak in their hearing around the 1-2khz range (or the intelligibility range of human speech) that we can play the hihats at incredible low volumes and they are still audible You cant do that with a bass drumI tell my drum students that you cannot play a hi hat or a snare drum so quietly that a person sitting in a room with you cant hear it2) Hi Hats the snare of snare drums and cymbals all seriously MASK human vocal intellibility How many people have gone to see live shows where they can hear the singer is singing but cant for the life of them figure out what they are actually singing That is ususally because drummers (or mixers which is frequently the case) are not hip to thisimportant fact
So turn down your hi hat tracks (or any track with a strong mid rangeshort envelope attack) and you have much more room for other musical goodies in your mix When in doubt make your hi hats quieter than you think they should be Trust me theyll come through the mix even at a quiet volume
Swingbull Dont know if you can do this in your sequencer but in Logic you can create a groove
template from your drums and then apply that to your other instruments If youre using separate midi channels for snares kicks and hats take the 8 bar loop youre using glue it together and then take the groove from that and then mute that track When you click down the quantize list youll see the template there and you can apply it to your other tracks Also if you do want to change the groove you can just change the hits in the muted template and itll automatically change all other hits to the new changes
bull Think if youre clever and organized you can basically cut breaks up in recycle load them into the exs24 (extract sequence) and then do the same with them That way if there are breaks you like the feel of you can just apply that swing to anything If you make a folder called grooves in your logic folder they should load up each time so that youll have loads to choose from Havent done this myself yet but always helpful to have a choice of feels available
bull Some things sound better rigid and robotic with equal velocities Some things sound better rigid and robotic with differing velocities Some things sound better with swing Some things sound better with everything ever-so-slightly off Its down to what the track needs
bull Drum Break Swing ProgrammingNicolas Hall wwwbreakbeat-cafenet wroteI think most people who make anything funk breakbeat drum amp bass or hip-hop would agree that Swing is crucial to the effectiveness of a beat The other key factors in a programming sense are dynamic and accent So many people get wound up when their beats sound sterile or mechanical this is due to the fact that computers and sequencers lock to perfect BPM A computer on its own does not interpret rhythm the way a good drummer does There are however certain machines that have their own swing parameters like the Akai MPC range of sampling drum machines which are used extensively by hip hop producers
Swing is not the easiest thing in the world to analyze but as a general rule good drummers will play slightly late and thats why in all funky records you get that slight dip at the start of the bar take Superstition by Stevie Wonder or Billie Jean by Michael Jackson these are both very simple beats Superstition is of course live drums whilst Billie Jean was programmed but no less funky than Superstition I emphasize this point to demonstrate that a programmed beat can be every bit at groovy as a beat played on a drum kit
Expanding on the Billie Jean point Hip Hop beats are really very simple If you listen to the Neptunes they tend to create the swing in their beats by quantizing the kicks and snares and playing the hi hats in by hand this creates a very tight beat which is off set by a loose hi hat try it works but dont forget your accents - As a starting point just take the first snare of your beat and turn the velocity down then notice how your head starts nodding and your foot starts tapping a little more you are giving the beat feel Also remember that if you are using reverb the louder snare will push the reverb harder than the soft snare so your creating more ambience that way Then try your kick drums if your not sure which hits to adjust just pick apart a beat your feeling I remember me and friend picking apart a Gangstarr beat and were able to almost replicate it by adjusting the velocities of each hit (admittedly it took a while to get it right)
If youre a newbie then a common trick when learning to make good grooves is to create a template with an existing loop The idea is take a loop you like thats got a good feel to it and then place your own hits over the break then take the break out and see if your hits are sounding funky This can take a while and its crucial to think about the strength of each hit or the dynamic Each kick will not be the same strength nor will the snares or the hats pick the loop apart dissect it and youll soon see that there are certain consistencies in all good beats
If youre using live loops and like to layer them with drum sequences you should be thinking about time space and frequencies So if you have a fairly heavy loop then layering it with heavy kick drums is probably not gonna sound good Think about filling holes are their any frequencies that could be filled up Or is there space in the loop for extra hits Try working in layers just adding one hit at a time also filtering works well you could take some of the frequencies out of your loop as you drop your drum sequences in to make room for them I think one the masters of this technique is Liam Howlett of the Prodigy He runs breakbeats and gives them extra balls by laying a kick drum underneath to add extra intensity to certain passages in his set but hes careful not to overlap frequencies to much A good place to start if you using breakbeats is the Roland Tr-808 kick drum which is around the 50hz mark which is sub bass territory so it will sit underneath most breaks very well
If your hell bent on making killer beats and loops then perseverance is crucial keep at it it will come together listen to beats you like and pick them apart identify the subtleties that make it happen I know some producers get fed up when their beats sound to clean or they are trying to create a new breakbeat and then compare it to sample they took from vinyl and get down on there own beat Think about what a breakbeat really is think about its history what has happened to it to make it sound the way it does Im
Page 32
sure youve noticed how some breaks have a certain something like a magic dust you cant put your finger on Let me share what I know with you about that
Most breaks though not all are taken from recordings of live drums some of them are pretty old so you have the ambience of live drums and the room they were recorded in you have the fact that natural decay and reverb of each drum is likely to have bled into the other mics on the kit and that most engineers used overhead mics which pick up the whole kit with two mics Then consider that many of these breaks will have been recorded to analogue tape with saturation which will create extra warmth and harmonics The next step comes from old sampling technology like the SP-1200 and the Akai s-950 mpc -60 these samplers sampled at 12- bit (bear in mind that most computers now are at least 24-bit if not more) and that the samples themselves where taken from vinyl and on and on the process goes with each new reverb and eq adding more and more to the break In terms of giving your breaks that character there are a number of things you can try for example buying an old four track cassette machine to dump your beats onto then re-sample it if your using a sampler like the s-950 then try pushing the input meters a little harder than usual add reverbs and resample it each time you put your loop through a new channel you will be adding something to it Also distortion is fantastic for breaks if you have any amp plug ins then try them the Amplitude one is particularly good you dont need to go mad with it just used subtly it works great
To finish I would just like to say again stick with it keep trying keep listening to records if you like to read about technique then do so you can learn so much from other producers Remember the strength of your hits is important as is the way it swings good luck
UPDATE 08092008
ENHANCE SYNTHESIZED DRUM PARTS WITH FOUND SOUNDS
emusiciancom wroteLayering real-world sounds with synthesized drum parts puts a new spin on your drum tracks You probably already have usable sound effects on your hard drive because most commercial samplers have at least a modest collection in their factory library Beyond that youll find thousands of royalty-free sound effects online Soundsnapcom is one of my favorite sources and its free The recordings dont need to be pristine for layering over drums so dont overlook cheap sampling CDs and consider grabbing your own sounds with a portable recorderCollect and Save
Start by assembling a small Foley library of short percussive sounds divided into typical drum-sound categories kicks snares toms cymbals percussion and so on Youll generally want to layer drum sounds with Foley sounds that have a similar volume contour and frequency range If you layer a Foley sound that resembles a kick drum with the sound of your hi-hat for example youll quickly fill up all the space in your drum track
Industrial household military transportation and vocal sounds make excellent fodder but you will often want to extract a small slice such as the last shot in a volley of machine-gun fire (snare) or the first bounce of a plastic bottle on concrete (tom) A browsing tool like Audio Finder (icedaudiocom) is invaluable if you have a large sample library That lets you quickly audition clips make basic edits and drag-and-drop slices to your library
Sticks UpIf your synthesized drum part is step sequenced youll need to export its step sequences as MIDI files Many drum synths do that including Sonic Charge Tonic (sonicchargecom) Apple Logic UltraBeat (applecom) and Submersible DrumCore (submersiblemusiccom) All of those come with a large collection of patterns exportable as MIDI sequences Youll also need a sampler to play the Foley sounds drum-oriented samplers are handier for that but are by no means necessary
Start by loading a kit in the drum synth Export one of its sequenced patterns or create your own and place it on the sampler track For some of the drum synth sounds select compatible Foley sounds and map them to the same notes in the sampler that theyre mapped to in the drum synth Next solo the doubled voices one by one in both the drum synth and the sampler start the sequence playing and tweak the samplers voice parameters (filter level pan envelope and so on) to make the sounds work together (see Fig 1 and Web Clip 1) Dont tweak global parameters such as effects because that will affect all sounds played by the sampler
High HoopsOnce youve configured your Foley track you can do several things to add interest I frequently use a
Page 33
second sampler for short vocal sounds Ill have some notes trigger sounds in both samplers and others in only one Many samplers let you group sounds and assign notes and controllers to choose among them You can then sequence these notes and controllers or you can play them live to alter your Foley tracks
Try applying DSP effects to individual Foley sounds Multitap delays distortion phasing and granular effects all work well when used sparingly (see Web Clip 2) You can apply DSP effects inside your sampler or route the voices to a separate output for DSP processing in your DAW If your sampler doesnt offer either possibility spread the Foley parts over several sampler instances on different tracks
Sidechain compression or gating of the drum track with one or more of the Foley parts will highlight the Foley part as well as add variety to the drums With compression peaks in the sidechain signal will reduce the level of the drum track Use a high compression level say 201 and balance the sidechain-gain and the compression-threshold -attack and -release controls to get the ducking contour you want (see Web Clip 3) Gating has the opposite effect the drum track will be heard during peaks in the sidechain signal (see Web Clip 4) Here too the sidechain-gain and gate-threshold controls work in tandem to determine when the gate is opened Use envelope parameters (attack release and hold) to shape the gates contour
Keep in mind that once youve created a sampler instrument to complement your drum kit you can reuse it with other sequences You can also change one or more sounds in the sampler instrument without repeating the whole process
34 Sidechain Compression (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
4 Theory41 ndash Song Structure42 ndash Mixdown (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)43 ndash Mastering (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
44 Music Theory
The first thing to remember about music theory is that generally if it sounds right it probably is There are no rules in music and Music Theory is not about telling you how to write music Its about understanding the music
Broadly speaking it is fair to say that most music is essentially based upon two crucial factors scales and rhythm Scales make up melodies chords harmonies and basslines to name but a few whereas rhythm makes up the beat of the song In this part of the Production Bible you will learn the basics of Music Theory that will serve you not only in the production of Dubstep but for any of your future musical pursuits This information is intended to be easy to read and understand so I wonrsquot be mincing sentences But firstly please make sure you learn every single note on the keyboard by studying the image below Otherwise yoursquoll be completely lost here
Page 34
Scales Wersquoll begin with scales As I mentioned before scales are the building blocks of your song and without them your track will be atonal and completely unlistenable (probably not the effect yoursquore going for)
There are two main scales that you should learn inside out ndash the major scale and the minor scale A generalisation yoursquore bound to have heard before is that the major scale sounds ldquohappyrdquo and the minor scale sounds ldquodarkrdquo Although this is not always the case it is mostly true ndash and therefore yoursquoll usually be focussing on the minor scale when producing Dubstep However just in case yoursquore writing happy-dubstep (if that exists) here is a quick overview of both scales and how they are made up
Major Scale
The major scale is really easy to create It is made by a single rule that is simple to put in to place
ldquoTone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
In case you donrsquot know what a Tone or Semi-Tone is here is a quick explanation
Picture a keyboard (or if you canrsquot see the image above) Say you go from C to C that would be a semi-tone The same thing goes for if you go from an E to an F ndash it is still a semi-tone because you
Page 35
have gone up one key
A tone is two semi-tones ndash for example from C to D is a tone and the same goes for from G to A
The scalersquos name is taken from the note that it starts on For example C major will start on the note of C Similarly A major will start on the note of A and this is the case with every single scale
Here is a quick list of a few major scales After having seen a few try working the rest out for yourself in order to understand how the major scale is formulated Ideally you should practice your scales on a piano or keyboard so that you can physically see how to make the scale It might sound boring but itrsquos a small price to pay for a much deeper understanding of your music
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Major C D E F G A B C
C Major C D E F G A B C
D Major D E F G A B C D
D Major D E F G A B C D
E Major E F G A B C D E
F Major F G A Bb C D E F
F Major F G A B C D E F
G Major G A B C D E F G
G Major G A B C D E F G
A Major A B C D E F G A
A Major A B C D E F G A
B major B C D E F G A B
Now by arranging the different notes of each of these scales in any order you please you can create a melody bassline or harmony with extreme ease Rearranging the notes in the scale will give you a flawlessly in-key result and it is then up to you to use the notes in the scale as you see fit for your tune
Minor Scale
As was the case with the Major Scale the Minor is made up from a set rule or formula By knowing this formula you can understand how the Minor is made and how to use it to itrsquos maximum effect
ldquoTone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
As is the case with the major scales you should practice your scales as much as possible to make sure that you know them all like the back of your hand Here are a few Minor Scales see if you can
Page 36
work out the rest
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Minor C D Eb F G Ab B C
D Minor D E F G A Bb C D
F Minor F G A B C D E F
G Minor G A Bb C D Eb F G
Similarly to the Major now that you know your Minor Scales you can quickly just take any note from the scale rearrange it with another few notes in the scale and there you have a fat melody or bassline ready to be played at maximum volume
Diminished Chords
Diminished Chords are really quite spooky and dark chords that are made up of four different notes all a minor third apart from each other That means that for example the Diminished Chord starting on C would be C Eb F A because to get from one note to the next you have to use ldquoTone Semi-Tonerdquo (known as a minor third)
Because of the mathematical nature of the Diminished chord there are only three ldquoclustersrdquo of notes which can then be rearranged like the Major and Minor Scales
Cluster 1 C Eb F A
Cluster 2 C E G Bb
Cluster 3 D F Ab B
Use these clusters and rearrange them as you please For example you could rearrange cluster 1 as Eb F A C etc
Generally speaking you canrsquot make a song based entirely on Diminished Chords due to the fact that each cluster only has 4 notes However a Diminished Chord is perfect for adding a hint of darkness to your tune and is brilliant when mixed with some Minor Scales
Chords
Chords are basically two or more notes played together They are made up from a specific scale ndash for example the C major chord is made up of notes in the C major scale
Usually chords will include the first third and fifth note of the scale as well as possibly using other notes to give them colour For example the basic chord of C major would be C E G Then you could add the seventh note to it (in this case it is B) Really it is up to the producerrsquos discretion how heshe goes about making a chord ndash just remember to stick to the scale you are using
Chords will more than likely sound like shit if you play them on a complicated or layered synth patch You want to be playing chords on sustained sounds such as strings or pads Chords will really fill out your sound if used properly You want your chords to be supporting the melody or bassline and more than likely want to add some reverb so that it doesnrsquot sound too sharp Make
Page 37
your chords blend in with the music and yoursquoll have mastered them
Chord Inversions
Quite simply chord inversions are when you rearrange the notes in a chord so that it sounds a bit different and suits your arrangement better
For example if you were in the key of C major you could have a drone of E playing underneath some strings playing the notes E G C E
Due to the fact that the notes are the same and have only been inverted the chord will still be in key with the rest of the music This is a great way to add a touch of variation to your music instead of using the same chord structure all the time
Arpeggios
Arpeggios are much easier to understand than they sound They are quite simply the first third and fifth note of the scale played as individual notes For example the arpeggio of C minor would be C Eb G C etc
A great example of an arpeggio is the bassline in Bengarsquos ldquoCrunked Uprdquo He goes from playing the F minor arpeggio backwards to playing the F minor arpeggio backwards In other words he is playing
C A F and then C Ab F
Experiment with a few Minor Arpeggios and a couple of Diminished Arpeggios and you canrsquot go wrong in writing a huge bassline
Suggested Reading
List of All Scales With Finger Charts Included
Well thatrsquos it folks Thatrsquos basically all the music theory you need to know to start off with As you grow more used to the various scales yoursquoll notice that certain notes sound good with each other whilst others donrsquot Irsquom not here to tell you how to write music Irsquom here to teach you the language
of music Itrsquos up to you to write the poetry
copy Bruno Crosier (klimaxx) 2008
45 Random Tips
Random tips amp best piece of advice thread
5 Resources
Page 38
51 Books amp Magazines
Hello again people
Does anyone know of more music production books magazines or authors we can add to these lists
Thanks
------------------------------------------------
Music Production Magazines Computer Music - httpwwwcomputermusiccouk Music Tech Magazine - httpwwwmusictechmagcouk Future Music - httpwwwfuturemusiccouk Sound on Sound - httpwwwsoundonsoundcom Remix Magazine - httpremixmagcom Mix Magazine - httpmixonlinecom Electronic Musician - httpemusiciancom EQ Magazine - httpwwweqmagcom Audio Technology - wwwaudiotechnologycomau Tape Op - httpwwwtapeopcom
------------------------------------------------
Music Books
Authors Curtis Roads httpmitpressmiteducatalogauthor aspaid=93 - The Computer Music Tutorial (Really really really good book) Paul White - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea ul20White - Basic Series + more Rick Snowman - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea k20Snoman - The Dance Music Manual Tools Toys and Techniques Bobby Owsinski - httpbooksgooglecoukbooksas_auth=Bobby+Owsinski - The MixingRecording amp Mastering Engineers Handbooks Michael Paul Stavrou - httpwwwmixingwithyourmindcom
Publishers Thomson Course Technology - httpcoursecengagecom (Click on the Music Technology tab) - Series published include Power Overdrive Ignite and CSI Series + many more Backbeat Books - httpwwwbackbeatbookscom ndash Power Tools Series + many more Wiley Publishing - httpwwwdummiescom (Enter music in their search bar) - For Dummies Series Penguin Books - httpuspenguingroupcom (Enter music in their search bar) - The Complete Idiots Guide Series + many more MIT Press - httpmitpressmitedu - Many books on music theory Focal Press - httpwwwfocalpresscom - (Enter music in their search bar)
------------------------------------------------
Online Music Book Stores (We need more links here Do you know of any that we can add)
httpwwwmixbookscom ndash Excellent source that sells only books about music
Page 39
httpwwwamazoncom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
httpwwwbarnesandnoblecom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
------------------------------------------------
52 Wikipedia
A good music lexicon wiki Search for your term in the search bar ---gt httpenaudiolexicorgwikiMain_Page
0-9
14rdquo Jack - httpenwikipediaorgwikiJack_plug 3rd Bridge - httpenwikipediaorgwiki3rd_Bridge
Zero Crossing - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_crossing Zero Crossing Rate - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_Crossing_Rate
53 Other recommended production forums
for Logic users this is the shit httpwwwlogicprohelpcom
Ive found both these forums to be full of knowledgeable producers amp musicians
httpwwwkvraudiocomforum
httpacapellaharmony-centralcomforumsindexphp
httpwwwgearslutzcomboard
httpwwwsoundonsoundcomforum
httpwwwmusicradarcomforum
httpwwwidmforumscom
httpwwwdance-industriescomphpBB2 8cffbb3b02
httpwwwsubvertcentralcomforumindexphp
httpwwwbreakbeatcouk
httpwwwtweakheadzcom
httpwwwabletoncompagesforum
Explains lots about the music industry ---gt httpwwwbemusocom
Page 47
Ok so a massive thanks to all the contributors there are literally too many to mention But Thanks to Futures Untold Johnny Beat Klimaxx Deadly Habit amp JunglistRendr Daft Cunt in perticular
Thanks to all the artists producers and general music geeks making this early revision of the production bible an essential read
There are links missing and will be included in version 21(Please help with the unlinked chapters by going here - httpwwwdubstepforumcomthe-dubstep-production-bible-updated-2009-06-03-t14797html and updating missing info as needed)
Compiled by Daft Cunt and Futures Untold PDF Compiled by Depone
Page 7
NI Audio Kontrol 1 ~ euro300 NI Audio Kontrol 1 is well worth a look Rock solid done untold gigs with it built like a tank and sounds excellent Cirrus Logics 2nd best convertor chips in there well designed three big buttons a big knob and flashing lights Bosh
The Big Thread of Free VST Plugins-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Everyone likes free software
Below you will find a list of sites dedicated to providing free music software They are listed in order of useability and the amount of free plugins they list httpwwwgersiccomplugins truly excels in listing every new freeware plugin released
Some Other Good Sites to Browse Through (If you really need too)httpwwwhitsquadcomsmmfreewarehttpwwwdontcrackcomfreewarehttpwwwaudiomastermindcombrowse-free_vst_plugins-5886988-1htmlhttpwwwsadgladcomfreevstplugins6htmlhttpwwwapplecomdownloadsmacosxaudio (Mac only)
Some Alright Sites (These sites simply repeat the ones listed above yet are more difficult to navigate and feature fewer links)httpfreemusicsoftwareorghttpwwwvstplanetcomInstrumentsVST_Synthesizershtmhttpwwwfree-plugin-listcomhttpwwwsonicspotcomindexhtmlhttpwwwvstcentralcompluginsaspxhttpwwwaudioraclecomfreetrialsphp
Some Desperate Sites (Poorly laid out and pretty boring Only dig through these if youre a audioware junkie)httpenwikipediaorgwikiFree_audio_softwarehttpnoolmusiccomlinksshtml
Threads Concerning Free VSTs (Lists individual plugins and plenty of plugin developers Provides links to many of the plugins that can be found more easily above)httpwwwdubstepforumcomviewtopicphpt=24153amphighlight=httpwwwdubstepforumcomfree-vst-uberlist-t139352htmlhttpwwwkvraudiocomforumviewtopicphpt=9780
22 DAWS (Digital Audio Workstation)
DAW Question specific threads221 ndash Ableton Live222 ndash Cubase223 ndash FL Studio
23 Production effects explained-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Common Production Effects-------------------------------------------------------------------------Click on each link for more in-depth information about each effect
------ Filter Effects ------
EQ - (EQ types - Graphic EQ Parametric EQ Shelving EQ Linear Phase EQ)Filters - (Filter types - Low Pass filter High Pass filter Band Pass filter Band Reject filter Notch filter Comb filter All Pass filter State Variable filter Peaking filter Moog filter FormantVowel filter)Phase InverterVocodersHarmonic Exciters
------ Delay Effects ------
DelayEcho - (Delay types - Ping Pong delay Multi Tap delay Slapback delay Bucket delay Crossfeedback delay)Reverb - (Reverb types - Spring reverb Plate reverb Convolution reverb Impulse Response reverb)
------ Modulation Effects ------
ChorusFlangersPhasers
------ Dynamics Processing Tools ------
CompressorsLimiters (Brick Wall)Transient ShaperSignal ModellersGatesExpandersCompanders Noise reduction units
Here is a list of the most popular freeware analysers available
Voxengo SPAN
Bluecat Audio Freqanalyst
Roger Nichols Inspector
Page 20
For a long list of other free analysers visit httpwwwgersiccompluginsindexphpdaCat=2
3 Techniques
31 Bass311 Sub Bass
Sub-bass is a term used to describe audible sounds below 90Hz - sound in the range below this (under 16-17Hz) would be termed infrasound Sound systems often feature a subwoofer that is dedicated solely to amplifying sounds in the lower bass and sub-bass range Source Wikipedia
So the idea is to have the sub going up to ~90Hz The exact frequency it should be cut at depend on the kicks frequency Lets say you HP your kick at 100Hz then the sub should be LPed at 100Hz so they compliment each other without clashing
There are several ways of creating a sub here are the most common 1 - using a unique waveform (sine saw square or triangle) will give you a nice linear sub NB You dont need to filter out a sine wave as it doesnt have overtones 2 - using detuned waveforms take 2 identical waves (sine saw square or triangle) and detune them - lets say -25 +25 semitone This will produce a phase effect and give movement to your sub but itll also cause large volume amplitude and youll need to compress it after filtering Great Massive tutorial by Subfocus here 3 - using a 808 kick you dont have a TR-808 Grab that pack
jobbanaught wroteAn easy option to get a powerful subbass is to take a 808 kick sample put it in your favorite sampler and loop a single cycle of the waverform somewhere in the middle of the sample The 808 kick is made of a sine and some additional white noise The sine gives your sub that rattling low end pressure and the noise adds overtonesgrittiness = instant badass subbass
You can find more tips about mixing your kick n sub in the Random bass tips thread
312 lsquoWobblersquo
Page 21
Wobble GuideWobble Bass
Wobble Bass as it is known is simply a bassline that has an LFO assigned to a Low Pass Filter as an insert effect LFOstands for Low Frequency Oscillator and is used to change a sound by a defined speed (measured in either Hz or synced to the Tempo in relation to the barsnotes through quantization) The way the LFO changes the sound is up to you you can make the LFO adjust the Volume the amount of Saturation Filter Cutoff etc Basically any parameter you link it to Essentially you are just using the LFO to send a changing value to a parameter
--------------------
How to get a simple wobble bass
1) Choose a simple sound on your synth (Anything apart from a Sine wave )
2) Select your LFO and set it to the speed you want (18 would be a good starting point)
3) Now assign the LFO to the Filter Cutoff Which should for this example be a Low Pass Filter as the sound were going for is a deep bass
4) You now have a basic wobble bass from here the possibilities for tweaking this sound are endless
--------------------
A quick breakdown of whats actually going on Essentially you are taking a sound (that can be an audio files generated by a synth etc) and then passing it through a Low Pass Filter Now what exactly does a Low Pass Filter do you ask
A Low Pass Filter allows Low Frequency signals to pass through it but reduces the amplitude (volume) of all the Frequencies above the cutoff point In general most plug-ins have various Low Pass Filter settings where the more poles it has the more Dbs it will cut and will yield a harder knee to it Example 1 Pole Filter with a -6dBOct reduction Vs a 2 Pole Filter reducing -12DbOct However you dont necessarily need a LFO controlling your Low Pass Filter Cutoff frequency value you could just draw in the Automation yourself but a LFO will yield a loop of consistent values and prevents the possibility of human error All the LFO is doing is sending a value to your frequency cutoff to keep it consistently changing
--------------------
Tips amp Advice
1) Sub bass wobble would normally be a Sine wave at around the 40-50 Hz range which would repeat the same chords as the mid-range bass wobble The only difference being that with a sub bass wobble there is no point in assigning the LFO to a Low Pass Filter because the sound is too low for the low pass filter to have any effect so theLFO is assigned to the amplitude (volume) instead Another reason for not applying a Low Pass Filter to the Sub bass is because it would typically be a Sine wave which possesses no Harmonics to be adjusted by the Filter
2) The sound of an LFO can also be adjusted by the wave type you choose The default setting for an LFO generator is a Sine wave although on most synths you can chose from Triangle Sawtooth Square wave Random Noise To get a nice sounding bass it is a good idea to use as many oscillators as possible on different octaves
3) Try messing around with the attack and release of your sound as this can have an impact on the sound of the bass Long attacks tend to create a more ambient sound and is a technique traditionally used with ambient pads
Page 22
4) Something that I find useful is to bounce the bassline to a wav file so that it can be chopped up and put in-sync with other elements of the song because the majority of the time you will find the first wave of sound in the wobble bassline will will be half the length of the other waves due to attack rates So the best thing to do is to chop that freak sound off the beginning of the file in your DAW (Logic Pro Reason Cubase etc) and start off with the second wave which should be fully formed This way it will not be too early of late when keeping in sync with other elements such as a second bassline
5) Another method you can use is creating a clone layer of your original sound and setting up a new LFO setup for that to beat alternatively in the space left by the original LFO Or go that crazy Drum amp Bass Reese route and split the frequencies to Low Mid and High then set different LFO rates for each band then recombine into one sound
6) For more variation automate your LFO speed and intensity
7) Where you place insert effects in relation to the filter (pre or post) will yield different sounding results
8) Other methods to achieve a wobble like sound Tremolo (This effects volume rather than frequency) FM Synthesis Modulation of PWM Oscillator Pitch assigned (in a liberal amount) to LFO Filter Envelope assigned to LFO (using a re-triggered envelope) (submitted by Faun2500)
9) Assign a second LFO to modulate the speed of the first LFO
LFO Shapes
Sine wave The smooth value change possible
Triangle Similar to a Sine wave but slightly more ramped amp synthetic sounding
Random A mixed bag
Sawtooth Will have a very fast attack with a slower release which will sound very rugged
Square wave Will be a simple open close style Very harsh and will generally cause a very harsh sound (Often used in DJ Hazard style bass-lines) Detune two square waves for a nice dark sounding bass
Waveforms submitted by Skells wrotehttpi228photobucketcomalbumsee83 cleanjpgSimple Filter Sweep
httpi228photobucketcomalbumsee83 wobblejpgSine Wave LFO assigned to Filter Cutoff
LINKS etc
Fruity Loops Wobble Tutorial (Link submitted by Wub) Massive Wobble YouTube Tutorial (Video created by thesynthesist) Pause amp Play Wobble Tutorial (Link submitted by dubmo) Albino3 Wobble Guide (Guide created by axon)
By Rendr amp Deadly Habit and a little help from Macc
313 lsquoReecersquo
The Reese Bass
Page 23
History Lesson
The Reese bass was a form of huge sounding synth-bass first used by the Detroit Techno producer Kevin Saunderson aka Master Reese aka Reese Project aka on the track Just Want Another Chance and immortalised in the classic DnB track Terrorist by Renegade Since then it has been (over)used in many a DnB track and continues to evolve even nowadays through Dubstep and Jungle It is said to be as influential to DnB as the Amen break and probably as used and abused as the Amen
Capturing the Beast
1The Oscillator Stage
To nail the Reese you need a synth with at least 2 oscillators but for better-bigger results use as many oscillators as you can (not really but 4 oscillators give a nice deep rumble - ahhhhhh) All the oscillators are playing sawtooth waves and all except one are detuned by 25-50 cents so that all oscillators are out of phase with each other
2 The Filter Stage
The signal is then sent to a low-pass filter with the cutoff freq set around 150-200Hz (experiment with that you want the growl of the mid-frequencies but you also want it as deep as possible without sacrificing the midrange) The resonance of the filter should be cranked up almost all the way (but again tweak accordingly to your filtersynth)
3 Fuzz it Up
The second most important aspect of the Reese (after the detuned sawtooths) is distortion Tube distortion and tape saturation work extremely well but dont hesitate to use other more extreme distortion units (dont forget that the Reese has been done a million times you have to add something original to it) Again adjust to taste
4 Spices and Herbs
Now that is the main recipe for the sound but like all haute-cuisine there are more things you can do to spice up the Reese Namely effects Effects that have been associated with the Reese are
Phasers - to accentuate the phase-shifting effect of the detuned sawtooths Unison - a great way to make it even bigger Chorus - again a good way to phatten it up
5 And Some More Synth Magic
Another thing to do so you can bring out the old-school jungle character of the Reese is to use Legato and PortamentoGlide if your syth of choice has them available These are both great ways to move from one note to the next without listening to the transition To put it simply when legato is on and you play a sustained E followed by a sustained G the transition between the two notes gives the listener the impression that they heard a single note being sustained that has just changed its pitch from E to G without pausing at a certain point
Always remember though that if you use Legato you have to turn the polyphony of your synth down to 1 (something you should almost always do with basslines because two bass-notes playing together almost never sound good in electronic music bass chords are more the realm of prog-rock shit than dubstep)
For the more technical minded legato in synthesizers is a variation of monophonic operation In contrast to monophonic mode where every new note restarts the ADSR envelopes in legato mode they are not if the previous note remains depressed when the new note is played This causes the initial transient from the attack and decay phases to sound only once and the ADSRs to remain at sustain stage for the whole sequence of notes until the final note is released (Wikipedia)
EDIT I just found out that in one of the free vst links on the bible there is a thing called the Hotelsinus Reese Bassline Synth So I didnt miss the opportunity for a mini review The software itself is small (like most free vst-is) and quite easy to install (you just drop the dll in the vst folder) As for the sound weeeeeeell the sounds it produces are definitely Reese But weak somehow Its like listening to Terrorist from a battered cheap old cassette from 93 or something It has a tinny and tiny sound when compared to what you can achieve with powerhouses like Albino or
Page 24
Massive or (one of my personal favorites for Reese) Cakewalk Rupture You can try it if you want but i dont think it will impress steppers that much we are bass-headed folk
314 Random Bass Tips
Plz add yours or others youve spotted on the forum
miss_molinari wrotebasically i have been experimenting with cutting (not sidechaining) a notch (band reject) in the bass starting at 60hz and ending just before 70 this is only for those bass lines which only hit on the kick (quite specific) also the bass is then high passed at about 220hz to pretty much 0db which is where the kick starts (ending the kick with a non-too-aggressive-cut at about 2khz) this essentially means that the kick and the bass do not share any frequencies above abot 200hz but also between 60 and 70 and with them always hitting at the same time this gets around the fact that sidechaining this type of sequencing would leave you with no or little bass
this has worked well so far but is useful mainly for sub basses ending at around 250hz would not be as good for full spectrum wubsanyone else got any tech tips regarding the bass and kick
futures_untold wroteI simply cut everything under 90Hz on my kicks and roll off slightly at 1KHz
Sub I cut under 40Hz and roll off at 200Hz
I always compress both seperately and keep my levels low in the mix to create plenty of head room later whilst adding sounds with higher frequency content
Anything above 150Hz is what I consider midrange Anything above 150Hz can be heard on mobile phone speakers We all know that theyre designed to play heavy bass lol Wink
miss_molinari wroteDaft Cunt wroteTo me it feels like cutting the kick above 80 hz makes it sound weak I guess it depends on the style I rather cut below 60 to 80 depending on the tune
yeah its all about context in a dry minimal setting im of the opinion you can make a kick punch right up to about 180-200hz but yeah depends on when and on what kind of punch (im usually talking a bass hit at about 200hz coupled with a knock hit anywhere up to about 1200hz) i imagine you true dubsteppers prefer a denser thump from 60 through to about 300hz
Daft Cunt wroteI began recently the band-reject thing on the sub Little details that make big difference
And do you people cut the bass where the snare peaks
my basses arent usually middy enough to need that but yeah a slight sidechain on the main snare and say midbasspadwothavyer is nice especially if the limelight is stolen by a deeper sidechain on the kick and midbasspadwothavyer can create a nice flow (especially when used with long decay reveb linked to the midbasspadwothavyer so that it sounds louder and longer the higher the frequency played - might
have to post some piccies of that one )
Shonky wroteWhat Ive been doing lately is bouncing down the kick track lowpassing one somewhere between 100-140 depending on the highest frequencies of the low sub and then sidechaining the sub to the low kick
Then take a copy of the kick track highpass between 300-1000 and this will give you the beater noise to make the kick cut through I then sidechain this to the more middly basses You can also send a small amount to a reverb bus which allows you to avoid mud on the lower frequencies whilst still giving you the space
Doing it this way seems to make sense to me cause the sidechains work on the corresponding kicks in the same frequency range so it doesnt cause loads of unnecessary compression where you dont need it
Page 25
boh wroteAlways make sure your kicks are in tune with the rest of the track ull hear it pitching up and down and make sure if ur layering that the transients dont conflict(good monitors make this easy) It all comes down to kick selection Whats the point in cutting a kick at 80hz with a fundemental freq of say 60hz Sure you get whats happening before it but u wont get the nice thump of the fundemental freq Choose other kicks that hit the freq u want (80hz say) instead of cutting them when theres no need to Unless you really really know what your doing getting technical like this complicates the situation Esp for people with little experience
sullyharmitage wrote50 hz hi pass seems a bit high to me maybe gd for kicky techno or house but for subby stuff it seems a bit muchdefo roll off past 30-35 (most well engineered systems will do this anyways so any content below this is definately getting wasted)if yr gonna go higher make sure its a soft curvei find levelling subs is the hardest part of a mix - cos more always sounds better i remember reading breakage saying yr subs shouldnt add more than 3db to yr mix thats seems like a good guide
btw sub in kick an bassline simultaeously is gonna cause clashes (n maybe disortion) id either decrease the attack on the bass or cut the sub from the kick
unklefesta wroteI rolloff EVERYTHING at 40hz except my bass
standard
wang wroteAlways do it
Dont forget youre ROLLING off the frequencies not cutting them off all together Just a couple of dB of bass down there is enough to get some girth without removing all your headroom
Also analyse and cut off the lows on everything even if it doesnt appear to have messy lows -Youd be surprised how much bass there is in some high hats
Jtransition wroteAll of your tracks are going to be different so dont restrict yourself to a certain techniquetry different things and listen to the results
Shonky wrotewang wroteAlso analyse and cut off the lows on everything even if it doesnt appear to have messy lows -Youd be surprised how much bass there is in some high hats
Yep this is very true also worth filtering out the inaudible highs on low sounds as well found some of my subs which Id low passed still showed frequency activity much higher than expected
Jtransition wroteStick a high pass filter on everything apart form the kick drum and bass line70 hertz is a good starting point move up or down to tasteAnd remember try to mix at low levels(Walls not vibrating)
Deadly Habit wroteRendr wroteBasslines in my experience should be mono due to the fact that humans cannot easily decoded the stereo positioning of low frequencys so panning basslines (excluding bass sounds with high pitch sounds at around 500Hz+) is not recommended not only are the low frequencys hard to position with the human ear the low frequency sound waves are absorbed by the human head at a much higher ratio than high pitch sounds which tend to be reflected Another thing to note is that club systems are
mono Basslines that pan only belong in Psytrance
sub range should be mono especially if going to be cut to vinylmidrange bass on the other hand you can pan and add stereo fx to your hearts content
Page 26
32 Re-sampling
SafeAfter a few months of experimenting with resampling not really getting anywhere in terms of sound quality i came up with a pretty simple way of getting on the right track Ive got so much help since getting on this forum in terms of production i thought id share this for those who like myself are looking into the elusive yet highly rewarding technique of resamplingAll the vsts i use on this (save for the synth itself) are freenative plugs im using FL but itll transfer onto every DAW pretty much the same Ill explain it for a bassline but it can be applied to any sound
Step 1Make yourself a nice bassline get it sounding dirty with whatever you can within the synth Im using Albino so i tend to play about with the saturation modesFXs until its sounding pretty good
Step 2Hook up to a mixer channel then send this channel to a second mixer channel (FL users just click on another channel towards the bottom of the strip) On the second channel that the synth is hooked to from the first add CMt bitcrusher and downsample 3-16x (thanks to all the production forum users who pointed this out to me when i posted a few months ago on dirtying up basslines) Then add a chorus Turn the LFOs off and set the depthdelayetc to whatever sounds best Also set the crossover pretty high so only the treblehigh mids are being affected Then add Camel Audio Camel Crusher Turn the compressor off and set the tubemech to taste Add a parametric EQ if needs be to boost the high freqs Experiment with the chain of these effects swapping them according to the sound The choruscameleq in different orders should alter the sound quite alot depending on where their placed
Step 3 Set the level of the second affected channel with the original depending on whatever suits Play about with adding extra effects to both channels The way the second channel behaves once an effect is added to the first is quite extreme in even light application of effects So its possible to create a whole array of different sounds just from say adding a flangerchorusetc to the first channel then listening to how much it affects the sound as a whole as it goes through both channels By now it should be sounding pretty girthy
Step 4Export the riffsample (i use edison on the master channel in FL but whatever method will do) Reload and place into a mixer channel Add another Camel Crusher for abit more grit EQ and compress Set up a reverbdelay send and resample again for extra depth
Obviously this technique can be applied a 2nd3rd4th time to fuck the sound up even more so Which is what ive moved onto doing now into the territory of splitting the sound into basslow midhigh midtreble sections for ultimate control over each part Something which i was attempting to do before coming up with the above method but being left with a pile of unlistenable mushy shite
Hope this is a help to some peeps I know theres no secret technique to resamping only a whole load of practice and using your ears but this method got me on the right track in terms of hearing the benefits of it and encouraging me to experiment more in depth and realise that the possiblities are endless Im hooked now i resample pretty much every sound in one way or another Kick and snares benefit hugley from it for mega face melting wide drum sounds aswell so its worth trying it on some nice drum hits
Keep up the good work folksPeaceDC_WT
33 Drums
Read before reading on I am in no way entitled to any of those opinions It is up to you to decide whether you would like to incorporate them in your workflow I have just collected them from all the threads in this forum and will try to keep everything updated
I will update as regularly as I find updates
Page 27
Misc tips and tricks bull Good drums are usually layered - example 3 snares sounding as onebull The hats are often panned or widenedbull Pick great sounding samples different ones for different parts of the sounds you want 1
for snap and bite 1 for body 1 for thump distort and MAYBE EQ each to make them sound the best that they can separately combine in a bus MAYBE compress them together maybe accent the front and shorten the sound with a transient modifier 10 minutes tops
bull Do as little as possible with great-sounding bits and your basic sounds will be slamming leaves you time to focus on the arrangement people dont go around thinking wow that tune has an amazing snare as long as its thumping and not masked by a bunch of other stuff itll keep the dance moving
bull Listen to other producers work As its playing imagine the 1 2 3 4 on the step sequencer running in time to what youre listening to Try to visualize where the producer put their hits Not to say you should copy peoples drum patterns but learn from them
bull Ive noticed a lot of tunes (more minimal stuff where you can distinctly hear whats seperately going on) seem to use two differently pitched hi-hats that alternate to sound shuffley if you know what I mean and a less dramatic snare used sparsely in between the main lazy kick and snare An easy trick if you havent worked it out (which to be honest you should have if youre at all serious about producing dubstep) is to stick a smaller snare or hat the 116th before the kick or snare so it steps if you get me For example Bengas Night does this for all four beats in the bar which is part of what makes it so danceable But dont get stuck in always having kick on 1 and snare on 3 some tracks work with a kick on every beat others with a couple big snares etc The trick (unless you want proper lazy spaced out tunes) is to make sure youre nodding your head on all four beats of the bar Play around with a hat on every quaver (ie 8 per bar on the beat) compared to just four but on the off beat as well as adding in the steppy ones every now and then Theres often no need to over-complicate things though one of the my favourite drum tracks is the incredibly simplistic V by Distance Its a rhythm that could easilly be played by one guy on a real kit yet its so banging - check the use of hats and lower velocity kicks in this to make it nice and bouncy Also I once had a four bar drum loop and accidentally moved the sequence one bar to the right for one section and it ended up nicely varying the drums in a way you wouldnt expect
bull Really tight delays can help claps and snaps sound natural 5-20ms etcbull Recycle or phatmatik is your break-chopping friendbull Basically Hatrixxs method involved chopping everything from the main hits into a sample
Say you had a 2-step funk beat like the Amen Youd start your selection from the start of the first kick and select everything up to the start of the first snare Cut paste theres your first slice Then take everything from the start of the first snare up to the start of the second kick - including all the little hats and ghost hits - cut paste second sample and so on Then just map the samples onto some keys and bash away Both of them are quick compared to chopping Recycled slices where you have to copy and drag loads of little notes (one every little fucking tiny hit in the break arranged chromatically up the keyboard) around the piano roll These methods let you just concentrate on the main hits which can be both good or bad You can get a solid beat down with just a handful of hits but youre limited to the patterns already in the original break For a beginner to breakbeat science like yourself Id say try these methods first but dont rule out the really anal methods like RecyclePhatmatikFruity Slicer Sometimes they are a necessary evil Of course some of the drumfunk guys especially those who post on Subvert Central swear by these methods or the next one There are those who prefer to chop up the raw audio rather than bothering with MIDI and samplers They literally just drop the break file into Cubase or Logic and start chopping with the scissors tool and copying and pasting I can see the benefits of this You can see the waveform as youre chopping and youre not as restriced to the quantize grid as you are with MIDI But it takes aaaaages to build a drum track this way and theres the risk of RSI from all that Ctrl+C Ctrl+V youll be doing Then of course theres trackers They really are tailor-made for chopping up loops amongst other things They give you Sample Offset meaning that when you trigger a sample you can set it to start from 256 evenly spaced points throughout the sample So by starting a sample a quarter of the way through youre triggering the first snare (obviously you can fine-tune it when the snare isnt perfectly on the beat) You can edit breaks in a tracker without ever having to cut up a waveform and you can do all sorts of other nifty things like reverse the sample retrigger it to make drum rolls and so on
If recycles having trouble switch the break to mono in your sample editor and then apply tiny fades between the drum hits (especially useful if there are lots of rides that play over the other hits to keep things separate) This should help recycle pick up the start points and with any luck should leave you with a cleaner break
Page 28
Snaresbull Tune the snares so they all hit around the same pitch bull Change the Amp Envelopes of each to bring the strongest parts from each separate sample
and build up your sound like that bull Compressing all together is a good idea but dont over do it bull EQ the master out for the snare as well so you wont have to fuck about when you use the
sample in the future bull Donrsquot just use snares fling some random sound effects in there Claps and rim shots also
work well when layered bull Make subtle changes to them and export a few snares from the same setup this helps
when you need a ghost hit or a reverse that sounds similar but not identicalbull Watch that frequencies dont build up and make the layered bit sound overly whatever
is building up Really easy to get too much 200hz or 500hz or even 12k if youve got samples that are all beefythicksmack-y
bull If its peaking run it through a Spectrum Analyzer and see where its peaking I guess its peaking in the tune rather than just the snare sample playing on its own
bull Sometimes snare samples have a very short peak that doesnt seem to make them sound any better and keeps you from getting them louder without cliping Reduce that part by a few dBs and youre sorted
bull Make sure you are using subtractive eq to pull out the frequencies that could be clashing with other sounds If your frequencies are clashing that can hide the snare and then you end up turning it up to compensate and there you are with your snare peakingThe key is making the frequencies sit right in the mix so that they dont clash and you can set them right and not have to turn them up
bull You could always try clipping the snare normalise it in a wave editor amplify it as much as you can before it sounds distorted then sample it out Then replace the snare with the clipped version it will almost always sound louder with more body at a lower volume I would still point out that although this can be used as a replacement to compression compression is a vital tool to learn how to use Also a lot of peeps will say this does bad things to the waveform and it does but unless you intend to listen to your tune to be heard at home on an amazing hifi then it doesnt really matter that much IMO
bull Hi-pass overdrive limit and cut away space from other sounds for itbull Layer with its self or a different snare Layer with sub add effect to one layer add effect
to both layers layer zoom right in drag one wave form back or forth very slightly to create new snare sound Pitch updown EQ Filter distort reverb delay reverse
bull Record yourself beat boxing your best snare sounds then layer with snare samplesbull A good handclap never goes a miss or use a nice drum synth to get a very differentdigital
soundbull Try reversing the snare sample then changing the envelope settings so it only hits on the
beat Layer that with the same sample this time not reversed Add a little delay to the the reversed snare Change the settings til it sounds how you like
bull Particularly snares I layer up a lot I look for one that has the qualities that I want when run through verb and then I look for something shorter with more mid punch to keep things physical After someone notied snares were weak in a tune Ive really made a point of ensuring that when the snares hit its physical as well as textural You need to feel them a bit - so I look for some snares that have that real punch when layering but usually keep the more textural snappy one as the focus last couple tunes I did the standard kick snare hats w odd percussion and then I took an amen chopped it processed it and layered it overtop for more aggression and step (goddess being a perfect example) By removing a layer and adding it you can create a sense of progression through the tune Make sure the bottom layer is sounding really good and then add the top so that youre not mixing them to be reliant on one another - instead you want synergy Make sure the EQ on the top and bottom make sense with each other
Kicksbull Building a kick in Ableton Lives Impulse machine Provides some essential information
about layering that can be used with any DAWbull Making fat kicks
remixmag wroteWhether creating Miami Bass music is your lifes fantasy or your greatest fear you probably crave the know-how to manifest those car-rattling trunk-full-of-funk kick drums In the arenas of hip-hop house techno downtempo and almost any other electronic genre molding fat kick drums is absolutely essential Like grandmas homemade apple pie the recipe for kick drums is partially a matter of taste However theres no substitute for quality ingredients And just like every pie has its staple ingredients every slamming kick drum requires some common elements Lets take a look at the
Page 29
shopping list for killer kick drumsTHE CRUST
Youll need a basic shell to begin creating a thick strong kick The classics always work if youre fortunate enough to own a real Roland TR-808 909 or other famous drum machine with a killer kick use it copiously If youre not one of those chosen few pay close attention to your original source For example if you use a sampler understand that not all ldquo808 Kickrdquo samples are the same some sound great and some just plain suck There are a lot of reasons for that including how many generations from the original the sample is the sampling rate and bit depth of the sampler how the kick was first sampled and so on Be as choosy as possible with your individual samples mdash dont use a mediocre sample just because it has 808 in the name and therefore is ldquosupposedrdquo to sound fat Seek out a better 808 sample or use something else that is simply bigger sounding Remember the time you spend finding sweet original sources wont be in vain especially if you reuse the resulting samples for multiple songsBORROW SOME SUGAR
An old saying goes ldquoGood art borrows great art stealsrdquo A nice way to start out with great raw kick material is to sample directly from the source If you dont own but have access to a 909 then sample it directly Or take one of your favorite producers tracks on vinyl or CD find a naked kick drum in there and sample it Be cautious with that approach for a couple of reasons Copyright issues around sampling even small bits have become a dangerously gray area and I would never personally advise using any source straight out of the can even from a royalty-free sample library While it may be an excellent start its unoriginal Customize whatever you bite Treat your samples as a sculptor would treat clay mold each one to create a trademark sound for yourself One effective way to customize a fat kick is to take a tip from the synth manufacturers If a sound is thin pile another (or a few more) on top When doing so its important to use different sounds layering two identical kicks will result in a louder kick but it wont change the basic tone Remember the sculptor approach here Even if you are using two good-sounding individual samples they may not instantly sound great together For example I find that when layering kicks while the thickness may be good sustain is often overkill The final result often benefits from a little doctoring on the tail of one (or both) of the samples and other hands-on sonic surgeryADD THE FILLING
Once a nice basic kick is achieved treating it with two of the mastering engineers favorite tools is often the next step Artfully applying a compressor (to just the kick) can go a long way toward creating a signature sound and a huge kick Compression is one of those ldquosecret spicesrdquo and how to apply it is a whole topic in itself One recommendation I will make however is to use a multiband compressor With one of those you can isolate compression on certain frequency ranges That is perfect if for example you want to push the sub of your kick without emphasizing the higher frequencies (which often affect the tone of the attack) or vice-versa EQ comes after compression in my signal chain By now the kick should already sound pretty fat I aim to shave unnecessary frequencies here rather than artificially boosting too much This is also where you can actualize trademark sounds while also fine-tuning them to work alongside other elements in specific tracks I often scoop out mids and highs especially frequencies above about 500 Hz Even though I like thick deep kicks unless Im going for a really dublike sound I often truncate the lowest frequencies (usually the sub-50 Hz frequencies) Even when you cant hear the difference when trimming frequencies doing so can really tighten up your kicksEVEN IT OUT
You may ask why when youre trying to fatten up a kick would you want to trim frequencies That is one of the keys to achieving great mixes both in the case of kick drums and in general You want to avoid too many overlapping frequencies The more sonic separation you have between elements the more focused the entire mix will sound That can be especially important for club music which often gets played on huge not necessarily audiophile-quality sound systems If you havent run into the following scenario already I assure you at some point you will Your bass line and kick drum are competing and it sounds like you have a weak kick You boost the kick but it still sounds muddy Take the bass out and suddenly the kick doesnt sound so bad In a scenario like that solo the two sounds listen carefully for where frequencies are overlapping and then try subtractive EQ on one element then the other and sometimes a bit on both By scooping out overlapping frequencies you will often find that both elements seem to magically come forward in the mix before even touching their respective volume levels
Hi hatsbull Realism
Ive been a professional touring and recording drummer for 25 years and just thought I might share a couple of really simple ways to use fruity loops or fruity studio to create more realistic drum patterns
For what its worth try this out with Fruity Loops
Page 30
Take your hi hat tracks (are any tracks for that matter including melodic synth bubbles)
Drop down the bar graph box that allows you to scroll between velocity (volume) pitch panning cutoff resonance and a thing called shift which allows you to use each of these categories to effect each individual note that youve programmed (note this can be accomplished in other ways in most of the good midi sequencing apps or softwarehardware drum machines)
Drummers no matter how good they are just arent perfect and we can use the fact that each of these drop down bar graphs can make veryvery small changes in a sound to do some subtle things to a rolling drum groove like 16th notes on a hi hat
Not all drummers but many tend to favor their strong hand in a single stroke (hand over hand) drum roll Consequently if you make all odd numbered hi hats be slightly louder than their even numbered hits it will sound more realistic Start by making velocity differences that are really clearly audible Then lower the velocity until you can barely feel the difference We are going to make very subtle changes like this on each of the parameters of velocity pitch cutoff resonance and importantly shift
I cant stress enough that you should make these changes be so subtle that you can hardly notice them
Just going on the fact that the right handed players start their rolls with the right hand and favor it ever so slightly (or grossly for effect as well) means that the stroke will be harder with the right hand than the left hand
When a percussion instrument is hit harder the difference between the transient (or hi pitched attack) of the sound and the body of the instrument (or the sound that comes after the attack) becomes greater In general on drums that means that a harder attack tensions the drum very imperceptably (sp) and it also means that there will be more treble in the sound Consequently the pitch goes up a little teensy bit and their is more attack to the sound (increased resonance and slightly higher cutoff frequency)
Consequently you can make the pitch of each right hand be just barely noticeably higher the resonance should be just one or two of those little teeny bars higher The cutoff should be just a few bars lower (allowing less high frequencies through) on the left handed or even numbered strokes
Typically if drums have time inaccuracies they tend to drag the left hand a litte bit I have to keep stressing that if you can hear the changes you make you arent being realistic You need to make the changes subtle enough that you just barely feel that they arent perfect You can consequently make each left hand note shifted one or two bars late
Tigure out how much you can tweak each parameter before it becomes obvious and then you can just randomly tweak each one up to that limit With a little bit of variance in each stroke from parameter to parameter you will create more of a percolating texture in your programming - this is a great technique to make synth bubbles (the kind used in techno and house) more interesting and less mechanical feeling
Now you can avoid the biggest mistake that non-drummers do when trying to write realistic programs turn the overall volume of the hihats until you CANT hear them and then slowly bring up the volume until you just begin to hear them
Professional producers have spent countless hours trying to figure out how to gate and mix hihats OUT of tracks The reason is two fold1) Human beings have such a radical peak in their hearing around the 1-2khz range (or the intelligibility range of human speech) that we can play the hihats at incredible low volumes and they are still audible You cant do that with a bass drumI tell my drum students that you cannot play a hi hat or a snare drum so quietly that a person sitting in a room with you cant hear it2) Hi Hats the snare of snare drums and cymbals all seriously MASK human vocal intellibility How many people have gone to see live shows where they can hear the singer is singing but cant for the life of them figure out what they are actually singing That is ususally because drummers (or mixers which is frequently the case) are not hip to thisimportant fact
So turn down your hi hat tracks (or any track with a strong mid rangeshort envelope attack) and you have much more room for other musical goodies in your mix When in doubt make your hi hats quieter than you think they should be Trust me theyll come through the mix even at a quiet volume
Swingbull Dont know if you can do this in your sequencer but in Logic you can create a groove
template from your drums and then apply that to your other instruments If youre using separate midi channels for snares kicks and hats take the 8 bar loop youre using glue it together and then take the groove from that and then mute that track When you click down the quantize list youll see the template there and you can apply it to your other tracks Also if you do want to change the groove you can just change the hits in the muted template and itll automatically change all other hits to the new changes
bull Think if youre clever and organized you can basically cut breaks up in recycle load them into the exs24 (extract sequence) and then do the same with them That way if there are breaks you like the feel of you can just apply that swing to anything If you make a folder called grooves in your logic folder they should load up each time so that youll have loads to choose from Havent done this myself yet but always helpful to have a choice of feels available
bull Some things sound better rigid and robotic with equal velocities Some things sound better rigid and robotic with differing velocities Some things sound better with swing Some things sound better with everything ever-so-slightly off Its down to what the track needs
bull Drum Break Swing ProgrammingNicolas Hall wwwbreakbeat-cafenet wroteI think most people who make anything funk breakbeat drum amp bass or hip-hop would agree that Swing is crucial to the effectiveness of a beat The other key factors in a programming sense are dynamic and accent So many people get wound up when their beats sound sterile or mechanical this is due to the fact that computers and sequencers lock to perfect BPM A computer on its own does not interpret rhythm the way a good drummer does There are however certain machines that have their own swing parameters like the Akai MPC range of sampling drum machines which are used extensively by hip hop producers
Swing is not the easiest thing in the world to analyze but as a general rule good drummers will play slightly late and thats why in all funky records you get that slight dip at the start of the bar take Superstition by Stevie Wonder or Billie Jean by Michael Jackson these are both very simple beats Superstition is of course live drums whilst Billie Jean was programmed but no less funky than Superstition I emphasize this point to demonstrate that a programmed beat can be every bit at groovy as a beat played on a drum kit
Expanding on the Billie Jean point Hip Hop beats are really very simple If you listen to the Neptunes they tend to create the swing in their beats by quantizing the kicks and snares and playing the hi hats in by hand this creates a very tight beat which is off set by a loose hi hat try it works but dont forget your accents - As a starting point just take the first snare of your beat and turn the velocity down then notice how your head starts nodding and your foot starts tapping a little more you are giving the beat feel Also remember that if you are using reverb the louder snare will push the reverb harder than the soft snare so your creating more ambience that way Then try your kick drums if your not sure which hits to adjust just pick apart a beat your feeling I remember me and friend picking apart a Gangstarr beat and were able to almost replicate it by adjusting the velocities of each hit (admittedly it took a while to get it right)
If youre a newbie then a common trick when learning to make good grooves is to create a template with an existing loop The idea is take a loop you like thats got a good feel to it and then place your own hits over the break then take the break out and see if your hits are sounding funky This can take a while and its crucial to think about the strength of each hit or the dynamic Each kick will not be the same strength nor will the snares or the hats pick the loop apart dissect it and youll soon see that there are certain consistencies in all good beats
If youre using live loops and like to layer them with drum sequences you should be thinking about time space and frequencies So if you have a fairly heavy loop then layering it with heavy kick drums is probably not gonna sound good Think about filling holes are their any frequencies that could be filled up Or is there space in the loop for extra hits Try working in layers just adding one hit at a time also filtering works well you could take some of the frequencies out of your loop as you drop your drum sequences in to make room for them I think one the masters of this technique is Liam Howlett of the Prodigy He runs breakbeats and gives them extra balls by laying a kick drum underneath to add extra intensity to certain passages in his set but hes careful not to overlap frequencies to much A good place to start if you using breakbeats is the Roland Tr-808 kick drum which is around the 50hz mark which is sub bass territory so it will sit underneath most breaks very well
If your hell bent on making killer beats and loops then perseverance is crucial keep at it it will come together listen to beats you like and pick them apart identify the subtleties that make it happen I know some producers get fed up when their beats sound to clean or they are trying to create a new breakbeat and then compare it to sample they took from vinyl and get down on there own beat Think about what a breakbeat really is think about its history what has happened to it to make it sound the way it does Im
Page 32
sure youve noticed how some breaks have a certain something like a magic dust you cant put your finger on Let me share what I know with you about that
Most breaks though not all are taken from recordings of live drums some of them are pretty old so you have the ambience of live drums and the room they were recorded in you have the fact that natural decay and reverb of each drum is likely to have bled into the other mics on the kit and that most engineers used overhead mics which pick up the whole kit with two mics Then consider that many of these breaks will have been recorded to analogue tape with saturation which will create extra warmth and harmonics The next step comes from old sampling technology like the SP-1200 and the Akai s-950 mpc -60 these samplers sampled at 12- bit (bear in mind that most computers now are at least 24-bit if not more) and that the samples themselves where taken from vinyl and on and on the process goes with each new reverb and eq adding more and more to the break In terms of giving your breaks that character there are a number of things you can try for example buying an old four track cassette machine to dump your beats onto then re-sample it if your using a sampler like the s-950 then try pushing the input meters a little harder than usual add reverbs and resample it each time you put your loop through a new channel you will be adding something to it Also distortion is fantastic for breaks if you have any amp plug ins then try them the Amplitude one is particularly good you dont need to go mad with it just used subtly it works great
To finish I would just like to say again stick with it keep trying keep listening to records if you like to read about technique then do so you can learn so much from other producers Remember the strength of your hits is important as is the way it swings good luck
UPDATE 08092008
ENHANCE SYNTHESIZED DRUM PARTS WITH FOUND SOUNDS
emusiciancom wroteLayering real-world sounds with synthesized drum parts puts a new spin on your drum tracks You probably already have usable sound effects on your hard drive because most commercial samplers have at least a modest collection in their factory library Beyond that youll find thousands of royalty-free sound effects online Soundsnapcom is one of my favorite sources and its free The recordings dont need to be pristine for layering over drums so dont overlook cheap sampling CDs and consider grabbing your own sounds with a portable recorderCollect and Save
Start by assembling a small Foley library of short percussive sounds divided into typical drum-sound categories kicks snares toms cymbals percussion and so on Youll generally want to layer drum sounds with Foley sounds that have a similar volume contour and frequency range If you layer a Foley sound that resembles a kick drum with the sound of your hi-hat for example youll quickly fill up all the space in your drum track
Industrial household military transportation and vocal sounds make excellent fodder but you will often want to extract a small slice such as the last shot in a volley of machine-gun fire (snare) or the first bounce of a plastic bottle on concrete (tom) A browsing tool like Audio Finder (icedaudiocom) is invaluable if you have a large sample library That lets you quickly audition clips make basic edits and drag-and-drop slices to your library
Sticks UpIf your synthesized drum part is step sequenced youll need to export its step sequences as MIDI files Many drum synths do that including Sonic Charge Tonic (sonicchargecom) Apple Logic UltraBeat (applecom) and Submersible DrumCore (submersiblemusiccom) All of those come with a large collection of patterns exportable as MIDI sequences Youll also need a sampler to play the Foley sounds drum-oriented samplers are handier for that but are by no means necessary
Start by loading a kit in the drum synth Export one of its sequenced patterns or create your own and place it on the sampler track For some of the drum synth sounds select compatible Foley sounds and map them to the same notes in the sampler that theyre mapped to in the drum synth Next solo the doubled voices one by one in both the drum synth and the sampler start the sequence playing and tweak the samplers voice parameters (filter level pan envelope and so on) to make the sounds work together (see Fig 1 and Web Clip 1) Dont tweak global parameters such as effects because that will affect all sounds played by the sampler
High HoopsOnce youve configured your Foley track you can do several things to add interest I frequently use a
Page 33
second sampler for short vocal sounds Ill have some notes trigger sounds in both samplers and others in only one Many samplers let you group sounds and assign notes and controllers to choose among them You can then sequence these notes and controllers or you can play them live to alter your Foley tracks
Try applying DSP effects to individual Foley sounds Multitap delays distortion phasing and granular effects all work well when used sparingly (see Web Clip 2) You can apply DSP effects inside your sampler or route the voices to a separate output for DSP processing in your DAW If your sampler doesnt offer either possibility spread the Foley parts over several sampler instances on different tracks
Sidechain compression or gating of the drum track with one or more of the Foley parts will highlight the Foley part as well as add variety to the drums With compression peaks in the sidechain signal will reduce the level of the drum track Use a high compression level say 201 and balance the sidechain-gain and the compression-threshold -attack and -release controls to get the ducking contour you want (see Web Clip 3) Gating has the opposite effect the drum track will be heard during peaks in the sidechain signal (see Web Clip 4) Here too the sidechain-gain and gate-threshold controls work in tandem to determine when the gate is opened Use envelope parameters (attack release and hold) to shape the gates contour
Keep in mind that once youve created a sampler instrument to complement your drum kit you can reuse it with other sequences You can also change one or more sounds in the sampler instrument without repeating the whole process
34 Sidechain Compression (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
4 Theory41 ndash Song Structure42 ndash Mixdown (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)43 ndash Mastering (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
44 Music Theory
The first thing to remember about music theory is that generally if it sounds right it probably is There are no rules in music and Music Theory is not about telling you how to write music Its about understanding the music
Broadly speaking it is fair to say that most music is essentially based upon two crucial factors scales and rhythm Scales make up melodies chords harmonies and basslines to name but a few whereas rhythm makes up the beat of the song In this part of the Production Bible you will learn the basics of Music Theory that will serve you not only in the production of Dubstep but for any of your future musical pursuits This information is intended to be easy to read and understand so I wonrsquot be mincing sentences But firstly please make sure you learn every single note on the keyboard by studying the image below Otherwise yoursquoll be completely lost here
Page 34
Scales Wersquoll begin with scales As I mentioned before scales are the building blocks of your song and without them your track will be atonal and completely unlistenable (probably not the effect yoursquore going for)
There are two main scales that you should learn inside out ndash the major scale and the minor scale A generalisation yoursquore bound to have heard before is that the major scale sounds ldquohappyrdquo and the minor scale sounds ldquodarkrdquo Although this is not always the case it is mostly true ndash and therefore yoursquoll usually be focussing on the minor scale when producing Dubstep However just in case yoursquore writing happy-dubstep (if that exists) here is a quick overview of both scales and how they are made up
Major Scale
The major scale is really easy to create It is made by a single rule that is simple to put in to place
ldquoTone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
In case you donrsquot know what a Tone or Semi-Tone is here is a quick explanation
Picture a keyboard (or if you canrsquot see the image above) Say you go from C to C that would be a semi-tone The same thing goes for if you go from an E to an F ndash it is still a semi-tone because you
Page 35
have gone up one key
A tone is two semi-tones ndash for example from C to D is a tone and the same goes for from G to A
The scalersquos name is taken from the note that it starts on For example C major will start on the note of C Similarly A major will start on the note of A and this is the case with every single scale
Here is a quick list of a few major scales After having seen a few try working the rest out for yourself in order to understand how the major scale is formulated Ideally you should practice your scales on a piano or keyboard so that you can physically see how to make the scale It might sound boring but itrsquos a small price to pay for a much deeper understanding of your music
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Major C D E F G A B C
C Major C D E F G A B C
D Major D E F G A B C D
D Major D E F G A B C D
E Major E F G A B C D E
F Major F G A Bb C D E F
F Major F G A B C D E F
G Major G A B C D E F G
G Major G A B C D E F G
A Major A B C D E F G A
A Major A B C D E F G A
B major B C D E F G A B
Now by arranging the different notes of each of these scales in any order you please you can create a melody bassline or harmony with extreme ease Rearranging the notes in the scale will give you a flawlessly in-key result and it is then up to you to use the notes in the scale as you see fit for your tune
Minor Scale
As was the case with the Major Scale the Minor is made up from a set rule or formula By knowing this formula you can understand how the Minor is made and how to use it to itrsquos maximum effect
ldquoTone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
As is the case with the major scales you should practice your scales as much as possible to make sure that you know them all like the back of your hand Here are a few Minor Scales see if you can
Page 36
work out the rest
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Minor C D Eb F G Ab B C
D Minor D E F G A Bb C D
F Minor F G A B C D E F
G Minor G A Bb C D Eb F G
Similarly to the Major now that you know your Minor Scales you can quickly just take any note from the scale rearrange it with another few notes in the scale and there you have a fat melody or bassline ready to be played at maximum volume
Diminished Chords
Diminished Chords are really quite spooky and dark chords that are made up of four different notes all a minor third apart from each other That means that for example the Diminished Chord starting on C would be C Eb F A because to get from one note to the next you have to use ldquoTone Semi-Tonerdquo (known as a minor third)
Because of the mathematical nature of the Diminished chord there are only three ldquoclustersrdquo of notes which can then be rearranged like the Major and Minor Scales
Cluster 1 C Eb F A
Cluster 2 C E G Bb
Cluster 3 D F Ab B
Use these clusters and rearrange them as you please For example you could rearrange cluster 1 as Eb F A C etc
Generally speaking you canrsquot make a song based entirely on Diminished Chords due to the fact that each cluster only has 4 notes However a Diminished Chord is perfect for adding a hint of darkness to your tune and is brilliant when mixed with some Minor Scales
Chords
Chords are basically two or more notes played together They are made up from a specific scale ndash for example the C major chord is made up of notes in the C major scale
Usually chords will include the first third and fifth note of the scale as well as possibly using other notes to give them colour For example the basic chord of C major would be C E G Then you could add the seventh note to it (in this case it is B) Really it is up to the producerrsquos discretion how heshe goes about making a chord ndash just remember to stick to the scale you are using
Chords will more than likely sound like shit if you play them on a complicated or layered synth patch You want to be playing chords on sustained sounds such as strings or pads Chords will really fill out your sound if used properly You want your chords to be supporting the melody or bassline and more than likely want to add some reverb so that it doesnrsquot sound too sharp Make
Page 37
your chords blend in with the music and yoursquoll have mastered them
Chord Inversions
Quite simply chord inversions are when you rearrange the notes in a chord so that it sounds a bit different and suits your arrangement better
For example if you were in the key of C major you could have a drone of E playing underneath some strings playing the notes E G C E
Due to the fact that the notes are the same and have only been inverted the chord will still be in key with the rest of the music This is a great way to add a touch of variation to your music instead of using the same chord structure all the time
Arpeggios
Arpeggios are much easier to understand than they sound They are quite simply the first third and fifth note of the scale played as individual notes For example the arpeggio of C minor would be C Eb G C etc
A great example of an arpeggio is the bassline in Bengarsquos ldquoCrunked Uprdquo He goes from playing the F minor arpeggio backwards to playing the F minor arpeggio backwards In other words he is playing
C A F and then C Ab F
Experiment with a few Minor Arpeggios and a couple of Diminished Arpeggios and you canrsquot go wrong in writing a huge bassline
Suggested Reading
List of All Scales With Finger Charts Included
Well thatrsquos it folks Thatrsquos basically all the music theory you need to know to start off with As you grow more used to the various scales yoursquoll notice that certain notes sound good with each other whilst others donrsquot Irsquom not here to tell you how to write music Irsquom here to teach you the language
of music Itrsquos up to you to write the poetry
copy Bruno Crosier (klimaxx) 2008
45 Random Tips
Random tips amp best piece of advice thread
5 Resources
Page 38
51 Books amp Magazines
Hello again people
Does anyone know of more music production books magazines or authors we can add to these lists
Thanks
------------------------------------------------
Music Production Magazines Computer Music - httpwwwcomputermusiccouk Music Tech Magazine - httpwwwmusictechmagcouk Future Music - httpwwwfuturemusiccouk Sound on Sound - httpwwwsoundonsoundcom Remix Magazine - httpremixmagcom Mix Magazine - httpmixonlinecom Electronic Musician - httpemusiciancom EQ Magazine - httpwwweqmagcom Audio Technology - wwwaudiotechnologycomau Tape Op - httpwwwtapeopcom
------------------------------------------------
Music Books
Authors Curtis Roads httpmitpressmiteducatalogauthor aspaid=93 - The Computer Music Tutorial (Really really really good book) Paul White - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea ul20White - Basic Series + more Rick Snowman - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea k20Snoman - The Dance Music Manual Tools Toys and Techniques Bobby Owsinski - httpbooksgooglecoukbooksas_auth=Bobby+Owsinski - The MixingRecording amp Mastering Engineers Handbooks Michael Paul Stavrou - httpwwwmixingwithyourmindcom
Publishers Thomson Course Technology - httpcoursecengagecom (Click on the Music Technology tab) - Series published include Power Overdrive Ignite and CSI Series + many more Backbeat Books - httpwwwbackbeatbookscom ndash Power Tools Series + many more Wiley Publishing - httpwwwdummiescom (Enter music in their search bar) - For Dummies Series Penguin Books - httpuspenguingroupcom (Enter music in their search bar) - The Complete Idiots Guide Series + many more MIT Press - httpmitpressmitedu - Many books on music theory Focal Press - httpwwwfocalpresscom - (Enter music in their search bar)
------------------------------------------------
Online Music Book Stores (We need more links here Do you know of any that we can add)
httpwwwmixbookscom ndash Excellent source that sells only books about music
Page 39
httpwwwamazoncom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
httpwwwbarnesandnoblecom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
------------------------------------------------
52 Wikipedia
A good music lexicon wiki Search for your term in the search bar ---gt httpenaudiolexicorgwikiMain_Page
0-9
14rdquo Jack - httpenwikipediaorgwikiJack_plug 3rd Bridge - httpenwikipediaorgwiki3rd_Bridge
Zero Crossing - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_crossing Zero Crossing Rate - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_Crossing_Rate
53 Other recommended production forums
for Logic users this is the shit httpwwwlogicprohelpcom
Ive found both these forums to be full of knowledgeable producers amp musicians
httpwwwkvraudiocomforum
httpacapellaharmony-centralcomforumsindexphp
httpwwwgearslutzcomboard
httpwwwsoundonsoundcomforum
httpwwwmusicradarcomforum
httpwwwidmforumscom
httpwwwdance-industriescomphpBB2 8cffbb3b02
httpwwwsubvertcentralcomforumindexphp
httpwwwbreakbeatcouk
httpwwwtweakheadzcom
httpwwwabletoncompagesforum
Explains lots about the music industry ---gt httpwwwbemusocom
Page 47
Ok so a massive thanks to all the contributors there are literally too many to mention But Thanks to Futures Untold Johnny Beat Klimaxx Deadly Habit amp JunglistRendr Daft Cunt in perticular
Thanks to all the artists producers and general music geeks making this early revision of the production bible an essential read
There are links missing and will be included in version 21(Please help with the unlinked chapters by going here - httpwwwdubstepforumcomthe-dubstep-production-bible-updated-2009-06-03-t14797html and updating missing info as needed)
Compiled by Daft Cunt and Futures Untold PDF Compiled by Depone
23 Production effects explained-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Common Production Effects-------------------------------------------------------------------------Click on each link for more in-depth information about each effect
------ Filter Effects ------
EQ - (EQ types - Graphic EQ Parametric EQ Shelving EQ Linear Phase EQ)Filters - (Filter types - Low Pass filter High Pass filter Band Pass filter Band Reject filter Notch filter Comb filter All Pass filter State Variable filter Peaking filter Moog filter FormantVowel filter)Phase InverterVocodersHarmonic Exciters
------ Delay Effects ------
DelayEcho - (Delay types - Ping Pong delay Multi Tap delay Slapback delay Bucket delay Crossfeedback delay)Reverb - (Reverb types - Spring reverb Plate reverb Convolution reverb Impulse Response reverb)
------ Modulation Effects ------
ChorusFlangersPhasers
------ Dynamics Processing Tools ------
CompressorsLimiters (Brick Wall)Transient ShaperSignal ModellersGatesExpandersCompanders Noise reduction units
Here is a list of the most popular freeware analysers available
Voxengo SPAN
Bluecat Audio Freqanalyst
Roger Nichols Inspector
Page 20
For a long list of other free analysers visit httpwwwgersiccompluginsindexphpdaCat=2
3 Techniques
31 Bass311 Sub Bass
Sub-bass is a term used to describe audible sounds below 90Hz - sound in the range below this (under 16-17Hz) would be termed infrasound Sound systems often feature a subwoofer that is dedicated solely to amplifying sounds in the lower bass and sub-bass range Source Wikipedia
So the idea is to have the sub going up to ~90Hz The exact frequency it should be cut at depend on the kicks frequency Lets say you HP your kick at 100Hz then the sub should be LPed at 100Hz so they compliment each other without clashing
There are several ways of creating a sub here are the most common 1 - using a unique waveform (sine saw square or triangle) will give you a nice linear sub NB You dont need to filter out a sine wave as it doesnt have overtones 2 - using detuned waveforms take 2 identical waves (sine saw square or triangle) and detune them - lets say -25 +25 semitone This will produce a phase effect and give movement to your sub but itll also cause large volume amplitude and youll need to compress it after filtering Great Massive tutorial by Subfocus here 3 - using a 808 kick you dont have a TR-808 Grab that pack
jobbanaught wroteAn easy option to get a powerful subbass is to take a 808 kick sample put it in your favorite sampler and loop a single cycle of the waverform somewhere in the middle of the sample The 808 kick is made of a sine and some additional white noise The sine gives your sub that rattling low end pressure and the noise adds overtonesgrittiness = instant badass subbass
You can find more tips about mixing your kick n sub in the Random bass tips thread
312 lsquoWobblersquo
Page 21
Wobble GuideWobble Bass
Wobble Bass as it is known is simply a bassline that has an LFO assigned to a Low Pass Filter as an insert effect LFOstands for Low Frequency Oscillator and is used to change a sound by a defined speed (measured in either Hz or synced to the Tempo in relation to the barsnotes through quantization) The way the LFO changes the sound is up to you you can make the LFO adjust the Volume the amount of Saturation Filter Cutoff etc Basically any parameter you link it to Essentially you are just using the LFO to send a changing value to a parameter
--------------------
How to get a simple wobble bass
1) Choose a simple sound on your synth (Anything apart from a Sine wave )
2) Select your LFO and set it to the speed you want (18 would be a good starting point)
3) Now assign the LFO to the Filter Cutoff Which should for this example be a Low Pass Filter as the sound were going for is a deep bass
4) You now have a basic wobble bass from here the possibilities for tweaking this sound are endless
--------------------
A quick breakdown of whats actually going on Essentially you are taking a sound (that can be an audio files generated by a synth etc) and then passing it through a Low Pass Filter Now what exactly does a Low Pass Filter do you ask
A Low Pass Filter allows Low Frequency signals to pass through it but reduces the amplitude (volume) of all the Frequencies above the cutoff point In general most plug-ins have various Low Pass Filter settings where the more poles it has the more Dbs it will cut and will yield a harder knee to it Example 1 Pole Filter with a -6dBOct reduction Vs a 2 Pole Filter reducing -12DbOct However you dont necessarily need a LFO controlling your Low Pass Filter Cutoff frequency value you could just draw in the Automation yourself but a LFO will yield a loop of consistent values and prevents the possibility of human error All the LFO is doing is sending a value to your frequency cutoff to keep it consistently changing
--------------------
Tips amp Advice
1) Sub bass wobble would normally be a Sine wave at around the 40-50 Hz range which would repeat the same chords as the mid-range bass wobble The only difference being that with a sub bass wobble there is no point in assigning the LFO to a Low Pass Filter because the sound is too low for the low pass filter to have any effect so theLFO is assigned to the amplitude (volume) instead Another reason for not applying a Low Pass Filter to the Sub bass is because it would typically be a Sine wave which possesses no Harmonics to be adjusted by the Filter
2) The sound of an LFO can also be adjusted by the wave type you choose The default setting for an LFO generator is a Sine wave although on most synths you can chose from Triangle Sawtooth Square wave Random Noise To get a nice sounding bass it is a good idea to use as many oscillators as possible on different octaves
3) Try messing around with the attack and release of your sound as this can have an impact on the sound of the bass Long attacks tend to create a more ambient sound and is a technique traditionally used with ambient pads
Page 22
4) Something that I find useful is to bounce the bassline to a wav file so that it can be chopped up and put in-sync with other elements of the song because the majority of the time you will find the first wave of sound in the wobble bassline will will be half the length of the other waves due to attack rates So the best thing to do is to chop that freak sound off the beginning of the file in your DAW (Logic Pro Reason Cubase etc) and start off with the second wave which should be fully formed This way it will not be too early of late when keeping in sync with other elements such as a second bassline
5) Another method you can use is creating a clone layer of your original sound and setting up a new LFO setup for that to beat alternatively in the space left by the original LFO Or go that crazy Drum amp Bass Reese route and split the frequencies to Low Mid and High then set different LFO rates for each band then recombine into one sound
6) For more variation automate your LFO speed and intensity
7) Where you place insert effects in relation to the filter (pre or post) will yield different sounding results
8) Other methods to achieve a wobble like sound Tremolo (This effects volume rather than frequency) FM Synthesis Modulation of PWM Oscillator Pitch assigned (in a liberal amount) to LFO Filter Envelope assigned to LFO (using a re-triggered envelope) (submitted by Faun2500)
9) Assign a second LFO to modulate the speed of the first LFO
LFO Shapes
Sine wave The smooth value change possible
Triangle Similar to a Sine wave but slightly more ramped amp synthetic sounding
Random A mixed bag
Sawtooth Will have a very fast attack with a slower release which will sound very rugged
Square wave Will be a simple open close style Very harsh and will generally cause a very harsh sound (Often used in DJ Hazard style bass-lines) Detune two square waves for a nice dark sounding bass
Waveforms submitted by Skells wrotehttpi228photobucketcomalbumsee83 cleanjpgSimple Filter Sweep
httpi228photobucketcomalbumsee83 wobblejpgSine Wave LFO assigned to Filter Cutoff
LINKS etc
Fruity Loops Wobble Tutorial (Link submitted by Wub) Massive Wobble YouTube Tutorial (Video created by thesynthesist) Pause amp Play Wobble Tutorial (Link submitted by dubmo) Albino3 Wobble Guide (Guide created by axon)
By Rendr amp Deadly Habit and a little help from Macc
313 lsquoReecersquo
The Reese Bass
Page 23
History Lesson
The Reese bass was a form of huge sounding synth-bass first used by the Detroit Techno producer Kevin Saunderson aka Master Reese aka Reese Project aka on the track Just Want Another Chance and immortalised in the classic DnB track Terrorist by Renegade Since then it has been (over)used in many a DnB track and continues to evolve even nowadays through Dubstep and Jungle It is said to be as influential to DnB as the Amen break and probably as used and abused as the Amen
Capturing the Beast
1The Oscillator Stage
To nail the Reese you need a synth with at least 2 oscillators but for better-bigger results use as many oscillators as you can (not really but 4 oscillators give a nice deep rumble - ahhhhhh) All the oscillators are playing sawtooth waves and all except one are detuned by 25-50 cents so that all oscillators are out of phase with each other
2 The Filter Stage
The signal is then sent to a low-pass filter with the cutoff freq set around 150-200Hz (experiment with that you want the growl of the mid-frequencies but you also want it as deep as possible without sacrificing the midrange) The resonance of the filter should be cranked up almost all the way (but again tweak accordingly to your filtersynth)
3 Fuzz it Up
The second most important aspect of the Reese (after the detuned sawtooths) is distortion Tube distortion and tape saturation work extremely well but dont hesitate to use other more extreme distortion units (dont forget that the Reese has been done a million times you have to add something original to it) Again adjust to taste
4 Spices and Herbs
Now that is the main recipe for the sound but like all haute-cuisine there are more things you can do to spice up the Reese Namely effects Effects that have been associated with the Reese are
Phasers - to accentuate the phase-shifting effect of the detuned sawtooths Unison - a great way to make it even bigger Chorus - again a good way to phatten it up
5 And Some More Synth Magic
Another thing to do so you can bring out the old-school jungle character of the Reese is to use Legato and PortamentoGlide if your syth of choice has them available These are both great ways to move from one note to the next without listening to the transition To put it simply when legato is on and you play a sustained E followed by a sustained G the transition between the two notes gives the listener the impression that they heard a single note being sustained that has just changed its pitch from E to G without pausing at a certain point
Always remember though that if you use Legato you have to turn the polyphony of your synth down to 1 (something you should almost always do with basslines because two bass-notes playing together almost never sound good in electronic music bass chords are more the realm of prog-rock shit than dubstep)
For the more technical minded legato in synthesizers is a variation of monophonic operation In contrast to monophonic mode where every new note restarts the ADSR envelopes in legato mode they are not if the previous note remains depressed when the new note is played This causes the initial transient from the attack and decay phases to sound only once and the ADSRs to remain at sustain stage for the whole sequence of notes until the final note is released (Wikipedia)
EDIT I just found out that in one of the free vst links on the bible there is a thing called the Hotelsinus Reese Bassline Synth So I didnt miss the opportunity for a mini review The software itself is small (like most free vst-is) and quite easy to install (you just drop the dll in the vst folder) As for the sound weeeeeeell the sounds it produces are definitely Reese But weak somehow Its like listening to Terrorist from a battered cheap old cassette from 93 or something It has a tinny and tiny sound when compared to what you can achieve with powerhouses like Albino or
Page 24
Massive or (one of my personal favorites for Reese) Cakewalk Rupture You can try it if you want but i dont think it will impress steppers that much we are bass-headed folk
314 Random Bass Tips
Plz add yours or others youve spotted on the forum
miss_molinari wrotebasically i have been experimenting with cutting (not sidechaining) a notch (band reject) in the bass starting at 60hz and ending just before 70 this is only for those bass lines which only hit on the kick (quite specific) also the bass is then high passed at about 220hz to pretty much 0db which is where the kick starts (ending the kick with a non-too-aggressive-cut at about 2khz) this essentially means that the kick and the bass do not share any frequencies above abot 200hz but also between 60 and 70 and with them always hitting at the same time this gets around the fact that sidechaining this type of sequencing would leave you with no or little bass
this has worked well so far but is useful mainly for sub basses ending at around 250hz would not be as good for full spectrum wubsanyone else got any tech tips regarding the bass and kick
futures_untold wroteI simply cut everything under 90Hz on my kicks and roll off slightly at 1KHz
Sub I cut under 40Hz and roll off at 200Hz
I always compress both seperately and keep my levels low in the mix to create plenty of head room later whilst adding sounds with higher frequency content
Anything above 150Hz is what I consider midrange Anything above 150Hz can be heard on mobile phone speakers We all know that theyre designed to play heavy bass lol Wink
miss_molinari wroteDaft Cunt wroteTo me it feels like cutting the kick above 80 hz makes it sound weak I guess it depends on the style I rather cut below 60 to 80 depending on the tune
yeah its all about context in a dry minimal setting im of the opinion you can make a kick punch right up to about 180-200hz but yeah depends on when and on what kind of punch (im usually talking a bass hit at about 200hz coupled with a knock hit anywhere up to about 1200hz) i imagine you true dubsteppers prefer a denser thump from 60 through to about 300hz
Daft Cunt wroteI began recently the band-reject thing on the sub Little details that make big difference
And do you people cut the bass where the snare peaks
my basses arent usually middy enough to need that but yeah a slight sidechain on the main snare and say midbasspadwothavyer is nice especially if the limelight is stolen by a deeper sidechain on the kick and midbasspadwothavyer can create a nice flow (especially when used with long decay reveb linked to the midbasspadwothavyer so that it sounds louder and longer the higher the frequency played - might
have to post some piccies of that one )
Shonky wroteWhat Ive been doing lately is bouncing down the kick track lowpassing one somewhere between 100-140 depending on the highest frequencies of the low sub and then sidechaining the sub to the low kick
Then take a copy of the kick track highpass between 300-1000 and this will give you the beater noise to make the kick cut through I then sidechain this to the more middly basses You can also send a small amount to a reverb bus which allows you to avoid mud on the lower frequencies whilst still giving you the space
Doing it this way seems to make sense to me cause the sidechains work on the corresponding kicks in the same frequency range so it doesnt cause loads of unnecessary compression where you dont need it
Page 25
boh wroteAlways make sure your kicks are in tune with the rest of the track ull hear it pitching up and down and make sure if ur layering that the transients dont conflict(good monitors make this easy) It all comes down to kick selection Whats the point in cutting a kick at 80hz with a fundemental freq of say 60hz Sure you get whats happening before it but u wont get the nice thump of the fundemental freq Choose other kicks that hit the freq u want (80hz say) instead of cutting them when theres no need to Unless you really really know what your doing getting technical like this complicates the situation Esp for people with little experience
sullyharmitage wrote50 hz hi pass seems a bit high to me maybe gd for kicky techno or house but for subby stuff it seems a bit muchdefo roll off past 30-35 (most well engineered systems will do this anyways so any content below this is definately getting wasted)if yr gonna go higher make sure its a soft curvei find levelling subs is the hardest part of a mix - cos more always sounds better i remember reading breakage saying yr subs shouldnt add more than 3db to yr mix thats seems like a good guide
btw sub in kick an bassline simultaeously is gonna cause clashes (n maybe disortion) id either decrease the attack on the bass or cut the sub from the kick
unklefesta wroteI rolloff EVERYTHING at 40hz except my bass
standard
wang wroteAlways do it
Dont forget youre ROLLING off the frequencies not cutting them off all together Just a couple of dB of bass down there is enough to get some girth without removing all your headroom
Also analyse and cut off the lows on everything even if it doesnt appear to have messy lows -Youd be surprised how much bass there is in some high hats
Jtransition wroteAll of your tracks are going to be different so dont restrict yourself to a certain techniquetry different things and listen to the results
Shonky wrotewang wroteAlso analyse and cut off the lows on everything even if it doesnt appear to have messy lows -Youd be surprised how much bass there is in some high hats
Yep this is very true also worth filtering out the inaudible highs on low sounds as well found some of my subs which Id low passed still showed frequency activity much higher than expected
Jtransition wroteStick a high pass filter on everything apart form the kick drum and bass line70 hertz is a good starting point move up or down to tasteAnd remember try to mix at low levels(Walls not vibrating)
Deadly Habit wroteRendr wroteBasslines in my experience should be mono due to the fact that humans cannot easily decoded the stereo positioning of low frequencys so panning basslines (excluding bass sounds with high pitch sounds at around 500Hz+) is not recommended not only are the low frequencys hard to position with the human ear the low frequency sound waves are absorbed by the human head at a much higher ratio than high pitch sounds which tend to be reflected Another thing to note is that club systems are
mono Basslines that pan only belong in Psytrance
sub range should be mono especially if going to be cut to vinylmidrange bass on the other hand you can pan and add stereo fx to your hearts content
Page 26
32 Re-sampling
SafeAfter a few months of experimenting with resampling not really getting anywhere in terms of sound quality i came up with a pretty simple way of getting on the right track Ive got so much help since getting on this forum in terms of production i thought id share this for those who like myself are looking into the elusive yet highly rewarding technique of resamplingAll the vsts i use on this (save for the synth itself) are freenative plugs im using FL but itll transfer onto every DAW pretty much the same Ill explain it for a bassline but it can be applied to any sound
Step 1Make yourself a nice bassline get it sounding dirty with whatever you can within the synth Im using Albino so i tend to play about with the saturation modesFXs until its sounding pretty good
Step 2Hook up to a mixer channel then send this channel to a second mixer channel (FL users just click on another channel towards the bottom of the strip) On the second channel that the synth is hooked to from the first add CMt bitcrusher and downsample 3-16x (thanks to all the production forum users who pointed this out to me when i posted a few months ago on dirtying up basslines) Then add a chorus Turn the LFOs off and set the depthdelayetc to whatever sounds best Also set the crossover pretty high so only the treblehigh mids are being affected Then add Camel Audio Camel Crusher Turn the compressor off and set the tubemech to taste Add a parametric EQ if needs be to boost the high freqs Experiment with the chain of these effects swapping them according to the sound The choruscameleq in different orders should alter the sound quite alot depending on where their placed
Step 3 Set the level of the second affected channel with the original depending on whatever suits Play about with adding extra effects to both channels The way the second channel behaves once an effect is added to the first is quite extreme in even light application of effects So its possible to create a whole array of different sounds just from say adding a flangerchorusetc to the first channel then listening to how much it affects the sound as a whole as it goes through both channels By now it should be sounding pretty girthy
Step 4Export the riffsample (i use edison on the master channel in FL but whatever method will do) Reload and place into a mixer channel Add another Camel Crusher for abit more grit EQ and compress Set up a reverbdelay send and resample again for extra depth
Obviously this technique can be applied a 2nd3rd4th time to fuck the sound up even more so Which is what ive moved onto doing now into the territory of splitting the sound into basslow midhigh midtreble sections for ultimate control over each part Something which i was attempting to do before coming up with the above method but being left with a pile of unlistenable mushy shite
Hope this is a help to some peeps I know theres no secret technique to resamping only a whole load of practice and using your ears but this method got me on the right track in terms of hearing the benefits of it and encouraging me to experiment more in depth and realise that the possiblities are endless Im hooked now i resample pretty much every sound in one way or another Kick and snares benefit hugley from it for mega face melting wide drum sounds aswell so its worth trying it on some nice drum hits
Keep up the good work folksPeaceDC_WT
33 Drums
Read before reading on I am in no way entitled to any of those opinions It is up to you to decide whether you would like to incorporate them in your workflow I have just collected them from all the threads in this forum and will try to keep everything updated
I will update as regularly as I find updates
Page 27
Misc tips and tricks bull Good drums are usually layered - example 3 snares sounding as onebull The hats are often panned or widenedbull Pick great sounding samples different ones for different parts of the sounds you want 1
for snap and bite 1 for body 1 for thump distort and MAYBE EQ each to make them sound the best that they can separately combine in a bus MAYBE compress them together maybe accent the front and shorten the sound with a transient modifier 10 minutes tops
bull Do as little as possible with great-sounding bits and your basic sounds will be slamming leaves you time to focus on the arrangement people dont go around thinking wow that tune has an amazing snare as long as its thumping and not masked by a bunch of other stuff itll keep the dance moving
bull Listen to other producers work As its playing imagine the 1 2 3 4 on the step sequencer running in time to what youre listening to Try to visualize where the producer put their hits Not to say you should copy peoples drum patterns but learn from them
bull Ive noticed a lot of tunes (more minimal stuff where you can distinctly hear whats seperately going on) seem to use two differently pitched hi-hats that alternate to sound shuffley if you know what I mean and a less dramatic snare used sparsely in between the main lazy kick and snare An easy trick if you havent worked it out (which to be honest you should have if youre at all serious about producing dubstep) is to stick a smaller snare or hat the 116th before the kick or snare so it steps if you get me For example Bengas Night does this for all four beats in the bar which is part of what makes it so danceable But dont get stuck in always having kick on 1 and snare on 3 some tracks work with a kick on every beat others with a couple big snares etc The trick (unless you want proper lazy spaced out tunes) is to make sure youre nodding your head on all four beats of the bar Play around with a hat on every quaver (ie 8 per bar on the beat) compared to just four but on the off beat as well as adding in the steppy ones every now and then Theres often no need to over-complicate things though one of the my favourite drum tracks is the incredibly simplistic V by Distance Its a rhythm that could easilly be played by one guy on a real kit yet its so banging - check the use of hats and lower velocity kicks in this to make it nice and bouncy Also I once had a four bar drum loop and accidentally moved the sequence one bar to the right for one section and it ended up nicely varying the drums in a way you wouldnt expect
bull Really tight delays can help claps and snaps sound natural 5-20ms etcbull Recycle or phatmatik is your break-chopping friendbull Basically Hatrixxs method involved chopping everything from the main hits into a sample
Say you had a 2-step funk beat like the Amen Youd start your selection from the start of the first kick and select everything up to the start of the first snare Cut paste theres your first slice Then take everything from the start of the first snare up to the start of the second kick - including all the little hats and ghost hits - cut paste second sample and so on Then just map the samples onto some keys and bash away Both of them are quick compared to chopping Recycled slices where you have to copy and drag loads of little notes (one every little fucking tiny hit in the break arranged chromatically up the keyboard) around the piano roll These methods let you just concentrate on the main hits which can be both good or bad You can get a solid beat down with just a handful of hits but youre limited to the patterns already in the original break For a beginner to breakbeat science like yourself Id say try these methods first but dont rule out the really anal methods like RecyclePhatmatikFruity Slicer Sometimes they are a necessary evil Of course some of the drumfunk guys especially those who post on Subvert Central swear by these methods or the next one There are those who prefer to chop up the raw audio rather than bothering with MIDI and samplers They literally just drop the break file into Cubase or Logic and start chopping with the scissors tool and copying and pasting I can see the benefits of this You can see the waveform as youre chopping and youre not as restriced to the quantize grid as you are with MIDI But it takes aaaaages to build a drum track this way and theres the risk of RSI from all that Ctrl+C Ctrl+V youll be doing Then of course theres trackers They really are tailor-made for chopping up loops amongst other things They give you Sample Offset meaning that when you trigger a sample you can set it to start from 256 evenly spaced points throughout the sample So by starting a sample a quarter of the way through youre triggering the first snare (obviously you can fine-tune it when the snare isnt perfectly on the beat) You can edit breaks in a tracker without ever having to cut up a waveform and you can do all sorts of other nifty things like reverse the sample retrigger it to make drum rolls and so on
If recycles having trouble switch the break to mono in your sample editor and then apply tiny fades between the drum hits (especially useful if there are lots of rides that play over the other hits to keep things separate) This should help recycle pick up the start points and with any luck should leave you with a cleaner break
Page 28
Snaresbull Tune the snares so they all hit around the same pitch bull Change the Amp Envelopes of each to bring the strongest parts from each separate sample
and build up your sound like that bull Compressing all together is a good idea but dont over do it bull EQ the master out for the snare as well so you wont have to fuck about when you use the
sample in the future bull Donrsquot just use snares fling some random sound effects in there Claps and rim shots also
work well when layered bull Make subtle changes to them and export a few snares from the same setup this helps
when you need a ghost hit or a reverse that sounds similar but not identicalbull Watch that frequencies dont build up and make the layered bit sound overly whatever
is building up Really easy to get too much 200hz or 500hz or even 12k if youve got samples that are all beefythicksmack-y
bull If its peaking run it through a Spectrum Analyzer and see where its peaking I guess its peaking in the tune rather than just the snare sample playing on its own
bull Sometimes snare samples have a very short peak that doesnt seem to make them sound any better and keeps you from getting them louder without cliping Reduce that part by a few dBs and youre sorted
bull Make sure you are using subtractive eq to pull out the frequencies that could be clashing with other sounds If your frequencies are clashing that can hide the snare and then you end up turning it up to compensate and there you are with your snare peakingThe key is making the frequencies sit right in the mix so that they dont clash and you can set them right and not have to turn them up
bull You could always try clipping the snare normalise it in a wave editor amplify it as much as you can before it sounds distorted then sample it out Then replace the snare with the clipped version it will almost always sound louder with more body at a lower volume I would still point out that although this can be used as a replacement to compression compression is a vital tool to learn how to use Also a lot of peeps will say this does bad things to the waveform and it does but unless you intend to listen to your tune to be heard at home on an amazing hifi then it doesnt really matter that much IMO
bull Hi-pass overdrive limit and cut away space from other sounds for itbull Layer with its self or a different snare Layer with sub add effect to one layer add effect
to both layers layer zoom right in drag one wave form back or forth very slightly to create new snare sound Pitch updown EQ Filter distort reverb delay reverse
bull Record yourself beat boxing your best snare sounds then layer with snare samplesbull A good handclap never goes a miss or use a nice drum synth to get a very differentdigital
soundbull Try reversing the snare sample then changing the envelope settings so it only hits on the
beat Layer that with the same sample this time not reversed Add a little delay to the the reversed snare Change the settings til it sounds how you like
bull Particularly snares I layer up a lot I look for one that has the qualities that I want when run through verb and then I look for something shorter with more mid punch to keep things physical After someone notied snares were weak in a tune Ive really made a point of ensuring that when the snares hit its physical as well as textural You need to feel them a bit - so I look for some snares that have that real punch when layering but usually keep the more textural snappy one as the focus last couple tunes I did the standard kick snare hats w odd percussion and then I took an amen chopped it processed it and layered it overtop for more aggression and step (goddess being a perfect example) By removing a layer and adding it you can create a sense of progression through the tune Make sure the bottom layer is sounding really good and then add the top so that youre not mixing them to be reliant on one another - instead you want synergy Make sure the EQ on the top and bottom make sense with each other
Kicksbull Building a kick in Ableton Lives Impulse machine Provides some essential information
about layering that can be used with any DAWbull Making fat kicks
remixmag wroteWhether creating Miami Bass music is your lifes fantasy or your greatest fear you probably crave the know-how to manifest those car-rattling trunk-full-of-funk kick drums In the arenas of hip-hop house techno downtempo and almost any other electronic genre molding fat kick drums is absolutely essential Like grandmas homemade apple pie the recipe for kick drums is partially a matter of taste However theres no substitute for quality ingredients And just like every pie has its staple ingredients every slamming kick drum requires some common elements Lets take a look at the
Page 29
shopping list for killer kick drumsTHE CRUST
Youll need a basic shell to begin creating a thick strong kick The classics always work if youre fortunate enough to own a real Roland TR-808 909 or other famous drum machine with a killer kick use it copiously If youre not one of those chosen few pay close attention to your original source For example if you use a sampler understand that not all ldquo808 Kickrdquo samples are the same some sound great and some just plain suck There are a lot of reasons for that including how many generations from the original the sample is the sampling rate and bit depth of the sampler how the kick was first sampled and so on Be as choosy as possible with your individual samples mdash dont use a mediocre sample just because it has 808 in the name and therefore is ldquosupposedrdquo to sound fat Seek out a better 808 sample or use something else that is simply bigger sounding Remember the time you spend finding sweet original sources wont be in vain especially if you reuse the resulting samples for multiple songsBORROW SOME SUGAR
An old saying goes ldquoGood art borrows great art stealsrdquo A nice way to start out with great raw kick material is to sample directly from the source If you dont own but have access to a 909 then sample it directly Or take one of your favorite producers tracks on vinyl or CD find a naked kick drum in there and sample it Be cautious with that approach for a couple of reasons Copyright issues around sampling even small bits have become a dangerously gray area and I would never personally advise using any source straight out of the can even from a royalty-free sample library While it may be an excellent start its unoriginal Customize whatever you bite Treat your samples as a sculptor would treat clay mold each one to create a trademark sound for yourself One effective way to customize a fat kick is to take a tip from the synth manufacturers If a sound is thin pile another (or a few more) on top When doing so its important to use different sounds layering two identical kicks will result in a louder kick but it wont change the basic tone Remember the sculptor approach here Even if you are using two good-sounding individual samples they may not instantly sound great together For example I find that when layering kicks while the thickness may be good sustain is often overkill The final result often benefits from a little doctoring on the tail of one (or both) of the samples and other hands-on sonic surgeryADD THE FILLING
Once a nice basic kick is achieved treating it with two of the mastering engineers favorite tools is often the next step Artfully applying a compressor (to just the kick) can go a long way toward creating a signature sound and a huge kick Compression is one of those ldquosecret spicesrdquo and how to apply it is a whole topic in itself One recommendation I will make however is to use a multiband compressor With one of those you can isolate compression on certain frequency ranges That is perfect if for example you want to push the sub of your kick without emphasizing the higher frequencies (which often affect the tone of the attack) or vice-versa EQ comes after compression in my signal chain By now the kick should already sound pretty fat I aim to shave unnecessary frequencies here rather than artificially boosting too much This is also where you can actualize trademark sounds while also fine-tuning them to work alongside other elements in specific tracks I often scoop out mids and highs especially frequencies above about 500 Hz Even though I like thick deep kicks unless Im going for a really dublike sound I often truncate the lowest frequencies (usually the sub-50 Hz frequencies) Even when you cant hear the difference when trimming frequencies doing so can really tighten up your kicksEVEN IT OUT
You may ask why when youre trying to fatten up a kick would you want to trim frequencies That is one of the keys to achieving great mixes both in the case of kick drums and in general You want to avoid too many overlapping frequencies The more sonic separation you have between elements the more focused the entire mix will sound That can be especially important for club music which often gets played on huge not necessarily audiophile-quality sound systems If you havent run into the following scenario already I assure you at some point you will Your bass line and kick drum are competing and it sounds like you have a weak kick You boost the kick but it still sounds muddy Take the bass out and suddenly the kick doesnt sound so bad In a scenario like that solo the two sounds listen carefully for where frequencies are overlapping and then try subtractive EQ on one element then the other and sometimes a bit on both By scooping out overlapping frequencies you will often find that both elements seem to magically come forward in the mix before even touching their respective volume levels
Hi hatsbull Realism
Ive been a professional touring and recording drummer for 25 years and just thought I might share a couple of really simple ways to use fruity loops or fruity studio to create more realistic drum patterns
For what its worth try this out with Fruity Loops
Page 30
Take your hi hat tracks (are any tracks for that matter including melodic synth bubbles)
Drop down the bar graph box that allows you to scroll between velocity (volume) pitch panning cutoff resonance and a thing called shift which allows you to use each of these categories to effect each individual note that youve programmed (note this can be accomplished in other ways in most of the good midi sequencing apps or softwarehardware drum machines)
Drummers no matter how good they are just arent perfect and we can use the fact that each of these drop down bar graphs can make veryvery small changes in a sound to do some subtle things to a rolling drum groove like 16th notes on a hi hat
Not all drummers but many tend to favor their strong hand in a single stroke (hand over hand) drum roll Consequently if you make all odd numbered hi hats be slightly louder than their even numbered hits it will sound more realistic Start by making velocity differences that are really clearly audible Then lower the velocity until you can barely feel the difference We are going to make very subtle changes like this on each of the parameters of velocity pitch cutoff resonance and importantly shift
I cant stress enough that you should make these changes be so subtle that you can hardly notice them
Just going on the fact that the right handed players start their rolls with the right hand and favor it ever so slightly (or grossly for effect as well) means that the stroke will be harder with the right hand than the left hand
When a percussion instrument is hit harder the difference between the transient (or hi pitched attack) of the sound and the body of the instrument (or the sound that comes after the attack) becomes greater In general on drums that means that a harder attack tensions the drum very imperceptably (sp) and it also means that there will be more treble in the sound Consequently the pitch goes up a little teensy bit and their is more attack to the sound (increased resonance and slightly higher cutoff frequency)
Consequently you can make the pitch of each right hand be just barely noticeably higher the resonance should be just one or two of those little teeny bars higher The cutoff should be just a few bars lower (allowing less high frequencies through) on the left handed or even numbered strokes
Typically if drums have time inaccuracies they tend to drag the left hand a litte bit I have to keep stressing that if you can hear the changes you make you arent being realistic You need to make the changes subtle enough that you just barely feel that they arent perfect You can consequently make each left hand note shifted one or two bars late
Tigure out how much you can tweak each parameter before it becomes obvious and then you can just randomly tweak each one up to that limit With a little bit of variance in each stroke from parameter to parameter you will create more of a percolating texture in your programming - this is a great technique to make synth bubbles (the kind used in techno and house) more interesting and less mechanical feeling
Now you can avoid the biggest mistake that non-drummers do when trying to write realistic programs turn the overall volume of the hihats until you CANT hear them and then slowly bring up the volume until you just begin to hear them
Professional producers have spent countless hours trying to figure out how to gate and mix hihats OUT of tracks The reason is two fold1) Human beings have such a radical peak in their hearing around the 1-2khz range (or the intelligibility range of human speech) that we can play the hihats at incredible low volumes and they are still audible You cant do that with a bass drumI tell my drum students that you cannot play a hi hat or a snare drum so quietly that a person sitting in a room with you cant hear it2) Hi Hats the snare of snare drums and cymbals all seriously MASK human vocal intellibility How many people have gone to see live shows where they can hear the singer is singing but cant for the life of them figure out what they are actually singing That is ususally because drummers (or mixers which is frequently the case) are not hip to thisimportant fact
So turn down your hi hat tracks (or any track with a strong mid rangeshort envelope attack) and you have much more room for other musical goodies in your mix When in doubt make your hi hats quieter than you think they should be Trust me theyll come through the mix even at a quiet volume
Swingbull Dont know if you can do this in your sequencer but in Logic you can create a groove
template from your drums and then apply that to your other instruments If youre using separate midi channels for snares kicks and hats take the 8 bar loop youre using glue it together and then take the groove from that and then mute that track When you click down the quantize list youll see the template there and you can apply it to your other tracks Also if you do want to change the groove you can just change the hits in the muted template and itll automatically change all other hits to the new changes
bull Think if youre clever and organized you can basically cut breaks up in recycle load them into the exs24 (extract sequence) and then do the same with them That way if there are breaks you like the feel of you can just apply that swing to anything If you make a folder called grooves in your logic folder they should load up each time so that youll have loads to choose from Havent done this myself yet but always helpful to have a choice of feels available
bull Some things sound better rigid and robotic with equal velocities Some things sound better rigid and robotic with differing velocities Some things sound better with swing Some things sound better with everything ever-so-slightly off Its down to what the track needs
bull Drum Break Swing ProgrammingNicolas Hall wwwbreakbeat-cafenet wroteI think most people who make anything funk breakbeat drum amp bass or hip-hop would agree that Swing is crucial to the effectiveness of a beat The other key factors in a programming sense are dynamic and accent So many people get wound up when their beats sound sterile or mechanical this is due to the fact that computers and sequencers lock to perfect BPM A computer on its own does not interpret rhythm the way a good drummer does There are however certain machines that have their own swing parameters like the Akai MPC range of sampling drum machines which are used extensively by hip hop producers
Swing is not the easiest thing in the world to analyze but as a general rule good drummers will play slightly late and thats why in all funky records you get that slight dip at the start of the bar take Superstition by Stevie Wonder or Billie Jean by Michael Jackson these are both very simple beats Superstition is of course live drums whilst Billie Jean was programmed but no less funky than Superstition I emphasize this point to demonstrate that a programmed beat can be every bit at groovy as a beat played on a drum kit
Expanding on the Billie Jean point Hip Hop beats are really very simple If you listen to the Neptunes they tend to create the swing in their beats by quantizing the kicks and snares and playing the hi hats in by hand this creates a very tight beat which is off set by a loose hi hat try it works but dont forget your accents - As a starting point just take the first snare of your beat and turn the velocity down then notice how your head starts nodding and your foot starts tapping a little more you are giving the beat feel Also remember that if you are using reverb the louder snare will push the reverb harder than the soft snare so your creating more ambience that way Then try your kick drums if your not sure which hits to adjust just pick apart a beat your feeling I remember me and friend picking apart a Gangstarr beat and were able to almost replicate it by adjusting the velocities of each hit (admittedly it took a while to get it right)
If youre a newbie then a common trick when learning to make good grooves is to create a template with an existing loop The idea is take a loop you like thats got a good feel to it and then place your own hits over the break then take the break out and see if your hits are sounding funky This can take a while and its crucial to think about the strength of each hit or the dynamic Each kick will not be the same strength nor will the snares or the hats pick the loop apart dissect it and youll soon see that there are certain consistencies in all good beats
If youre using live loops and like to layer them with drum sequences you should be thinking about time space and frequencies So if you have a fairly heavy loop then layering it with heavy kick drums is probably not gonna sound good Think about filling holes are their any frequencies that could be filled up Or is there space in the loop for extra hits Try working in layers just adding one hit at a time also filtering works well you could take some of the frequencies out of your loop as you drop your drum sequences in to make room for them I think one the masters of this technique is Liam Howlett of the Prodigy He runs breakbeats and gives them extra balls by laying a kick drum underneath to add extra intensity to certain passages in his set but hes careful not to overlap frequencies to much A good place to start if you using breakbeats is the Roland Tr-808 kick drum which is around the 50hz mark which is sub bass territory so it will sit underneath most breaks very well
If your hell bent on making killer beats and loops then perseverance is crucial keep at it it will come together listen to beats you like and pick them apart identify the subtleties that make it happen I know some producers get fed up when their beats sound to clean or they are trying to create a new breakbeat and then compare it to sample they took from vinyl and get down on there own beat Think about what a breakbeat really is think about its history what has happened to it to make it sound the way it does Im
Page 32
sure youve noticed how some breaks have a certain something like a magic dust you cant put your finger on Let me share what I know with you about that
Most breaks though not all are taken from recordings of live drums some of them are pretty old so you have the ambience of live drums and the room they were recorded in you have the fact that natural decay and reverb of each drum is likely to have bled into the other mics on the kit and that most engineers used overhead mics which pick up the whole kit with two mics Then consider that many of these breaks will have been recorded to analogue tape with saturation which will create extra warmth and harmonics The next step comes from old sampling technology like the SP-1200 and the Akai s-950 mpc -60 these samplers sampled at 12- bit (bear in mind that most computers now are at least 24-bit if not more) and that the samples themselves where taken from vinyl and on and on the process goes with each new reverb and eq adding more and more to the break In terms of giving your breaks that character there are a number of things you can try for example buying an old four track cassette machine to dump your beats onto then re-sample it if your using a sampler like the s-950 then try pushing the input meters a little harder than usual add reverbs and resample it each time you put your loop through a new channel you will be adding something to it Also distortion is fantastic for breaks if you have any amp plug ins then try them the Amplitude one is particularly good you dont need to go mad with it just used subtly it works great
To finish I would just like to say again stick with it keep trying keep listening to records if you like to read about technique then do so you can learn so much from other producers Remember the strength of your hits is important as is the way it swings good luck
UPDATE 08092008
ENHANCE SYNTHESIZED DRUM PARTS WITH FOUND SOUNDS
emusiciancom wroteLayering real-world sounds with synthesized drum parts puts a new spin on your drum tracks You probably already have usable sound effects on your hard drive because most commercial samplers have at least a modest collection in their factory library Beyond that youll find thousands of royalty-free sound effects online Soundsnapcom is one of my favorite sources and its free The recordings dont need to be pristine for layering over drums so dont overlook cheap sampling CDs and consider grabbing your own sounds with a portable recorderCollect and Save
Start by assembling a small Foley library of short percussive sounds divided into typical drum-sound categories kicks snares toms cymbals percussion and so on Youll generally want to layer drum sounds with Foley sounds that have a similar volume contour and frequency range If you layer a Foley sound that resembles a kick drum with the sound of your hi-hat for example youll quickly fill up all the space in your drum track
Industrial household military transportation and vocal sounds make excellent fodder but you will often want to extract a small slice such as the last shot in a volley of machine-gun fire (snare) or the first bounce of a plastic bottle on concrete (tom) A browsing tool like Audio Finder (icedaudiocom) is invaluable if you have a large sample library That lets you quickly audition clips make basic edits and drag-and-drop slices to your library
Sticks UpIf your synthesized drum part is step sequenced youll need to export its step sequences as MIDI files Many drum synths do that including Sonic Charge Tonic (sonicchargecom) Apple Logic UltraBeat (applecom) and Submersible DrumCore (submersiblemusiccom) All of those come with a large collection of patterns exportable as MIDI sequences Youll also need a sampler to play the Foley sounds drum-oriented samplers are handier for that but are by no means necessary
Start by loading a kit in the drum synth Export one of its sequenced patterns or create your own and place it on the sampler track For some of the drum synth sounds select compatible Foley sounds and map them to the same notes in the sampler that theyre mapped to in the drum synth Next solo the doubled voices one by one in both the drum synth and the sampler start the sequence playing and tweak the samplers voice parameters (filter level pan envelope and so on) to make the sounds work together (see Fig 1 and Web Clip 1) Dont tweak global parameters such as effects because that will affect all sounds played by the sampler
High HoopsOnce youve configured your Foley track you can do several things to add interest I frequently use a
Page 33
second sampler for short vocal sounds Ill have some notes trigger sounds in both samplers and others in only one Many samplers let you group sounds and assign notes and controllers to choose among them You can then sequence these notes and controllers or you can play them live to alter your Foley tracks
Try applying DSP effects to individual Foley sounds Multitap delays distortion phasing and granular effects all work well when used sparingly (see Web Clip 2) You can apply DSP effects inside your sampler or route the voices to a separate output for DSP processing in your DAW If your sampler doesnt offer either possibility spread the Foley parts over several sampler instances on different tracks
Sidechain compression or gating of the drum track with one or more of the Foley parts will highlight the Foley part as well as add variety to the drums With compression peaks in the sidechain signal will reduce the level of the drum track Use a high compression level say 201 and balance the sidechain-gain and the compression-threshold -attack and -release controls to get the ducking contour you want (see Web Clip 3) Gating has the opposite effect the drum track will be heard during peaks in the sidechain signal (see Web Clip 4) Here too the sidechain-gain and gate-threshold controls work in tandem to determine when the gate is opened Use envelope parameters (attack release and hold) to shape the gates contour
Keep in mind that once youve created a sampler instrument to complement your drum kit you can reuse it with other sequences You can also change one or more sounds in the sampler instrument without repeating the whole process
34 Sidechain Compression (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
4 Theory41 ndash Song Structure42 ndash Mixdown (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)43 ndash Mastering (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
44 Music Theory
The first thing to remember about music theory is that generally if it sounds right it probably is There are no rules in music and Music Theory is not about telling you how to write music Its about understanding the music
Broadly speaking it is fair to say that most music is essentially based upon two crucial factors scales and rhythm Scales make up melodies chords harmonies and basslines to name but a few whereas rhythm makes up the beat of the song In this part of the Production Bible you will learn the basics of Music Theory that will serve you not only in the production of Dubstep but for any of your future musical pursuits This information is intended to be easy to read and understand so I wonrsquot be mincing sentences But firstly please make sure you learn every single note on the keyboard by studying the image below Otherwise yoursquoll be completely lost here
Page 34
Scales Wersquoll begin with scales As I mentioned before scales are the building blocks of your song and without them your track will be atonal and completely unlistenable (probably not the effect yoursquore going for)
There are two main scales that you should learn inside out ndash the major scale and the minor scale A generalisation yoursquore bound to have heard before is that the major scale sounds ldquohappyrdquo and the minor scale sounds ldquodarkrdquo Although this is not always the case it is mostly true ndash and therefore yoursquoll usually be focussing on the minor scale when producing Dubstep However just in case yoursquore writing happy-dubstep (if that exists) here is a quick overview of both scales and how they are made up
Major Scale
The major scale is really easy to create It is made by a single rule that is simple to put in to place
ldquoTone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
In case you donrsquot know what a Tone or Semi-Tone is here is a quick explanation
Picture a keyboard (or if you canrsquot see the image above) Say you go from C to C that would be a semi-tone The same thing goes for if you go from an E to an F ndash it is still a semi-tone because you
Page 35
have gone up one key
A tone is two semi-tones ndash for example from C to D is a tone and the same goes for from G to A
The scalersquos name is taken from the note that it starts on For example C major will start on the note of C Similarly A major will start on the note of A and this is the case with every single scale
Here is a quick list of a few major scales After having seen a few try working the rest out for yourself in order to understand how the major scale is formulated Ideally you should practice your scales on a piano or keyboard so that you can physically see how to make the scale It might sound boring but itrsquos a small price to pay for a much deeper understanding of your music
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Major C D E F G A B C
C Major C D E F G A B C
D Major D E F G A B C D
D Major D E F G A B C D
E Major E F G A B C D E
F Major F G A Bb C D E F
F Major F G A B C D E F
G Major G A B C D E F G
G Major G A B C D E F G
A Major A B C D E F G A
A Major A B C D E F G A
B major B C D E F G A B
Now by arranging the different notes of each of these scales in any order you please you can create a melody bassline or harmony with extreme ease Rearranging the notes in the scale will give you a flawlessly in-key result and it is then up to you to use the notes in the scale as you see fit for your tune
Minor Scale
As was the case with the Major Scale the Minor is made up from a set rule or formula By knowing this formula you can understand how the Minor is made and how to use it to itrsquos maximum effect
ldquoTone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
As is the case with the major scales you should practice your scales as much as possible to make sure that you know them all like the back of your hand Here are a few Minor Scales see if you can
Page 36
work out the rest
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Minor C D Eb F G Ab B C
D Minor D E F G A Bb C D
F Minor F G A B C D E F
G Minor G A Bb C D Eb F G
Similarly to the Major now that you know your Minor Scales you can quickly just take any note from the scale rearrange it with another few notes in the scale and there you have a fat melody or bassline ready to be played at maximum volume
Diminished Chords
Diminished Chords are really quite spooky and dark chords that are made up of four different notes all a minor third apart from each other That means that for example the Diminished Chord starting on C would be C Eb F A because to get from one note to the next you have to use ldquoTone Semi-Tonerdquo (known as a minor third)
Because of the mathematical nature of the Diminished chord there are only three ldquoclustersrdquo of notes which can then be rearranged like the Major and Minor Scales
Cluster 1 C Eb F A
Cluster 2 C E G Bb
Cluster 3 D F Ab B
Use these clusters and rearrange them as you please For example you could rearrange cluster 1 as Eb F A C etc
Generally speaking you canrsquot make a song based entirely on Diminished Chords due to the fact that each cluster only has 4 notes However a Diminished Chord is perfect for adding a hint of darkness to your tune and is brilliant when mixed with some Minor Scales
Chords
Chords are basically two or more notes played together They are made up from a specific scale ndash for example the C major chord is made up of notes in the C major scale
Usually chords will include the first third and fifth note of the scale as well as possibly using other notes to give them colour For example the basic chord of C major would be C E G Then you could add the seventh note to it (in this case it is B) Really it is up to the producerrsquos discretion how heshe goes about making a chord ndash just remember to stick to the scale you are using
Chords will more than likely sound like shit if you play them on a complicated or layered synth patch You want to be playing chords on sustained sounds such as strings or pads Chords will really fill out your sound if used properly You want your chords to be supporting the melody or bassline and more than likely want to add some reverb so that it doesnrsquot sound too sharp Make
Page 37
your chords blend in with the music and yoursquoll have mastered them
Chord Inversions
Quite simply chord inversions are when you rearrange the notes in a chord so that it sounds a bit different and suits your arrangement better
For example if you were in the key of C major you could have a drone of E playing underneath some strings playing the notes E G C E
Due to the fact that the notes are the same and have only been inverted the chord will still be in key with the rest of the music This is a great way to add a touch of variation to your music instead of using the same chord structure all the time
Arpeggios
Arpeggios are much easier to understand than they sound They are quite simply the first third and fifth note of the scale played as individual notes For example the arpeggio of C minor would be C Eb G C etc
A great example of an arpeggio is the bassline in Bengarsquos ldquoCrunked Uprdquo He goes from playing the F minor arpeggio backwards to playing the F minor arpeggio backwards In other words he is playing
C A F and then C Ab F
Experiment with a few Minor Arpeggios and a couple of Diminished Arpeggios and you canrsquot go wrong in writing a huge bassline
Suggested Reading
List of All Scales With Finger Charts Included
Well thatrsquos it folks Thatrsquos basically all the music theory you need to know to start off with As you grow more used to the various scales yoursquoll notice that certain notes sound good with each other whilst others donrsquot Irsquom not here to tell you how to write music Irsquom here to teach you the language
of music Itrsquos up to you to write the poetry
copy Bruno Crosier (klimaxx) 2008
45 Random Tips
Random tips amp best piece of advice thread
5 Resources
Page 38
51 Books amp Magazines
Hello again people
Does anyone know of more music production books magazines or authors we can add to these lists
Thanks
------------------------------------------------
Music Production Magazines Computer Music - httpwwwcomputermusiccouk Music Tech Magazine - httpwwwmusictechmagcouk Future Music - httpwwwfuturemusiccouk Sound on Sound - httpwwwsoundonsoundcom Remix Magazine - httpremixmagcom Mix Magazine - httpmixonlinecom Electronic Musician - httpemusiciancom EQ Magazine - httpwwweqmagcom Audio Technology - wwwaudiotechnologycomau Tape Op - httpwwwtapeopcom
------------------------------------------------
Music Books
Authors Curtis Roads httpmitpressmiteducatalogauthor aspaid=93 - The Computer Music Tutorial (Really really really good book) Paul White - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea ul20White - Basic Series + more Rick Snowman - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea k20Snoman - The Dance Music Manual Tools Toys and Techniques Bobby Owsinski - httpbooksgooglecoukbooksas_auth=Bobby+Owsinski - The MixingRecording amp Mastering Engineers Handbooks Michael Paul Stavrou - httpwwwmixingwithyourmindcom
Publishers Thomson Course Technology - httpcoursecengagecom (Click on the Music Technology tab) - Series published include Power Overdrive Ignite and CSI Series + many more Backbeat Books - httpwwwbackbeatbookscom ndash Power Tools Series + many more Wiley Publishing - httpwwwdummiescom (Enter music in their search bar) - For Dummies Series Penguin Books - httpuspenguingroupcom (Enter music in their search bar) - The Complete Idiots Guide Series + many more MIT Press - httpmitpressmitedu - Many books on music theory Focal Press - httpwwwfocalpresscom - (Enter music in their search bar)
------------------------------------------------
Online Music Book Stores (We need more links here Do you know of any that we can add)
httpwwwmixbookscom ndash Excellent source that sells only books about music
Page 39
httpwwwamazoncom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
httpwwwbarnesandnoblecom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
------------------------------------------------
52 Wikipedia
A good music lexicon wiki Search for your term in the search bar ---gt httpenaudiolexicorgwikiMain_Page
0-9
14rdquo Jack - httpenwikipediaorgwikiJack_plug 3rd Bridge - httpenwikipediaorgwiki3rd_Bridge
Zero Crossing - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_crossing Zero Crossing Rate - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_Crossing_Rate
53 Other recommended production forums
for Logic users this is the shit httpwwwlogicprohelpcom
Ive found both these forums to be full of knowledgeable producers amp musicians
httpwwwkvraudiocomforum
httpacapellaharmony-centralcomforumsindexphp
httpwwwgearslutzcomboard
httpwwwsoundonsoundcomforum
httpwwwmusicradarcomforum
httpwwwidmforumscom
httpwwwdance-industriescomphpBB2 8cffbb3b02
httpwwwsubvertcentralcomforumindexphp
httpwwwbreakbeatcouk
httpwwwtweakheadzcom
httpwwwabletoncompagesforum
Explains lots about the music industry ---gt httpwwwbemusocom
Page 47
Ok so a massive thanks to all the contributors there are literally too many to mention But Thanks to Futures Untold Johnny Beat Klimaxx Deadly Habit amp JunglistRendr Daft Cunt in perticular
Thanks to all the artists producers and general music geeks making this early revision of the production bible an essential read
There are links missing and will be included in version 21(Please help with the unlinked chapters by going here - httpwwwdubstepforumcomthe-dubstep-production-bible-updated-2009-06-03-t14797html and updating missing info as needed)
Compiled by Daft Cunt and Futures Untold PDF Compiled by Depone
Here is a list of the most popular freeware analysers available
Voxengo SPAN
Bluecat Audio Freqanalyst
Roger Nichols Inspector
Page 20
For a long list of other free analysers visit httpwwwgersiccompluginsindexphpdaCat=2
3 Techniques
31 Bass311 Sub Bass
Sub-bass is a term used to describe audible sounds below 90Hz - sound in the range below this (under 16-17Hz) would be termed infrasound Sound systems often feature a subwoofer that is dedicated solely to amplifying sounds in the lower bass and sub-bass range Source Wikipedia
So the idea is to have the sub going up to ~90Hz The exact frequency it should be cut at depend on the kicks frequency Lets say you HP your kick at 100Hz then the sub should be LPed at 100Hz so they compliment each other without clashing
There are several ways of creating a sub here are the most common 1 - using a unique waveform (sine saw square or triangle) will give you a nice linear sub NB You dont need to filter out a sine wave as it doesnt have overtones 2 - using detuned waveforms take 2 identical waves (sine saw square or triangle) and detune them - lets say -25 +25 semitone This will produce a phase effect and give movement to your sub but itll also cause large volume amplitude and youll need to compress it after filtering Great Massive tutorial by Subfocus here 3 - using a 808 kick you dont have a TR-808 Grab that pack
jobbanaught wroteAn easy option to get a powerful subbass is to take a 808 kick sample put it in your favorite sampler and loop a single cycle of the waverform somewhere in the middle of the sample The 808 kick is made of a sine and some additional white noise The sine gives your sub that rattling low end pressure and the noise adds overtonesgrittiness = instant badass subbass
You can find more tips about mixing your kick n sub in the Random bass tips thread
312 lsquoWobblersquo
Page 21
Wobble GuideWobble Bass
Wobble Bass as it is known is simply a bassline that has an LFO assigned to a Low Pass Filter as an insert effect LFOstands for Low Frequency Oscillator and is used to change a sound by a defined speed (measured in either Hz or synced to the Tempo in relation to the barsnotes through quantization) The way the LFO changes the sound is up to you you can make the LFO adjust the Volume the amount of Saturation Filter Cutoff etc Basically any parameter you link it to Essentially you are just using the LFO to send a changing value to a parameter
--------------------
How to get a simple wobble bass
1) Choose a simple sound on your synth (Anything apart from a Sine wave )
2) Select your LFO and set it to the speed you want (18 would be a good starting point)
3) Now assign the LFO to the Filter Cutoff Which should for this example be a Low Pass Filter as the sound were going for is a deep bass
4) You now have a basic wobble bass from here the possibilities for tweaking this sound are endless
--------------------
A quick breakdown of whats actually going on Essentially you are taking a sound (that can be an audio files generated by a synth etc) and then passing it through a Low Pass Filter Now what exactly does a Low Pass Filter do you ask
A Low Pass Filter allows Low Frequency signals to pass through it but reduces the amplitude (volume) of all the Frequencies above the cutoff point In general most plug-ins have various Low Pass Filter settings where the more poles it has the more Dbs it will cut and will yield a harder knee to it Example 1 Pole Filter with a -6dBOct reduction Vs a 2 Pole Filter reducing -12DbOct However you dont necessarily need a LFO controlling your Low Pass Filter Cutoff frequency value you could just draw in the Automation yourself but a LFO will yield a loop of consistent values and prevents the possibility of human error All the LFO is doing is sending a value to your frequency cutoff to keep it consistently changing
--------------------
Tips amp Advice
1) Sub bass wobble would normally be a Sine wave at around the 40-50 Hz range which would repeat the same chords as the mid-range bass wobble The only difference being that with a sub bass wobble there is no point in assigning the LFO to a Low Pass Filter because the sound is too low for the low pass filter to have any effect so theLFO is assigned to the amplitude (volume) instead Another reason for not applying a Low Pass Filter to the Sub bass is because it would typically be a Sine wave which possesses no Harmonics to be adjusted by the Filter
2) The sound of an LFO can also be adjusted by the wave type you choose The default setting for an LFO generator is a Sine wave although on most synths you can chose from Triangle Sawtooth Square wave Random Noise To get a nice sounding bass it is a good idea to use as many oscillators as possible on different octaves
3) Try messing around with the attack and release of your sound as this can have an impact on the sound of the bass Long attacks tend to create a more ambient sound and is a technique traditionally used with ambient pads
Page 22
4) Something that I find useful is to bounce the bassline to a wav file so that it can be chopped up and put in-sync with other elements of the song because the majority of the time you will find the first wave of sound in the wobble bassline will will be half the length of the other waves due to attack rates So the best thing to do is to chop that freak sound off the beginning of the file in your DAW (Logic Pro Reason Cubase etc) and start off with the second wave which should be fully formed This way it will not be too early of late when keeping in sync with other elements such as a second bassline
5) Another method you can use is creating a clone layer of your original sound and setting up a new LFO setup for that to beat alternatively in the space left by the original LFO Or go that crazy Drum amp Bass Reese route and split the frequencies to Low Mid and High then set different LFO rates for each band then recombine into one sound
6) For more variation automate your LFO speed and intensity
7) Where you place insert effects in relation to the filter (pre or post) will yield different sounding results
8) Other methods to achieve a wobble like sound Tremolo (This effects volume rather than frequency) FM Synthesis Modulation of PWM Oscillator Pitch assigned (in a liberal amount) to LFO Filter Envelope assigned to LFO (using a re-triggered envelope) (submitted by Faun2500)
9) Assign a second LFO to modulate the speed of the first LFO
LFO Shapes
Sine wave The smooth value change possible
Triangle Similar to a Sine wave but slightly more ramped amp synthetic sounding
Random A mixed bag
Sawtooth Will have a very fast attack with a slower release which will sound very rugged
Square wave Will be a simple open close style Very harsh and will generally cause a very harsh sound (Often used in DJ Hazard style bass-lines) Detune two square waves for a nice dark sounding bass
Waveforms submitted by Skells wrotehttpi228photobucketcomalbumsee83 cleanjpgSimple Filter Sweep
httpi228photobucketcomalbumsee83 wobblejpgSine Wave LFO assigned to Filter Cutoff
LINKS etc
Fruity Loops Wobble Tutorial (Link submitted by Wub) Massive Wobble YouTube Tutorial (Video created by thesynthesist) Pause amp Play Wobble Tutorial (Link submitted by dubmo) Albino3 Wobble Guide (Guide created by axon)
By Rendr amp Deadly Habit and a little help from Macc
313 lsquoReecersquo
The Reese Bass
Page 23
History Lesson
The Reese bass was a form of huge sounding synth-bass first used by the Detroit Techno producer Kevin Saunderson aka Master Reese aka Reese Project aka on the track Just Want Another Chance and immortalised in the classic DnB track Terrorist by Renegade Since then it has been (over)used in many a DnB track and continues to evolve even nowadays through Dubstep and Jungle It is said to be as influential to DnB as the Amen break and probably as used and abused as the Amen
Capturing the Beast
1The Oscillator Stage
To nail the Reese you need a synth with at least 2 oscillators but for better-bigger results use as many oscillators as you can (not really but 4 oscillators give a nice deep rumble - ahhhhhh) All the oscillators are playing sawtooth waves and all except one are detuned by 25-50 cents so that all oscillators are out of phase with each other
2 The Filter Stage
The signal is then sent to a low-pass filter with the cutoff freq set around 150-200Hz (experiment with that you want the growl of the mid-frequencies but you also want it as deep as possible without sacrificing the midrange) The resonance of the filter should be cranked up almost all the way (but again tweak accordingly to your filtersynth)
3 Fuzz it Up
The second most important aspect of the Reese (after the detuned sawtooths) is distortion Tube distortion and tape saturation work extremely well but dont hesitate to use other more extreme distortion units (dont forget that the Reese has been done a million times you have to add something original to it) Again adjust to taste
4 Spices and Herbs
Now that is the main recipe for the sound but like all haute-cuisine there are more things you can do to spice up the Reese Namely effects Effects that have been associated with the Reese are
Phasers - to accentuate the phase-shifting effect of the detuned sawtooths Unison - a great way to make it even bigger Chorus - again a good way to phatten it up
5 And Some More Synth Magic
Another thing to do so you can bring out the old-school jungle character of the Reese is to use Legato and PortamentoGlide if your syth of choice has them available These are both great ways to move from one note to the next without listening to the transition To put it simply when legato is on and you play a sustained E followed by a sustained G the transition between the two notes gives the listener the impression that they heard a single note being sustained that has just changed its pitch from E to G without pausing at a certain point
Always remember though that if you use Legato you have to turn the polyphony of your synth down to 1 (something you should almost always do with basslines because two bass-notes playing together almost never sound good in electronic music bass chords are more the realm of prog-rock shit than dubstep)
For the more technical minded legato in synthesizers is a variation of monophonic operation In contrast to monophonic mode where every new note restarts the ADSR envelopes in legato mode they are not if the previous note remains depressed when the new note is played This causes the initial transient from the attack and decay phases to sound only once and the ADSRs to remain at sustain stage for the whole sequence of notes until the final note is released (Wikipedia)
EDIT I just found out that in one of the free vst links on the bible there is a thing called the Hotelsinus Reese Bassline Synth So I didnt miss the opportunity for a mini review The software itself is small (like most free vst-is) and quite easy to install (you just drop the dll in the vst folder) As for the sound weeeeeeell the sounds it produces are definitely Reese But weak somehow Its like listening to Terrorist from a battered cheap old cassette from 93 or something It has a tinny and tiny sound when compared to what you can achieve with powerhouses like Albino or
Page 24
Massive or (one of my personal favorites for Reese) Cakewalk Rupture You can try it if you want but i dont think it will impress steppers that much we are bass-headed folk
314 Random Bass Tips
Plz add yours or others youve spotted on the forum
miss_molinari wrotebasically i have been experimenting with cutting (not sidechaining) a notch (band reject) in the bass starting at 60hz and ending just before 70 this is only for those bass lines which only hit on the kick (quite specific) also the bass is then high passed at about 220hz to pretty much 0db which is where the kick starts (ending the kick with a non-too-aggressive-cut at about 2khz) this essentially means that the kick and the bass do not share any frequencies above abot 200hz but also between 60 and 70 and with them always hitting at the same time this gets around the fact that sidechaining this type of sequencing would leave you with no or little bass
this has worked well so far but is useful mainly for sub basses ending at around 250hz would not be as good for full spectrum wubsanyone else got any tech tips regarding the bass and kick
futures_untold wroteI simply cut everything under 90Hz on my kicks and roll off slightly at 1KHz
Sub I cut under 40Hz and roll off at 200Hz
I always compress both seperately and keep my levels low in the mix to create plenty of head room later whilst adding sounds with higher frequency content
Anything above 150Hz is what I consider midrange Anything above 150Hz can be heard on mobile phone speakers We all know that theyre designed to play heavy bass lol Wink
miss_molinari wroteDaft Cunt wroteTo me it feels like cutting the kick above 80 hz makes it sound weak I guess it depends on the style I rather cut below 60 to 80 depending on the tune
yeah its all about context in a dry minimal setting im of the opinion you can make a kick punch right up to about 180-200hz but yeah depends on when and on what kind of punch (im usually talking a bass hit at about 200hz coupled with a knock hit anywhere up to about 1200hz) i imagine you true dubsteppers prefer a denser thump from 60 through to about 300hz
Daft Cunt wroteI began recently the band-reject thing on the sub Little details that make big difference
And do you people cut the bass where the snare peaks
my basses arent usually middy enough to need that but yeah a slight sidechain on the main snare and say midbasspadwothavyer is nice especially if the limelight is stolen by a deeper sidechain on the kick and midbasspadwothavyer can create a nice flow (especially when used with long decay reveb linked to the midbasspadwothavyer so that it sounds louder and longer the higher the frequency played - might
have to post some piccies of that one )
Shonky wroteWhat Ive been doing lately is bouncing down the kick track lowpassing one somewhere between 100-140 depending on the highest frequencies of the low sub and then sidechaining the sub to the low kick
Then take a copy of the kick track highpass between 300-1000 and this will give you the beater noise to make the kick cut through I then sidechain this to the more middly basses You can also send a small amount to a reverb bus which allows you to avoid mud on the lower frequencies whilst still giving you the space
Doing it this way seems to make sense to me cause the sidechains work on the corresponding kicks in the same frequency range so it doesnt cause loads of unnecessary compression where you dont need it
Page 25
boh wroteAlways make sure your kicks are in tune with the rest of the track ull hear it pitching up and down and make sure if ur layering that the transients dont conflict(good monitors make this easy) It all comes down to kick selection Whats the point in cutting a kick at 80hz with a fundemental freq of say 60hz Sure you get whats happening before it but u wont get the nice thump of the fundemental freq Choose other kicks that hit the freq u want (80hz say) instead of cutting them when theres no need to Unless you really really know what your doing getting technical like this complicates the situation Esp for people with little experience
sullyharmitage wrote50 hz hi pass seems a bit high to me maybe gd for kicky techno or house but for subby stuff it seems a bit muchdefo roll off past 30-35 (most well engineered systems will do this anyways so any content below this is definately getting wasted)if yr gonna go higher make sure its a soft curvei find levelling subs is the hardest part of a mix - cos more always sounds better i remember reading breakage saying yr subs shouldnt add more than 3db to yr mix thats seems like a good guide
btw sub in kick an bassline simultaeously is gonna cause clashes (n maybe disortion) id either decrease the attack on the bass or cut the sub from the kick
unklefesta wroteI rolloff EVERYTHING at 40hz except my bass
standard
wang wroteAlways do it
Dont forget youre ROLLING off the frequencies not cutting them off all together Just a couple of dB of bass down there is enough to get some girth without removing all your headroom
Also analyse and cut off the lows on everything even if it doesnt appear to have messy lows -Youd be surprised how much bass there is in some high hats
Jtransition wroteAll of your tracks are going to be different so dont restrict yourself to a certain techniquetry different things and listen to the results
Shonky wrotewang wroteAlso analyse and cut off the lows on everything even if it doesnt appear to have messy lows -Youd be surprised how much bass there is in some high hats
Yep this is very true also worth filtering out the inaudible highs on low sounds as well found some of my subs which Id low passed still showed frequency activity much higher than expected
Jtransition wroteStick a high pass filter on everything apart form the kick drum and bass line70 hertz is a good starting point move up or down to tasteAnd remember try to mix at low levels(Walls not vibrating)
Deadly Habit wroteRendr wroteBasslines in my experience should be mono due to the fact that humans cannot easily decoded the stereo positioning of low frequencys so panning basslines (excluding bass sounds with high pitch sounds at around 500Hz+) is not recommended not only are the low frequencys hard to position with the human ear the low frequency sound waves are absorbed by the human head at a much higher ratio than high pitch sounds which tend to be reflected Another thing to note is that club systems are
mono Basslines that pan only belong in Psytrance
sub range should be mono especially if going to be cut to vinylmidrange bass on the other hand you can pan and add stereo fx to your hearts content
Page 26
32 Re-sampling
SafeAfter a few months of experimenting with resampling not really getting anywhere in terms of sound quality i came up with a pretty simple way of getting on the right track Ive got so much help since getting on this forum in terms of production i thought id share this for those who like myself are looking into the elusive yet highly rewarding technique of resamplingAll the vsts i use on this (save for the synth itself) are freenative plugs im using FL but itll transfer onto every DAW pretty much the same Ill explain it for a bassline but it can be applied to any sound
Step 1Make yourself a nice bassline get it sounding dirty with whatever you can within the synth Im using Albino so i tend to play about with the saturation modesFXs until its sounding pretty good
Step 2Hook up to a mixer channel then send this channel to a second mixer channel (FL users just click on another channel towards the bottom of the strip) On the second channel that the synth is hooked to from the first add CMt bitcrusher and downsample 3-16x (thanks to all the production forum users who pointed this out to me when i posted a few months ago on dirtying up basslines) Then add a chorus Turn the LFOs off and set the depthdelayetc to whatever sounds best Also set the crossover pretty high so only the treblehigh mids are being affected Then add Camel Audio Camel Crusher Turn the compressor off and set the tubemech to taste Add a parametric EQ if needs be to boost the high freqs Experiment with the chain of these effects swapping them according to the sound The choruscameleq in different orders should alter the sound quite alot depending on where their placed
Step 3 Set the level of the second affected channel with the original depending on whatever suits Play about with adding extra effects to both channels The way the second channel behaves once an effect is added to the first is quite extreme in even light application of effects So its possible to create a whole array of different sounds just from say adding a flangerchorusetc to the first channel then listening to how much it affects the sound as a whole as it goes through both channels By now it should be sounding pretty girthy
Step 4Export the riffsample (i use edison on the master channel in FL but whatever method will do) Reload and place into a mixer channel Add another Camel Crusher for abit more grit EQ and compress Set up a reverbdelay send and resample again for extra depth
Obviously this technique can be applied a 2nd3rd4th time to fuck the sound up even more so Which is what ive moved onto doing now into the territory of splitting the sound into basslow midhigh midtreble sections for ultimate control over each part Something which i was attempting to do before coming up with the above method but being left with a pile of unlistenable mushy shite
Hope this is a help to some peeps I know theres no secret technique to resamping only a whole load of practice and using your ears but this method got me on the right track in terms of hearing the benefits of it and encouraging me to experiment more in depth and realise that the possiblities are endless Im hooked now i resample pretty much every sound in one way or another Kick and snares benefit hugley from it for mega face melting wide drum sounds aswell so its worth trying it on some nice drum hits
Keep up the good work folksPeaceDC_WT
33 Drums
Read before reading on I am in no way entitled to any of those opinions It is up to you to decide whether you would like to incorporate them in your workflow I have just collected them from all the threads in this forum and will try to keep everything updated
I will update as regularly as I find updates
Page 27
Misc tips and tricks bull Good drums are usually layered - example 3 snares sounding as onebull The hats are often panned or widenedbull Pick great sounding samples different ones for different parts of the sounds you want 1
for snap and bite 1 for body 1 for thump distort and MAYBE EQ each to make them sound the best that they can separately combine in a bus MAYBE compress them together maybe accent the front and shorten the sound with a transient modifier 10 minutes tops
bull Do as little as possible with great-sounding bits and your basic sounds will be slamming leaves you time to focus on the arrangement people dont go around thinking wow that tune has an amazing snare as long as its thumping and not masked by a bunch of other stuff itll keep the dance moving
bull Listen to other producers work As its playing imagine the 1 2 3 4 on the step sequencer running in time to what youre listening to Try to visualize where the producer put their hits Not to say you should copy peoples drum patterns but learn from them
bull Ive noticed a lot of tunes (more minimal stuff where you can distinctly hear whats seperately going on) seem to use two differently pitched hi-hats that alternate to sound shuffley if you know what I mean and a less dramatic snare used sparsely in between the main lazy kick and snare An easy trick if you havent worked it out (which to be honest you should have if youre at all serious about producing dubstep) is to stick a smaller snare or hat the 116th before the kick or snare so it steps if you get me For example Bengas Night does this for all four beats in the bar which is part of what makes it so danceable But dont get stuck in always having kick on 1 and snare on 3 some tracks work with a kick on every beat others with a couple big snares etc The trick (unless you want proper lazy spaced out tunes) is to make sure youre nodding your head on all four beats of the bar Play around with a hat on every quaver (ie 8 per bar on the beat) compared to just four but on the off beat as well as adding in the steppy ones every now and then Theres often no need to over-complicate things though one of the my favourite drum tracks is the incredibly simplistic V by Distance Its a rhythm that could easilly be played by one guy on a real kit yet its so banging - check the use of hats and lower velocity kicks in this to make it nice and bouncy Also I once had a four bar drum loop and accidentally moved the sequence one bar to the right for one section and it ended up nicely varying the drums in a way you wouldnt expect
bull Really tight delays can help claps and snaps sound natural 5-20ms etcbull Recycle or phatmatik is your break-chopping friendbull Basically Hatrixxs method involved chopping everything from the main hits into a sample
Say you had a 2-step funk beat like the Amen Youd start your selection from the start of the first kick and select everything up to the start of the first snare Cut paste theres your first slice Then take everything from the start of the first snare up to the start of the second kick - including all the little hats and ghost hits - cut paste second sample and so on Then just map the samples onto some keys and bash away Both of them are quick compared to chopping Recycled slices where you have to copy and drag loads of little notes (one every little fucking tiny hit in the break arranged chromatically up the keyboard) around the piano roll These methods let you just concentrate on the main hits which can be both good or bad You can get a solid beat down with just a handful of hits but youre limited to the patterns already in the original break For a beginner to breakbeat science like yourself Id say try these methods first but dont rule out the really anal methods like RecyclePhatmatikFruity Slicer Sometimes they are a necessary evil Of course some of the drumfunk guys especially those who post on Subvert Central swear by these methods or the next one There are those who prefer to chop up the raw audio rather than bothering with MIDI and samplers They literally just drop the break file into Cubase or Logic and start chopping with the scissors tool and copying and pasting I can see the benefits of this You can see the waveform as youre chopping and youre not as restriced to the quantize grid as you are with MIDI But it takes aaaaages to build a drum track this way and theres the risk of RSI from all that Ctrl+C Ctrl+V youll be doing Then of course theres trackers They really are tailor-made for chopping up loops amongst other things They give you Sample Offset meaning that when you trigger a sample you can set it to start from 256 evenly spaced points throughout the sample So by starting a sample a quarter of the way through youre triggering the first snare (obviously you can fine-tune it when the snare isnt perfectly on the beat) You can edit breaks in a tracker without ever having to cut up a waveform and you can do all sorts of other nifty things like reverse the sample retrigger it to make drum rolls and so on
If recycles having trouble switch the break to mono in your sample editor and then apply tiny fades between the drum hits (especially useful if there are lots of rides that play over the other hits to keep things separate) This should help recycle pick up the start points and with any luck should leave you with a cleaner break
Page 28
Snaresbull Tune the snares so they all hit around the same pitch bull Change the Amp Envelopes of each to bring the strongest parts from each separate sample
and build up your sound like that bull Compressing all together is a good idea but dont over do it bull EQ the master out for the snare as well so you wont have to fuck about when you use the
sample in the future bull Donrsquot just use snares fling some random sound effects in there Claps and rim shots also
work well when layered bull Make subtle changes to them and export a few snares from the same setup this helps
when you need a ghost hit or a reverse that sounds similar but not identicalbull Watch that frequencies dont build up and make the layered bit sound overly whatever
is building up Really easy to get too much 200hz or 500hz or even 12k if youve got samples that are all beefythicksmack-y
bull If its peaking run it through a Spectrum Analyzer and see where its peaking I guess its peaking in the tune rather than just the snare sample playing on its own
bull Sometimes snare samples have a very short peak that doesnt seem to make them sound any better and keeps you from getting them louder without cliping Reduce that part by a few dBs and youre sorted
bull Make sure you are using subtractive eq to pull out the frequencies that could be clashing with other sounds If your frequencies are clashing that can hide the snare and then you end up turning it up to compensate and there you are with your snare peakingThe key is making the frequencies sit right in the mix so that they dont clash and you can set them right and not have to turn them up
bull You could always try clipping the snare normalise it in a wave editor amplify it as much as you can before it sounds distorted then sample it out Then replace the snare with the clipped version it will almost always sound louder with more body at a lower volume I would still point out that although this can be used as a replacement to compression compression is a vital tool to learn how to use Also a lot of peeps will say this does bad things to the waveform and it does but unless you intend to listen to your tune to be heard at home on an amazing hifi then it doesnt really matter that much IMO
bull Hi-pass overdrive limit and cut away space from other sounds for itbull Layer with its self or a different snare Layer with sub add effect to one layer add effect
to both layers layer zoom right in drag one wave form back or forth very slightly to create new snare sound Pitch updown EQ Filter distort reverb delay reverse
bull Record yourself beat boxing your best snare sounds then layer with snare samplesbull A good handclap never goes a miss or use a nice drum synth to get a very differentdigital
soundbull Try reversing the snare sample then changing the envelope settings so it only hits on the
beat Layer that with the same sample this time not reversed Add a little delay to the the reversed snare Change the settings til it sounds how you like
bull Particularly snares I layer up a lot I look for one that has the qualities that I want when run through verb and then I look for something shorter with more mid punch to keep things physical After someone notied snares were weak in a tune Ive really made a point of ensuring that when the snares hit its physical as well as textural You need to feel them a bit - so I look for some snares that have that real punch when layering but usually keep the more textural snappy one as the focus last couple tunes I did the standard kick snare hats w odd percussion and then I took an amen chopped it processed it and layered it overtop for more aggression and step (goddess being a perfect example) By removing a layer and adding it you can create a sense of progression through the tune Make sure the bottom layer is sounding really good and then add the top so that youre not mixing them to be reliant on one another - instead you want synergy Make sure the EQ on the top and bottom make sense with each other
Kicksbull Building a kick in Ableton Lives Impulse machine Provides some essential information
about layering that can be used with any DAWbull Making fat kicks
remixmag wroteWhether creating Miami Bass music is your lifes fantasy or your greatest fear you probably crave the know-how to manifest those car-rattling trunk-full-of-funk kick drums In the arenas of hip-hop house techno downtempo and almost any other electronic genre molding fat kick drums is absolutely essential Like grandmas homemade apple pie the recipe for kick drums is partially a matter of taste However theres no substitute for quality ingredients And just like every pie has its staple ingredients every slamming kick drum requires some common elements Lets take a look at the
Page 29
shopping list for killer kick drumsTHE CRUST
Youll need a basic shell to begin creating a thick strong kick The classics always work if youre fortunate enough to own a real Roland TR-808 909 or other famous drum machine with a killer kick use it copiously If youre not one of those chosen few pay close attention to your original source For example if you use a sampler understand that not all ldquo808 Kickrdquo samples are the same some sound great and some just plain suck There are a lot of reasons for that including how many generations from the original the sample is the sampling rate and bit depth of the sampler how the kick was first sampled and so on Be as choosy as possible with your individual samples mdash dont use a mediocre sample just because it has 808 in the name and therefore is ldquosupposedrdquo to sound fat Seek out a better 808 sample or use something else that is simply bigger sounding Remember the time you spend finding sweet original sources wont be in vain especially if you reuse the resulting samples for multiple songsBORROW SOME SUGAR
An old saying goes ldquoGood art borrows great art stealsrdquo A nice way to start out with great raw kick material is to sample directly from the source If you dont own but have access to a 909 then sample it directly Or take one of your favorite producers tracks on vinyl or CD find a naked kick drum in there and sample it Be cautious with that approach for a couple of reasons Copyright issues around sampling even small bits have become a dangerously gray area and I would never personally advise using any source straight out of the can even from a royalty-free sample library While it may be an excellent start its unoriginal Customize whatever you bite Treat your samples as a sculptor would treat clay mold each one to create a trademark sound for yourself One effective way to customize a fat kick is to take a tip from the synth manufacturers If a sound is thin pile another (or a few more) on top When doing so its important to use different sounds layering two identical kicks will result in a louder kick but it wont change the basic tone Remember the sculptor approach here Even if you are using two good-sounding individual samples they may not instantly sound great together For example I find that when layering kicks while the thickness may be good sustain is often overkill The final result often benefits from a little doctoring on the tail of one (or both) of the samples and other hands-on sonic surgeryADD THE FILLING
Once a nice basic kick is achieved treating it with two of the mastering engineers favorite tools is often the next step Artfully applying a compressor (to just the kick) can go a long way toward creating a signature sound and a huge kick Compression is one of those ldquosecret spicesrdquo and how to apply it is a whole topic in itself One recommendation I will make however is to use a multiband compressor With one of those you can isolate compression on certain frequency ranges That is perfect if for example you want to push the sub of your kick without emphasizing the higher frequencies (which often affect the tone of the attack) or vice-versa EQ comes after compression in my signal chain By now the kick should already sound pretty fat I aim to shave unnecessary frequencies here rather than artificially boosting too much This is also where you can actualize trademark sounds while also fine-tuning them to work alongside other elements in specific tracks I often scoop out mids and highs especially frequencies above about 500 Hz Even though I like thick deep kicks unless Im going for a really dublike sound I often truncate the lowest frequencies (usually the sub-50 Hz frequencies) Even when you cant hear the difference when trimming frequencies doing so can really tighten up your kicksEVEN IT OUT
You may ask why when youre trying to fatten up a kick would you want to trim frequencies That is one of the keys to achieving great mixes both in the case of kick drums and in general You want to avoid too many overlapping frequencies The more sonic separation you have between elements the more focused the entire mix will sound That can be especially important for club music which often gets played on huge not necessarily audiophile-quality sound systems If you havent run into the following scenario already I assure you at some point you will Your bass line and kick drum are competing and it sounds like you have a weak kick You boost the kick but it still sounds muddy Take the bass out and suddenly the kick doesnt sound so bad In a scenario like that solo the two sounds listen carefully for where frequencies are overlapping and then try subtractive EQ on one element then the other and sometimes a bit on both By scooping out overlapping frequencies you will often find that both elements seem to magically come forward in the mix before even touching their respective volume levels
Hi hatsbull Realism
Ive been a professional touring and recording drummer for 25 years and just thought I might share a couple of really simple ways to use fruity loops or fruity studio to create more realistic drum patterns
For what its worth try this out with Fruity Loops
Page 30
Take your hi hat tracks (are any tracks for that matter including melodic synth bubbles)
Drop down the bar graph box that allows you to scroll between velocity (volume) pitch panning cutoff resonance and a thing called shift which allows you to use each of these categories to effect each individual note that youve programmed (note this can be accomplished in other ways in most of the good midi sequencing apps or softwarehardware drum machines)
Drummers no matter how good they are just arent perfect and we can use the fact that each of these drop down bar graphs can make veryvery small changes in a sound to do some subtle things to a rolling drum groove like 16th notes on a hi hat
Not all drummers but many tend to favor their strong hand in a single stroke (hand over hand) drum roll Consequently if you make all odd numbered hi hats be slightly louder than their even numbered hits it will sound more realistic Start by making velocity differences that are really clearly audible Then lower the velocity until you can barely feel the difference We are going to make very subtle changes like this on each of the parameters of velocity pitch cutoff resonance and importantly shift
I cant stress enough that you should make these changes be so subtle that you can hardly notice them
Just going on the fact that the right handed players start their rolls with the right hand and favor it ever so slightly (or grossly for effect as well) means that the stroke will be harder with the right hand than the left hand
When a percussion instrument is hit harder the difference between the transient (or hi pitched attack) of the sound and the body of the instrument (or the sound that comes after the attack) becomes greater In general on drums that means that a harder attack tensions the drum very imperceptably (sp) and it also means that there will be more treble in the sound Consequently the pitch goes up a little teensy bit and their is more attack to the sound (increased resonance and slightly higher cutoff frequency)
Consequently you can make the pitch of each right hand be just barely noticeably higher the resonance should be just one or two of those little teeny bars higher The cutoff should be just a few bars lower (allowing less high frequencies through) on the left handed or even numbered strokes
Typically if drums have time inaccuracies they tend to drag the left hand a litte bit I have to keep stressing that if you can hear the changes you make you arent being realistic You need to make the changes subtle enough that you just barely feel that they arent perfect You can consequently make each left hand note shifted one or two bars late
Tigure out how much you can tweak each parameter before it becomes obvious and then you can just randomly tweak each one up to that limit With a little bit of variance in each stroke from parameter to parameter you will create more of a percolating texture in your programming - this is a great technique to make synth bubbles (the kind used in techno and house) more interesting and less mechanical feeling
Now you can avoid the biggest mistake that non-drummers do when trying to write realistic programs turn the overall volume of the hihats until you CANT hear them and then slowly bring up the volume until you just begin to hear them
Professional producers have spent countless hours trying to figure out how to gate and mix hihats OUT of tracks The reason is two fold1) Human beings have such a radical peak in their hearing around the 1-2khz range (or the intelligibility range of human speech) that we can play the hihats at incredible low volumes and they are still audible You cant do that with a bass drumI tell my drum students that you cannot play a hi hat or a snare drum so quietly that a person sitting in a room with you cant hear it2) Hi Hats the snare of snare drums and cymbals all seriously MASK human vocal intellibility How many people have gone to see live shows where they can hear the singer is singing but cant for the life of them figure out what they are actually singing That is ususally because drummers (or mixers which is frequently the case) are not hip to thisimportant fact
So turn down your hi hat tracks (or any track with a strong mid rangeshort envelope attack) and you have much more room for other musical goodies in your mix When in doubt make your hi hats quieter than you think they should be Trust me theyll come through the mix even at a quiet volume
Swingbull Dont know if you can do this in your sequencer but in Logic you can create a groove
template from your drums and then apply that to your other instruments If youre using separate midi channels for snares kicks and hats take the 8 bar loop youre using glue it together and then take the groove from that and then mute that track When you click down the quantize list youll see the template there and you can apply it to your other tracks Also if you do want to change the groove you can just change the hits in the muted template and itll automatically change all other hits to the new changes
bull Think if youre clever and organized you can basically cut breaks up in recycle load them into the exs24 (extract sequence) and then do the same with them That way if there are breaks you like the feel of you can just apply that swing to anything If you make a folder called grooves in your logic folder they should load up each time so that youll have loads to choose from Havent done this myself yet but always helpful to have a choice of feels available
bull Some things sound better rigid and robotic with equal velocities Some things sound better rigid and robotic with differing velocities Some things sound better with swing Some things sound better with everything ever-so-slightly off Its down to what the track needs
bull Drum Break Swing ProgrammingNicolas Hall wwwbreakbeat-cafenet wroteI think most people who make anything funk breakbeat drum amp bass or hip-hop would agree that Swing is crucial to the effectiveness of a beat The other key factors in a programming sense are dynamic and accent So many people get wound up when their beats sound sterile or mechanical this is due to the fact that computers and sequencers lock to perfect BPM A computer on its own does not interpret rhythm the way a good drummer does There are however certain machines that have their own swing parameters like the Akai MPC range of sampling drum machines which are used extensively by hip hop producers
Swing is not the easiest thing in the world to analyze but as a general rule good drummers will play slightly late and thats why in all funky records you get that slight dip at the start of the bar take Superstition by Stevie Wonder or Billie Jean by Michael Jackson these are both very simple beats Superstition is of course live drums whilst Billie Jean was programmed but no less funky than Superstition I emphasize this point to demonstrate that a programmed beat can be every bit at groovy as a beat played on a drum kit
Expanding on the Billie Jean point Hip Hop beats are really very simple If you listen to the Neptunes they tend to create the swing in their beats by quantizing the kicks and snares and playing the hi hats in by hand this creates a very tight beat which is off set by a loose hi hat try it works but dont forget your accents - As a starting point just take the first snare of your beat and turn the velocity down then notice how your head starts nodding and your foot starts tapping a little more you are giving the beat feel Also remember that if you are using reverb the louder snare will push the reverb harder than the soft snare so your creating more ambience that way Then try your kick drums if your not sure which hits to adjust just pick apart a beat your feeling I remember me and friend picking apart a Gangstarr beat and were able to almost replicate it by adjusting the velocities of each hit (admittedly it took a while to get it right)
If youre a newbie then a common trick when learning to make good grooves is to create a template with an existing loop The idea is take a loop you like thats got a good feel to it and then place your own hits over the break then take the break out and see if your hits are sounding funky This can take a while and its crucial to think about the strength of each hit or the dynamic Each kick will not be the same strength nor will the snares or the hats pick the loop apart dissect it and youll soon see that there are certain consistencies in all good beats
If youre using live loops and like to layer them with drum sequences you should be thinking about time space and frequencies So if you have a fairly heavy loop then layering it with heavy kick drums is probably not gonna sound good Think about filling holes are their any frequencies that could be filled up Or is there space in the loop for extra hits Try working in layers just adding one hit at a time also filtering works well you could take some of the frequencies out of your loop as you drop your drum sequences in to make room for them I think one the masters of this technique is Liam Howlett of the Prodigy He runs breakbeats and gives them extra balls by laying a kick drum underneath to add extra intensity to certain passages in his set but hes careful not to overlap frequencies to much A good place to start if you using breakbeats is the Roland Tr-808 kick drum which is around the 50hz mark which is sub bass territory so it will sit underneath most breaks very well
If your hell bent on making killer beats and loops then perseverance is crucial keep at it it will come together listen to beats you like and pick them apart identify the subtleties that make it happen I know some producers get fed up when their beats sound to clean or they are trying to create a new breakbeat and then compare it to sample they took from vinyl and get down on there own beat Think about what a breakbeat really is think about its history what has happened to it to make it sound the way it does Im
Page 32
sure youve noticed how some breaks have a certain something like a magic dust you cant put your finger on Let me share what I know with you about that
Most breaks though not all are taken from recordings of live drums some of them are pretty old so you have the ambience of live drums and the room they were recorded in you have the fact that natural decay and reverb of each drum is likely to have bled into the other mics on the kit and that most engineers used overhead mics which pick up the whole kit with two mics Then consider that many of these breaks will have been recorded to analogue tape with saturation which will create extra warmth and harmonics The next step comes from old sampling technology like the SP-1200 and the Akai s-950 mpc -60 these samplers sampled at 12- bit (bear in mind that most computers now are at least 24-bit if not more) and that the samples themselves where taken from vinyl and on and on the process goes with each new reverb and eq adding more and more to the break In terms of giving your breaks that character there are a number of things you can try for example buying an old four track cassette machine to dump your beats onto then re-sample it if your using a sampler like the s-950 then try pushing the input meters a little harder than usual add reverbs and resample it each time you put your loop through a new channel you will be adding something to it Also distortion is fantastic for breaks if you have any amp plug ins then try them the Amplitude one is particularly good you dont need to go mad with it just used subtly it works great
To finish I would just like to say again stick with it keep trying keep listening to records if you like to read about technique then do so you can learn so much from other producers Remember the strength of your hits is important as is the way it swings good luck
UPDATE 08092008
ENHANCE SYNTHESIZED DRUM PARTS WITH FOUND SOUNDS
emusiciancom wroteLayering real-world sounds with synthesized drum parts puts a new spin on your drum tracks You probably already have usable sound effects on your hard drive because most commercial samplers have at least a modest collection in their factory library Beyond that youll find thousands of royalty-free sound effects online Soundsnapcom is one of my favorite sources and its free The recordings dont need to be pristine for layering over drums so dont overlook cheap sampling CDs and consider grabbing your own sounds with a portable recorderCollect and Save
Start by assembling a small Foley library of short percussive sounds divided into typical drum-sound categories kicks snares toms cymbals percussion and so on Youll generally want to layer drum sounds with Foley sounds that have a similar volume contour and frequency range If you layer a Foley sound that resembles a kick drum with the sound of your hi-hat for example youll quickly fill up all the space in your drum track
Industrial household military transportation and vocal sounds make excellent fodder but you will often want to extract a small slice such as the last shot in a volley of machine-gun fire (snare) or the first bounce of a plastic bottle on concrete (tom) A browsing tool like Audio Finder (icedaudiocom) is invaluable if you have a large sample library That lets you quickly audition clips make basic edits and drag-and-drop slices to your library
Sticks UpIf your synthesized drum part is step sequenced youll need to export its step sequences as MIDI files Many drum synths do that including Sonic Charge Tonic (sonicchargecom) Apple Logic UltraBeat (applecom) and Submersible DrumCore (submersiblemusiccom) All of those come with a large collection of patterns exportable as MIDI sequences Youll also need a sampler to play the Foley sounds drum-oriented samplers are handier for that but are by no means necessary
Start by loading a kit in the drum synth Export one of its sequenced patterns or create your own and place it on the sampler track For some of the drum synth sounds select compatible Foley sounds and map them to the same notes in the sampler that theyre mapped to in the drum synth Next solo the doubled voices one by one in both the drum synth and the sampler start the sequence playing and tweak the samplers voice parameters (filter level pan envelope and so on) to make the sounds work together (see Fig 1 and Web Clip 1) Dont tweak global parameters such as effects because that will affect all sounds played by the sampler
High HoopsOnce youve configured your Foley track you can do several things to add interest I frequently use a
Page 33
second sampler for short vocal sounds Ill have some notes trigger sounds in both samplers and others in only one Many samplers let you group sounds and assign notes and controllers to choose among them You can then sequence these notes and controllers or you can play them live to alter your Foley tracks
Try applying DSP effects to individual Foley sounds Multitap delays distortion phasing and granular effects all work well when used sparingly (see Web Clip 2) You can apply DSP effects inside your sampler or route the voices to a separate output for DSP processing in your DAW If your sampler doesnt offer either possibility spread the Foley parts over several sampler instances on different tracks
Sidechain compression or gating of the drum track with one or more of the Foley parts will highlight the Foley part as well as add variety to the drums With compression peaks in the sidechain signal will reduce the level of the drum track Use a high compression level say 201 and balance the sidechain-gain and the compression-threshold -attack and -release controls to get the ducking contour you want (see Web Clip 3) Gating has the opposite effect the drum track will be heard during peaks in the sidechain signal (see Web Clip 4) Here too the sidechain-gain and gate-threshold controls work in tandem to determine when the gate is opened Use envelope parameters (attack release and hold) to shape the gates contour
Keep in mind that once youve created a sampler instrument to complement your drum kit you can reuse it with other sequences You can also change one or more sounds in the sampler instrument without repeating the whole process
34 Sidechain Compression (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
4 Theory41 ndash Song Structure42 ndash Mixdown (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)43 ndash Mastering (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
44 Music Theory
The first thing to remember about music theory is that generally if it sounds right it probably is There are no rules in music and Music Theory is not about telling you how to write music Its about understanding the music
Broadly speaking it is fair to say that most music is essentially based upon two crucial factors scales and rhythm Scales make up melodies chords harmonies and basslines to name but a few whereas rhythm makes up the beat of the song In this part of the Production Bible you will learn the basics of Music Theory that will serve you not only in the production of Dubstep but for any of your future musical pursuits This information is intended to be easy to read and understand so I wonrsquot be mincing sentences But firstly please make sure you learn every single note on the keyboard by studying the image below Otherwise yoursquoll be completely lost here
Page 34
Scales Wersquoll begin with scales As I mentioned before scales are the building blocks of your song and without them your track will be atonal and completely unlistenable (probably not the effect yoursquore going for)
There are two main scales that you should learn inside out ndash the major scale and the minor scale A generalisation yoursquore bound to have heard before is that the major scale sounds ldquohappyrdquo and the minor scale sounds ldquodarkrdquo Although this is not always the case it is mostly true ndash and therefore yoursquoll usually be focussing on the minor scale when producing Dubstep However just in case yoursquore writing happy-dubstep (if that exists) here is a quick overview of both scales and how they are made up
Major Scale
The major scale is really easy to create It is made by a single rule that is simple to put in to place
ldquoTone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
In case you donrsquot know what a Tone or Semi-Tone is here is a quick explanation
Picture a keyboard (or if you canrsquot see the image above) Say you go from C to C that would be a semi-tone The same thing goes for if you go from an E to an F ndash it is still a semi-tone because you
Page 35
have gone up one key
A tone is two semi-tones ndash for example from C to D is a tone and the same goes for from G to A
The scalersquos name is taken from the note that it starts on For example C major will start on the note of C Similarly A major will start on the note of A and this is the case with every single scale
Here is a quick list of a few major scales After having seen a few try working the rest out for yourself in order to understand how the major scale is formulated Ideally you should practice your scales on a piano or keyboard so that you can physically see how to make the scale It might sound boring but itrsquos a small price to pay for a much deeper understanding of your music
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Major C D E F G A B C
C Major C D E F G A B C
D Major D E F G A B C D
D Major D E F G A B C D
E Major E F G A B C D E
F Major F G A Bb C D E F
F Major F G A B C D E F
G Major G A B C D E F G
G Major G A B C D E F G
A Major A B C D E F G A
A Major A B C D E F G A
B major B C D E F G A B
Now by arranging the different notes of each of these scales in any order you please you can create a melody bassline or harmony with extreme ease Rearranging the notes in the scale will give you a flawlessly in-key result and it is then up to you to use the notes in the scale as you see fit for your tune
Minor Scale
As was the case with the Major Scale the Minor is made up from a set rule or formula By knowing this formula you can understand how the Minor is made and how to use it to itrsquos maximum effect
ldquoTone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
As is the case with the major scales you should practice your scales as much as possible to make sure that you know them all like the back of your hand Here are a few Minor Scales see if you can
Page 36
work out the rest
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Minor C D Eb F G Ab B C
D Minor D E F G A Bb C D
F Minor F G A B C D E F
G Minor G A Bb C D Eb F G
Similarly to the Major now that you know your Minor Scales you can quickly just take any note from the scale rearrange it with another few notes in the scale and there you have a fat melody or bassline ready to be played at maximum volume
Diminished Chords
Diminished Chords are really quite spooky and dark chords that are made up of four different notes all a minor third apart from each other That means that for example the Diminished Chord starting on C would be C Eb F A because to get from one note to the next you have to use ldquoTone Semi-Tonerdquo (known as a minor third)
Because of the mathematical nature of the Diminished chord there are only three ldquoclustersrdquo of notes which can then be rearranged like the Major and Minor Scales
Cluster 1 C Eb F A
Cluster 2 C E G Bb
Cluster 3 D F Ab B
Use these clusters and rearrange them as you please For example you could rearrange cluster 1 as Eb F A C etc
Generally speaking you canrsquot make a song based entirely on Diminished Chords due to the fact that each cluster only has 4 notes However a Diminished Chord is perfect for adding a hint of darkness to your tune and is brilliant when mixed with some Minor Scales
Chords
Chords are basically two or more notes played together They are made up from a specific scale ndash for example the C major chord is made up of notes in the C major scale
Usually chords will include the first third and fifth note of the scale as well as possibly using other notes to give them colour For example the basic chord of C major would be C E G Then you could add the seventh note to it (in this case it is B) Really it is up to the producerrsquos discretion how heshe goes about making a chord ndash just remember to stick to the scale you are using
Chords will more than likely sound like shit if you play them on a complicated or layered synth patch You want to be playing chords on sustained sounds such as strings or pads Chords will really fill out your sound if used properly You want your chords to be supporting the melody or bassline and more than likely want to add some reverb so that it doesnrsquot sound too sharp Make
Page 37
your chords blend in with the music and yoursquoll have mastered them
Chord Inversions
Quite simply chord inversions are when you rearrange the notes in a chord so that it sounds a bit different and suits your arrangement better
For example if you were in the key of C major you could have a drone of E playing underneath some strings playing the notes E G C E
Due to the fact that the notes are the same and have only been inverted the chord will still be in key with the rest of the music This is a great way to add a touch of variation to your music instead of using the same chord structure all the time
Arpeggios
Arpeggios are much easier to understand than they sound They are quite simply the first third and fifth note of the scale played as individual notes For example the arpeggio of C minor would be C Eb G C etc
A great example of an arpeggio is the bassline in Bengarsquos ldquoCrunked Uprdquo He goes from playing the F minor arpeggio backwards to playing the F minor arpeggio backwards In other words he is playing
C A F and then C Ab F
Experiment with a few Minor Arpeggios and a couple of Diminished Arpeggios and you canrsquot go wrong in writing a huge bassline
Suggested Reading
List of All Scales With Finger Charts Included
Well thatrsquos it folks Thatrsquos basically all the music theory you need to know to start off with As you grow more used to the various scales yoursquoll notice that certain notes sound good with each other whilst others donrsquot Irsquom not here to tell you how to write music Irsquom here to teach you the language
of music Itrsquos up to you to write the poetry
copy Bruno Crosier (klimaxx) 2008
45 Random Tips
Random tips amp best piece of advice thread
5 Resources
Page 38
51 Books amp Magazines
Hello again people
Does anyone know of more music production books magazines or authors we can add to these lists
Thanks
------------------------------------------------
Music Production Magazines Computer Music - httpwwwcomputermusiccouk Music Tech Magazine - httpwwwmusictechmagcouk Future Music - httpwwwfuturemusiccouk Sound on Sound - httpwwwsoundonsoundcom Remix Magazine - httpremixmagcom Mix Magazine - httpmixonlinecom Electronic Musician - httpemusiciancom EQ Magazine - httpwwweqmagcom Audio Technology - wwwaudiotechnologycomau Tape Op - httpwwwtapeopcom
------------------------------------------------
Music Books
Authors Curtis Roads httpmitpressmiteducatalogauthor aspaid=93 - The Computer Music Tutorial (Really really really good book) Paul White - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea ul20White - Basic Series + more Rick Snowman - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea k20Snoman - The Dance Music Manual Tools Toys and Techniques Bobby Owsinski - httpbooksgooglecoukbooksas_auth=Bobby+Owsinski - The MixingRecording amp Mastering Engineers Handbooks Michael Paul Stavrou - httpwwwmixingwithyourmindcom
Publishers Thomson Course Technology - httpcoursecengagecom (Click on the Music Technology tab) - Series published include Power Overdrive Ignite and CSI Series + many more Backbeat Books - httpwwwbackbeatbookscom ndash Power Tools Series + many more Wiley Publishing - httpwwwdummiescom (Enter music in their search bar) - For Dummies Series Penguin Books - httpuspenguingroupcom (Enter music in their search bar) - The Complete Idiots Guide Series + many more MIT Press - httpmitpressmitedu - Many books on music theory Focal Press - httpwwwfocalpresscom - (Enter music in their search bar)
------------------------------------------------
Online Music Book Stores (We need more links here Do you know of any that we can add)
httpwwwmixbookscom ndash Excellent source that sells only books about music
Page 39
httpwwwamazoncom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
httpwwwbarnesandnoblecom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
------------------------------------------------
52 Wikipedia
A good music lexicon wiki Search for your term in the search bar ---gt httpenaudiolexicorgwikiMain_Page
0-9
14rdquo Jack - httpenwikipediaorgwikiJack_plug 3rd Bridge - httpenwikipediaorgwiki3rd_Bridge
Zero Crossing - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_crossing Zero Crossing Rate - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_Crossing_Rate
53 Other recommended production forums
for Logic users this is the shit httpwwwlogicprohelpcom
Ive found both these forums to be full of knowledgeable producers amp musicians
httpwwwkvraudiocomforum
httpacapellaharmony-centralcomforumsindexphp
httpwwwgearslutzcomboard
httpwwwsoundonsoundcomforum
httpwwwmusicradarcomforum
httpwwwidmforumscom
httpwwwdance-industriescomphpBB2 8cffbb3b02
httpwwwsubvertcentralcomforumindexphp
httpwwwbreakbeatcouk
httpwwwtweakheadzcom
httpwwwabletoncompagesforum
Explains lots about the music industry ---gt httpwwwbemusocom
Page 47
Ok so a massive thanks to all the contributors there are literally too many to mention But Thanks to Futures Untold Johnny Beat Klimaxx Deadly Habit amp JunglistRendr Daft Cunt in perticular
Thanks to all the artists producers and general music geeks making this early revision of the production bible an essential read
There are links missing and will be included in version 21(Please help with the unlinked chapters by going here - httpwwwdubstepforumcomthe-dubstep-production-bible-updated-2009-06-03-t14797html and updating missing info as needed)
Compiled by Daft Cunt and Futures Untold PDF Compiled by Depone
Here is a list of the most popular freeware analysers available
Voxengo SPAN
Bluecat Audio Freqanalyst
Roger Nichols Inspector
Page 20
For a long list of other free analysers visit httpwwwgersiccompluginsindexphpdaCat=2
3 Techniques
31 Bass311 Sub Bass
Sub-bass is a term used to describe audible sounds below 90Hz - sound in the range below this (under 16-17Hz) would be termed infrasound Sound systems often feature a subwoofer that is dedicated solely to amplifying sounds in the lower bass and sub-bass range Source Wikipedia
So the idea is to have the sub going up to ~90Hz The exact frequency it should be cut at depend on the kicks frequency Lets say you HP your kick at 100Hz then the sub should be LPed at 100Hz so they compliment each other without clashing
There are several ways of creating a sub here are the most common 1 - using a unique waveform (sine saw square or triangle) will give you a nice linear sub NB You dont need to filter out a sine wave as it doesnt have overtones 2 - using detuned waveforms take 2 identical waves (sine saw square or triangle) and detune them - lets say -25 +25 semitone This will produce a phase effect and give movement to your sub but itll also cause large volume amplitude and youll need to compress it after filtering Great Massive tutorial by Subfocus here 3 - using a 808 kick you dont have a TR-808 Grab that pack
jobbanaught wroteAn easy option to get a powerful subbass is to take a 808 kick sample put it in your favorite sampler and loop a single cycle of the waverform somewhere in the middle of the sample The 808 kick is made of a sine and some additional white noise The sine gives your sub that rattling low end pressure and the noise adds overtonesgrittiness = instant badass subbass
You can find more tips about mixing your kick n sub in the Random bass tips thread
312 lsquoWobblersquo
Page 21
Wobble GuideWobble Bass
Wobble Bass as it is known is simply a bassline that has an LFO assigned to a Low Pass Filter as an insert effect LFOstands for Low Frequency Oscillator and is used to change a sound by a defined speed (measured in either Hz or synced to the Tempo in relation to the barsnotes through quantization) The way the LFO changes the sound is up to you you can make the LFO adjust the Volume the amount of Saturation Filter Cutoff etc Basically any parameter you link it to Essentially you are just using the LFO to send a changing value to a parameter
--------------------
How to get a simple wobble bass
1) Choose a simple sound on your synth (Anything apart from a Sine wave )
2) Select your LFO and set it to the speed you want (18 would be a good starting point)
3) Now assign the LFO to the Filter Cutoff Which should for this example be a Low Pass Filter as the sound were going for is a deep bass
4) You now have a basic wobble bass from here the possibilities for tweaking this sound are endless
--------------------
A quick breakdown of whats actually going on Essentially you are taking a sound (that can be an audio files generated by a synth etc) and then passing it through a Low Pass Filter Now what exactly does a Low Pass Filter do you ask
A Low Pass Filter allows Low Frequency signals to pass through it but reduces the amplitude (volume) of all the Frequencies above the cutoff point In general most plug-ins have various Low Pass Filter settings where the more poles it has the more Dbs it will cut and will yield a harder knee to it Example 1 Pole Filter with a -6dBOct reduction Vs a 2 Pole Filter reducing -12DbOct However you dont necessarily need a LFO controlling your Low Pass Filter Cutoff frequency value you could just draw in the Automation yourself but a LFO will yield a loop of consistent values and prevents the possibility of human error All the LFO is doing is sending a value to your frequency cutoff to keep it consistently changing
--------------------
Tips amp Advice
1) Sub bass wobble would normally be a Sine wave at around the 40-50 Hz range which would repeat the same chords as the mid-range bass wobble The only difference being that with a sub bass wobble there is no point in assigning the LFO to a Low Pass Filter because the sound is too low for the low pass filter to have any effect so theLFO is assigned to the amplitude (volume) instead Another reason for not applying a Low Pass Filter to the Sub bass is because it would typically be a Sine wave which possesses no Harmonics to be adjusted by the Filter
2) The sound of an LFO can also be adjusted by the wave type you choose The default setting for an LFO generator is a Sine wave although on most synths you can chose from Triangle Sawtooth Square wave Random Noise To get a nice sounding bass it is a good idea to use as many oscillators as possible on different octaves
3) Try messing around with the attack and release of your sound as this can have an impact on the sound of the bass Long attacks tend to create a more ambient sound and is a technique traditionally used with ambient pads
Page 22
4) Something that I find useful is to bounce the bassline to a wav file so that it can be chopped up and put in-sync with other elements of the song because the majority of the time you will find the first wave of sound in the wobble bassline will will be half the length of the other waves due to attack rates So the best thing to do is to chop that freak sound off the beginning of the file in your DAW (Logic Pro Reason Cubase etc) and start off with the second wave which should be fully formed This way it will not be too early of late when keeping in sync with other elements such as a second bassline
5) Another method you can use is creating a clone layer of your original sound and setting up a new LFO setup for that to beat alternatively in the space left by the original LFO Or go that crazy Drum amp Bass Reese route and split the frequencies to Low Mid and High then set different LFO rates for each band then recombine into one sound
6) For more variation automate your LFO speed and intensity
7) Where you place insert effects in relation to the filter (pre or post) will yield different sounding results
8) Other methods to achieve a wobble like sound Tremolo (This effects volume rather than frequency) FM Synthesis Modulation of PWM Oscillator Pitch assigned (in a liberal amount) to LFO Filter Envelope assigned to LFO (using a re-triggered envelope) (submitted by Faun2500)
9) Assign a second LFO to modulate the speed of the first LFO
LFO Shapes
Sine wave The smooth value change possible
Triangle Similar to a Sine wave but slightly more ramped amp synthetic sounding
Random A mixed bag
Sawtooth Will have a very fast attack with a slower release which will sound very rugged
Square wave Will be a simple open close style Very harsh and will generally cause a very harsh sound (Often used in DJ Hazard style bass-lines) Detune two square waves for a nice dark sounding bass
Waveforms submitted by Skells wrotehttpi228photobucketcomalbumsee83 cleanjpgSimple Filter Sweep
httpi228photobucketcomalbumsee83 wobblejpgSine Wave LFO assigned to Filter Cutoff
LINKS etc
Fruity Loops Wobble Tutorial (Link submitted by Wub) Massive Wobble YouTube Tutorial (Video created by thesynthesist) Pause amp Play Wobble Tutorial (Link submitted by dubmo) Albino3 Wobble Guide (Guide created by axon)
By Rendr amp Deadly Habit and a little help from Macc
313 lsquoReecersquo
The Reese Bass
Page 23
History Lesson
The Reese bass was a form of huge sounding synth-bass first used by the Detroit Techno producer Kevin Saunderson aka Master Reese aka Reese Project aka on the track Just Want Another Chance and immortalised in the classic DnB track Terrorist by Renegade Since then it has been (over)used in many a DnB track and continues to evolve even nowadays through Dubstep and Jungle It is said to be as influential to DnB as the Amen break and probably as used and abused as the Amen
Capturing the Beast
1The Oscillator Stage
To nail the Reese you need a synth with at least 2 oscillators but for better-bigger results use as many oscillators as you can (not really but 4 oscillators give a nice deep rumble - ahhhhhh) All the oscillators are playing sawtooth waves and all except one are detuned by 25-50 cents so that all oscillators are out of phase with each other
2 The Filter Stage
The signal is then sent to a low-pass filter with the cutoff freq set around 150-200Hz (experiment with that you want the growl of the mid-frequencies but you also want it as deep as possible without sacrificing the midrange) The resonance of the filter should be cranked up almost all the way (but again tweak accordingly to your filtersynth)
3 Fuzz it Up
The second most important aspect of the Reese (after the detuned sawtooths) is distortion Tube distortion and tape saturation work extremely well but dont hesitate to use other more extreme distortion units (dont forget that the Reese has been done a million times you have to add something original to it) Again adjust to taste
4 Spices and Herbs
Now that is the main recipe for the sound but like all haute-cuisine there are more things you can do to spice up the Reese Namely effects Effects that have been associated with the Reese are
Phasers - to accentuate the phase-shifting effect of the detuned sawtooths Unison - a great way to make it even bigger Chorus - again a good way to phatten it up
5 And Some More Synth Magic
Another thing to do so you can bring out the old-school jungle character of the Reese is to use Legato and PortamentoGlide if your syth of choice has them available These are both great ways to move from one note to the next without listening to the transition To put it simply when legato is on and you play a sustained E followed by a sustained G the transition between the two notes gives the listener the impression that they heard a single note being sustained that has just changed its pitch from E to G without pausing at a certain point
Always remember though that if you use Legato you have to turn the polyphony of your synth down to 1 (something you should almost always do with basslines because two bass-notes playing together almost never sound good in electronic music bass chords are more the realm of prog-rock shit than dubstep)
For the more technical minded legato in synthesizers is a variation of monophonic operation In contrast to monophonic mode where every new note restarts the ADSR envelopes in legato mode they are not if the previous note remains depressed when the new note is played This causes the initial transient from the attack and decay phases to sound only once and the ADSRs to remain at sustain stage for the whole sequence of notes until the final note is released (Wikipedia)
EDIT I just found out that in one of the free vst links on the bible there is a thing called the Hotelsinus Reese Bassline Synth So I didnt miss the opportunity for a mini review The software itself is small (like most free vst-is) and quite easy to install (you just drop the dll in the vst folder) As for the sound weeeeeeell the sounds it produces are definitely Reese But weak somehow Its like listening to Terrorist from a battered cheap old cassette from 93 or something It has a tinny and tiny sound when compared to what you can achieve with powerhouses like Albino or
Page 24
Massive or (one of my personal favorites for Reese) Cakewalk Rupture You can try it if you want but i dont think it will impress steppers that much we are bass-headed folk
314 Random Bass Tips
Plz add yours or others youve spotted on the forum
miss_molinari wrotebasically i have been experimenting with cutting (not sidechaining) a notch (band reject) in the bass starting at 60hz and ending just before 70 this is only for those bass lines which only hit on the kick (quite specific) also the bass is then high passed at about 220hz to pretty much 0db which is where the kick starts (ending the kick with a non-too-aggressive-cut at about 2khz) this essentially means that the kick and the bass do not share any frequencies above abot 200hz but also between 60 and 70 and with them always hitting at the same time this gets around the fact that sidechaining this type of sequencing would leave you with no or little bass
this has worked well so far but is useful mainly for sub basses ending at around 250hz would not be as good for full spectrum wubsanyone else got any tech tips regarding the bass and kick
futures_untold wroteI simply cut everything under 90Hz on my kicks and roll off slightly at 1KHz
Sub I cut under 40Hz and roll off at 200Hz
I always compress both seperately and keep my levels low in the mix to create plenty of head room later whilst adding sounds with higher frequency content
Anything above 150Hz is what I consider midrange Anything above 150Hz can be heard on mobile phone speakers We all know that theyre designed to play heavy bass lol Wink
miss_molinari wroteDaft Cunt wroteTo me it feels like cutting the kick above 80 hz makes it sound weak I guess it depends on the style I rather cut below 60 to 80 depending on the tune
yeah its all about context in a dry minimal setting im of the opinion you can make a kick punch right up to about 180-200hz but yeah depends on when and on what kind of punch (im usually talking a bass hit at about 200hz coupled with a knock hit anywhere up to about 1200hz) i imagine you true dubsteppers prefer a denser thump from 60 through to about 300hz
Daft Cunt wroteI began recently the band-reject thing on the sub Little details that make big difference
And do you people cut the bass where the snare peaks
my basses arent usually middy enough to need that but yeah a slight sidechain on the main snare and say midbasspadwothavyer is nice especially if the limelight is stolen by a deeper sidechain on the kick and midbasspadwothavyer can create a nice flow (especially when used with long decay reveb linked to the midbasspadwothavyer so that it sounds louder and longer the higher the frequency played - might
have to post some piccies of that one )
Shonky wroteWhat Ive been doing lately is bouncing down the kick track lowpassing one somewhere between 100-140 depending on the highest frequencies of the low sub and then sidechaining the sub to the low kick
Then take a copy of the kick track highpass between 300-1000 and this will give you the beater noise to make the kick cut through I then sidechain this to the more middly basses You can also send a small amount to a reverb bus which allows you to avoid mud on the lower frequencies whilst still giving you the space
Doing it this way seems to make sense to me cause the sidechains work on the corresponding kicks in the same frequency range so it doesnt cause loads of unnecessary compression where you dont need it
Page 25
boh wroteAlways make sure your kicks are in tune with the rest of the track ull hear it pitching up and down and make sure if ur layering that the transients dont conflict(good monitors make this easy) It all comes down to kick selection Whats the point in cutting a kick at 80hz with a fundemental freq of say 60hz Sure you get whats happening before it but u wont get the nice thump of the fundemental freq Choose other kicks that hit the freq u want (80hz say) instead of cutting them when theres no need to Unless you really really know what your doing getting technical like this complicates the situation Esp for people with little experience
sullyharmitage wrote50 hz hi pass seems a bit high to me maybe gd for kicky techno or house but for subby stuff it seems a bit muchdefo roll off past 30-35 (most well engineered systems will do this anyways so any content below this is definately getting wasted)if yr gonna go higher make sure its a soft curvei find levelling subs is the hardest part of a mix - cos more always sounds better i remember reading breakage saying yr subs shouldnt add more than 3db to yr mix thats seems like a good guide
btw sub in kick an bassline simultaeously is gonna cause clashes (n maybe disortion) id either decrease the attack on the bass or cut the sub from the kick
unklefesta wroteI rolloff EVERYTHING at 40hz except my bass
standard
wang wroteAlways do it
Dont forget youre ROLLING off the frequencies not cutting them off all together Just a couple of dB of bass down there is enough to get some girth without removing all your headroom
Also analyse and cut off the lows on everything even if it doesnt appear to have messy lows -Youd be surprised how much bass there is in some high hats
Jtransition wroteAll of your tracks are going to be different so dont restrict yourself to a certain techniquetry different things and listen to the results
Shonky wrotewang wroteAlso analyse and cut off the lows on everything even if it doesnt appear to have messy lows -Youd be surprised how much bass there is in some high hats
Yep this is very true also worth filtering out the inaudible highs on low sounds as well found some of my subs which Id low passed still showed frequency activity much higher than expected
Jtransition wroteStick a high pass filter on everything apart form the kick drum and bass line70 hertz is a good starting point move up or down to tasteAnd remember try to mix at low levels(Walls not vibrating)
Deadly Habit wroteRendr wroteBasslines in my experience should be mono due to the fact that humans cannot easily decoded the stereo positioning of low frequencys so panning basslines (excluding bass sounds with high pitch sounds at around 500Hz+) is not recommended not only are the low frequencys hard to position with the human ear the low frequency sound waves are absorbed by the human head at a much higher ratio than high pitch sounds which tend to be reflected Another thing to note is that club systems are
mono Basslines that pan only belong in Psytrance
sub range should be mono especially if going to be cut to vinylmidrange bass on the other hand you can pan and add stereo fx to your hearts content
Page 26
32 Re-sampling
SafeAfter a few months of experimenting with resampling not really getting anywhere in terms of sound quality i came up with a pretty simple way of getting on the right track Ive got so much help since getting on this forum in terms of production i thought id share this for those who like myself are looking into the elusive yet highly rewarding technique of resamplingAll the vsts i use on this (save for the synth itself) are freenative plugs im using FL but itll transfer onto every DAW pretty much the same Ill explain it for a bassline but it can be applied to any sound
Step 1Make yourself a nice bassline get it sounding dirty with whatever you can within the synth Im using Albino so i tend to play about with the saturation modesFXs until its sounding pretty good
Step 2Hook up to a mixer channel then send this channel to a second mixer channel (FL users just click on another channel towards the bottom of the strip) On the second channel that the synth is hooked to from the first add CMt bitcrusher and downsample 3-16x (thanks to all the production forum users who pointed this out to me when i posted a few months ago on dirtying up basslines) Then add a chorus Turn the LFOs off and set the depthdelayetc to whatever sounds best Also set the crossover pretty high so only the treblehigh mids are being affected Then add Camel Audio Camel Crusher Turn the compressor off and set the tubemech to taste Add a parametric EQ if needs be to boost the high freqs Experiment with the chain of these effects swapping them according to the sound The choruscameleq in different orders should alter the sound quite alot depending on where their placed
Step 3 Set the level of the second affected channel with the original depending on whatever suits Play about with adding extra effects to both channels The way the second channel behaves once an effect is added to the first is quite extreme in even light application of effects So its possible to create a whole array of different sounds just from say adding a flangerchorusetc to the first channel then listening to how much it affects the sound as a whole as it goes through both channels By now it should be sounding pretty girthy
Step 4Export the riffsample (i use edison on the master channel in FL but whatever method will do) Reload and place into a mixer channel Add another Camel Crusher for abit more grit EQ and compress Set up a reverbdelay send and resample again for extra depth
Obviously this technique can be applied a 2nd3rd4th time to fuck the sound up even more so Which is what ive moved onto doing now into the territory of splitting the sound into basslow midhigh midtreble sections for ultimate control over each part Something which i was attempting to do before coming up with the above method but being left with a pile of unlistenable mushy shite
Hope this is a help to some peeps I know theres no secret technique to resamping only a whole load of practice and using your ears but this method got me on the right track in terms of hearing the benefits of it and encouraging me to experiment more in depth and realise that the possiblities are endless Im hooked now i resample pretty much every sound in one way or another Kick and snares benefit hugley from it for mega face melting wide drum sounds aswell so its worth trying it on some nice drum hits
Keep up the good work folksPeaceDC_WT
33 Drums
Read before reading on I am in no way entitled to any of those opinions It is up to you to decide whether you would like to incorporate them in your workflow I have just collected them from all the threads in this forum and will try to keep everything updated
I will update as regularly as I find updates
Page 27
Misc tips and tricks bull Good drums are usually layered - example 3 snares sounding as onebull The hats are often panned or widenedbull Pick great sounding samples different ones for different parts of the sounds you want 1
for snap and bite 1 for body 1 for thump distort and MAYBE EQ each to make them sound the best that they can separately combine in a bus MAYBE compress them together maybe accent the front and shorten the sound with a transient modifier 10 minutes tops
bull Do as little as possible with great-sounding bits and your basic sounds will be slamming leaves you time to focus on the arrangement people dont go around thinking wow that tune has an amazing snare as long as its thumping and not masked by a bunch of other stuff itll keep the dance moving
bull Listen to other producers work As its playing imagine the 1 2 3 4 on the step sequencer running in time to what youre listening to Try to visualize where the producer put their hits Not to say you should copy peoples drum patterns but learn from them
bull Ive noticed a lot of tunes (more minimal stuff where you can distinctly hear whats seperately going on) seem to use two differently pitched hi-hats that alternate to sound shuffley if you know what I mean and a less dramatic snare used sparsely in between the main lazy kick and snare An easy trick if you havent worked it out (which to be honest you should have if youre at all serious about producing dubstep) is to stick a smaller snare or hat the 116th before the kick or snare so it steps if you get me For example Bengas Night does this for all four beats in the bar which is part of what makes it so danceable But dont get stuck in always having kick on 1 and snare on 3 some tracks work with a kick on every beat others with a couple big snares etc The trick (unless you want proper lazy spaced out tunes) is to make sure youre nodding your head on all four beats of the bar Play around with a hat on every quaver (ie 8 per bar on the beat) compared to just four but on the off beat as well as adding in the steppy ones every now and then Theres often no need to over-complicate things though one of the my favourite drum tracks is the incredibly simplistic V by Distance Its a rhythm that could easilly be played by one guy on a real kit yet its so banging - check the use of hats and lower velocity kicks in this to make it nice and bouncy Also I once had a four bar drum loop and accidentally moved the sequence one bar to the right for one section and it ended up nicely varying the drums in a way you wouldnt expect
bull Really tight delays can help claps and snaps sound natural 5-20ms etcbull Recycle or phatmatik is your break-chopping friendbull Basically Hatrixxs method involved chopping everything from the main hits into a sample
Say you had a 2-step funk beat like the Amen Youd start your selection from the start of the first kick and select everything up to the start of the first snare Cut paste theres your first slice Then take everything from the start of the first snare up to the start of the second kick - including all the little hats and ghost hits - cut paste second sample and so on Then just map the samples onto some keys and bash away Both of them are quick compared to chopping Recycled slices where you have to copy and drag loads of little notes (one every little fucking tiny hit in the break arranged chromatically up the keyboard) around the piano roll These methods let you just concentrate on the main hits which can be both good or bad You can get a solid beat down with just a handful of hits but youre limited to the patterns already in the original break For a beginner to breakbeat science like yourself Id say try these methods first but dont rule out the really anal methods like RecyclePhatmatikFruity Slicer Sometimes they are a necessary evil Of course some of the drumfunk guys especially those who post on Subvert Central swear by these methods or the next one There are those who prefer to chop up the raw audio rather than bothering with MIDI and samplers They literally just drop the break file into Cubase or Logic and start chopping with the scissors tool and copying and pasting I can see the benefits of this You can see the waveform as youre chopping and youre not as restriced to the quantize grid as you are with MIDI But it takes aaaaages to build a drum track this way and theres the risk of RSI from all that Ctrl+C Ctrl+V youll be doing Then of course theres trackers They really are tailor-made for chopping up loops amongst other things They give you Sample Offset meaning that when you trigger a sample you can set it to start from 256 evenly spaced points throughout the sample So by starting a sample a quarter of the way through youre triggering the first snare (obviously you can fine-tune it when the snare isnt perfectly on the beat) You can edit breaks in a tracker without ever having to cut up a waveform and you can do all sorts of other nifty things like reverse the sample retrigger it to make drum rolls and so on
If recycles having trouble switch the break to mono in your sample editor and then apply tiny fades between the drum hits (especially useful if there are lots of rides that play over the other hits to keep things separate) This should help recycle pick up the start points and with any luck should leave you with a cleaner break
Page 28
Snaresbull Tune the snares so they all hit around the same pitch bull Change the Amp Envelopes of each to bring the strongest parts from each separate sample
and build up your sound like that bull Compressing all together is a good idea but dont over do it bull EQ the master out for the snare as well so you wont have to fuck about when you use the
sample in the future bull Donrsquot just use snares fling some random sound effects in there Claps and rim shots also
work well when layered bull Make subtle changes to them and export a few snares from the same setup this helps
when you need a ghost hit or a reverse that sounds similar but not identicalbull Watch that frequencies dont build up and make the layered bit sound overly whatever
is building up Really easy to get too much 200hz or 500hz or even 12k if youve got samples that are all beefythicksmack-y
bull If its peaking run it through a Spectrum Analyzer and see where its peaking I guess its peaking in the tune rather than just the snare sample playing on its own
bull Sometimes snare samples have a very short peak that doesnt seem to make them sound any better and keeps you from getting them louder without cliping Reduce that part by a few dBs and youre sorted
bull Make sure you are using subtractive eq to pull out the frequencies that could be clashing with other sounds If your frequencies are clashing that can hide the snare and then you end up turning it up to compensate and there you are with your snare peakingThe key is making the frequencies sit right in the mix so that they dont clash and you can set them right and not have to turn them up
bull You could always try clipping the snare normalise it in a wave editor amplify it as much as you can before it sounds distorted then sample it out Then replace the snare with the clipped version it will almost always sound louder with more body at a lower volume I would still point out that although this can be used as a replacement to compression compression is a vital tool to learn how to use Also a lot of peeps will say this does bad things to the waveform and it does but unless you intend to listen to your tune to be heard at home on an amazing hifi then it doesnt really matter that much IMO
bull Hi-pass overdrive limit and cut away space from other sounds for itbull Layer with its self or a different snare Layer with sub add effect to one layer add effect
to both layers layer zoom right in drag one wave form back or forth very slightly to create new snare sound Pitch updown EQ Filter distort reverb delay reverse
bull Record yourself beat boxing your best snare sounds then layer with snare samplesbull A good handclap never goes a miss or use a nice drum synth to get a very differentdigital
soundbull Try reversing the snare sample then changing the envelope settings so it only hits on the
beat Layer that with the same sample this time not reversed Add a little delay to the the reversed snare Change the settings til it sounds how you like
bull Particularly snares I layer up a lot I look for one that has the qualities that I want when run through verb and then I look for something shorter with more mid punch to keep things physical After someone notied snares were weak in a tune Ive really made a point of ensuring that when the snares hit its physical as well as textural You need to feel them a bit - so I look for some snares that have that real punch when layering but usually keep the more textural snappy one as the focus last couple tunes I did the standard kick snare hats w odd percussion and then I took an amen chopped it processed it and layered it overtop for more aggression and step (goddess being a perfect example) By removing a layer and adding it you can create a sense of progression through the tune Make sure the bottom layer is sounding really good and then add the top so that youre not mixing them to be reliant on one another - instead you want synergy Make sure the EQ on the top and bottom make sense with each other
Kicksbull Building a kick in Ableton Lives Impulse machine Provides some essential information
about layering that can be used with any DAWbull Making fat kicks
remixmag wroteWhether creating Miami Bass music is your lifes fantasy or your greatest fear you probably crave the know-how to manifest those car-rattling trunk-full-of-funk kick drums In the arenas of hip-hop house techno downtempo and almost any other electronic genre molding fat kick drums is absolutely essential Like grandmas homemade apple pie the recipe for kick drums is partially a matter of taste However theres no substitute for quality ingredients And just like every pie has its staple ingredients every slamming kick drum requires some common elements Lets take a look at the
Page 29
shopping list for killer kick drumsTHE CRUST
Youll need a basic shell to begin creating a thick strong kick The classics always work if youre fortunate enough to own a real Roland TR-808 909 or other famous drum machine with a killer kick use it copiously If youre not one of those chosen few pay close attention to your original source For example if you use a sampler understand that not all ldquo808 Kickrdquo samples are the same some sound great and some just plain suck There are a lot of reasons for that including how many generations from the original the sample is the sampling rate and bit depth of the sampler how the kick was first sampled and so on Be as choosy as possible with your individual samples mdash dont use a mediocre sample just because it has 808 in the name and therefore is ldquosupposedrdquo to sound fat Seek out a better 808 sample or use something else that is simply bigger sounding Remember the time you spend finding sweet original sources wont be in vain especially if you reuse the resulting samples for multiple songsBORROW SOME SUGAR
An old saying goes ldquoGood art borrows great art stealsrdquo A nice way to start out with great raw kick material is to sample directly from the source If you dont own but have access to a 909 then sample it directly Or take one of your favorite producers tracks on vinyl or CD find a naked kick drum in there and sample it Be cautious with that approach for a couple of reasons Copyright issues around sampling even small bits have become a dangerously gray area and I would never personally advise using any source straight out of the can even from a royalty-free sample library While it may be an excellent start its unoriginal Customize whatever you bite Treat your samples as a sculptor would treat clay mold each one to create a trademark sound for yourself One effective way to customize a fat kick is to take a tip from the synth manufacturers If a sound is thin pile another (or a few more) on top When doing so its important to use different sounds layering two identical kicks will result in a louder kick but it wont change the basic tone Remember the sculptor approach here Even if you are using two good-sounding individual samples they may not instantly sound great together For example I find that when layering kicks while the thickness may be good sustain is often overkill The final result often benefits from a little doctoring on the tail of one (or both) of the samples and other hands-on sonic surgeryADD THE FILLING
Once a nice basic kick is achieved treating it with two of the mastering engineers favorite tools is often the next step Artfully applying a compressor (to just the kick) can go a long way toward creating a signature sound and a huge kick Compression is one of those ldquosecret spicesrdquo and how to apply it is a whole topic in itself One recommendation I will make however is to use a multiband compressor With one of those you can isolate compression on certain frequency ranges That is perfect if for example you want to push the sub of your kick without emphasizing the higher frequencies (which often affect the tone of the attack) or vice-versa EQ comes after compression in my signal chain By now the kick should already sound pretty fat I aim to shave unnecessary frequencies here rather than artificially boosting too much This is also where you can actualize trademark sounds while also fine-tuning them to work alongside other elements in specific tracks I often scoop out mids and highs especially frequencies above about 500 Hz Even though I like thick deep kicks unless Im going for a really dublike sound I often truncate the lowest frequencies (usually the sub-50 Hz frequencies) Even when you cant hear the difference when trimming frequencies doing so can really tighten up your kicksEVEN IT OUT
You may ask why when youre trying to fatten up a kick would you want to trim frequencies That is one of the keys to achieving great mixes both in the case of kick drums and in general You want to avoid too many overlapping frequencies The more sonic separation you have between elements the more focused the entire mix will sound That can be especially important for club music which often gets played on huge not necessarily audiophile-quality sound systems If you havent run into the following scenario already I assure you at some point you will Your bass line and kick drum are competing and it sounds like you have a weak kick You boost the kick but it still sounds muddy Take the bass out and suddenly the kick doesnt sound so bad In a scenario like that solo the two sounds listen carefully for where frequencies are overlapping and then try subtractive EQ on one element then the other and sometimes a bit on both By scooping out overlapping frequencies you will often find that both elements seem to magically come forward in the mix before even touching their respective volume levels
Hi hatsbull Realism
Ive been a professional touring and recording drummer for 25 years and just thought I might share a couple of really simple ways to use fruity loops or fruity studio to create more realistic drum patterns
For what its worth try this out with Fruity Loops
Page 30
Take your hi hat tracks (are any tracks for that matter including melodic synth bubbles)
Drop down the bar graph box that allows you to scroll between velocity (volume) pitch panning cutoff resonance and a thing called shift which allows you to use each of these categories to effect each individual note that youve programmed (note this can be accomplished in other ways in most of the good midi sequencing apps or softwarehardware drum machines)
Drummers no matter how good they are just arent perfect and we can use the fact that each of these drop down bar graphs can make veryvery small changes in a sound to do some subtle things to a rolling drum groove like 16th notes on a hi hat
Not all drummers but many tend to favor their strong hand in a single stroke (hand over hand) drum roll Consequently if you make all odd numbered hi hats be slightly louder than their even numbered hits it will sound more realistic Start by making velocity differences that are really clearly audible Then lower the velocity until you can barely feel the difference We are going to make very subtle changes like this on each of the parameters of velocity pitch cutoff resonance and importantly shift
I cant stress enough that you should make these changes be so subtle that you can hardly notice them
Just going on the fact that the right handed players start their rolls with the right hand and favor it ever so slightly (or grossly for effect as well) means that the stroke will be harder with the right hand than the left hand
When a percussion instrument is hit harder the difference between the transient (or hi pitched attack) of the sound and the body of the instrument (or the sound that comes after the attack) becomes greater In general on drums that means that a harder attack tensions the drum very imperceptably (sp) and it also means that there will be more treble in the sound Consequently the pitch goes up a little teensy bit and their is more attack to the sound (increased resonance and slightly higher cutoff frequency)
Consequently you can make the pitch of each right hand be just barely noticeably higher the resonance should be just one or two of those little teeny bars higher The cutoff should be just a few bars lower (allowing less high frequencies through) on the left handed or even numbered strokes
Typically if drums have time inaccuracies they tend to drag the left hand a litte bit I have to keep stressing that if you can hear the changes you make you arent being realistic You need to make the changes subtle enough that you just barely feel that they arent perfect You can consequently make each left hand note shifted one or two bars late
Tigure out how much you can tweak each parameter before it becomes obvious and then you can just randomly tweak each one up to that limit With a little bit of variance in each stroke from parameter to parameter you will create more of a percolating texture in your programming - this is a great technique to make synth bubbles (the kind used in techno and house) more interesting and less mechanical feeling
Now you can avoid the biggest mistake that non-drummers do when trying to write realistic programs turn the overall volume of the hihats until you CANT hear them and then slowly bring up the volume until you just begin to hear them
Professional producers have spent countless hours trying to figure out how to gate and mix hihats OUT of tracks The reason is two fold1) Human beings have such a radical peak in their hearing around the 1-2khz range (or the intelligibility range of human speech) that we can play the hihats at incredible low volumes and they are still audible You cant do that with a bass drumI tell my drum students that you cannot play a hi hat or a snare drum so quietly that a person sitting in a room with you cant hear it2) Hi Hats the snare of snare drums and cymbals all seriously MASK human vocal intellibility How many people have gone to see live shows where they can hear the singer is singing but cant for the life of them figure out what they are actually singing That is ususally because drummers (or mixers which is frequently the case) are not hip to thisimportant fact
So turn down your hi hat tracks (or any track with a strong mid rangeshort envelope attack) and you have much more room for other musical goodies in your mix When in doubt make your hi hats quieter than you think they should be Trust me theyll come through the mix even at a quiet volume
Swingbull Dont know if you can do this in your sequencer but in Logic you can create a groove
template from your drums and then apply that to your other instruments If youre using separate midi channels for snares kicks and hats take the 8 bar loop youre using glue it together and then take the groove from that and then mute that track When you click down the quantize list youll see the template there and you can apply it to your other tracks Also if you do want to change the groove you can just change the hits in the muted template and itll automatically change all other hits to the new changes
bull Think if youre clever and organized you can basically cut breaks up in recycle load them into the exs24 (extract sequence) and then do the same with them That way if there are breaks you like the feel of you can just apply that swing to anything If you make a folder called grooves in your logic folder they should load up each time so that youll have loads to choose from Havent done this myself yet but always helpful to have a choice of feels available
bull Some things sound better rigid and robotic with equal velocities Some things sound better rigid and robotic with differing velocities Some things sound better with swing Some things sound better with everything ever-so-slightly off Its down to what the track needs
bull Drum Break Swing ProgrammingNicolas Hall wwwbreakbeat-cafenet wroteI think most people who make anything funk breakbeat drum amp bass or hip-hop would agree that Swing is crucial to the effectiveness of a beat The other key factors in a programming sense are dynamic and accent So many people get wound up when their beats sound sterile or mechanical this is due to the fact that computers and sequencers lock to perfect BPM A computer on its own does not interpret rhythm the way a good drummer does There are however certain machines that have their own swing parameters like the Akai MPC range of sampling drum machines which are used extensively by hip hop producers
Swing is not the easiest thing in the world to analyze but as a general rule good drummers will play slightly late and thats why in all funky records you get that slight dip at the start of the bar take Superstition by Stevie Wonder or Billie Jean by Michael Jackson these are both very simple beats Superstition is of course live drums whilst Billie Jean was programmed but no less funky than Superstition I emphasize this point to demonstrate that a programmed beat can be every bit at groovy as a beat played on a drum kit
Expanding on the Billie Jean point Hip Hop beats are really very simple If you listen to the Neptunes they tend to create the swing in their beats by quantizing the kicks and snares and playing the hi hats in by hand this creates a very tight beat which is off set by a loose hi hat try it works but dont forget your accents - As a starting point just take the first snare of your beat and turn the velocity down then notice how your head starts nodding and your foot starts tapping a little more you are giving the beat feel Also remember that if you are using reverb the louder snare will push the reverb harder than the soft snare so your creating more ambience that way Then try your kick drums if your not sure which hits to adjust just pick apart a beat your feeling I remember me and friend picking apart a Gangstarr beat and were able to almost replicate it by adjusting the velocities of each hit (admittedly it took a while to get it right)
If youre a newbie then a common trick when learning to make good grooves is to create a template with an existing loop The idea is take a loop you like thats got a good feel to it and then place your own hits over the break then take the break out and see if your hits are sounding funky This can take a while and its crucial to think about the strength of each hit or the dynamic Each kick will not be the same strength nor will the snares or the hats pick the loop apart dissect it and youll soon see that there are certain consistencies in all good beats
If youre using live loops and like to layer them with drum sequences you should be thinking about time space and frequencies So if you have a fairly heavy loop then layering it with heavy kick drums is probably not gonna sound good Think about filling holes are their any frequencies that could be filled up Or is there space in the loop for extra hits Try working in layers just adding one hit at a time also filtering works well you could take some of the frequencies out of your loop as you drop your drum sequences in to make room for them I think one the masters of this technique is Liam Howlett of the Prodigy He runs breakbeats and gives them extra balls by laying a kick drum underneath to add extra intensity to certain passages in his set but hes careful not to overlap frequencies to much A good place to start if you using breakbeats is the Roland Tr-808 kick drum which is around the 50hz mark which is sub bass territory so it will sit underneath most breaks very well
If your hell bent on making killer beats and loops then perseverance is crucial keep at it it will come together listen to beats you like and pick them apart identify the subtleties that make it happen I know some producers get fed up when their beats sound to clean or they are trying to create a new breakbeat and then compare it to sample they took from vinyl and get down on there own beat Think about what a breakbeat really is think about its history what has happened to it to make it sound the way it does Im
Page 32
sure youve noticed how some breaks have a certain something like a magic dust you cant put your finger on Let me share what I know with you about that
Most breaks though not all are taken from recordings of live drums some of them are pretty old so you have the ambience of live drums and the room they were recorded in you have the fact that natural decay and reverb of each drum is likely to have bled into the other mics on the kit and that most engineers used overhead mics which pick up the whole kit with two mics Then consider that many of these breaks will have been recorded to analogue tape with saturation which will create extra warmth and harmonics The next step comes from old sampling technology like the SP-1200 and the Akai s-950 mpc -60 these samplers sampled at 12- bit (bear in mind that most computers now are at least 24-bit if not more) and that the samples themselves where taken from vinyl and on and on the process goes with each new reverb and eq adding more and more to the break In terms of giving your breaks that character there are a number of things you can try for example buying an old four track cassette machine to dump your beats onto then re-sample it if your using a sampler like the s-950 then try pushing the input meters a little harder than usual add reverbs and resample it each time you put your loop through a new channel you will be adding something to it Also distortion is fantastic for breaks if you have any amp plug ins then try them the Amplitude one is particularly good you dont need to go mad with it just used subtly it works great
To finish I would just like to say again stick with it keep trying keep listening to records if you like to read about technique then do so you can learn so much from other producers Remember the strength of your hits is important as is the way it swings good luck
UPDATE 08092008
ENHANCE SYNTHESIZED DRUM PARTS WITH FOUND SOUNDS
emusiciancom wroteLayering real-world sounds with synthesized drum parts puts a new spin on your drum tracks You probably already have usable sound effects on your hard drive because most commercial samplers have at least a modest collection in their factory library Beyond that youll find thousands of royalty-free sound effects online Soundsnapcom is one of my favorite sources and its free The recordings dont need to be pristine for layering over drums so dont overlook cheap sampling CDs and consider grabbing your own sounds with a portable recorderCollect and Save
Start by assembling a small Foley library of short percussive sounds divided into typical drum-sound categories kicks snares toms cymbals percussion and so on Youll generally want to layer drum sounds with Foley sounds that have a similar volume contour and frequency range If you layer a Foley sound that resembles a kick drum with the sound of your hi-hat for example youll quickly fill up all the space in your drum track
Industrial household military transportation and vocal sounds make excellent fodder but you will often want to extract a small slice such as the last shot in a volley of machine-gun fire (snare) or the first bounce of a plastic bottle on concrete (tom) A browsing tool like Audio Finder (icedaudiocom) is invaluable if you have a large sample library That lets you quickly audition clips make basic edits and drag-and-drop slices to your library
Sticks UpIf your synthesized drum part is step sequenced youll need to export its step sequences as MIDI files Many drum synths do that including Sonic Charge Tonic (sonicchargecom) Apple Logic UltraBeat (applecom) and Submersible DrumCore (submersiblemusiccom) All of those come with a large collection of patterns exportable as MIDI sequences Youll also need a sampler to play the Foley sounds drum-oriented samplers are handier for that but are by no means necessary
Start by loading a kit in the drum synth Export one of its sequenced patterns or create your own and place it on the sampler track For some of the drum synth sounds select compatible Foley sounds and map them to the same notes in the sampler that theyre mapped to in the drum synth Next solo the doubled voices one by one in both the drum synth and the sampler start the sequence playing and tweak the samplers voice parameters (filter level pan envelope and so on) to make the sounds work together (see Fig 1 and Web Clip 1) Dont tweak global parameters such as effects because that will affect all sounds played by the sampler
High HoopsOnce youve configured your Foley track you can do several things to add interest I frequently use a
Page 33
second sampler for short vocal sounds Ill have some notes trigger sounds in both samplers and others in only one Many samplers let you group sounds and assign notes and controllers to choose among them You can then sequence these notes and controllers or you can play them live to alter your Foley tracks
Try applying DSP effects to individual Foley sounds Multitap delays distortion phasing and granular effects all work well when used sparingly (see Web Clip 2) You can apply DSP effects inside your sampler or route the voices to a separate output for DSP processing in your DAW If your sampler doesnt offer either possibility spread the Foley parts over several sampler instances on different tracks
Sidechain compression or gating of the drum track with one or more of the Foley parts will highlight the Foley part as well as add variety to the drums With compression peaks in the sidechain signal will reduce the level of the drum track Use a high compression level say 201 and balance the sidechain-gain and the compression-threshold -attack and -release controls to get the ducking contour you want (see Web Clip 3) Gating has the opposite effect the drum track will be heard during peaks in the sidechain signal (see Web Clip 4) Here too the sidechain-gain and gate-threshold controls work in tandem to determine when the gate is opened Use envelope parameters (attack release and hold) to shape the gates contour
Keep in mind that once youve created a sampler instrument to complement your drum kit you can reuse it with other sequences You can also change one or more sounds in the sampler instrument without repeating the whole process
34 Sidechain Compression (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
4 Theory41 ndash Song Structure42 ndash Mixdown (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)43 ndash Mastering (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
44 Music Theory
The first thing to remember about music theory is that generally if it sounds right it probably is There are no rules in music and Music Theory is not about telling you how to write music Its about understanding the music
Broadly speaking it is fair to say that most music is essentially based upon two crucial factors scales and rhythm Scales make up melodies chords harmonies and basslines to name but a few whereas rhythm makes up the beat of the song In this part of the Production Bible you will learn the basics of Music Theory that will serve you not only in the production of Dubstep but for any of your future musical pursuits This information is intended to be easy to read and understand so I wonrsquot be mincing sentences But firstly please make sure you learn every single note on the keyboard by studying the image below Otherwise yoursquoll be completely lost here
Page 34
Scales Wersquoll begin with scales As I mentioned before scales are the building blocks of your song and without them your track will be atonal and completely unlistenable (probably not the effect yoursquore going for)
There are two main scales that you should learn inside out ndash the major scale and the minor scale A generalisation yoursquore bound to have heard before is that the major scale sounds ldquohappyrdquo and the minor scale sounds ldquodarkrdquo Although this is not always the case it is mostly true ndash and therefore yoursquoll usually be focussing on the minor scale when producing Dubstep However just in case yoursquore writing happy-dubstep (if that exists) here is a quick overview of both scales and how they are made up
Major Scale
The major scale is really easy to create It is made by a single rule that is simple to put in to place
ldquoTone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
In case you donrsquot know what a Tone or Semi-Tone is here is a quick explanation
Picture a keyboard (or if you canrsquot see the image above) Say you go from C to C that would be a semi-tone The same thing goes for if you go from an E to an F ndash it is still a semi-tone because you
Page 35
have gone up one key
A tone is two semi-tones ndash for example from C to D is a tone and the same goes for from G to A
The scalersquos name is taken from the note that it starts on For example C major will start on the note of C Similarly A major will start on the note of A and this is the case with every single scale
Here is a quick list of a few major scales After having seen a few try working the rest out for yourself in order to understand how the major scale is formulated Ideally you should practice your scales on a piano or keyboard so that you can physically see how to make the scale It might sound boring but itrsquos a small price to pay for a much deeper understanding of your music
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Major C D E F G A B C
C Major C D E F G A B C
D Major D E F G A B C D
D Major D E F G A B C D
E Major E F G A B C D E
F Major F G A Bb C D E F
F Major F G A B C D E F
G Major G A B C D E F G
G Major G A B C D E F G
A Major A B C D E F G A
A Major A B C D E F G A
B major B C D E F G A B
Now by arranging the different notes of each of these scales in any order you please you can create a melody bassline or harmony with extreme ease Rearranging the notes in the scale will give you a flawlessly in-key result and it is then up to you to use the notes in the scale as you see fit for your tune
Minor Scale
As was the case with the Major Scale the Minor is made up from a set rule or formula By knowing this formula you can understand how the Minor is made and how to use it to itrsquos maximum effect
ldquoTone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
As is the case with the major scales you should practice your scales as much as possible to make sure that you know them all like the back of your hand Here are a few Minor Scales see if you can
Page 36
work out the rest
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Minor C D Eb F G Ab B C
D Minor D E F G A Bb C D
F Minor F G A B C D E F
G Minor G A Bb C D Eb F G
Similarly to the Major now that you know your Minor Scales you can quickly just take any note from the scale rearrange it with another few notes in the scale and there you have a fat melody or bassline ready to be played at maximum volume
Diminished Chords
Diminished Chords are really quite spooky and dark chords that are made up of four different notes all a minor third apart from each other That means that for example the Diminished Chord starting on C would be C Eb F A because to get from one note to the next you have to use ldquoTone Semi-Tonerdquo (known as a minor third)
Because of the mathematical nature of the Diminished chord there are only three ldquoclustersrdquo of notes which can then be rearranged like the Major and Minor Scales
Cluster 1 C Eb F A
Cluster 2 C E G Bb
Cluster 3 D F Ab B
Use these clusters and rearrange them as you please For example you could rearrange cluster 1 as Eb F A C etc
Generally speaking you canrsquot make a song based entirely on Diminished Chords due to the fact that each cluster only has 4 notes However a Diminished Chord is perfect for adding a hint of darkness to your tune and is brilliant when mixed with some Minor Scales
Chords
Chords are basically two or more notes played together They are made up from a specific scale ndash for example the C major chord is made up of notes in the C major scale
Usually chords will include the first third and fifth note of the scale as well as possibly using other notes to give them colour For example the basic chord of C major would be C E G Then you could add the seventh note to it (in this case it is B) Really it is up to the producerrsquos discretion how heshe goes about making a chord ndash just remember to stick to the scale you are using
Chords will more than likely sound like shit if you play them on a complicated or layered synth patch You want to be playing chords on sustained sounds such as strings or pads Chords will really fill out your sound if used properly You want your chords to be supporting the melody or bassline and more than likely want to add some reverb so that it doesnrsquot sound too sharp Make
Page 37
your chords blend in with the music and yoursquoll have mastered them
Chord Inversions
Quite simply chord inversions are when you rearrange the notes in a chord so that it sounds a bit different and suits your arrangement better
For example if you were in the key of C major you could have a drone of E playing underneath some strings playing the notes E G C E
Due to the fact that the notes are the same and have only been inverted the chord will still be in key with the rest of the music This is a great way to add a touch of variation to your music instead of using the same chord structure all the time
Arpeggios
Arpeggios are much easier to understand than they sound They are quite simply the first third and fifth note of the scale played as individual notes For example the arpeggio of C minor would be C Eb G C etc
A great example of an arpeggio is the bassline in Bengarsquos ldquoCrunked Uprdquo He goes from playing the F minor arpeggio backwards to playing the F minor arpeggio backwards In other words he is playing
C A F and then C Ab F
Experiment with a few Minor Arpeggios and a couple of Diminished Arpeggios and you canrsquot go wrong in writing a huge bassline
Suggested Reading
List of All Scales With Finger Charts Included
Well thatrsquos it folks Thatrsquos basically all the music theory you need to know to start off with As you grow more used to the various scales yoursquoll notice that certain notes sound good with each other whilst others donrsquot Irsquom not here to tell you how to write music Irsquom here to teach you the language
of music Itrsquos up to you to write the poetry
copy Bruno Crosier (klimaxx) 2008
45 Random Tips
Random tips amp best piece of advice thread
5 Resources
Page 38
51 Books amp Magazines
Hello again people
Does anyone know of more music production books magazines or authors we can add to these lists
Thanks
------------------------------------------------
Music Production Magazines Computer Music - httpwwwcomputermusiccouk Music Tech Magazine - httpwwwmusictechmagcouk Future Music - httpwwwfuturemusiccouk Sound on Sound - httpwwwsoundonsoundcom Remix Magazine - httpremixmagcom Mix Magazine - httpmixonlinecom Electronic Musician - httpemusiciancom EQ Magazine - httpwwweqmagcom Audio Technology - wwwaudiotechnologycomau Tape Op - httpwwwtapeopcom
------------------------------------------------
Music Books
Authors Curtis Roads httpmitpressmiteducatalogauthor aspaid=93 - The Computer Music Tutorial (Really really really good book) Paul White - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea ul20White - Basic Series + more Rick Snowman - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea k20Snoman - The Dance Music Manual Tools Toys and Techniques Bobby Owsinski - httpbooksgooglecoukbooksas_auth=Bobby+Owsinski - The MixingRecording amp Mastering Engineers Handbooks Michael Paul Stavrou - httpwwwmixingwithyourmindcom
Publishers Thomson Course Technology - httpcoursecengagecom (Click on the Music Technology tab) - Series published include Power Overdrive Ignite and CSI Series + many more Backbeat Books - httpwwwbackbeatbookscom ndash Power Tools Series + many more Wiley Publishing - httpwwwdummiescom (Enter music in their search bar) - For Dummies Series Penguin Books - httpuspenguingroupcom (Enter music in their search bar) - The Complete Idiots Guide Series + many more MIT Press - httpmitpressmitedu - Many books on music theory Focal Press - httpwwwfocalpresscom - (Enter music in their search bar)
------------------------------------------------
Online Music Book Stores (We need more links here Do you know of any that we can add)
httpwwwmixbookscom ndash Excellent source that sells only books about music
Page 39
httpwwwamazoncom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
httpwwwbarnesandnoblecom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
------------------------------------------------
52 Wikipedia
A good music lexicon wiki Search for your term in the search bar ---gt httpenaudiolexicorgwikiMain_Page
0-9
14rdquo Jack - httpenwikipediaorgwikiJack_plug 3rd Bridge - httpenwikipediaorgwiki3rd_Bridge
Zero Crossing - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_crossing Zero Crossing Rate - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_Crossing_Rate
53 Other recommended production forums
for Logic users this is the shit httpwwwlogicprohelpcom
Ive found both these forums to be full of knowledgeable producers amp musicians
httpwwwkvraudiocomforum
httpacapellaharmony-centralcomforumsindexphp
httpwwwgearslutzcomboard
httpwwwsoundonsoundcomforum
httpwwwmusicradarcomforum
httpwwwidmforumscom
httpwwwdance-industriescomphpBB2 8cffbb3b02
httpwwwsubvertcentralcomforumindexphp
httpwwwbreakbeatcouk
httpwwwtweakheadzcom
httpwwwabletoncompagesforum
Explains lots about the music industry ---gt httpwwwbemusocom
Page 47
Ok so a massive thanks to all the contributors there are literally too many to mention But Thanks to Futures Untold Johnny Beat Klimaxx Deadly Habit amp JunglistRendr Daft Cunt in perticular
Thanks to all the artists producers and general music geeks making this early revision of the production bible an essential read
There are links missing and will be included in version 21(Please help with the unlinked chapters by going here - httpwwwdubstepforumcomthe-dubstep-production-bible-updated-2009-06-03-t14797html and updating missing info as needed)
Compiled by Daft Cunt and Futures Untold PDF Compiled by Depone
Page 11
httpwwwbassquakecouk httpwwwbeatboxtv httpwwwbeatmodecomfree-loops httpwwwbeatsandbreakscoukkidkoalalphtml httpwwwbeatsandsamplescom httpwwwbigfishaudiocom4DCGIwhatsHothtml httpwwwbomiscomringsMmusic-sand_loops-arts httpwwwbramboscom Nice little Freeware Loop mangler httpwwwbreak-beatscouk httpwwwbreakbeatsonlycom httpwwwbreakbeatsonlycomlinkshtm httpwwwbreakbeatsonlycompreview1htm httpwwwbries3yucombeFREE_SAMree_sampleshtm httpwwwbrothercakecomlinkssamplephp httpwwwcakewalkcom httpwwwchaindlkorgindexphp3 httpwwwchaosisyourdestinycomFreehtm httpwwwchezcomlazoneacappella httpwwwcobwebaudiocouksample_archives httpwwwcobwebaudiocouksound_sacapellahtml - what it says and more httpwwwcobwebaudiocom httpwwwcomputermusiccouk + home of compmusic httpwwwcountroculacom httpwwwcountroculacomloophtml httpwwwcpatersonclaranet httpwwwcubelabscomindeploopshtm httpwwwcybernoccomplloopyhtml httpwwwdailywavcom httpwwwdailywavcom lt-- Movie and television samples httpwwwdancetechcom httpwwwdaniravacomLINKSlinks_samplesasp httpwwwdeepskycoukgallerygallery_sampleshtml httpwwwdeltaz-palazedeSoundDiples_and_Loops httpwwwdiscretedrumscom httpwwwdjbbdk httpwwwdjbbdksamples_enghtml httpwwwdjbbdktunes_eng httpwwwdj-mixde httpwwwdjsamplescomdjsamples httpwwwdjsamplescomdjsampleshomehomecfm (massive) httpwwwdjsolfsnetcoukLinks_framehtml httpwwwdjzxcomMusicSamples httpwwwdnbproductioncomlinkaspmessage=0 httpwwwdoctechnicalcommalindexhtml httpwwwdogbeatscouk httpwwwdogbeatscouk httpwwwdogsonacidcom httpwwwdogsonacidcomsamples httpwwwdogsonacidcomshowthreathreadid=102340 httpwwwdooleydrumscom httpwwwdooleydrumscom httpwwwdownloadsafaricomFilesound_FX_Pakasp httpwwwdriverguidecom httpwwwdrumdropscomfreebreaksasp httpwwwdrumnbassbe httpwwwdrumsamplescom httpwwwdrumslivecomfreeloopshtm httpwwwdvdtalkcom httpwwwdynamicforcefreeservecoukdownloadhtm httpwwweastwestsamplescomdetahpcd_index=162 httpwwweastwestsamplescomdetailsphpcd_index=162 httpwwwechovibescom httpwwwechovibescomAutorankautorank2html httpwwwe-drummernet httpwwwe-labse httpwwwelectromancercom httpwwwelectronisoundscomAKAI_CDshtml httpwwwelektronoizecomdownphppg=4amplang=fr httpwwwendlessflowcom (wicked sounds)
Page 12
httpwwwentropymusiccomfreeloopshtm httpwwwexcitecoukdirectoryAmples_and_Loops httpwwwf6conzartificialindexhtm httpwwwf6conzartificialmainhtml httpwwwfabtraxcom_resourcesres_sampleshtm httpwwwfellerscouk httpwwwfindsoundscom httpwwwfindsoundscom httpwwwfindsoundscom - wav search engine httpwwwflashkitcomloops httpwwwflashmovecomlinkAudioFree httpwwwflashmovecomlinkAudioLoops httpwwwflashthiefcomfreesoundtechno1htm httpwwwflashtracksde httpwwwfleximusiccomlinkslinkshtm httpwwwfortunecitycomroswellrandles66 httpwwwfracturedatlasorgsiteples_and_Loops httpwwwfreaknoisecom httpwwwfreeloopscouk (wicked) httpwwwfreewebscomdorumalaiamyfreerefillshtm httpwwwfreewebscomdorumalaiasoundfontssf2htm httpwwwfrogstarcom httpwwwftpsearchenginescom httpwwwfullblownkirkcomfbksampleshtm httpwwwfunk-stationcouk httpwwwfunk-stationcouklinkshtm httpwwwfuturewaveshapercom httpwwwfuturewaveshapercom httpwwwfuturewebsonicscom httpwwwgarritancom httpwwwgeocitiescomArea51Station3509sf2htm httpwwwgeocitiescomCapitolHillCongress8516 httpwwwgeocitiescomnadeem_ahmaddownloadhtml httpwwwgeocitiescoms4u_sitenewlinkshtml httpwwwgeocitiescomsamplecatalog Nice little freeware Sample Cataloger httpwwwgeocitiescomsamplistgeo httpwwwgeocitiescomSiliconVals8645sf2html httpwwwgeocitiescomSoHoMuseum4312 httpwwwgeocitiescomSunsetStri93wavloadhtml httpwwwgeocitiescomSunsetStribreakbeatshtml httpwwwgeocitiescomSunsetStripBalcony8644 httpwwwgeorge44freeservecoukSoundFontshtm httpwwwgeositescomdakoz2 httpwwwglasstraxcomdownloadsoundfontshtml httpwwwgooglecom httpwwwgroovedealercom httpwwwgroundloopscom httpwwwgroundloopscomarchivehtm httpwwwguitarwavscom httpwwwhammersoundnet httpwwwharkproductionscom (pro loops) httpwwwharmony-centralcomGuitartabhtml - tabs amp links for guitar players httpwwwheimsnetislowprofile httpwwwhermpiecom httpwwwhhnonstopcom httpwwwhiphop-directorycomAudmplesindexphp httpwwwhissingsidcomfreesampshtm httpwwwhitsquadcomsmm + links info amp more httpwwwhitsquadcomsmmmac - for freeware shareware and demos of all the big boys httpwwwhitsquadcomsmmwin95SOUND_FONTS httpwwwhomeattbicom~brainloops httpwwwhotbotcomadvasp httpwwwhousemuzakcomhousemuziqsampleshtml httpwwwhqsamplescomua httpwwwhqsamplescomua httpwwwhqsamplescomuahomephptype=all httpwwwhumanworkshopcom httpwwwibiblioorgpubmultimediasun-sounds httpwwwillnoncomsamplecdshtml
Here is a list of the most popular freeware analysers available
Voxengo SPAN
Bluecat Audio Freqanalyst
Roger Nichols Inspector
Page 20
For a long list of other free analysers visit httpwwwgersiccompluginsindexphpdaCat=2
3 Techniques
31 Bass311 Sub Bass
Sub-bass is a term used to describe audible sounds below 90Hz - sound in the range below this (under 16-17Hz) would be termed infrasound Sound systems often feature a subwoofer that is dedicated solely to amplifying sounds in the lower bass and sub-bass range Source Wikipedia
So the idea is to have the sub going up to ~90Hz The exact frequency it should be cut at depend on the kicks frequency Lets say you HP your kick at 100Hz then the sub should be LPed at 100Hz so they compliment each other without clashing
There are several ways of creating a sub here are the most common 1 - using a unique waveform (sine saw square or triangle) will give you a nice linear sub NB You dont need to filter out a sine wave as it doesnt have overtones 2 - using detuned waveforms take 2 identical waves (sine saw square or triangle) and detune them - lets say -25 +25 semitone This will produce a phase effect and give movement to your sub but itll also cause large volume amplitude and youll need to compress it after filtering Great Massive tutorial by Subfocus here 3 - using a 808 kick you dont have a TR-808 Grab that pack
jobbanaught wroteAn easy option to get a powerful subbass is to take a 808 kick sample put it in your favorite sampler and loop a single cycle of the waverform somewhere in the middle of the sample The 808 kick is made of a sine and some additional white noise The sine gives your sub that rattling low end pressure and the noise adds overtonesgrittiness = instant badass subbass
You can find more tips about mixing your kick n sub in the Random bass tips thread
312 lsquoWobblersquo
Page 21
Wobble GuideWobble Bass
Wobble Bass as it is known is simply a bassline that has an LFO assigned to a Low Pass Filter as an insert effect LFOstands for Low Frequency Oscillator and is used to change a sound by a defined speed (measured in either Hz or synced to the Tempo in relation to the barsnotes through quantization) The way the LFO changes the sound is up to you you can make the LFO adjust the Volume the amount of Saturation Filter Cutoff etc Basically any parameter you link it to Essentially you are just using the LFO to send a changing value to a parameter
--------------------
How to get a simple wobble bass
1) Choose a simple sound on your synth (Anything apart from a Sine wave )
2) Select your LFO and set it to the speed you want (18 would be a good starting point)
3) Now assign the LFO to the Filter Cutoff Which should for this example be a Low Pass Filter as the sound were going for is a deep bass
4) You now have a basic wobble bass from here the possibilities for tweaking this sound are endless
--------------------
A quick breakdown of whats actually going on Essentially you are taking a sound (that can be an audio files generated by a synth etc) and then passing it through a Low Pass Filter Now what exactly does a Low Pass Filter do you ask
A Low Pass Filter allows Low Frequency signals to pass through it but reduces the amplitude (volume) of all the Frequencies above the cutoff point In general most plug-ins have various Low Pass Filter settings where the more poles it has the more Dbs it will cut and will yield a harder knee to it Example 1 Pole Filter with a -6dBOct reduction Vs a 2 Pole Filter reducing -12DbOct However you dont necessarily need a LFO controlling your Low Pass Filter Cutoff frequency value you could just draw in the Automation yourself but a LFO will yield a loop of consistent values and prevents the possibility of human error All the LFO is doing is sending a value to your frequency cutoff to keep it consistently changing
--------------------
Tips amp Advice
1) Sub bass wobble would normally be a Sine wave at around the 40-50 Hz range which would repeat the same chords as the mid-range bass wobble The only difference being that with a sub bass wobble there is no point in assigning the LFO to a Low Pass Filter because the sound is too low for the low pass filter to have any effect so theLFO is assigned to the amplitude (volume) instead Another reason for not applying a Low Pass Filter to the Sub bass is because it would typically be a Sine wave which possesses no Harmonics to be adjusted by the Filter
2) The sound of an LFO can also be adjusted by the wave type you choose The default setting for an LFO generator is a Sine wave although on most synths you can chose from Triangle Sawtooth Square wave Random Noise To get a nice sounding bass it is a good idea to use as many oscillators as possible on different octaves
3) Try messing around with the attack and release of your sound as this can have an impact on the sound of the bass Long attacks tend to create a more ambient sound and is a technique traditionally used with ambient pads
Page 22
4) Something that I find useful is to bounce the bassline to a wav file so that it can be chopped up and put in-sync with other elements of the song because the majority of the time you will find the first wave of sound in the wobble bassline will will be half the length of the other waves due to attack rates So the best thing to do is to chop that freak sound off the beginning of the file in your DAW (Logic Pro Reason Cubase etc) and start off with the second wave which should be fully formed This way it will not be too early of late when keeping in sync with other elements such as a second bassline
5) Another method you can use is creating a clone layer of your original sound and setting up a new LFO setup for that to beat alternatively in the space left by the original LFO Or go that crazy Drum amp Bass Reese route and split the frequencies to Low Mid and High then set different LFO rates for each band then recombine into one sound
6) For more variation automate your LFO speed and intensity
7) Where you place insert effects in relation to the filter (pre or post) will yield different sounding results
8) Other methods to achieve a wobble like sound Tremolo (This effects volume rather than frequency) FM Synthesis Modulation of PWM Oscillator Pitch assigned (in a liberal amount) to LFO Filter Envelope assigned to LFO (using a re-triggered envelope) (submitted by Faun2500)
9) Assign a second LFO to modulate the speed of the first LFO
LFO Shapes
Sine wave The smooth value change possible
Triangle Similar to a Sine wave but slightly more ramped amp synthetic sounding
Random A mixed bag
Sawtooth Will have a very fast attack with a slower release which will sound very rugged
Square wave Will be a simple open close style Very harsh and will generally cause a very harsh sound (Often used in DJ Hazard style bass-lines) Detune two square waves for a nice dark sounding bass
Waveforms submitted by Skells wrotehttpi228photobucketcomalbumsee83 cleanjpgSimple Filter Sweep
httpi228photobucketcomalbumsee83 wobblejpgSine Wave LFO assigned to Filter Cutoff
LINKS etc
Fruity Loops Wobble Tutorial (Link submitted by Wub) Massive Wobble YouTube Tutorial (Video created by thesynthesist) Pause amp Play Wobble Tutorial (Link submitted by dubmo) Albino3 Wobble Guide (Guide created by axon)
By Rendr amp Deadly Habit and a little help from Macc
313 lsquoReecersquo
The Reese Bass
Page 23
History Lesson
The Reese bass was a form of huge sounding synth-bass first used by the Detroit Techno producer Kevin Saunderson aka Master Reese aka Reese Project aka on the track Just Want Another Chance and immortalised in the classic DnB track Terrorist by Renegade Since then it has been (over)used in many a DnB track and continues to evolve even nowadays through Dubstep and Jungle It is said to be as influential to DnB as the Amen break and probably as used and abused as the Amen
Capturing the Beast
1The Oscillator Stage
To nail the Reese you need a synth with at least 2 oscillators but for better-bigger results use as many oscillators as you can (not really but 4 oscillators give a nice deep rumble - ahhhhhh) All the oscillators are playing sawtooth waves and all except one are detuned by 25-50 cents so that all oscillators are out of phase with each other
2 The Filter Stage
The signal is then sent to a low-pass filter with the cutoff freq set around 150-200Hz (experiment with that you want the growl of the mid-frequencies but you also want it as deep as possible without sacrificing the midrange) The resonance of the filter should be cranked up almost all the way (but again tweak accordingly to your filtersynth)
3 Fuzz it Up
The second most important aspect of the Reese (after the detuned sawtooths) is distortion Tube distortion and tape saturation work extremely well but dont hesitate to use other more extreme distortion units (dont forget that the Reese has been done a million times you have to add something original to it) Again adjust to taste
4 Spices and Herbs
Now that is the main recipe for the sound but like all haute-cuisine there are more things you can do to spice up the Reese Namely effects Effects that have been associated with the Reese are
Phasers - to accentuate the phase-shifting effect of the detuned sawtooths Unison - a great way to make it even bigger Chorus - again a good way to phatten it up
5 And Some More Synth Magic
Another thing to do so you can bring out the old-school jungle character of the Reese is to use Legato and PortamentoGlide if your syth of choice has them available These are both great ways to move from one note to the next without listening to the transition To put it simply when legato is on and you play a sustained E followed by a sustained G the transition between the two notes gives the listener the impression that they heard a single note being sustained that has just changed its pitch from E to G without pausing at a certain point
Always remember though that if you use Legato you have to turn the polyphony of your synth down to 1 (something you should almost always do with basslines because two bass-notes playing together almost never sound good in electronic music bass chords are more the realm of prog-rock shit than dubstep)
For the more technical minded legato in synthesizers is a variation of monophonic operation In contrast to monophonic mode where every new note restarts the ADSR envelopes in legato mode they are not if the previous note remains depressed when the new note is played This causes the initial transient from the attack and decay phases to sound only once and the ADSRs to remain at sustain stage for the whole sequence of notes until the final note is released (Wikipedia)
EDIT I just found out that in one of the free vst links on the bible there is a thing called the Hotelsinus Reese Bassline Synth So I didnt miss the opportunity for a mini review The software itself is small (like most free vst-is) and quite easy to install (you just drop the dll in the vst folder) As for the sound weeeeeeell the sounds it produces are definitely Reese But weak somehow Its like listening to Terrorist from a battered cheap old cassette from 93 or something It has a tinny and tiny sound when compared to what you can achieve with powerhouses like Albino or
Page 24
Massive or (one of my personal favorites for Reese) Cakewalk Rupture You can try it if you want but i dont think it will impress steppers that much we are bass-headed folk
314 Random Bass Tips
Plz add yours or others youve spotted on the forum
miss_molinari wrotebasically i have been experimenting with cutting (not sidechaining) a notch (band reject) in the bass starting at 60hz and ending just before 70 this is only for those bass lines which only hit on the kick (quite specific) also the bass is then high passed at about 220hz to pretty much 0db which is where the kick starts (ending the kick with a non-too-aggressive-cut at about 2khz) this essentially means that the kick and the bass do not share any frequencies above abot 200hz but also between 60 and 70 and with them always hitting at the same time this gets around the fact that sidechaining this type of sequencing would leave you with no or little bass
this has worked well so far but is useful mainly for sub basses ending at around 250hz would not be as good for full spectrum wubsanyone else got any tech tips regarding the bass and kick
futures_untold wroteI simply cut everything under 90Hz on my kicks and roll off slightly at 1KHz
Sub I cut under 40Hz and roll off at 200Hz
I always compress both seperately and keep my levels low in the mix to create plenty of head room later whilst adding sounds with higher frequency content
Anything above 150Hz is what I consider midrange Anything above 150Hz can be heard on mobile phone speakers We all know that theyre designed to play heavy bass lol Wink
miss_molinari wroteDaft Cunt wroteTo me it feels like cutting the kick above 80 hz makes it sound weak I guess it depends on the style I rather cut below 60 to 80 depending on the tune
yeah its all about context in a dry minimal setting im of the opinion you can make a kick punch right up to about 180-200hz but yeah depends on when and on what kind of punch (im usually talking a bass hit at about 200hz coupled with a knock hit anywhere up to about 1200hz) i imagine you true dubsteppers prefer a denser thump from 60 through to about 300hz
Daft Cunt wroteI began recently the band-reject thing on the sub Little details that make big difference
And do you people cut the bass where the snare peaks
my basses arent usually middy enough to need that but yeah a slight sidechain on the main snare and say midbasspadwothavyer is nice especially if the limelight is stolen by a deeper sidechain on the kick and midbasspadwothavyer can create a nice flow (especially when used with long decay reveb linked to the midbasspadwothavyer so that it sounds louder and longer the higher the frequency played - might
have to post some piccies of that one )
Shonky wroteWhat Ive been doing lately is bouncing down the kick track lowpassing one somewhere between 100-140 depending on the highest frequencies of the low sub and then sidechaining the sub to the low kick
Then take a copy of the kick track highpass between 300-1000 and this will give you the beater noise to make the kick cut through I then sidechain this to the more middly basses You can also send a small amount to a reverb bus which allows you to avoid mud on the lower frequencies whilst still giving you the space
Doing it this way seems to make sense to me cause the sidechains work on the corresponding kicks in the same frequency range so it doesnt cause loads of unnecessary compression where you dont need it
Page 25
boh wroteAlways make sure your kicks are in tune with the rest of the track ull hear it pitching up and down and make sure if ur layering that the transients dont conflict(good monitors make this easy) It all comes down to kick selection Whats the point in cutting a kick at 80hz with a fundemental freq of say 60hz Sure you get whats happening before it but u wont get the nice thump of the fundemental freq Choose other kicks that hit the freq u want (80hz say) instead of cutting them when theres no need to Unless you really really know what your doing getting technical like this complicates the situation Esp for people with little experience
sullyharmitage wrote50 hz hi pass seems a bit high to me maybe gd for kicky techno or house but for subby stuff it seems a bit muchdefo roll off past 30-35 (most well engineered systems will do this anyways so any content below this is definately getting wasted)if yr gonna go higher make sure its a soft curvei find levelling subs is the hardest part of a mix - cos more always sounds better i remember reading breakage saying yr subs shouldnt add more than 3db to yr mix thats seems like a good guide
btw sub in kick an bassline simultaeously is gonna cause clashes (n maybe disortion) id either decrease the attack on the bass or cut the sub from the kick
unklefesta wroteI rolloff EVERYTHING at 40hz except my bass
standard
wang wroteAlways do it
Dont forget youre ROLLING off the frequencies not cutting them off all together Just a couple of dB of bass down there is enough to get some girth without removing all your headroom
Also analyse and cut off the lows on everything even if it doesnt appear to have messy lows -Youd be surprised how much bass there is in some high hats
Jtransition wroteAll of your tracks are going to be different so dont restrict yourself to a certain techniquetry different things and listen to the results
Shonky wrotewang wroteAlso analyse and cut off the lows on everything even if it doesnt appear to have messy lows -Youd be surprised how much bass there is in some high hats
Yep this is very true also worth filtering out the inaudible highs on low sounds as well found some of my subs which Id low passed still showed frequency activity much higher than expected
Jtransition wroteStick a high pass filter on everything apart form the kick drum and bass line70 hertz is a good starting point move up or down to tasteAnd remember try to mix at low levels(Walls not vibrating)
Deadly Habit wroteRendr wroteBasslines in my experience should be mono due to the fact that humans cannot easily decoded the stereo positioning of low frequencys so panning basslines (excluding bass sounds with high pitch sounds at around 500Hz+) is not recommended not only are the low frequencys hard to position with the human ear the low frequency sound waves are absorbed by the human head at a much higher ratio than high pitch sounds which tend to be reflected Another thing to note is that club systems are
mono Basslines that pan only belong in Psytrance
sub range should be mono especially if going to be cut to vinylmidrange bass on the other hand you can pan and add stereo fx to your hearts content
Page 26
32 Re-sampling
SafeAfter a few months of experimenting with resampling not really getting anywhere in terms of sound quality i came up with a pretty simple way of getting on the right track Ive got so much help since getting on this forum in terms of production i thought id share this for those who like myself are looking into the elusive yet highly rewarding technique of resamplingAll the vsts i use on this (save for the synth itself) are freenative plugs im using FL but itll transfer onto every DAW pretty much the same Ill explain it for a bassline but it can be applied to any sound
Step 1Make yourself a nice bassline get it sounding dirty with whatever you can within the synth Im using Albino so i tend to play about with the saturation modesFXs until its sounding pretty good
Step 2Hook up to a mixer channel then send this channel to a second mixer channel (FL users just click on another channel towards the bottom of the strip) On the second channel that the synth is hooked to from the first add CMt bitcrusher and downsample 3-16x (thanks to all the production forum users who pointed this out to me when i posted a few months ago on dirtying up basslines) Then add a chorus Turn the LFOs off and set the depthdelayetc to whatever sounds best Also set the crossover pretty high so only the treblehigh mids are being affected Then add Camel Audio Camel Crusher Turn the compressor off and set the tubemech to taste Add a parametric EQ if needs be to boost the high freqs Experiment with the chain of these effects swapping them according to the sound The choruscameleq in different orders should alter the sound quite alot depending on where their placed
Step 3 Set the level of the second affected channel with the original depending on whatever suits Play about with adding extra effects to both channels The way the second channel behaves once an effect is added to the first is quite extreme in even light application of effects So its possible to create a whole array of different sounds just from say adding a flangerchorusetc to the first channel then listening to how much it affects the sound as a whole as it goes through both channels By now it should be sounding pretty girthy
Step 4Export the riffsample (i use edison on the master channel in FL but whatever method will do) Reload and place into a mixer channel Add another Camel Crusher for abit more grit EQ and compress Set up a reverbdelay send and resample again for extra depth
Obviously this technique can be applied a 2nd3rd4th time to fuck the sound up even more so Which is what ive moved onto doing now into the territory of splitting the sound into basslow midhigh midtreble sections for ultimate control over each part Something which i was attempting to do before coming up with the above method but being left with a pile of unlistenable mushy shite
Hope this is a help to some peeps I know theres no secret technique to resamping only a whole load of practice and using your ears but this method got me on the right track in terms of hearing the benefits of it and encouraging me to experiment more in depth and realise that the possiblities are endless Im hooked now i resample pretty much every sound in one way or another Kick and snares benefit hugley from it for mega face melting wide drum sounds aswell so its worth trying it on some nice drum hits
Keep up the good work folksPeaceDC_WT
33 Drums
Read before reading on I am in no way entitled to any of those opinions It is up to you to decide whether you would like to incorporate them in your workflow I have just collected them from all the threads in this forum and will try to keep everything updated
I will update as regularly as I find updates
Page 27
Misc tips and tricks bull Good drums are usually layered - example 3 snares sounding as onebull The hats are often panned or widenedbull Pick great sounding samples different ones for different parts of the sounds you want 1
for snap and bite 1 for body 1 for thump distort and MAYBE EQ each to make them sound the best that they can separately combine in a bus MAYBE compress them together maybe accent the front and shorten the sound with a transient modifier 10 minutes tops
bull Do as little as possible with great-sounding bits and your basic sounds will be slamming leaves you time to focus on the arrangement people dont go around thinking wow that tune has an amazing snare as long as its thumping and not masked by a bunch of other stuff itll keep the dance moving
bull Listen to other producers work As its playing imagine the 1 2 3 4 on the step sequencer running in time to what youre listening to Try to visualize where the producer put their hits Not to say you should copy peoples drum patterns but learn from them
bull Ive noticed a lot of tunes (more minimal stuff where you can distinctly hear whats seperately going on) seem to use two differently pitched hi-hats that alternate to sound shuffley if you know what I mean and a less dramatic snare used sparsely in between the main lazy kick and snare An easy trick if you havent worked it out (which to be honest you should have if youre at all serious about producing dubstep) is to stick a smaller snare or hat the 116th before the kick or snare so it steps if you get me For example Bengas Night does this for all four beats in the bar which is part of what makes it so danceable But dont get stuck in always having kick on 1 and snare on 3 some tracks work with a kick on every beat others with a couple big snares etc The trick (unless you want proper lazy spaced out tunes) is to make sure youre nodding your head on all four beats of the bar Play around with a hat on every quaver (ie 8 per bar on the beat) compared to just four but on the off beat as well as adding in the steppy ones every now and then Theres often no need to over-complicate things though one of the my favourite drum tracks is the incredibly simplistic V by Distance Its a rhythm that could easilly be played by one guy on a real kit yet its so banging - check the use of hats and lower velocity kicks in this to make it nice and bouncy Also I once had a four bar drum loop and accidentally moved the sequence one bar to the right for one section and it ended up nicely varying the drums in a way you wouldnt expect
bull Really tight delays can help claps and snaps sound natural 5-20ms etcbull Recycle or phatmatik is your break-chopping friendbull Basically Hatrixxs method involved chopping everything from the main hits into a sample
Say you had a 2-step funk beat like the Amen Youd start your selection from the start of the first kick and select everything up to the start of the first snare Cut paste theres your first slice Then take everything from the start of the first snare up to the start of the second kick - including all the little hats and ghost hits - cut paste second sample and so on Then just map the samples onto some keys and bash away Both of them are quick compared to chopping Recycled slices where you have to copy and drag loads of little notes (one every little fucking tiny hit in the break arranged chromatically up the keyboard) around the piano roll These methods let you just concentrate on the main hits which can be both good or bad You can get a solid beat down with just a handful of hits but youre limited to the patterns already in the original break For a beginner to breakbeat science like yourself Id say try these methods first but dont rule out the really anal methods like RecyclePhatmatikFruity Slicer Sometimes they are a necessary evil Of course some of the drumfunk guys especially those who post on Subvert Central swear by these methods or the next one There are those who prefer to chop up the raw audio rather than bothering with MIDI and samplers They literally just drop the break file into Cubase or Logic and start chopping with the scissors tool and copying and pasting I can see the benefits of this You can see the waveform as youre chopping and youre not as restriced to the quantize grid as you are with MIDI But it takes aaaaages to build a drum track this way and theres the risk of RSI from all that Ctrl+C Ctrl+V youll be doing Then of course theres trackers They really are tailor-made for chopping up loops amongst other things They give you Sample Offset meaning that when you trigger a sample you can set it to start from 256 evenly spaced points throughout the sample So by starting a sample a quarter of the way through youre triggering the first snare (obviously you can fine-tune it when the snare isnt perfectly on the beat) You can edit breaks in a tracker without ever having to cut up a waveform and you can do all sorts of other nifty things like reverse the sample retrigger it to make drum rolls and so on
If recycles having trouble switch the break to mono in your sample editor and then apply tiny fades between the drum hits (especially useful if there are lots of rides that play over the other hits to keep things separate) This should help recycle pick up the start points and with any luck should leave you with a cleaner break
Page 28
Snaresbull Tune the snares so they all hit around the same pitch bull Change the Amp Envelopes of each to bring the strongest parts from each separate sample
and build up your sound like that bull Compressing all together is a good idea but dont over do it bull EQ the master out for the snare as well so you wont have to fuck about when you use the
sample in the future bull Donrsquot just use snares fling some random sound effects in there Claps and rim shots also
work well when layered bull Make subtle changes to them and export a few snares from the same setup this helps
when you need a ghost hit or a reverse that sounds similar but not identicalbull Watch that frequencies dont build up and make the layered bit sound overly whatever
is building up Really easy to get too much 200hz or 500hz or even 12k if youve got samples that are all beefythicksmack-y
bull If its peaking run it through a Spectrum Analyzer and see where its peaking I guess its peaking in the tune rather than just the snare sample playing on its own
bull Sometimes snare samples have a very short peak that doesnt seem to make them sound any better and keeps you from getting them louder without cliping Reduce that part by a few dBs and youre sorted
bull Make sure you are using subtractive eq to pull out the frequencies that could be clashing with other sounds If your frequencies are clashing that can hide the snare and then you end up turning it up to compensate and there you are with your snare peakingThe key is making the frequencies sit right in the mix so that they dont clash and you can set them right and not have to turn them up
bull You could always try clipping the snare normalise it in a wave editor amplify it as much as you can before it sounds distorted then sample it out Then replace the snare with the clipped version it will almost always sound louder with more body at a lower volume I would still point out that although this can be used as a replacement to compression compression is a vital tool to learn how to use Also a lot of peeps will say this does bad things to the waveform and it does but unless you intend to listen to your tune to be heard at home on an amazing hifi then it doesnt really matter that much IMO
bull Hi-pass overdrive limit and cut away space from other sounds for itbull Layer with its self or a different snare Layer with sub add effect to one layer add effect
to both layers layer zoom right in drag one wave form back or forth very slightly to create new snare sound Pitch updown EQ Filter distort reverb delay reverse
bull Record yourself beat boxing your best snare sounds then layer with snare samplesbull A good handclap never goes a miss or use a nice drum synth to get a very differentdigital
soundbull Try reversing the snare sample then changing the envelope settings so it only hits on the
beat Layer that with the same sample this time not reversed Add a little delay to the the reversed snare Change the settings til it sounds how you like
bull Particularly snares I layer up a lot I look for one that has the qualities that I want when run through verb and then I look for something shorter with more mid punch to keep things physical After someone notied snares were weak in a tune Ive really made a point of ensuring that when the snares hit its physical as well as textural You need to feel them a bit - so I look for some snares that have that real punch when layering but usually keep the more textural snappy one as the focus last couple tunes I did the standard kick snare hats w odd percussion and then I took an amen chopped it processed it and layered it overtop for more aggression and step (goddess being a perfect example) By removing a layer and adding it you can create a sense of progression through the tune Make sure the bottom layer is sounding really good and then add the top so that youre not mixing them to be reliant on one another - instead you want synergy Make sure the EQ on the top and bottom make sense with each other
Kicksbull Building a kick in Ableton Lives Impulse machine Provides some essential information
about layering that can be used with any DAWbull Making fat kicks
remixmag wroteWhether creating Miami Bass music is your lifes fantasy or your greatest fear you probably crave the know-how to manifest those car-rattling trunk-full-of-funk kick drums In the arenas of hip-hop house techno downtempo and almost any other electronic genre molding fat kick drums is absolutely essential Like grandmas homemade apple pie the recipe for kick drums is partially a matter of taste However theres no substitute for quality ingredients And just like every pie has its staple ingredients every slamming kick drum requires some common elements Lets take a look at the
Page 29
shopping list for killer kick drumsTHE CRUST
Youll need a basic shell to begin creating a thick strong kick The classics always work if youre fortunate enough to own a real Roland TR-808 909 or other famous drum machine with a killer kick use it copiously If youre not one of those chosen few pay close attention to your original source For example if you use a sampler understand that not all ldquo808 Kickrdquo samples are the same some sound great and some just plain suck There are a lot of reasons for that including how many generations from the original the sample is the sampling rate and bit depth of the sampler how the kick was first sampled and so on Be as choosy as possible with your individual samples mdash dont use a mediocre sample just because it has 808 in the name and therefore is ldquosupposedrdquo to sound fat Seek out a better 808 sample or use something else that is simply bigger sounding Remember the time you spend finding sweet original sources wont be in vain especially if you reuse the resulting samples for multiple songsBORROW SOME SUGAR
An old saying goes ldquoGood art borrows great art stealsrdquo A nice way to start out with great raw kick material is to sample directly from the source If you dont own but have access to a 909 then sample it directly Or take one of your favorite producers tracks on vinyl or CD find a naked kick drum in there and sample it Be cautious with that approach for a couple of reasons Copyright issues around sampling even small bits have become a dangerously gray area and I would never personally advise using any source straight out of the can even from a royalty-free sample library While it may be an excellent start its unoriginal Customize whatever you bite Treat your samples as a sculptor would treat clay mold each one to create a trademark sound for yourself One effective way to customize a fat kick is to take a tip from the synth manufacturers If a sound is thin pile another (or a few more) on top When doing so its important to use different sounds layering two identical kicks will result in a louder kick but it wont change the basic tone Remember the sculptor approach here Even if you are using two good-sounding individual samples they may not instantly sound great together For example I find that when layering kicks while the thickness may be good sustain is often overkill The final result often benefits from a little doctoring on the tail of one (or both) of the samples and other hands-on sonic surgeryADD THE FILLING
Once a nice basic kick is achieved treating it with two of the mastering engineers favorite tools is often the next step Artfully applying a compressor (to just the kick) can go a long way toward creating a signature sound and a huge kick Compression is one of those ldquosecret spicesrdquo and how to apply it is a whole topic in itself One recommendation I will make however is to use a multiband compressor With one of those you can isolate compression on certain frequency ranges That is perfect if for example you want to push the sub of your kick without emphasizing the higher frequencies (which often affect the tone of the attack) or vice-versa EQ comes after compression in my signal chain By now the kick should already sound pretty fat I aim to shave unnecessary frequencies here rather than artificially boosting too much This is also where you can actualize trademark sounds while also fine-tuning them to work alongside other elements in specific tracks I often scoop out mids and highs especially frequencies above about 500 Hz Even though I like thick deep kicks unless Im going for a really dublike sound I often truncate the lowest frequencies (usually the sub-50 Hz frequencies) Even when you cant hear the difference when trimming frequencies doing so can really tighten up your kicksEVEN IT OUT
You may ask why when youre trying to fatten up a kick would you want to trim frequencies That is one of the keys to achieving great mixes both in the case of kick drums and in general You want to avoid too many overlapping frequencies The more sonic separation you have between elements the more focused the entire mix will sound That can be especially important for club music which often gets played on huge not necessarily audiophile-quality sound systems If you havent run into the following scenario already I assure you at some point you will Your bass line and kick drum are competing and it sounds like you have a weak kick You boost the kick but it still sounds muddy Take the bass out and suddenly the kick doesnt sound so bad In a scenario like that solo the two sounds listen carefully for where frequencies are overlapping and then try subtractive EQ on one element then the other and sometimes a bit on both By scooping out overlapping frequencies you will often find that both elements seem to magically come forward in the mix before even touching their respective volume levels
Hi hatsbull Realism
Ive been a professional touring and recording drummer for 25 years and just thought I might share a couple of really simple ways to use fruity loops or fruity studio to create more realistic drum patterns
For what its worth try this out with Fruity Loops
Page 30
Take your hi hat tracks (are any tracks for that matter including melodic synth bubbles)
Drop down the bar graph box that allows you to scroll between velocity (volume) pitch panning cutoff resonance and a thing called shift which allows you to use each of these categories to effect each individual note that youve programmed (note this can be accomplished in other ways in most of the good midi sequencing apps or softwarehardware drum machines)
Drummers no matter how good they are just arent perfect and we can use the fact that each of these drop down bar graphs can make veryvery small changes in a sound to do some subtle things to a rolling drum groove like 16th notes on a hi hat
Not all drummers but many tend to favor their strong hand in a single stroke (hand over hand) drum roll Consequently if you make all odd numbered hi hats be slightly louder than their even numbered hits it will sound more realistic Start by making velocity differences that are really clearly audible Then lower the velocity until you can barely feel the difference We are going to make very subtle changes like this on each of the parameters of velocity pitch cutoff resonance and importantly shift
I cant stress enough that you should make these changes be so subtle that you can hardly notice them
Just going on the fact that the right handed players start their rolls with the right hand and favor it ever so slightly (or grossly for effect as well) means that the stroke will be harder with the right hand than the left hand
When a percussion instrument is hit harder the difference between the transient (or hi pitched attack) of the sound and the body of the instrument (or the sound that comes after the attack) becomes greater In general on drums that means that a harder attack tensions the drum very imperceptably (sp) and it also means that there will be more treble in the sound Consequently the pitch goes up a little teensy bit and their is more attack to the sound (increased resonance and slightly higher cutoff frequency)
Consequently you can make the pitch of each right hand be just barely noticeably higher the resonance should be just one or two of those little teeny bars higher The cutoff should be just a few bars lower (allowing less high frequencies through) on the left handed or even numbered strokes
Typically if drums have time inaccuracies they tend to drag the left hand a litte bit I have to keep stressing that if you can hear the changes you make you arent being realistic You need to make the changes subtle enough that you just barely feel that they arent perfect You can consequently make each left hand note shifted one or two bars late
Tigure out how much you can tweak each parameter before it becomes obvious and then you can just randomly tweak each one up to that limit With a little bit of variance in each stroke from parameter to parameter you will create more of a percolating texture in your programming - this is a great technique to make synth bubbles (the kind used in techno and house) more interesting and less mechanical feeling
Now you can avoid the biggest mistake that non-drummers do when trying to write realistic programs turn the overall volume of the hihats until you CANT hear them and then slowly bring up the volume until you just begin to hear them
Professional producers have spent countless hours trying to figure out how to gate and mix hihats OUT of tracks The reason is two fold1) Human beings have such a radical peak in their hearing around the 1-2khz range (or the intelligibility range of human speech) that we can play the hihats at incredible low volumes and they are still audible You cant do that with a bass drumI tell my drum students that you cannot play a hi hat or a snare drum so quietly that a person sitting in a room with you cant hear it2) Hi Hats the snare of snare drums and cymbals all seriously MASK human vocal intellibility How many people have gone to see live shows where they can hear the singer is singing but cant for the life of them figure out what they are actually singing That is ususally because drummers (or mixers which is frequently the case) are not hip to thisimportant fact
So turn down your hi hat tracks (or any track with a strong mid rangeshort envelope attack) and you have much more room for other musical goodies in your mix When in doubt make your hi hats quieter than you think they should be Trust me theyll come through the mix even at a quiet volume
Swingbull Dont know if you can do this in your sequencer but in Logic you can create a groove
template from your drums and then apply that to your other instruments If youre using separate midi channels for snares kicks and hats take the 8 bar loop youre using glue it together and then take the groove from that and then mute that track When you click down the quantize list youll see the template there and you can apply it to your other tracks Also if you do want to change the groove you can just change the hits in the muted template and itll automatically change all other hits to the new changes
bull Think if youre clever and organized you can basically cut breaks up in recycle load them into the exs24 (extract sequence) and then do the same with them That way if there are breaks you like the feel of you can just apply that swing to anything If you make a folder called grooves in your logic folder they should load up each time so that youll have loads to choose from Havent done this myself yet but always helpful to have a choice of feels available
bull Some things sound better rigid and robotic with equal velocities Some things sound better rigid and robotic with differing velocities Some things sound better with swing Some things sound better with everything ever-so-slightly off Its down to what the track needs
bull Drum Break Swing ProgrammingNicolas Hall wwwbreakbeat-cafenet wroteI think most people who make anything funk breakbeat drum amp bass or hip-hop would agree that Swing is crucial to the effectiveness of a beat The other key factors in a programming sense are dynamic and accent So many people get wound up when their beats sound sterile or mechanical this is due to the fact that computers and sequencers lock to perfect BPM A computer on its own does not interpret rhythm the way a good drummer does There are however certain machines that have their own swing parameters like the Akai MPC range of sampling drum machines which are used extensively by hip hop producers
Swing is not the easiest thing in the world to analyze but as a general rule good drummers will play slightly late and thats why in all funky records you get that slight dip at the start of the bar take Superstition by Stevie Wonder or Billie Jean by Michael Jackson these are both very simple beats Superstition is of course live drums whilst Billie Jean was programmed but no less funky than Superstition I emphasize this point to demonstrate that a programmed beat can be every bit at groovy as a beat played on a drum kit
Expanding on the Billie Jean point Hip Hop beats are really very simple If you listen to the Neptunes they tend to create the swing in their beats by quantizing the kicks and snares and playing the hi hats in by hand this creates a very tight beat which is off set by a loose hi hat try it works but dont forget your accents - As a starting point just take the first snare of your beat and turn the velocity down then notice how your head starts nodding and your foot starts tapping a little more you are giving the beat feel Also remember that if you are using reverb the louder snare will push the reverb harder than the soft snare so your creating more ambience that way Then try your kick drums if your not sure which hits to adjust just pick apart a beat your feeling I remember me and friend picking apart a Gangstarr beat and were able to almost replicate it by adjusting the velocities of each hit (admittedly it took a while to get it right)
If youre a newbie then a common trick when learning to make good grooves is to create a template with an existing loop The idea is take a loop you like thats got a good feel to it and then place your own hits over the break then take the break out and see if your hits are sounding funky This can take a while and its crucial to think about the strength of each hit or the dynamic Each kick will not be the same strength nor will the snares or the hats pick the loop apart dissect it and youll soon see that there are certain consistencies in all good beats
If youre using live loops and like to layer them with drum sequences you should be thinking about time space and frequencies So if you have a fairly heavy loop then layering it with heavy kick drums is probably not gonna sound good Think about filling holes are their any frequencies that could be filled up Or is there space in the loop for extra hits Try working in layers just adding one hit at a time also filtering works well you could take some of the frequencies out of your loop as you drop your drum sequences in to make room for them I think one the masters of this technique is Liam Howlett of the Prodigy He runs breakbeats and gives them extra balls by laying a kick drum underneath to add extra intensity to certain passages in his set but hes careful not to overlap frequencies to much A good place to start if you using breakbeats is the Roland Tr-808 kick drum which is around the 50hz mark which is sub bass territory so it will sit underneath most breaks very well
If your hell bent on making killer beats and loops then perseverance is crucial keep at it it will come together listen to beats you like and pick them apart identify the subtleties that make it happen I know some producers get fed up when their beats sound to clean or they are trying to create a new breakbeat and then compare it to sample they took from vinyl and get down on there own beat Think about what a breakbeat really is think about its history what has happened to it to make it sound the way it does Im
Page 32
sure youve noticed how some breaks have a certain something like a magic dust you cant put your finger on Let me share what I know with you about that
Most breaks though not all are taken from recordings of live drums some of them are pretty old so you have the ambience of live drums and the room they were recorded in you have the fact that natural decay and reverb of each drum is likely to have bled into the other mics on the kit and that most engineers used overhead mics which pick up the whole kit with two mics Then consider that many of these breaks will have been recorded to analogue tape with saturation which will create extra warmth and harmonics The next step comes from old sampling technology like the SP-1200 and the Akai s-950 mpc -60 these samplers sampled at 12- bit (bear in mind that most computers now are at least 24-bit if not more) and that the samples themselves where taken from vinyl and on and on the process goes with each new reverb and eq adding more and more to the break In terms of giving your breaks that character there are a number of things you can try for example buying an old four track cassette machine to dump your beats onto then re-sample it if your using a sampler like the s-950 then try pushing the input meters a little harder than usual add reverbs and resample it each time you put your loop through a new channel you will be adding something to it Also distortion is fantastic for breaks if you have any amp plug ins then try them the Amplitude one is particularly good you dont need to go mad with it just used subtly it works great
To finish I would just like to say again stick with it keep trying keep listening to records if you like to read about technique then do so you can learn so much from other producers Remember the strength of your hits is important as is the way it swings good luck
UPDATE 08092008
ENHANCE SYNTHESIZED DRUM PARTS WITH FOUND SOUNDS
emusiciancom wroteLayering real-world sounds with synthesized drum parts puts a new spin on your drum tracks You probably already have usable sound effects on your hard drive because most commercial samplers have at least a modest collection in their factory library Beyond that youll find thousands of royalty-free sound effects online Soundsnapcom is one of my favorite sources and its free The recordings dont need to be pristine for layering over drums so dont overlook cheap sampling CDs and consider grabbing your own sounds with a portable recorderCollect and Save
Start by assembling a small Foley library of short percussive sounds divided into typical drum-sound categories kicks snares toms cymbals percussion and so on Youll generally want to layer drum sounds with Foley sounds that have a similar volume contour and frequency range If you layer a Foley sound that resembles a kick drum with the sound of your hi-hat for example youll quickly fill up all the space in your drum track
Industrial household military transportation and vocal sounds make excellent fodder but you will often want to extract a small slice such as the last shot in a volley of machine-gun fire (snare) or the first bounce of a plastic bottle on concrete (tom) A browsing tool like Audio Finder (icedaudiocom) is invaluable if you have a large sample library That lets you quickly audition clips make basic edits and drag-and-drop slices to your library
Sticks UpIf your synthesized drum part is step sequenced youll need to export its step sequences as MIDI files Many drum synths do that including Sonic Charge Tonic (sonicchargecom) Apple Logic UltraBeat (applecom) and Submersible DrumCore (submersiblemusiccom) All of those come with a large collection of patterns exportable as MIDI sequences Youll also need a sampler to play the Foley sounds drum-oriented samplers are handier for that but are by no means necessary
Start by loading a kit in the drum synth Export one of its sequenced patterns or create your own and place it on the sampler track For some of the drum synth sounds select compatible Foley sounds and map them to the same notes in the sampler that theyre mapped to in the drum synth Next solo the doubled voices one by one in both the drum synth and the sampler start the sequence playing and tweak the samplers voice parameters (filter level pan envelope and so on) to make the sounds work together (see Fig 1 and Web Clip 1) Dont tweak global parameters such as effects because that will affect all sounds played by the sampler
High HoopsOnce youve configured your Foley track you can do several things to add interest I frequently use a
Page 33
second sampler for short vocal sounds Ill have some notes trigger sounds in both samplers and others in only one Many samplers let you group sounds and assign notes and controllers to choose among them You can then sequence these notes and controllers or you can play them live to alter your Foley tracks
Try applying DSP effects to individual Foley sounds Multitap delays distortion phasing and granular effects all work well when used sparingly (see Web Clip 2) You can apply DSP effects inside your sampler or route the voices to a separate output for DSP processing in your DAW If your sampler doesnt offer either possibility spread the Foley parts over several sampler instances on different tracks
Sidechain compression or gating of the drum track with one or more of the Foley parts will highlight the Foley part as well as add variety to the drums With compression peaks in the sidechain signal will reduce the level of the drum track Use a high compression level say 201 and balance the sidechain-gain and the compression-threshold -attack and -release controls to get the ducking contour you want (see Web Clip 3) Gating has the opposite effect the drum track will be heard during peaks in the sidechain signal (see Web Clip 4) Here too the sidechain-gain and gate-threshold controls work in tandem to determine when the gate is opened Use envelope parameters (attack release and hold) to shape the gates contour
Keep in mind that once youve created a sampler instrument to complement your drum kit you can reuse it with other sequences You can also change one or more sounds in the sampler instrument without repeating the whole process
34 Sidechain Compression (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
4 Theory41 ndash Song Structure42 ndash Mixdown (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)43 ndash Mastering (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
44 Music Theory
The first thing to remember about music theory is that generally if it sounds right it probably is There are no rules in music and Music Theory is not about telling you how to write music Its about understanding the music
Broadly speaking it is fair to say that most music is essentially based upon two crucial factors scales and rhythm Scales make up melodies chords harmonies and basslines to name but a few whereas rhythm makes up the beat of the song In this part of the Production Bible you will learn the basics of Music Theory that will serve you not only in the production of Dubstep but for any of your future musical pursuits This information is intended to be easy to read and understand so I wonrsquot be mincing sentences But firstly please make sure you learn every single note on the keyboard by studying the image below Otherwise yoursquoll be completely lost here
Page 34
Scales Wersquoll begin with scales As I mentioned before scales are the building blocks of your song and without them your track will be atonal and completely unlistenable (probably not the effect yoursquore going for)
There are two main scales that you should learn inside out ndash the major scale and the minor scale A generalisation yoursquore bound to have heard before is that the major scale sounds ldquohappyrdquo and the minor scale sounds ldquodarkrdquo Although this is not always the case it is mostly true ndash and therefore yoursquoll usually be focussing on the minor scale when producing Dubstep However just in case yoursquore writing happy-dubstep (if that exists) here is a quick overview of both scales and how they are made up
Major Scale
The major scale is really easy to create It is made by a single rule that is simple to put in to place
ldquoTone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
In case you donrsquot know what a Tone or Semi-Tone is here is a quick explanation
Picture a keyboard (or if you canrsquot see the image above) Say you go from C to C that would be a semi-tone The same thing goes for if you go from an E to an F ndash it is still a semi-tone because you
Page 35
have gone up one key
A tone is two semi-tones ndash for example from C to D is a tone and the same goes for from G to A
The scalersquos name is taken from the note that it starts on For example C major will start on the note of C Similarly A major will start on the note of A and this is the case with every single scale
Here is a quick list of a few major scales After having seen a few try working the rest out for yourself in order to understand how the major scale is formulated Ideally you should practice your scales on a piano or keyboard so that you can physically see how to make the scale It might sound boring but itrsquos a small price to pay for a much deeper understanding of your music
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Major C D E F G A B C
C Major C D E F G A B C
D Major D E F G A B C D
D Major D E F G A B C D
E Major E F G A B C D E
F Major F G A Bb C D E F
F Major F G A B C D E F
G Major G A B C D E F G
G Major G A B C D E F G
A Major A B C D E F G A
A Major A B C D E F G A
B major B C D E F G A B
Now by arranging the different notes of each of these scales in any order you please you can create a melody bassline or harmony with extreme ease Rearranging the notes in the scale will give you a flawlessly in-key result and it is then up to you to use the notes in the scale as you see fit for your tune
Minor Scale
As was the case with the Major Scale the Minor is made up from a set rule or formula By knowing this formula you can understand how the Minor is made and how to use it to itrsquos maximum effect
ldquoTone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
As is the case with the major scales you should practice your scales as much as possible to make sure that you know them all like the back of your hand Here are a few Minor Scales see if you can
Page 36
work out the rest
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Minor C D Eb F G Ab B C
D Minor D E F G A Bb C D
F Minor F G A B C D E F
G Minor G A Bb C D Eb F G
Similarly to the Major now that you know your Minor Scales you can quickly just take any note from the scale rearrange it with another few notes in the scale and there you have a fat melody or bassline ready to be played at maximum volume
Diminished Chords
Diminished Chords are really quite spooky and dark chords that are made up of four different notes all a minor third apart from each other That means that for example the Diminished Chord starting on C would be C Eb F A because to get from one note to the next you have to use ldquoTone Semi-Tonerdquo (known as a minor third)
Because of the mathematical nature of the Diminished chord there are only three ldquoclustersrdquo of notes which can then be rearranged like the Major and Minor Scales
Cluster 1 C Eb F A
Cluster 2 C E G Bb
Cluster 3 D F Ab B
Use these clusters and rearrange them as you please For example you could rearrange cluster 1 as Eb F A C etc
Generally speaking you canrsquot make a song based entirely on Diminished Chords due to the fact that each cluster only has 4 notes However a Diminished Chord is perfect for adding a hint of darkness to your tune and is brilliant when mixed with some Minor Scales
Chords
Chords are basically two or more notes played together They are made up from a specific scale ndash for example the C major chord is made up of notes in the C major scale
Usually chords will include the first third and fifth note of the scale as well as possibly using other notes to give them colour For example the basic chord of C major would be C E G Then you could add the seventh note to it (in this case it is B) Really it is up to the producerrsquos discretion how heshe goes about making a chord ndash just remember to stick to the scale you are using
Chords will more than likely sound like shit if you play them on a complicated or layered synth patch You want to be playing chords on sustained sounds such as strings or pads Chords will really fill out your sound if used properly You want your chords to be supporting the melody or bassline and more than likely want to add some reverb so that it doesnrsquot sound too sharp Make
Page 37
your chords blend in with the music and yoursquoll have mastered them
Chord Inversions
Quite simply chord inversions are when you rearrange the notes in a chord so that it sounds a bit different and suits your arrangement better
For example if you were in the key of C major you could have a drone of E playing underneath some strings playing the notes E G C E
Due to the fact that the notes are the same and have only been inverted the chord will still be in key with the rest of the music This is a great way to add a touch of variation to your music instead of using the same chord structure all the time
Arpeggios
Arpeggios are much easier to understand than they sound They are quite simply the first third and fifth note of the scale played as individual notes For example the arpeggio of C minor would be C Eb G C etc
A great example of an arpeggio is the bassline in Bengarsquos ldquoCrunked Uprdquo He goes from playing the F minor arpeggio backwards to playing the F minor arpeggio backwards In other words he is playing
C A F and then C Ab F
Experiment with a few Minor Arpeggios and a couple of Diminished Arpeggios and you canrsquot go wrong in writing a huge bassline
Suggested Reading
List of All Scales With Finger Charts Included
Well thatrsquos it folks Thatrsquos basically all the music theory you need to know to start off with As you grow more used to the various scales yoursquoll notice that certain notes sound good with each other whilst others donrsquot Irsquom not here to tell you how to write music Irsquom here to teach you the language
of music Itrsquos up to you to write the poetry
copy Bruno Crosier (klimaxx) 2008
45 Random Tips
Random tips amp best piece of advice thread
5 Resources
Page 38
51 Books amp Magazines
Hello again people
Does anyone know of more music production books magazines or authors we can add to these lists
Thanks
------------------------------------------------
Music Production Magazines Computer Music - httpwwwcomputermusiccouk Music Tech Magazine - httpwwwmusictechmagcouk Future Music - httpwwwfuturemusiccouk Sound on Sound - httpwwwsoundonsoundcom Remix Magazine - httpremixmagcom Mix Magazine - httpmixonlinecom Electronic Musician - httpemusiciancom EQ Magazine - httpwwweqmagcom Audio Technology - wwwaudiotechnologycomau Tape Op - httpwwwtapeopcom
------------------------------------------------
Music Books
Authors Curtis Roads httpmitpressmiteducatalogauthor aspaid=93 - The Computer Music Tutorial (Really really really good book) Paul White - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea ul20White - Basic Series + more Rick Snowman - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea k20Snoman - The Dance Music Manual Tools Toys and Techniques Bobby Owsinski - httpbooksgooglecoukbooksas_auth=Bobby+Owsinski - The MixingRecording amp Mastering Engineers Handbooks Michael Paul Stavrou - httpwwwmixingwithyourmindcom
Publishers Thomson Course Technology - httpcoursecengagecom (Click on the Music Technology tab) - Series published include Power Overdrive Ignite and CSI Series + many more Backbeat Books - httpwwwbackbeatbookscom ndash Power Tools Series + many more Wiley Publishing - httpwwwdummiescom (Enter music in their search bar) - For Dummies Series Penguin Books - httpuspenguingroupcom (Enter music in their search bar) - The Complete Idiots Guide Series + many more MIT Press - httpmitpressmitedu - Many books on music theory Focal Press - httpwwwfocalpresscom - (Enter music in their search bar)
------------------------------------------------
Online Music Book Stores (We need more links here Do you know of any that we can add)
httpwwwmixbookscom ndash Excellent source that sells only books about music
Page 39
httpwwwamazoncom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
httpwwwbarnesandnoblecom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
------------------------------------------------
52 Wikipedia
A good music lexicon wiki Search for your term in the search bar ---gt httpenaudiolexicorgwikiMain_Page
0-9
14rdquo Jack - httpenwikipediaorgwikiJack_plug 3rd Bridge - httpenwikipediaorgwiki3rd_Bridge
Zero Crossing - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_crossing Zero Crossing Rate - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_Crossing_Rate
53 Other recommended production forums
for Logic users this is the shit httpwwwlogicprohelpcom
Ive found both these forums to be full of knowledgeable producers amp musicians
httpwwwkvraudiocomforum
httpacapellaharmony-centralcomforumsindexphp
httpwwwgearslutzcomboard
httpwwwsoundonsoundcomforum
httpwwwmusicradarcomforum
httpwwwidmforumscom
httpwwwdance-industriescomphpBB2 8cffbb3b02
httpwwwsubvertcentralcomforumindexphp
httpwwwbreakbeatcouk
httpwwwtweakheadzcom
httpwwwabletoncompagesforum
Explains lots about the music industry ---gt httpwwwbemusocom
Page 47
Ok so a massive thanks to all the contributors there are literally too many to mention But Thanks to Futures Untold Johnny Beat Klimaxx Deadly Habit amp JunglistRendr Daft Cunt in perticular
Thanks to all the artists producers and general music geeks making this early revision of the production bible an essential read
There are links missing and will be included in version 21(Please help with the unlinked chapters by going here - httpwwwdubstepforumcomthe-dubstep-production-bible-updated-2009-06-03-t14797html and updating missing info as needed)
Compiled by Daft Cunt and Futures Untold PDF Compiled by Depone
Page 12
httpwwwentropymusiccomfreeloopshtm httpwwwexcitecoukdirectoryAmples_and_Loops httpwwwf6conzartificialindexhtm httpwwwf6conzartificialmainhtml httpwwwfabtraxcom_resourcesres_sampleshtm httpwwwfellerscouk httpwwwfindsoundscom httpwwwfindsoundscom httpwwwfindsoundscom - wav search engine httpwwwflashkitcomloops httpwwwflashmovecomlinkAudioFree httpwwwflashmovecomlinkAudioLoops httpwwwflashthiefcomfreesoundtechno1htm httpwwwflashtracksde httpwwwfleximusiccomlinkslinkshtm httpwwwfortunecitycomroswellrandles66 httpwwwfracturedatlasorgsiteples_and_Loops httpwwwfreaknoisecom httpwwwfreeloopscouk (wicked) httpwwwfreewebscomdorumalaiamyfreerefillshtm httpwwwfreewebscomdorumalaiasoundfontssf2htm httpwwwfrogstarcom httpwwwftpsearchenginescom httpwwwfullblownkirkcomfbksampleshtm httpwwwfunk-stationcouk httpwwwfunk-stationcouklinkshtm httpwwwfuturewaveshapercom httpwwwfuturewaveshapercom httpwwwfuturewebsonicscom httpwwwgarritancom httpwwwgeocitiescomArea51Station3509sf2htm httpwwwgeocitiescomCapitolHillCongress8516 httpwwwgeocitiescomnadeem_ahmaddownloadhtml httpwwwgeocitiescoms4u_sitenewlinkshtml httpwwwgeocitiescomsamplecatalog Nice little freeware Sample Cataloger httpwwwgeocitiescomsamplistgeo httpwwwgeocitiescomSiliconVals8645sf2html httpwwwgeocitiescomSoHoMuseum4312 httpwwwgeocitiescomSunsetStri93wavloadhtml httpwwwgeocitiescomSunsetStribreakbeatshtml httpwwwgeocitiescomSunsetStripBalcony8644 httpwwwgeorge44freeservecoukSoundFontshtm httpwwwgeositescomdakoz2 httpwwwglasstraxcomdownloadsoundfontshtml httpwwwgooglecom httpwwwgroovedealercom httpwwwgroundloopscom httpwwwgroundloopscomarchivehtm httpwwwguitarwavscom httpwwwhammersoundnet httpwwwharkproductionscom (pro loops) httpwwwharmony-centralcomGuitartabhtml - tabs amp links for guitar players httpwwwheimsnetislowprofile httpwwwhermpiecom httpwwwhhnonstopcom httpwwwhiphop-directorycomAudmplesindexphp httpwwwhissingsidcomfreesampshtm httpwwwhitsquadcomsmm + links info amp more httpwwwhitsquadcomsmmmac - for freeware shareware and demos of all the big boys httpwwwhitsquadcomsmmwin95SOUND_FONTS httpwwwhomeattbicom~brainloops httpwwwhotbotcomadvasp httpwwwhousemuzakcomhousemuziqsampleshtml httpwwwhqsamplescomua httpwwwhqsamplescomua httpwwwhqsamplescomuahomephptype=all httpwwwhumanworkshopcom httpwwwibiblioorgpubmultimediasun-sounds httpwwwillnoncomsamplecdshtml
Here is a list of the most popular freeware analysers available
Voxengo SPAN
Bluecat Audio Freqanalyst
Roger Nichols Inspector
Page 20
For a long list of other free analysers visit httpwwwgersiccompluginsindexphpdaCat=2
3 Techniques
31 Bass311 Sub Bass
Sub-bass is a term used to describe audible sounds below 90Hz - sound in the range below this (under 16-17Hz) would be termed infrasound Sound systems often feature a subwoofer that is dedicated solely to amplifying sounds in the lower bass and sub-bass range Source Wikipedia
So the idea is to have the sub going up to ~90Hz The exact frequency it should be cut at depend on the kicks frequency Lets say you HP your kick at 100Hz then the sub should be LPed at 100Hz so they compliment each other without clashing
There are several ways of creating a sub here are the most common 1 - using a unique waveform (sine saw square or triangle) will give you a nice linear sub NB You dont need to filter out a sine wave as it doesnt have overtones 2 - using detuned waveforms take 2 identical waves (sine saw square or triangle) and detune them - lets say -25 +25 semitone This will produce a phase effect and give movement to your sub but itll also cause large volume amplitude and youll need to compress it after filtering Great Massive tutorial by Subfocus here 3 - using a 808 kick you dont have a TR-808 Grab that pack
jobbanaught wroteAn easy option to get a powerful subbass is to take a 808 kick sample put it in your favorite sampler and loop a single cycle of the waverform somewhere in the middle of the sample The 808 kick is made of a sine and some additional white noise The sine gives your sub that rattling low end pressure and the noise adds overtonesgrittiness = instant badass subbass
You can find more tips about mixing your kick n sub in the Random bass tips thread
312 lsquoWobblersquo
Page 21
Wobble GuideWobble Bass
Wobble Bass as it is known is simply a bassline that has an LFO assigned to a Low Pass Filter as an insert effect LFOstands for Low Frequency Oscillator and is used to change a sound by a defined speed (measured in either Hz or synced to the Tempo in relation to the barsnotes through quantization) The way the LFO changes the sound is up to you you can make the LFO adjust the Volume the amount of Saturation Filter Cutoff etc Basically any parameter you link it to Essentially you are just using the LFO to send a changing value to a parameter
--------------------
How to get a simple wobble bass
1) Choose a simple sound on your synth (Anything apart from a Sine wave )
2) Select your LFO and set it to the speed you want (18 would be a good starting point)
3) Now assign the LFO to the Filter Cutoff Which should for this example be a Low Pass Filter as the sound were going for is a deep bass
4) You now have a basic wobble bass from here the possibilities for tweaking this sound are endless
--------------------
A quick breakdown of whats actually going on Essentially you are taking a sound (that can be an audio files generated by a synth etc) and then passing it through a Low Pass Filter Now what exactly does a Low Pass Filter do you ask
A Low Pass Filter allows Low Frequency signals to pass through it but reduces the amplitude (volume) of all the Frequencies above the cutoff point In general most plug-ins have various Low Pass Filter settings where the more poles it has the more Dbs it will cut and will yield a harder knee to it Example 1 Pole Filter with a -6dBOct reduction Vs a 2 Pole Filter reducing -12DbOct However you dont necessarily need a LFO controlling your Low Pass Filter Cutoff frequency value you could just draw in the Automation yourself but a LFO will yield a loop of consistent values and prevents the possibility of human error All the LFO is doing is sending a value to your frequency cutoff to keep it consistently changing
--------------------
Tips amp Advice
1) Sub bass wobble would normally be a Sine wave at around the 40-50 Hz range which would repeat the same chords as the mid-range bass wobble The only difference being that with a sub bass wobble there is no point in assigning the LFO to a Low Pass Filter because the sound is too low for the low pass filter to have any effect so theLFO is assigned to the amplitude (volume) instead Another reason for not applying a Low Pass Filter to the Sub bass is because it would typically be a Sine wave which possesses no Harmonics to be adjusted by the Filter
2) The sound of an LFO can also be adjusted by the wave type you choose The default setting for an LFO generator is a Sine wave although on most synths you can chose from Triangle Sawtooth Square wave Random Noise To get a nice sounding bass it is a good idea to use as many oscillators as possible on different octaves
3) Try messing around with the attack and release of your sound as this can have an impact on the sound of the bass Long attacks tend to create a more ambient sound and is a technique traditionally used with ambient pads
Page 22
4) Something that I find useful is to bounce the bassline to a wav file so that it can be chopped up and put in-sync with other elements of the song because the majority of the time you will find the first wave of sound in the wobble bassline will will be half the length of the other waves due to attack rates So the best thing to do is to chop that freak sound off the beginning of the file in your DAW (Logic Pro Reason Cubase etc) and start off with the second wave which should be fully formed This way it will not be too early of late when keeping in sync with other elements such as a second bassline
5) Another method you can use is creating a clone layer of your original sound and setting up a new LFO setup for that to beat alternatively in the space left by the original LFO Or go that crazy Drum amp Bass Reese route and split the frequencies to Low Mid and High then set different LFO rates for each band then recombine into one sound
6) For more variation automate your LFO speed and intensity
7) Where you place insert effects in relation to the filter (pre or post) will yield different sounding results
8) Other methods to achieve a wobble like sound Tremolo (This effects volume rather than frequency) FM Synthesis Modulation of PWM Oscillator Pitch assigned (in a liberal amount) to LFO Filter Envelope assigned to LFO (using a re-triggered envelope) (submitted by Faun2500)
9) Assign a second LFO to modulate the speed of the first LFO
LFO Shapes
Sine wave The smooth value change possible
Triangle Similar to a Sine wave but slightly more ramped amp synthetic sounding
Random A mixed bag
Sawtooth Will have a very fast attack with a slower release which will sound very rugged
Square wave Will be a simple open close style Very harsh and will generally cause a very harsh sound (Often used in DJ Hazard style bass-lines) Detune two square waves for a nice dark sounding bass
Waveforms submitted by Skells wrotehttpi228photobucketcomalbumsee83 cleanjpgSimple Filter Sweep
httpi228photobucketcomalbumsee83 wobblejpgSine Wave LFO assigned to Filter Cutoff
LINKS etc
Fruity Loops Wobble Tutorial (Link submitted by Wub) Massive Wobble YouTube Tutorial (Video created by thesynthesist) Pause amp Play Wobble Tutorial (Link submitted by dubmo) Albino3 Wobble Guide (Guide created by axon)
By Rendr amp Deadly Habit and a little help from Macc
313 lsquoReecersquo
The Reese Bass
Page 23
History Lesson
The Reese bass was a form of huge sounding synth-bass first used by the Detroit Techno producer Kevin Saunderson aka Master Reese aka Reese Project aka on the track Just Want Another Chance and immortalised in the classic DnB track Terrorist by Renegade Since then it has been (over)used in many a DnB track and continues to evolve even nowadays through Dubstep and Jungle It is said to be as influential to DnB as the Amen break and probably as used and abused as the Amen
Capturing the Beast
1The Oscillator Stage
To nail the Reese you need a synth with at least 2 oscillators but for better-bigger results use as many oscillators as you can (not really but 4 oscillators give a nice deep rumble - ahhhhhh) All the oscillators are playing sawtooth waves and all except one are detuned by 25-50 cents so that all oscillators are out of phase with each other
2 The Filter Stage
The signal is then sent to a low-pass filter with the cutoff freq set around 150-200Hz (experiment with that you want the growl of the mid-frequencies but you also want it as deep as possible without sacrificing the midrange) The resonance of the filter should be cranked up almost all the way (but again tweak accordingly to your filtersynth)
3 Fuzz it Up
The second most important aspect of the Reese (after the detuned sawtooths) is distortion Tube distortion and tape saturation work extremely well but dont hesitate to use other more extreme distortion units (dont forget that the Reese has been done a million times you have to add something original to it) Again adjust to taste
4 Spices and Herbs
Now that is the main recipe for the sound but like all haute-cuisine there are more things you can do to spice up the Reese Namely effects Effects that have been associated with the Reese are
Phasers - to accentuate the phase-shifting effect of the detuned sawtooths Unison - a great way to make it even bigger Chorus - again a good way to phatten it up
5 And Some More Synth Magic
Another thing to do so you can bring out the old-school jungle character of the Reese is to use Legato and PortamentoGlide if your syth of choice has them available These are both great ways to move from one note to the next without listening to the transition To put it simply when legato is on and you play a sustained E followed by a sustained G the transition between the two notes gives the listener the impression that they heard a single note being sustained that has just changed its pitch from E to G without pausing at a certain point
Always remember though that if you use Legato you have to turn the polyphony of your synth down to 1 (something you should almost always do with basslines because two bass-notes playing together almost never sound good in electronic music bass chords are more the realm of prog-rock shit than dubstep)
For the more technical minded legato in synthesizers is a variation of monophonic operation In contrast to monophonic mode where every new note restarts the ADSR envelopes in legato mode they are not if the previous note remains depressed when the new note is played This causes the initial transient from the attack and decay phases to sound only once and the ADSRs to remain at sustain stage for the whole sequence of notes until the final note is released (Wikipedia)
EDIT I just found out that in one of the free vst links on the bible there is a thing called the Hotelsinus Reese Bassline Synth So I didnt miss the opportunity for a mini review The software itself is small (like most free vst-is) and quite easy to install (you just drop the dll in the vst folder) As for the sound weeeeeeell the sounds it produces are definitely Reese But weak somehow Its like listening to Terrorist from a battered cheap old cassette from 93 or something It has a tinny and tiny sound when compared to what you can achieve with powerhouses like Albino or
Page 24
Massive or (one of my personal favorites for Reese) Cakewalk Rupture You can try it if you want but i dont think it will impress steppers that much we are bass-headed folk
314 Random Bass Tips
Plz add yours or others youve spotted on the forum
miss_molinari wrotebasically i have been experimenting with cutting (not sidechaining) a notch (band reject) in the bass starting at 60hz and ending just before 70 this is only for those bass lines which only hit on the kick (quite specific) also the bass is then high passed at about 220hz to pretty much 0db which is where the kick starts (ending the kick with a non-too-aggressive-cut at about 2khz) this essentially means that the kick and the bass do not share any frequencies above abot 200hz but also between 60 and 70 and with them always hitting at the same time this gets around the fact that sidechaining this type of sequencing would leave you with no or little bass
this has worked well so far but is useful mainly for sub basses ending at around 250hz would not be as good for full spectrum wubsanyone else got any tech tips regarding the bass and kick
futures_untold wroteI simply cut everything under 90Hz on my kicks and roll off slightly at 1KHz
Sub I cut under 40Hz and roll off at 200Hz
I always compress both seperately and keep my levels low in the mix to create plenty of head room later whilst adding sounds with higher frequency content
Anything above 150Hz is what I consider midrange Anything above 150Hz can be heard on mobile phone speakers We all know that theyre designed to play heavy bass lol Wink
miss_molinari wroteDaft Cunt wroteTo me it feels like cutting the kick above 80 hz makes it sound weak I guess it depends on the style I rather cut below 60 to 80 depending on the tune
yeah its all about context in a dry minimal setting im of the opinion you can make a kick punch right up to about 180-200hz but yeah depends on when and on what kind of punch (im usually talking a bass hit at about 200hz coupled with a knock hit anywhere up to about 1200hz) i imagine you true dubsteppers prefer a denser thump from 60 through to about 300hz
Daft Cunt wroteI began recently the band-reject thing on the sub Little details that make big difference
And do you people cut the bass where the snare peaks
my basses arent usually middy enough to need that but yeah a slight sidechain on the main snare and say midbasspadwothavyer is nice especially if the limelight is stolen by a deeper sidechain on the kick and midbasspadwothavyer can create a nice flow (especially when used with long decay reveb linked to the midbasspadwothavyer so that it sounds louder and longer the higher the frequency played - might
have to post some piccies of that one )
Shonky wroteWhat Ive been doing lately is bouncing down the kick track lowpassing one somewhere between 100-140 depending on the highest frequencies of the low sub and then sidechaining the sub to the low kick
Then take a copy of the kick track highpass between 300-1000 and this will give you the beater noise to make the kick cut through I then sidechain this to the more middly basses You can also send a small amount to a reverb bus which allows you to avoid mud on the lower frequencies whilst still giving you the space
Doing it this way seems to make sense to me cause the sidechains work on the corresponding kicks in the same frequency range so it doesnt cause loads of unnecessary compression where you dont need it
Page 25
boh wroteAlways make sure your kicks are in tune with the rest of the track ull hear it pitching up and down and make sure if ur layering that the transients dont conflict(good monitors make this easy) It all comes down to kick selection Whats the point in cutting a kick at 80hz with a fundemental freq of say 60hz Sure you get whats happening before it but u wont get the nice thump of the fundemental freq Choose other kicks that hit the freq u want (80hz say) instead of cutting them when theres no need to Unless you really really know what your doing getting technical like this complicates the situation Esp for people with little experience
sullyharmitage wrote50 hz hi pass seems a bit high to me maybe gd for kicky techno or house but for subby stuff it seems a bit muchdefo roll off past 30-35 (most well engineered systems will do this anyways so any content below this is definately getting wasted)if yr gonna go higher make sure its a soft curvei find levelling subs is the hardest part of a mix - cos more always sounds better i remember reading breakage saying yr subs shouldnt add more than 3db to yr mix thats seems like a good guide
btw sub in kick an bassline simultaeously is gonna cause clashes (n maybe disortion) id either decrease the attack on the bass or cut the sub from the kick
unklefesta wroteI rolloff EVERYTHING at 40hz except my bass
standard
wang wroteAlways do it
Dont forget youre ROLLING off the frequencies not cutting them off all together Just a couple of dB of bass down there is enough to get some girth without removing all your headroom
Also analyse and cut off the lows on everything even if it doesnt appear to have messy lows -Youd be surprised how much bass there is in some high hats
Jtransition wroteAll of your tracks are going to be different so dont restrict yourself to a certain techniquetry different things and listen to the results
Shonky wrotewang wroteAlso analyse and cut off the lows on everything even if it doesnt appear to have messy lows -Youd be surprised how much bass there is in some high hats
Yep this is very true also worth filtering out the inaudible highs on low sounds as well found some of my subs which Id low passed still showed frequency activity much higher than expected
Jtransition wroteStick a high pass filter on everything apart form the kick drum and bass line70 hertz is a good starting point move up or down to tasteAnd remember try to mix at low levels(Walls not vibrating)
Deadly Habit wroteRendr wroteBasslines in my experience should be mono due to the fact that humans cannot easily decoded the stereo positioning of low frequencys so panning basslines (excluding bass sounds with high pitch sounds at around 500Hz+) is not recommended not only are the low frequencys hard to position with the human ear the low frequency sound waves are absorbed by the human head at a much higher ratio than high pitch sounds which tend to be reflected Another thing to note is that club systems are
mono Basslines that pan only belong in Psytrance
sub range should be mono especially if going to be cut to vinylmidrange bass on the other hand you can pan and add stereo fx to your hearts content
Page 26
32 Re-sampling
SafeAfter a few months of experimenting with resampling not really getting anywhere in terms of sound quality i came up with a pretty simple way of getting on the right track Ive got so much help since getting on this forum in terms of production i thought id share this for those who like myself are looking into the elusive yet highly rewarding technique of resamplingAll the vsts i use on this (save for the synth itself) are freenative plugs im using FL but itll transfer onto every DAW pretty much the same Ill explain it for a bassline but it can be applied to any sound
Step 1Make yourself a nice bassline get it sounding dirty with whatever you can within the synth Im using Albino so i tend to play about with the saturation modesFXs until its sounding pretty good
Step 2Hook up to a mixer channel then send this channel to a second mixer channel (FL users just click on another channel towards the bottom of the strip) On the second channel that the synth is hooked to from the first add CMt bitcrusher and downsample 3-16x (thanks to all the production forum users who pointed this out to me when i posted a few months ago on dirtying up basslines) Then add a chorus Turn the LFOs off and set the depthdelayetc to whatever sounds best Also set the crossover pretty high so only the treblehigh mids are being affected Then add Camel Audio Camel Crusher Turn the compressor off and set the tubemech to taste Add a parametric EQ if needs be to boost the high freqs Experiment with the chain of these effects swapping them according to the sound The choruscameleq in different orders should alter the sound quite alot depending on where their placed
Step 3 Set the level of the second affected channel with the original depending on whatever suits Play about with adding extra effects to both channels The way the second channel behaves once an effect is added to the first is quite extreme in even light application of effects So its possible to create a whole array of different sounds just from say adding a flangerchorusetc to the first channel then listening to how much it affects the sound as a whole as it goes through both channels By now it should be sounding pretty girthy
Step 4Export the riffsample (i use edison on the master channel in FL but whatever method will do) Reload and place into a mixer channel Add another Camel Crusher for abit more grit EQ and compress Set up a reverbdelay send and resample again for extra depth
Obviously this technique can be applied a 2nd3rd4th time to fuck the sound up even more so Which is what ive moved onto doing now into the territory of splitting the sound into basslow midhigh midtreble sections for ultimate control over each part Something which i was attempting to do before coming up with the above method but being left with a pile of unlistenable mushy shite
Hope this is a help to some peeps I know theres no secret technique to resamping only a whole load of practice and using your ears but this method got me on the right track in terms of hearing the benefits of it and encouraging me to experiment more in depth and realise that the possiblities are endless Im hooked now i resample pretty much every sound in one way or another Kick and snares benefit hugley from it for mega face melting wide drum sounds aswell so its worth trying it on some nice drum hits
Keep up the good work folksPeaceDC_WT
33 Drums
Read before reading on I am in no way entitled to any of those opinions It is up to you to decide whether you would like to incorporate them in your workflow I have just collected them from all the threads in this forum and will try to keep everything updated
I will update as regularly as I find updates
Page 27
Misc tips and tricks bull Good drums are usually layered - example 3 snares sounding as onebull The hats are often panned or widenedbull Pick great sounding samples different ones for different parts of the sounds you want 1
for snap and bite 1 for body 1 for thump distort and MAYBE EQ each to make them sound the best that they can separately combine in a bus MAYBE compress them together maybe accent the front and shorten the sound with a transient modifier 10 minutes tops
bull Do as little as possible with great-sounding bits and your basic sounds will be slamming leaves you time to focus on the arrangement people dont go around thinking wow that tune has an amazing snare as long as its thumping and not masked by a bunch of other stuff itll keep the dance moving
bull Listen to other producers work As its playing imagine the 1 2 3 4 on the step sequencer running in time to what youre listening to Try to visualize where the producer put their hits Not to say you should copy peoples drum patterns but learn from them
bull Ive noticed a lot of tunes (more minimal stuff where you can distinctly hear whats seperately going on) seem to use two differently pitched hi-hats that alternate to sound shuffley if you know what I mean and a less dramatic snare used sparsely in between the main lazy kick and snare An easy trick if you havent worked it out (which to be honest you should have if youre at all serious about producing dubstep) is to stick a smaller snare or hat the 116th before the kick or snare so it steps if you get me For example Bengas Night does this for all four beats in the bar which is part of what makes it so danceable But dont get stuck in always having kick on 1 and snare on 3 some tracks work with a kick on every beat others with a couple big snares etc The trick (unless you want proper lazy spaced out tunes) is to make sure youre nodding your head on all four beats of the bar Play around with a hat on every quaver (ie 8 per bar on the beat) compared to just four but on the off beat as well as adding in the steppy ones every now and then Theres often no need to over-complicate things though one of the my favourite drum tracks is the incredibly simplistic V by Distance Its a rhythm that could easilly be played by one guy on a real kit yet its so banging - check the use of hats and lower velocity kicks in this to make it nice and bouncy Also I once had a four bar drum loop and accidentally moved the sequence one bar to the right for one section and it ended up nicely varying the drums in a way you wouldnt expect
bull Really tight delays can help claps and snaps sound natural 5-20ms etcbull Recycle or phatmatik is your break-chopping friendbull Basically Hatrixxs method involved chopping everything from the main hits into a sample
Say you had a 2-step funk beat like the Amen Youd start your selection from the start of the first kick and select everything up to the start of the first snare Cut paste theres your first slice Then take everything from the start of the first snare up to the start of the second kick - including all the little hats and ghost hits - cut paste second sample and so on Then just map the samples onto some keys and bash away Both of them are quick compared to chopping Recycled slices where you have to copy and drag loads of little notes (one every little fucking tiny hit in the break arranged chromatically up the keyboard) around the piano roll These methods let you just concentrate on the main hits which can be both good or bad You can get a solid beat down with just a handful of hits but youre limited to the patterns already in the original break For a beginner to breakbeat science like yourself Id say try these methods first but dont rule out the really anal methods like RecyclePhatmatikFruity Slicer Sometimes they are a necessary evil Of course some of the drumfunk guys especially those who post on Subvert Central swear by these methods or the next one There are those who prefer to chop up the raw audio rather than bothering with MIDI and samplers They literally just drop the break file into Cubase or Logic and start chopping with the scissors tool and copying and pasting I can see the benefits of this You can see the waveform as youre chopping and youre not as restriced to the quantize grid as you are with MIDI But it takes aaaaages to build a drum track this way and theres the risk of RSI from all that Ctrl+C Ctrl+V youll be doing Then of course theres trackers They really are tailor-made for chopping up loops amongst other things They give you Sample Offset meaning that when you trigger a sample you can set it to start from 256 evenly spaced points throughout the sample So by starting a sample a quarter of the way through youre triggering the first snare (obviously you can fine-tune it when the snare isnt perfectly on the beat) You can edit breaks in a tracker without ever having to cut up a waveform and you can do all sorts of other nifty things like reverse the sample retrigger it to make drum rolls and so on
If recycles having trouble switch the break to mono in your sample editor and then apply tiny fades between the drum hits (especially useful if there are lots of rides that play over the other hits to keep things separate) This should help recycle pick up the start points and with any luck should leave you with a cleaner break
Page 28
Snaresbull Tune the snares so they all hit around the same pitch bull Change the Amp Envelopes of each to bring the strongest parts from each separate sample
and build up your sound like that bull Compressing all together is a good idea but dont over do it bull EQ the master out for the snare as well so you wont have to fuck about when you use the
sample in the future bull Donrsquot just use snares fling some random sound effects in there Claps and rim shots also
work well when layered bull Make subtle changes to them and export a few snares from the same setup this helps
when you need a ghost hit or a reverse that sounds similar but not identicalbull Watch that frequencies dont build up and make the layered bit sound overly whatever
is building up Really easy to get too much 200hz or 500hz or even 12k if youve got samples that are all beefythicksmack-y
bull If its peaking run it through a Spectrum Analyzer and see where its peaking I guess its peaking in the tune rather than just the snare sample playing on its own
bull Sometimes snare samples have a very short peak that doesnt seem to make them sound any better and keeps you from getting them louder without cliping Reduce that part by a few dBs and youre sorted
bull Make sure you are using subtractive eq to pull out the frequencies that could be clashing with other sounds If your frequencies are clashing that can hide the snare and then you end up turning it up to compensate and there you are with your snare peakingThe key is making the frequencies sit right in the mix so that they dont clash and you can set them right and not have to turn them up
bull You could always try clipping the snare normalise it in a wave editor amplify it as much as you can before it sounds distorted then sample it out Then replace the snare with the clipped version it will almost always sound louder with more body at a lower volume I would still point out that although this can be used as a replacement to compression compression is a vital tool to learn how to use Also a lot of peeps will say this does bad things to the waveform and it does but unless you intend to listen to your tune to be heard at home on an amazing hifi then it doesnt really matter that much IMO
bull Hi-pass overdrive limit and cut away space from other sounds for itbull Layer with its self or a different snare Layer with sub add effect to one layer add effect
to both layers layer zoom right in drag one wave form back or forth very slightly to create new snare sound Pitch updown EQ Filter distort reverb delay reverse
bull Record yourself beat boxing your best snare sounds then layer with snare samplesbull A good handclap never goes a miss or use a nice drum synth to get a very differentdigital
soundbull Try reversing the snare sample then changing the envelope settings so it only hits on the
beat Layer that with the same sample this time not reversed Add a little delay to the the reversed snare Change the settings til it sounds how you like
bull Particularly snares I layer up a lot I look for one that has the qualities that I want when run through verb and then I look for something shorter with more mid punch to keep things physical After someone notied snares were weak in a tune Ive really made a point of ensuring that when the snares hit its physical as well as textural You need to feel them a bit - so I look for some snares that have that real punch when layering but usually keep the more textural snappy one as the focus last couple tunes I did the standard kick snare hats w odd percussion and then I took an amen chopped it processed it and layered it overtop for more aggression and step (goddess being a perfect example) By removing a layer and adding it you can create a sense of progression through the tune Make sure the bottom layer is sounding really good and then add the top so that youre not mixing them to be reliant on one another - instead you want synergy Make sure the EQ on the top and bottom make sense with each other
Kicksbull Building a kick in Ableton Lives Impulse machine Provides some essential information
about layering that can be used with any DAWbull Making fat kicks
remixmag wroteWhether creating Miami Bass music is your lifes fantasy or your greatest fear you probably crave the know-how to manifest those car-rattling trunk-full-of-funk kick drums In the arenas of hip-hop house techno downtempo and almost any other electronic genre molding fat kick drums is absolutely essential Like grandmas homemade apple pie the recipe for kick drums is partially a matter of taste However theres no substitute for quality ingredients And just like every pie has its staple ingredients every slamming kick drum requires some common elements Lets take a look at the
Page 29
shopping list for killer kick drumsTHE CRUST
Youll need a basic shell to begin creating a thick strong kick The classics always work if youre fortunate enough to own a real Roland TR-808 909 or other famous drum machine with a killer kick use it copiously If youre not one of those chosen few pay close attention to your original source For example if you use a sampler understand that not all ldquo808 Kickrdquo samples are the same some sound great and some just plain suck There are a lot of reasons for that including how many generations from the original the sample is the sampling rate and bit depth of the sampler how the kick was first sampled and so on Be as choosy as possible with your individual samples mdash dont use a mediocre sample just because it has 808 in the name and therefore is ldquosupposedrdquo to sound fat Seek out a better 808 sample or use something else that is simply bigger sounding Remember the time you spend finding sweet original sources wont be in vain especially if you reuse the resulting samples for multiple songsBORROW SOME SUGAR
An old saying goes ldquoGood art borrows great art stealsrdquo A nice way to start out with great raw kick material is to sample directly from the source If you dont own but have access to a 909 then sample it directly Or take one of your favorite producers tracks on vinyl or CD find a naked kick drum in there and sample it Be cautious with that approach for a couple of reasons Copyright issues around sampling even small bits have become a dangerously gray area and I would never personally advise using any source straight out of the can even from a royalty-free sample library While it may be an excellent start its unoriginal Customize whatever you bite Treat your samples as a sculptor would treat clay mold each one to create a trademark sound for yourself One effective way to customize a fat kick is to take a tip from the synth manufacturers If a sound is thin pile another (or a few more) on top When doing so its important to use different sounds layering two identical kicks will result in a louder kick but it wont change the basic tone Remember the sculptor approach here Even if you are using two good-sounding individual samples they may not instantly sound great together For example I find that when layering kicks while the thickness may be good sustain is often overkill The final result often benefits from a little doctoring on the tail of one (or both) of the samples and other hands-on sonic surgeryADD THE FILLING
Once a nice basic kick is achieved treating it with two of the mastering engineers favorite tools is often the next step Artfully applying a compressor (to just the kick) can go a long way toward creating a signature sound and a huge kick Compression is one of those ldquosecret spicesrdquo and how to apply it is a whole topic in itself One recommendation I will make however is to use a multiband compressor With one of those you can isolate compression on certain frequency ranges That is perfect if for example you want to push the sub of your kick without emphasizing the higher frequencies (which often affect the tone of the attack) or vice-versa EQ comes after compression in my signal chain By now the kick should already sound pretty fat I aim to shave unnecessary frequencies here rather than artificially boosting too much This is also where you can actualize trademark sounds while also fine-tuning them to work alongside other elements in specific tracks I often scoop out mids and highs especially frequencies above about 500 Hz Even though I like thick deep kicks unless Im going for a really dublike sound I often truncate the lowest frequencies (usually the sub-50 Hz frequencies) Even when you cant hear the difference when trimming frequencies doing so can really tighten up your kicksEVEN IT OUT
You may ask why when youre trying to fatten up a kick would you want to trim frequencies That is one of the keys to achieving great mixes both in the case of kick drums and in general You want to avoid too many overlapping frequencies The more sonic separation you have between elements the more focused the entire mix will sound That can be especially important for club music which often gets played on huge not necessarily audiophile-quality sound systems If you havent run into the following scenario already I assure you at some point you will Your bass line and kick drum are competing and it sounds like you have a weak kick You boost the kick but it still sounds muddy Take the bass out and suddenly the kick doesnt sound so bad In a scenario like that solo the two sounds listen carefully for where frequencies are overlapping and then try subtractive EQ on one element then the other and sometimes a bit on both By scooping out overlapping frequencies you will often find that both elements seem to magically come forward in the mix before even touching their respective volume levels
Hi hatsbull Realism
Ive been a professional touring and recording drummer for 25 years and just thought I might share a couple of really simple ways to use fruity loops or fruity studio to create more realistic drum patterns
For what its worth try this out with Fruity Loops
Page 30
Take your hi hat tracks (are any tracks for that matter including melodic synth bubbles)
Drop down the bar graph box that allows you to scroll between velocity (volume) pitch panning cutoff resonance and a thing called shift which allows you to use each of these categories to effect each individual note that youve programmed (note this can be accomplished in other ways in most of the good midi sequencing apps or softwarehardware drum machines)
Drummers no matter how good they are just arent perfect and we can use the fact that each of these drop down bar graphs can make veryvery small changes in a sound to do some subtle things to a rolling drum groove like 16th notes on a hi hat
Not all drummers but many tend to favor their strong hand in a single stroke (hand over hand) drum roll Consequently if you make all odd numbered hi hats be slightly louder than their even numbered hits it will sound more realistic Start by making velocity differences that are really clearly audible Then lower the velocity until you can barely feel the difference We are going to make very subtle changes like this on each of the parameters of velocity pitch cutoff resonance and importantly shift
I cant stress enough that you should make these changes be so subtle that you can hardly notice them
Just going on the fact that the right handed players start their rolls with the right hand and favor it ever so slightly (or grossly for effect as well) means that the stroke will be harder with the right hand than the left hand
When a percussion instrument is hit harder the difference between the transient (or hi pitched attack) of the sound and the body of the instrument (or the sound that comes after the attack) becomes greater In general on drums that means that a harder attack tensions the drum very imperceptably (sp) and it also means that there will be more treble in the sound Consequently the pitch goes up a little teensy bit and their is more attack to the sound (increased resonance and slightly higher cutoff frequency)
Consequently you can make the pitch of each right hand be just barely noticeably higher the resonance should be just one or two of those little teeny bars higher The cutoff should be just a few bars lower (allowing less high frequencies through) on the left handed or even numbered strokes
Typically if drums have time inaccuracies they tend to drag the left hand a litte bit I have to keep stressing that if you can hear the changes you make you arent being realistic You need to make the changes subtle enough that you just barely feel that they arent perfect You can consequently make each left hand note shifted one or two bars late
Tigure out how much you can tweak each parameter before it becomes obvious and then you can just randomly tweak each one up to that limit With a little bit of variance in each stroke from parameter to parameter you will create more of a percolating texture in your programming - this is a great technique to make synth bubbles (the kind used in techno and house) more interesting and less mechanical feeling
Now you can avoid the biggest mistake that non-drummers do when trying to write realistic programs turn the overall volume of the hihats until you CANT hear them and then slowly bring up the volume until you just begin to hear them
Professional producers have spent countless hours trying to figure out how to gate and mix hihats OUT of tracks The reason is two fold1) Human beings have such a radical peak in their hearing around the 1-2khz range (or the intelligibility range of human speech) that we can play the hihats at incredible low volumes and they are still audible You cant do that with a bass drumI tell my drum students that you cannot play a hi hat or a snare drum so quietly that a person sitting in a room with you cant hear it2) Hi Hats the snare of snare drums and cymbals all seriously MASK human vocal intellibility How many people have gone to see live shows where they can hear the singer is singing but cant for the life of them figure out what they are actually singing That is ususally because drummers (or mixers which is frequently the case) are not hip to thisimportant fact
So turn down your hi hat tracks (or any track with a strong mid rangeshort envelope attack) and you have much more room for other musical goodies in your mix When in doubt make your hi hats quieter than you think they should be Trust me theyll come through the mix even at a quiet volume
Swingbull Dont know if you can do this in your sequencer but in Logic you can create a groove
template from your drums and then apply that to your other instruments If youre using separate midi channels for snares kicks and hats take the 8 bar loop youre using glue it together and then take the groove from that and then mute that track When you click down the quantize list youll see the template there and you can apply it to your other tracks Also if you do want to change the groove you can just change the hits in the muted template and itll automatically change all other hits to the new changes
bull Think if youre clever and organized you can basically cut breaks up in recycle load them into the exs24 (extract sequence) and then do the same with them That way if there are breaks you like the feel of you can just apply that swing to anything If you make a folder called grooves in your logic folder they should load up each time so that youll have loads to choose from Havent done this myself yet but always helpful to have a choice of feels available
bull Some things sound better rigid and robotic with equal velocities Some things sound better rigid and robotic with differing velocities Some things sound better with swing Some things sound better with everything ever-so-slightly off Its down to what the track needs
bull Drum Break Swing ProgrammingNicolas Hall wwwbreakbeat-cafenet wroteI think most people who make anything funk breakbeat drum amp bass or hip-hop would agree that Swing is crucial to the effectiveness of a beat The other key factors in a programming sense are dynamic and accent So many people get wound up when their beats sound sterile or mechanical this is due to the fact that computers and sequencers lock to perfect BPM A computer on its own does not interpret rhythm the way a good drummer does There are however certain machines that have their own swing parameters like the Akai MPC range of sampling drum machines which are used extensively by hip hop producers
Swing is not the easiest thing in the world to analyze but as a general rule good drummers will play slightly late and thats why in all funky records you get that slight dip at the start of the bar take Superstition by Stevie Wonder or Billie Jean by Michael Jackson these are both very simple beats Superstition is of course live drums whilst Billie Jean was programmed but no less funky than Superstition I emphasize this point to demonstrate that a programmed beat can be every bit at groovy as a beat played on a drum kit
Expanding on the Billie Jean point Hip Hop beats are really very simple If you listen to the Neptunes they tend to create the swing in their beats by quantizing the kicks and snares and playing the hi hats in by hand this creates a very tight beat which is off set by a loose hi hat try it works but dont forget your accents - As a starting point just take the first snare of your beat and turn the velocity down then notice how your head starts nodding and your foot starts tapping a little more you are giving the beat feel Also remember that if you are using reverb the louder snare will push the reverb harder than the soft snare so your creating more ambience that way Then try your kick drums if your not sure which hits to adjust just pick apart a beat your feeling I remember me and friend picking apart a Gangstarr beat and were able to almost replicate it by adjusting the velocities of each hit (admittedly it took a while to get it right)
If youre a newbie then a common trick when learning to make good grooves is to create a template with an existing loop The idea is take a loop you like thats got a good feel to it and then place your own hits over the break then take the break out and see if your hits are sounding funky This can take a while and its crucial to think about the strength of each hit or the dynamic Each kick will not be the same strength nor will the snares or the hats pick the loop apart dissect it and youll soon see that there are certain consistencies in all good beats
If youre using live loops and like to layer them with drum sequences you should be thinking about time space and frequencies So if you have a fairly heavy loop then layering it with heavy kick drums is probably not gonna sound good Think about filling holes are their any frequencies that could be filled up Or is there space in the loop for extra hits Try working in layers just adding one hit at a time also filtering works well you could take some of the frequencies out of your loop as you drop your drum sequences in to make room for them I think one the masters of this technique is Liam Howlett of the Prodigy He runs breakbeats and gives them extra balls by laying a kick drum underneath to add extra intensity to certain passages in his set but hes careful not to overlap frequencies to much A good place to start if you using breakbeats is the Roland Tr-808 kick drum which is around the 50hz mark which is sub bass territory so it will sit underneath most breaks very well
If your hell bent on making killer beats and loops then perseverance is crucial keep at it it will come together listen to beats you like and pick them apart identify the subtleties that make it happen I know some producers get fed up when their beats sound to clean or they are trying to create a new breakbeat and then compare it to sample they took from vinyl and get down on there own beat Think about what a breakbeat really is think about its history what has happened to it to make it sound the way it does Im
Page 32
sure youve noticed how some breaks have a certain something like a magic dust you cant put your finger on Let me share what I know with you about that
Most breaks though not all are taken from recordings of live drums some of them are pretty old so you have the ambience of live drums and the room they were recorded in you have the fact that natural decay and reverb of each drum is likely to have bled into the other mics on the kit and that most engineers used overhead mics which pick up the whole kit with two mics Then consider that many of these breaks will have been recorded to analogue tape with saturation which will create extra warmth and harmonics The next step comes from old sampling technology like the SP-1200 and the Akai s-950 mpc -60 these samplers sampled at 12- bit (bear in mind that most computers now are at least 24-bit if not more) and that the samples themselves where taken from vinyl and on and on the process goes with each new reverb and eq adding more and more to the break In terms of giving your breaks that character there are a number of things you can try for example buying an old four track cassette machine to dump your beats onto then re-sample it if your using a sampler like the s-950 then try pushing the input meters a little harder than usual add reverbs and resample it each time you put your loop through a new channel you will be adding something to it Also distortion is fantastic for breaks if you have any amp plug ins then try them the Amplitude one is particularly good you dont need to go mad with it just used subtly it works great
To finish I would just like to say again stick with it keep trying keep listening to records if you like to read about technique then do so you can learn so much from other producers Remember the strength of your hits is important as is the way it swings good luck
UPDATE 08092008
ENHANCE SYNTHESIZED DRUM PARTS WITH FOUND SOUNDS
emusiciancom wroteLayering real-world sounds with synthesized drum parts puts a new spin on your drum tracks You probably already have usable sound effects on your hard drive because most commercial samplers have at least a modest collection in their factory library Beyond that youll find thousands of royalty-free sound effects online Soundsnapcom is one of my favorite sources and its free The recordings dont need to be pristine for layering over drums so dont overlook cheap sampling CDs and consider grabbing your own sounds with a portable recorderCollect and Save
Start by assembling a small Foley library of short percussive sounds divided into typical drum-sound categories kicks snares toms cymbals percussion and so on Youll generally want to layer drum sounds with Foley sounds that have a similar volume contour and frequency range If you layer a Foley sound that resembles a kick drum with the sound of your hi-hat for example youll quickly fill up all the space in your drum track
Industrial household military transportation and vocal sounds make excellent fodder but you will often want to extract a small slice such as the last shot in a volley of machine-gun fire (snare) or the first bounce of a plastic bottle on concrete (tom) A browsing tool like Audio Finder (icedaudiocom) is invaluable if you have a large sample library That lets you quickly audition clips make basic edits and drag-and-drop slices to your library
Sticks UpIf your synthesized drum part is step sequenced youll need to export its step sequences as MIDI files Many drum synths do that including Sonic Charge Tonic (sonicchargecom) Apple Logic UltraBeat (applecom) and Submersible DrumCore (submersiblemusiccom) All of those come with a large collection of patterns exportable as MIDI sequences Youll also need a sampler to play the Foley sounds drum-oriented samplers are handier for that but are by no means necessary
Start by loading a kit in the drum synth Export one of its sequenced patterns or create your own and place it on the sampler track For some of the drum synth sounds select compatible Foley sounds and map them to the same notes in the sampler that theyre mapped to in the drum synth Next solo the doubled voices one by one in both the drum synth and the sampler start the sequence playing and tweak the samplers voice parameters (filter level pan envelope and so on) to make the sounds work together (see Fig 1 and Web Clip 1) Dont tweak global parameters such as effects because that will affect all sounds played by the sampler
High HoopsOnce youve configured your Foley track you can do several things to add interest I frequently use a
Page 33
second sampler for short vocal sounds Ill have some notes trigger sounds in both samplers and others in only one Many samplers let you group sounds and assign notes and controllers to choose among them You can then sequence these notes and controllers or you can play them live to alter your Foley tracks
Try applying DSP effects to individual Foley sounds Multitap delays distortion phasing and granular effects all work well when used sparingly (see Web Clip 2) You can apply DSP effects inside your sampler or route the voices to a separate output for DSP processing in your DAW If your sampler doesnt offer either possibility spread the Foley parts over several sampler instances on different tracks
Sidechain compression or gating of the drum track with one or more of the Foley parts will highlight the Foley part as well as add variety to the drums With compression peaks in the sidechain signal will reduce the level of the drum track Use a high compression level say 201 and balance the sidechain-gain and the compression-threshold -attack and -release controls to get the ducking contour you want (see Web Clip 3) Gating has the opposite effect the drum track will be heard during peaks in the sidechain signal (see Web Clip 4) Here too the sidechain-gain and gate-threshold controls work in tandem to determine when the gate is opened Use envelope parameters (attack release and hold) to shape the gates contour
Keep in mind that once youve created a sampler instrument to complement your drum kit you can reuse it with other sequences You can also change one or more sounds in the sampler instrument without repeating the whole process
34 Sidechain Compression (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
4 Theory41 ndash Song Structure42 ndash Mixdown (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)43 ndash Mastering (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
44 Music Theory
The first thing to remember about music theory is that generally if it sounds right it probably is There are no rules in music and Music Theory is not about telling you how to write music Its about understanding the music
Broadly speaking it is fair to say that most music is essentially based upon two crucial factors scales and rhythm Scales make up melodies chords harmonies and basslines to name but a few whereas rhythm makes up the beat of the song In this part of the Production Bible you will learn the basics of Music Theory that will serve you not only in the production of Dubstep but for any of your future musical pursuits This information is intended to be easy to read and understand so I wonrsquot be mincing sentences But firstly please make sure you learn every single note on the keyboard by studying the image below Otherwise yoursquoll be completely lost here
Page 34
Scales Wersquoll begin with scales As I mentioned before scales are the building blocks of your song and without them your track will be atonal and completely unlistenable (probably not the effect yoursquore going for)
There are two main scales that you should learn inside out ndash the major scale and the minor scale A generalisation yoursquore bound to have heard before is that the major scale sounds ldquohappyrdquo and the minor scale sounds ldquodarkrdquo Although this is not always the case it is mostly true ndash and therefore yoursquoll usually be focussing on the minor scale when producing Dubstep However just in case yoursquore writing happy-dubstep (if that exists) here is a quick overview of both scales and how they are made up
Major Scale
The major scale is really easy to create It is made by a single rule that is simple to put in to place
ldquoTone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
In case you donrsquot know what a Tone or Semi-Tone is here is a quick explanation
Picture a keyboard (or if you canrsquot see the image above) Say you go from C to C that would be a semi-tone The same thing goes for if you go from an E to an F ndash it is still a semi-tone because you
Page 35
have gone up one key
A tone is two semi-tones ndash for example from C to D is a tone and the same goes for from G to A
The scalersquos name is taken from the note that it starts on For example C major will start on the note of C Similarly A major will start on the note of A and this is the case with every single scale
Here is a quick list of a few major scales After having seen a few try working the rest out for yourself in order to understand how the major scale is formulated Ideally you should practice your scales on a piano or keyboard so that you can physically see how to make the scale It might sound boring but itrsquos a small price to pay for a much deeper understanding of your music
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Major C D E F G A B C
C Major C D E F G A B C
D Major D E F G A B C D
D Major D E F G A B C D
E Major E F G A B C D E
F Major F G A Bb C D E F
F Major F G A B C D E F
G Major G A B C D E F G
G Major G A B C D E F G
A Major A B C D E F G A
A Major A B C D E F G A
B major B C D E F G A B
Now by arranging the different notes of each of these scales in any order you please you can create a melody bassline or harmony with extreme ease Rearranging the notes in the scale will give you a flawlessly in-key result and it is then up to you to use the notes in the scale as you see fit for your tune
Minor Scale
As was the case with the Major Scale the Minor is made up from a set rule or formula By knowing this formula you can understand how the Minor is made and how to use it to itrsquos maximum effect
ldquoTone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
As is the case with the major scales you should practice your scales as much as possible to make sure that you know them all like the back of your hand Here are a few Minor Scales see if you can
Page 36
work out the rest
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Minor C D Eb F G Ab B C
D Minor D E F G A Bb C D
F Minor F G A B C D E F
G Minor G A Bb C D Eb F G
Similarly to the Major now that you know your Minor Scales you can quickly just take any note from the scale rearrange it with another few notes in the scale and there you have a fat melody or bassline ready to be played at maximum volume
Diminished Chords
Diminished Chords are really quite spooky and dark chords that are made up of four different notes all a minor third apart from each other That means that for example the Diminished Chord starting on C would be C Eb F A because to get from one note to the next you have to use ldquoTone Semi-Tonerdquo (known as a minor third)
Because of the mathematical nature of the Diminished chord there are only three ldquoclustersrdquo of notes which can then be rearranged like the Major and Minor Scales
Cluster 1 C Eb F A
Cluster 2 C E G Bb
Cluster 3 D F Ab B
Use these clusters and rearrange them as you please For example you could rearrange cluster 1 as Eb F A C etc
Generally speaking you canrsquot make a song based entirely on Diminished Chords due to the fact that each cluster only has 4 notes However a Diminished Chord is perfect for adding a hint of darkness to your tune and is brilliant when mixed with some Minor Scales
Chords
Chords are basically two or more notes played together They are made up from a specific scale ndash for example the C major chord is made up of notes in the C major scale
Usually chords will include the first third and fifth note of the scale as well as possibly using other notes to give them colour For example the basic chord of C major would be C E G Then you could add the seventh note to it (in this case it is B) Really it is up to the producerrsquos discretion how heshe goes about making a chord ndash just remember to stick to the scale you are using
Chords will more than likely sound like shit if you play them on a complicated or layered synth patch You want to be playing chords on sustained sounds such as strings or pads Chords will really fill out your sound if used properly You want your chords to be supporting the melody or bassline and more than likely want to add some reverb so that it doesnrsquot sound too sharp Make
Page 37
your chords blend in with the music and yoursquoll have mastered them
Chord Inversions
Quite simply chord inversions are when you rearrange the notes in a chord so that it sounds a bit different and suits your arrangement better
For example if you were in the key of C major you could have a drone of E playing underneath some strings playing the notes E G C E
Due to the fact that the notes are the same and have only been inverted the chord will still be in key with the rest of the music This is a great way to add a touch of variation to your music instead of using the same chord structure all the time
Arpeggios
Arpeggios are much easier to understand than they sound They are quite simply the first third and fifth note of the scale played as individual notes For example the arpeggio of C minor would be C Eb G C etc
A great example of an arpeggio is the bassline in Bengarsquos ldquoCrunked Uprdquo He goes from playing the F minor arpeggio backwards to playing the F minor arpeggio backwards In other words he is playing
C A F and then C Ab F
Experiment with a few Minor Arpeggios and a couple of Diminished Arpeggios and you canrsquot go wrong in writing a huge bassline
Suggested Reading
List of All Scales With Finger Charts Included
Well thatrsquos it folks Thatrsquos basically all the music theory you need to know to start off with As you grow more used to the various scales yoursquoll notice that certain notes sound good with each other whilst others donrsquot Irsquom not here to tell you how to write music Irsquom here to teach you the language
of music Itrsquos up to you to write the poetry
copy Bruno Crosier (klimaxx) 2008
45 Random Tips
Random tips amp best piece of advice thread
5 Resources
Page 38
51 Books amp Magazines
Hello again people
Does anyone know of more music production books magazines or authors we can add to these lists
Thanks
------------------------------------------------
Music Production Magazines Computer Music - httpwwwcomputermusiccouk Music Tech Magazine - httpwwwmusictechmagcouk Future Music - httpwwwfuturemusiccouk Sound on Sound - httpwwwsoundonsoundcom Remix Magazine - httpremixmagcom Mix Magazine - httpmixonlinecom Electronic Musician - httpemusiciancom EQ Magazine - httpwwweqmagcom Audio Technology - wwwaudiotechnologycomau Tape Op - httpwwwtapeopcom
------------------------------------------------
Music Books
Authors Curtis Roads httpmitpressmiteducatalogauthor aspaid=93 - The Computer Music Tutorial (Really really really good book) Paul White - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea ul20White - Basic Series + more Rick Snowman - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea k20Snoman - The Dance Music Manual Tools Toys and Techniques Bobby Owsinski - httpbooksgooglecoukbooksas_auth=Bobby+Owsinski - The MixingRecording amp Mastering Engineers Handbooks Michael Paul Stavrou - httpwwwmixingwithyourmindcom
Publishers Thomson Course Technology - httpcoursecengagecom (Click on the Music Technology tab) - Series published include Power Overdrive Ignite and CSI Series + many more Backbeat Books - httpwwwbackbeatbookscom ndash Power Tools Series + many more Wiley Publishing - httpwwwdummiescom (Enter music in their search bar) - For Dummies Series Penguin Books - httpuspenguingroupcom (Enter music in their search bar) - The Complete Idiots Guide Series + many more MIT Press - httpmitpressmitedu - Many books on music theory Focal Press - httpwwwfocalpresscom - (Enter music in their search bar)
------------------------------------------------
Online Music Book Stores (We need more links here Do you know of any that we can add)
httpwwwmixbookscom ndash Excellent source that sells only books about music
Page 39
httpwwwamazoncom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
httpwwwbarnesandnoblecom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
------------------------------------------------
52 Wikipedia
A good music lexicon wiki Search for your term in the search bar ---gt httpenaudiolexicorgwikiMain_Page
0-9
14rdquo Jack - httpenwikipediaorgwikiJack_plug 3rd Bridge - httpenwikipediaorgwiki3rd_Bridge
Zero Crossing - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_crossing Zero Crossing Rate - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_Crossing_Rate
53 Other recommended production forums
for Logic users this is the shit httpwwwlogicprohelpcom
Ive found both these forums to be full of knowledgeable producers amp musicians
httpwwwkvraudiocomforum
httpacapellaharmony-centralcomforumsindexphp
httpwwwgearslutzcomboard
httpwwwsoundonsoundcomforum
httpwwwmusicradarcomforum
httpwwwidmforumscom
httpwwwdance-industriescomphpBB2 8cffbb3b02
httpwwwsubvertcentralcomforumindexphp
httpwwwbreakbeatcouk
httpwwwtweakheadzcom
httpwwwabletoncompagesforum
Explains lots about the music industry ---gt httpwwwbemusocom
Page 47
Ok so a massive thanks to all the contributors there are literally too many to mention But Thanks to Futures Untold Johnny Beat Klimaxx Deadly Habit amp JunglistRendr Daft Cunt in perticular
Thanks to all the artists producers and general music geeks making this early revision of the production bible an essential read
There are links missing and will be included in version 21(Please help with the unlinked chapters by going here - httpwwwdubstepforumcomthe-dubstep-production-bible-updated-2009-06-03-t14797html and updating missing info as needed)
Compiled by Daft Cunt and Futures Untold PDF Compiled by Depone
Here is a list of the most popular freeware analysers available
Voxengo SPAN
Bluecat Audio Freqanalyst
Roger Nichols Inspector
Page 20
For a long list of other free analysers visit httpwwwgersiccompluginsindexphpdaCat=2
3 Techniques
31 Bass311 Sub Bass
Sub-bass is a term used to describe audible sounds below 90Hz - sound in the range below this (under 16-17Hz) would be termed infrasound Sound systems often feature a subwoofer that is dedicated solely to amplifying sounds in the lower bass and sub-bass range Source Wikipedia
So the idea is to have the sub going up to ~90Hz The exact frequency it should be cut at depend on the kicks frequency Lets say you HP your kick at 100Hz then the sub should be LPed at 100Hz so they compliment each other without clashing
There are several ways of creating a sub here are the most common 1 - using a unique waveform (sine saw square or triangle) will give you a nice linear sub NB You dont need to filter out a sine wave as it doesnt have overtones 2 - using detuned waveforms take 2 identical waves (sine saw square or triangle) and detune them - lets say -25 +25 semitone This will produce a phase effect and give movement to your sub but itll also cause large volume amplitude and youll need to compress it after filtering Great Massive tutorial by Subfocus here 3 - using a 808 kick you dont have a TR-808 Grab that pack
jobbanaught wroteAn easy option to get a powerful subbass is to take a 808 kick sample put it in your favorite sampler and loop a single cycle of the waverform somewhere in the middle of the sample The 808 kick is made of a sine and some additional white noise The sine gives your sub that rattling low end pressure and the noise adds overtonesgrittiness = instant badass subbass
You can find more tips about mixing your kick n sub in the Random bass tips thread
312 lsquoWobblersquo
Page 21
Wobble GuideWobble Bass
Wobble Bass as it is known is simply a bassline that has an LFO assigned to a Low Pass Filter as an insert effect LFOstands for Low Frequency Oscillator and is used to change a sound by a defined speed (measured in either Hz or synced to the Tempo in relation to the barsnotes through quantization) The way the LFO changes the sound is up to you you can make the LFO adjust the Volume the amount of Saturation Filter Cutoff etc Basically any parameter you link it to Essentially you are just using the LFO to send a changing value to a parameter
--------------------
How to get a simple wobble bass
1) Choose a simple sound on your synth (Anything apart from a Sine wave )
2) Select your LFO and set it to the speed you want (18 would be a good starting point)
3) Now assign the LFO to the Filter Cutoff Which should for this example be a Low Pass Filter as the sound were going for is a deep bass
4) You now have a basic wobble bass from here the possibilities for tweaking this sound are endless
--------------------
A quick breakdown of whats actually going on Essentially you are taking a sound (that can be an audio files generated by a synth etc) and then passing it through a Low Pass Filter Now what exactly does a Low Pass Filter do you ask
A Low Pass Filter allows Low Frequency signals to pass through it but reduces the amplitude (volume) of all the Frequencies above the cutoff point In general most plug-ins have various Low Pass Filter settings where the more poles it has the more Dbs it will cut and will yield a harder knee to it Example 1 Pole Filter with a -6dBOct reduction Vs a 2 Pole Filter reducing -12DbOct However you dont necessarily need a LFO controlling your Low Pass Filter Cutoff frequency value you could just draw in the Automation yourself but a LFO will yield a loop of consistent values and prevents the possibility of human error All the LFO is doing is sending a value to your frequency cutoff to keep it consistently changing
--------------------
Tips amp Advice
1) Sub bass wobble would normally be a Sine wave at around the 40-50 Hz range which would repeat the same chords as the mid-range bass wobble The only difference being that with a sub bass wobble there is no point in assigning the LFO to a Low Pass Filter because the sound is too low for the low pass filter to have any effect so theLFO is assigned to the amplitude (volume) instead Another reason for not applying a Low Pass Filter to the Sub bass is because it would typically be a Sine wave which possesses no Harmonics to be adjusted by the Filter
2) The sound of an LFO can also be adjusted by the wave type you choose The default setting for an LFO generator is a Sine wave although on most synths you can chose from Triangle Sawtooth Square wave Random Noise To get a nice sounding bass it is a good idea to use as many oscillators as possible on different octaves
3) Try messing around with the attack and release of your sound as this can have an impact on the sound of the bass Long attacks tend to create a more ambient sound and is a technique traditionally used with ambient pads
Page 22
4) Something that I find useful is to bounce the bassline to a wav file so that it can be chopped up and put in-sync with other elements of the song because the majority of the time you will find the first wave of sound in the wobble bassline will will be half the length of the other waves due to attack rates So the best thing to do is to chop that freak sound off the beginning of the file in your DAW (Logic Pro Reason Cubase etc) and start off with the second wave which should be fully formed This way it will not be too early of late when keeping in sync with other elements such as a second bassline
5) Another method you can use is creating a clone layer of your original sound and setting up a new LFO setup for that to beat alternatively in the space left by the original LFO Or go that crazy Drum amp Bass Reese route and split the frequencies to Low Mid and High then set different LFO rates for each band then recombine into one sound
6) For more variation automate your LFO speed and intensity
7) Where you place insert effects in relation to the filter (pre or post) will yield different sounding results
8) Other methods to achieve a wobble like sound Tremolo (This effects volume rather than frequency) FM Synthesis Modulation of PWM Oscillator Pitch assigned (in a liberal amount) to LFO Filter Envelope assigned to LFO (using a re-triggered envelope) (submitted by Faun2500)
9) Assign a second LFO to modulate the speed of the first LFO
LFO Shapes
Sine wave The smooth value change possible
Triangle Similar to a Sine wave but slightly more ramped amp synthetic sounding
Random A mixed bag
Sawtooth Will have a very fast attack with a slower release which will sound very rugged
Square wave Will be a simple open close style Very harsh and will generally cause a very harsh sound (Often used in DJ Hazard style bass-lines) Detune two square waves for a nice dark sounding bass
Waveforms submitted by Skells wrotehttpi228photobucketcomalbumsee83 cleanjpgSimple Filter Sweep
httpi228photobucketcomalbumsee83 wobblejpgSine Wave LFO assigned to Filter Cutoff
LINKS etc
Fruity Loops Wobble Tutorial (Link submitted by Wub) Massive Wobble YouTube Tutorial (Video created by thesynthesist) Pause amp Play Wobble Tutorial (Link submitted by dubmo) Albino3 Wobble Guide (Guide created by axon)
By Rendr amp Deadly Habit and a little help from Macc
313 lsquoReecersquo
The Reese Bass
Page 23
History Lesson
The Reese bass was a form of huge sounding synth-bass first used by the Detroit Techno producer Kevin Saunderson aka Master Reese aka Reese Project aka on the track Just Want Another Chance and immortalised in the classic DnB track Terrorist by Renegade Since then it has been (over)used in many a DnB track and continues to evolve even nowadays through Dubstep and Jungle It is said to be as influential to DnB as the Amen break and probably as used and abused as the Amen
Capturing the Beast
1The Oscillator Stage
To nail the Reese you need a synth with at least 2 oscillators but for better-bigger results use as many oscillators as you can (not really but 4 oscillators give a nice deep rumble - ahhhhhh) All the oscillators are playing sawtooth waves and all except one are detuned by 25-50 cents so that all oscillators are out of phase with each other
2 The Filter Stage
The signal is then sent to a low-pass filter with the cutoff freq set around 150-200Hz (experiment with that you want the growl of the mid-frequencies but you also want it as deep as possible without sacrificing the midrange) The resonance of the filter should be cranked up almost all the way (but again tweak accordingly to your filtersynth)
3 Fuzz it Up
The second most important aspect of the Reese (after the detuned sawtooths) is distortion Tube distortion and tape saturation work extremely well but dont hesitate to use other more extreme distortion units (dont forget that the Reese has been done a million times you have to add something original to it) Again adjust to taste
4 Spices and Herbs
Now that is the main recipe for the sound but like all haute-cuisine there are more things you can do to spice up the Reese Namely effects Effects that have been associated with the Reese are
Phasers - to accentuate the phase-shifting effect of the detuned sawtooths Unison - a great way to make it even bigger Chorus - again a good way to phatten it up
5 And Some More Synth Magic
Another thing to do so you can bring out the old-school jungle character of the Reese is to use Legato and PortamentoGlide if your syth of choice has them available These are both great ways to move from one note to the next without listening to the transition To put it simply when legato is on and you play a sustained E followed by a sustained G the transition between the two notes gives the listener the impression that they heard a single note being sustained that has just changed its pitch from E to G without pausing at a certain point
Always remember though that if you use Legato you have to turn the polyphony of your synth down to 1 (something you should almost always do with basslines because two bass-notes playing together almost never sound good in electronic music bass chords are more the realm of prog-rock shit than dubstep)
For the more technical minded legato in synthesizers is a variation of monophonic operation In contrast to monophonic mode where every new note restarts the ADSR envelopes in legato mode they are not if the previous note remains depressed when the new note is played This causes the initial transient from the attack and decay phases to sound only once and the ADSRs to remain at sustain stage for the whole sequence of notes until the final note is released (Wikipedia)
EDIT I just found out that in one of the free vst links on the bible there is a thing called the Hotelsinus Reese Bassline Synth So I didnt miss the opportunity for a mini review The software itself is small (like most free vst-is) and quite easy to install (you just drop the dll in the vst folder) As for the sound weeeeeeell the sounds it produces are definitely Reese But weak somehow Its like listening to Terrorist from a battered cheap old cassette from 93 or something It has a tinny and tiny sound when compared to what you can achieve with powerhouses like Albino or
Page 24
Massive or (one of my personal favorites for Reese) Cakewalk Rupture You can try it if you want but i dont think it will impress steppers that much we are bass-headed folk
314 Random Bass Tips
Plz add yours or others youve spotted on the forum
miss_molinari wrotebasically i have been experimenting with cutting (not sidechaining) a notch (band reject) in the bass starting at 60hz and ending just before 70 this is only for those bass lines which only hit on the kick (quite specific) also the bass is then high passed at about 220hz to pretty much 0db which is where the kick starts (ending the kick with a non-too-aggressive-cut at about 2khz) this essentially means that the kick and the bass do not share any frequencies above abot 200hz but also between 60 and 70 and with them always hitting at the same time this gets around the fact that sidechaining this type of sequencing would leave you with no or little bass
this has worked well so far but is useful mainly for sub basses ending at around 250hz would not be as good for full spectrum wubsanyone else got any tech tips regarding the bass and kick
futures_untold wroteI simply cut everything under 90Hz on my kicks and roll off slightly at 1KHz
Sub I cut under 40Hz and roll off at 200Hz
I always compress both seperately and keep my levels low in the mix to create plenty of head room later whilst adding sounds with higher frequency content
Anything above 150Hz is what I consider midrange Anything above 150Hz can be heard on mobile phone speakers We all know that theyre designed to play heavy bass lol Wink
miss_molinari wroteDaft Cunt wroteTo me it feels like cutting the kick above 80 hz makes it sound weak I guess it depends on the style I rather cut below 60 to 80 depending on the tune
yeah its all about context in a dry minimal setting im of the opinion you can make a kick punch right up to about 180-200hz but yeah depends on when and on what kind of punch (im usually talking a bass hit at about 200hz coupled with a knock hit anywhere up to about 1200hz) i imagine you true dubsteppers prefer a denser thump from 60 through to about 300hz
Daft Cunt wroteI began recently the band-reject thing on the sub Little details that make big difference
And do you people cut the bass where the snare peaks
my basses arent usually middy enough to need that but yeah a slight sidechain on the main snare and say midbasspadwothavyer is nice especially if the limelight is stolen by a deeper sidechain on the kick and midbasspadwothavyer can create a nice flow (especially when used with long decay reveb linked to the midbasspadwothavyer so that it sounds louder and longer the higher the frequency played - might
have to post some piccies of that one )
Shonky wroteWhat Ive been doing lately is bouncing down the kick track lowpassing one somewhere between 100-140 depending on the highest frequencies of the low sub and then sidechaining the sub to the low kick
Then take a copy of the kick track highpass between 300-1000 and this will give you the beater noise to make the kick cut through I then sidechain this to the more middly basses You can also send a small amount to a reverb bus which allows you to avoid mud on the lower frequencies whilst still giving you the space
Doing it this way seems to make sense to me cause the sidechains work on the corresponding kicks in the same frequency range so it doesnt cause loads of unnecessary compression where you dont need it
Page 25
boh wroteAlways make sure your kicks are in tune with the rest of the track ull hear it pitching up and down and make sure if ur layering that the transients dont conflict(good monitors make this easy) It all comes down to kick selection Whats the point in cutting a kick at 80hz with a fundemental freq of say 60hz Sure you get whats happening before it but u wont get the nice thump of the fundemental freq Choose other kicks that hit the freq u want (80hz say) instead of cutting them when theres no need to Unless you really really know what your doing getting technical like this complicates the situation Esp for people with little experience
sullyharmitage wrote50 hz hi pass seems a bit high to me maybe gd for kicky techno or house but for subby stuff it seems a bit muchdefo roll off past 30-35 (most well engineered systems will do this anyways so any content below this is definately getting wasted)if yr gonna go higher make sure its a soft curvei find levelling subs is the hardest part of a mix - cos more always sounds better i remember reading breakage saying yr subs shouldnt add more than 3db to yr mix thats seems like a good guide
btw sub in kick an bassline simultaeously is gonna cause clashes (n maybe disortion) id either decrease the attack on the bass or cut the sub from the kick
unklefesta wroteI rolloff EVERYTHING at 40hz except my bass
standard
wang wroteAlways do it
Dont forget youre ROLLING off the frequencies not cutting them off all together Just a couple of dB of bass down there is enough to get some girth without removing all your headroom
Also analyse and cut off the lows on everything even if it doesnt appear to have messy lows -Youd be surprised how much bass there is in some high hats
Jtransition wroteAll of your tracks are going to be different so dont restrict yourself to a certain techniquetry different things and listen to the results
Shonky wrotewang wroteAlso analyse and cut off the lows on everything even if it doesnt appear to have messy lows -Youd be surprised how much bass there is in some high hats
Yep this is very true also worth filtering out the inaudible highs on low sounds as well found some of my subs which Id low passed still showed frequency activity much higher than expected
Jtransition wroteStick a high pass filter on everything apart form the kick drum and bass line70 hertz is a good starting point move up or down to tasteAnd remember try to mix at low levels(Walls not vibrating)
Deadly Habit wroteRendr wroteBasslines in my experience should be mono due to the fact that humans cannot easily decoded the stereo positioning of low frequencys so panning basslines (excluding bass sounds with high pitch sounds at around 500Hz+) is not recommended not only are the low frequencys hard to position with the human ear the low frequency sound waves are absorbed by the human head at a much higher ratio than high pitch sounds which tend to be reflected Another thing to note is that club systems are
mono Basslines that pan only belong in Psytrance
sub range should be mono especially if going to be cut to vinylmidrange bass on the other hand you can pan and add stereo fx to your hearts content
Page 26
32 Re-sampling
SafeAfter a few months of experimenting with resampling not really getting anywhere in terms of sound quality i came up with a pretty simple way of getting on the right track Ive got so much help since getting on this forum in terms of production i thought id share this for those who like myself are looking into the elusive yet highly rewarding technique of resamplingAll the vsts i use on this (save for the synth itself) are freenative plugs im using FL but itll transfer onto every DAW pretty much the same Ill explain it for a bassline but it can be applied to any sound
Step 1Make yourself a nice bassline get it sounding dirty with whatever you can within the synth Im using Albino so i tend to play about with the saturation modesFXs until its sounding pretty good
Step 2Hook up to a mixer channel then send this channel to a second mixer channel (FL users just click on another channel towards the bottom of the strip) On the second channel that the synth is hooked to from the first add CMt bitcrusher and downsample 3-16x (thanks to all the production forum users who pointed this out to me when i posted a few months ago on dirtying up basslines) Then add a chorus Turn the LFOs off and set the depthdelayetc to whatever sounds best Also set the crossover pretty high so only the treblehigh mids are being affected Then add Camel Audio Camel Crusher Turn the compressor off and set the tubemech to taste Add a parametric EQ if needs be to boost the high freqs Experiment with the chain of these effects swapping them according to the sound The choruscameleq in different orders should alter the sound quite alot depending on where their placed
Step 3 Set the level of the second affected channel with the original depending on whatever suits Play about with adding extra effects to both channels The way the second channel behaves once an effect is added to the first is quite extreme in even light application of effects So its possible to create a whole array of different sounds just from say adding a flangerchorusetc to the first channel then listening to how much it affects the sound as a whole as it goes through both channels By now it should be sounding pretty girthy
Step 4Export the riffsample (i use edison on the master channel in FL but whatever method will do) Reload and place into a mixer channel Add another Camel Crusher for abit more grit EQ and compress Set up a reverbdelay send and resample again for extra depth
Obviously this technique can be applied a 2nd3rd4th time to fuck the sound up even more so Which is what ive moved onto doing now into the territory of splitting the sound into basslow midhigh midtreble sections for ultimate control over each part Something which i was attempting to do before coming up with the above method but being left with a pile of unlistenable mushy shite
Hope this is a help to some peeps I know theres no secret technique to resamping only a whole load of practice and using your ears but this method got me on the right track in terms of hearing the benefits of it and encouraging me to experiment more in depth and realise that the possiblities are endless Im hooked now i resample pretty much every sound in one way or another Kick and snares benefit hugley from it for mega face melting wide drum sounds aswell so its worth trying it on some nice drum hits
Keep up the good work folksPeaceDC_WT
33 Drums
Read before reading on I am in no way entitled to any of those opinions It is up to you to decide whether you would like to incorporate them in your workflow I have just collected them from all the threads in this forum and will try to keep everything updated
I will update as regularly as I find updates
Page 27
Misc tips and tricks bull Good drums are usually layered - example 3 snares sounding as onebull The hats are often panned or widenedbull Pick great sounding samples different ones for different parts of the sounds you want 1
for snap and bite 1 for body 1 for thump distort and MAYBE EQ each to make them sound the best that they can separately combine in a bus MAYBE compress them together maybe accent the front and shorten the sound with a transient modifier 10 minutes tops
bull Do as little as possible with great-sounding bits and your basic sounds will be slamming leaves you time to focus on the arrangement people dont go around thinking wow that tune has an amazing snare as long as its thumping and not masked by a bunch of other stuff itll keep the dance moving
bull Listen to other producers work As its playing imagine the 1 2 3 4 on the step sequencer running in time to what youre listening to Try to visualize where the producer put their hits Not to say you should copy peoples drum patterns but learn from them
bull Ive noticed a lot of tunes (more minimal stuff where you can distinctly hear whats seperately going on) seem to use two differently pitched hi-hats that alternate to sound shuffley if you know what I mean and a less dramatic snare used sparsely in between the main lazy kick and snare An easy trick if you havent worked it out (which to be honest you should have if youre at all serious about producing dubstep) is to stick a smaller snare or hat the 116th before the kick or snare so it steps if you get me For example Bengas Night does this for all four beats in the bar which is part of what makes it so danceable But dont get stuck in always having kick on 1 and snare on 3 some tracks work with a kick on every beat others with a couple big snares etc The trick (unless you want proper lazy spaced out tunes) is to make sure youre nodding your head on all four beats of the bar Play around with a hat on every quaver (ie 8 per bar on the beat) compared to just four but on the off beat as well as adding in the steppy ones every now and then Theres often no need to over-complicate things though one of the my favourite drum tracks is the incredibly simplistic V by Distance Its a rhythm that could easilly be played by one guy on a real kit yet its so banging - check the use of hats and lower velocity kicks in this to make it nice and bouncy Also I once had a four bar drum loop and accidentally moved the sequence one bar to the right for one section and it ended up nicely varying the drums in a way you wouldnt expect
bull Really tight delays can help claps and snaps sound natural 5-20ms etcbull Recycle or phatmatik is your break-chopping friendbull Basically Hatrixxs method involved chopping everything from the main hits into a sample
Say you had a 2-step funk beat like the Amen Youd start your selection from the start of the first kick and select everything up to the start of the first snare Cut paste theres your first slice Then take everything from the start of the first snare up to the start of the second kick - including all the little hats and ghost hits - cut paste second sample and so on Then just map the samples onto some keys and bash away Both of them are quick compared to chopping Recycled slices where you have to copy and drag loads of little notes (one every little fucking tiny hit in the break arranged chromatically up the keyboard) around the piano roll These methods let you just concentrate on the main hits which can be both good or bad You can get a solid beat down with just a handful of hits but youre limited to the patterns already in the original break For a beginner to breakbeat science like yourself Id say try these methods first but dont rule out the really anal methods like RecyclePhatmatikFruity Slicer Sometimes they are a necessary evil Of course some of the drumfunk guys especially those who post on Subvert Central swear by these methods or the next one There are those who prefer to chop up the raw audio rather than bothering with MIDI and samplers They literally just drop the break file into Cubase or Logic and start chopping with the scissors tool and copying and pasting I can see the benefits of this You can see the waveform as youre chopping and youre not as restriced to the quantize grid as you are with MIDI But it takes aaaaages to build a drum track this way and theres the risk of RSI from all that Ctrl+C Ctrl+V youll be doing Then of course theres trackers They really are tailor-made for chopping up loops amongst other things They give you Sample Offset meaning that when you trigger a sample you can set it to start from 256 evenly spaced points throughout the sample So by starting a sample a quarter of the way through youre triggering the first snare (obviously you can fine-tune it when the snare isnt perfectly on the beat) You can edit breaks in a tracker without ever having to cut up a waveform and you can do all sorts of other nifty things like reverse the sample retrigger it to make drum rolls and so on
If recycles having trouble switch the break to mono in your sample editor and then apply tiny fades between the drum hits (especially useful if there are lots of rides that play over the other hits to keep things separate) This should help recycle pick up the start points and with any luck should leave you with a cleaner break
Page 28
Snaresbull Tune the snares so they all hit around the same pitch bull Change the Amp Envelopes of each to bring the strongest parts from each separate sample
and build up your sound like that bull Compressing all together is a good idea but dont over do it bull EQ the master out for the snare as well so you wont have to fuck about when you use the
sample in the future bull Donrsquot just use snares fling some random sound effects in there Claps and rim shots also
work well when layered bull Make subtle changes to them and export a few snares from the same setup this helps
when you need a ghost hit or a reverse that sounds similar but not identicalbull Watch that frequencies dont build up and make the layered bit sound overly whatever
is building up Really easy to get too much 200hz or 500hz or even 12k if youve got samples that are all beefythicksmack-y
bull If its peaking run it through a Spectrum Analyzer and see where its peaking I guess its peaking in the tune rather than just the snare sample playing on its own
bull Sometimes snare samples have a very short peak that doesnt seem to make them sound any better and keeps you from getting them louder without cliping Reduce that part by a few dBs and youre sorted
bull Make sure you are using subtractive eq to pull out the frequencies that could be clashing with other sounds If your frequencies are clashing that can hide the snare and then you end up turning it up to compensate and there you are with your snare peakingThe key is making the frequencies sit right in the mix so that they dont clash and you can set them right and not have to turn them up
bull You could always try clipping the snare normalise it in a wave editor amplify it as much as you can before it sounds distorted then sample it out Then replace the snare with the clipped version it will almost always sound louder with more body at a lower volume I would still point out that although this can be used as a replacement to compression compression is a vital tool to learn how to use Also a lot of peeps will say this does bad things to the waveform and it does but unless you intend to listen to your tune to be heard at home on an amazing hifi then it doesnt really matter that much IMO
bull Hi-pass overdrive limit and cut away space from other sounds for itbull Layer with its self or a different snare Layer with sub add effect to one layer add effect
to both layers layer zoom right in drag one wave form back or forth very slightly to create new snare sound Pitch updown EQ Filter distort reverb delay reverse
bull Record yourself beat boxing your best snare sounds then layer with snare samplesbull A good handclap never goes a miss or use a nice drum synth to get a very differentdigital
soundbull Try reversing the snare sample then changing the envelope settings so it only hits on the
beat Layer that with the same sample this time not reversed Add a little delay to the the reversed snare Change the settings til it sounds how you like
bull Particularly snares I layer up a lot I look for one that has the qualities that I want when run through verb and then I look for something shorter with more mid punch to keep things physical After someone notied snares were weak in a tune Ive really made a point of ensuring that when the snares hit its physical as well as textural You need to feel them a bit - so I look for some snares that have that real punch when layering but usually keep the more textural snappy one as the focus last couple tunes I did the standard kick snare hats w odd percussion and then I took an amen chopped it processed it and layered it overtop for more aggression and step (goddess being a perfect example) By removing a layer and adding it you can create a sense of progression through the tune Make sure the bottom layer is sounding really good and then add the top so that youre not mixing them to be reliant on one another - instead you want synergy Make sure the EQ on the top and bottom make sense with each other
Kicksbull Building a kick in Ableton Lives Impulse machine Provides some essential information
about layering that can be used with any DAWbull Making fat kicks
remixmag wroteWhether creating Miami Bass music is your lifes fantasy or your greatest fear you probably crave the know-how to manifest those car-rattling trunk-full-of-funk kick drums In the arenas of hip-hop house techno downtempo and almost any other electronic genre molding fat kick drums is absolutely essential Like grandmas homemade apple pie the recipe for kick drums is partially a matter of taste However theres no substitute for quality ingredients And just like every pie has its staple ingredients every slamming kick drum requires some common elements Lets take a look at the
Page 29
shopping list for killer kick drumsTHE CRUST
Youll need a basic shell to begin creating a thick strong kick The classics always work if youre fortunate enough to own a real Roland TR-808 909 or other famous drum machine with a killer kick use it copiously If youre not one of those chosen few pay close attention to your original source For example if you use a sampler understand that not all ldquo808 Kickrdquo samples are the same some sound great and some just plain suck There are a lot of reasons for that including how many generations from the original the sample is the sampling rate and bit depth of the sampler how the kick was first sampled and so on Be as choosy as possible with your individual samples mdash dont use a mediocre sample just because it has 808 in the name and therefore is ldquosupposedrdquo to sound fat Seek out a better 808 sample or use something else that is simply bigger sounding Remember the time you spend finding sweet original sources wont be in vain especially if you reuse the resulting samples for multiple songsBORROW SOME SUGAR
An old saying goes ldquoGood art borrows great art stealsrdquo A nice way to start out with great raw kick material is to sample directly from the source If you dont own but have access to a 909 then sample it directly Or take one of your favorite producers tracks on vinyl or CD find a naked kick drum in there and sample it Be cautious with that approach for a couple of reasons Copyright issues around sampling even small bits have become a dangerously gray area and I would never personally advise using any source straight out of the can even from a royalty-free sample library While it may be an excellent start its unoriginal Customize whatever you bite Treat your samples as a sculptor would treat clay mold each one to create a trademark sound for yourself One effective way to customize a fat kick is to take a tip from the synth manufacturers If a sound is thin pile another (or a few more) on top When doing so its important to use different sounds layering two identical kicks will result in a louder kick but it wont change the basic tone Remember the sculptor approach here Even if you are using two good-sounding individual samples they may not instantly sound great together For example I find that when layering kicks while the thickness may be good sustain is often overkill The final result often benefits from a little doctoring on the tail of one (or both) of the samples and other hands-on sonic surgeryADD THE FILLING
Once a nice basic kick is achieved treating it with two of the mastering engineers favorite tools is often the next step Artfully applying a compressor (to just the kick) can go a long way toward creating a signature sound and a huge kick Compression is one of those ldquosecret spicesrdquo and how to apply it is a whole topic in itself One recommendation I will make however is to use a multiband compressor With one of those you can isolate compression on certain frequency ranges That is perfect if for example you want to push the sub of your kick without emphasizing the higher frequencies (which often affect the tone of the attack) or vice-versa EQ comes after compression in my signal chain By now the kick should already sound pretty fat I aim to shave unnecessary frequencies here rather than artificially boosting too much This is also where you can actualize trademark sounds while also fine-tuning them to work alongside other elements in specific tracks I often scoop out mids and highs especially frequencies above about 500 Hz Even though I like thick deep kicks unless Im going for a really dublike sound I often truncate the lowest frequencies (usually the sub-50 Hz frequencies) Even when you cant hear the difference when trimming frequencies doing so can really tighten up your kicksEVEN IT OUT
You may ask why when youre trying to fatten up a kick would you want to trim frequencies That is one of the keys to achieving great mixes both in the case of kick drums and in general You want to avoid too many overlapping frequencies The more sonic separation you have between elements the more focused the entire mix will sound That can be especially important for club music which often gets played on huge not necessarily audiophile-quality sound systems If you havent run into the following scenario already I assure you at some point you will Your bass line and kick drum are competing and it sounds like you have a weak kick You boost the kick but it still sounds muddy Take the bass out and suddenly the kick doesnt sound so bad In a scenario like that solo the two sounds listen carefully for where frequencies are overlapping and then try subtractive EQ on one element then the other and sometimes a bit on both By scooping out overlapping frequencies you will often find that both elements seem to magically come forward in the mix before even touching their respective volume levels
Hi hatsbull Realism
Ive been a professional touring and recording drummer for 25 years and just thought I might share a couple of really simple ways to use fruity loops or fruity studio to create more realistic drum patterns
For what its worth try this out with Fruity Loops
Page 30
Take your hi hat tracks (are any tracks for that matter including melodic synth bubbles)
Drop down the bar graph box that allows you to scroll between velocity (volume) pitch panning cutoff resonance and a thing called shift which allows you to use each of these categories to effect each individual note that youve programmed (note this can be accomplished in other ways in most of the good midi sequencing apps or softwarehardware drum machines)
Drummers no matter how good they are just arent perfect and we can use the fact that each of these drop down bar graphs can make veryvery small changes in a sound to do some subtle things to a rolling drum groove like 16th notes on a hi hat
Not all drummers but many tend to favor their strong hand in a single stroke (hand over hand) drum roll Consequently if you make all odd numbered hi hats be slightly louder than their even numbered hits it will sound more realistic Start by making velocity differences that are really clearly audible Then lower the velocity until you can barely feel the difference We are going to make very subtle changes like this on each of the parameters of velocity pitch cutoff resonance and importantly shift
I cant stress enough that you should make these changes be so subtle that you can hardly notice them
Just going on the fact that the right handed players start their rolls with the right hand and favor it ever so slightly (or grossly for effect as well) means that the stroke will be harder with the right hand than the left hand
When a percussion instrument is hit harder the difference between the transient (or hi pitched attack) of the sound and the body of the instrument (or the sound that comes after the attack) becomes greater In general on drums that means that a harder attack tensions the drum very imperceptably (sp) and it also means that there will be more treble in the sound Consequently the pitch goes up a little teensy bit and their is more attack to the sound (increased resonance and slightly higher cutoff frequency)
Consequently you can make the pitch of each right hand be just barely noticeably higher the resonance should be just one or two of those little teeny bars higher The cutoff should be just a few bars lower (allowing less high frequencies through) on the left handed or even numbered strokes
Typically if drums have time inaccuracies they tend to drag the left hand a litte bit I have to keep stressing that if you can hear the changes you make you arent being realistic You need to make the changes subtle enough that you just barely feel that they arent perfect You can consequently make each left hand note shifted one or two bars late
Tigure out how much you can tweak each parameter before it becomes obvious and then you can just randomly tweak each one up to that limit With a little bit of variance in each stroke from parameter to parameter you will create more of a percolating texture in your programming - this is a great technique to make synth bubbles (the kind used in techno and house) more interesting and less mechanical feeling
Now you can avoid the biggest mistake that non-drummers do when trying to write realistic programs turn the overall volume of the hihats until you CANT hear them and then slowly bring up the volume until you just begin to hear them
Professional producers have spent countless hours trying to figure out how to gate and mix hihats OUT of tracks The reason is two fold1) Human beings have such a radical peak in their hearing around the 1-2khz range (or the intelligibility range of human speech) that we can play the hihats at incredible low volumes and they are still audible You cant do that with a bass drumI tell my drum students that you cannot play a hi hat or a snare drum so quietly that a person sitting in a room with you cant hear it2) Hi Hats the snare of snare drums and cymbals all seriously MASK human vocal intellibility How many people have gone to see live shows where they can hear the singer is singing but cant for the life of them figure out what they are actually singing That is ususally because drummers (or mixers which is frequently the case) are not hip to thisimportant fact
So turn down your hi hat tracks (or any track with a strong mid rangeshort envelope attack) and you have much more room for other musical goodies in your mix When in doubt make your hi hats quieter than you think they should be Trust me theyll come through the mix even at a quiet volume
Swingbull Dont know if you can do this in your sequencer but in Logic you can create a groove
template from your drums and then apply that to your other instruments If youre using separate midi channels for snares kicks and hats take the 8 bar loop youre using glue it together and then take the groove from that and then mute that track When you click down the quantize list youll see the template there and you can apply it to your other tracks Also if you do want to change the groove you can just change the hits in the muted template and itll automatically change all other hits to the new changes
bull Think if youre clever and organized you can basically cut breaks up in recycle load them into the exs24 (extract sequence) and then do the same with them That way if there are breaks you like the feel of you can just apply that swing to anything If you make a folder called grooves in your logic folder they should load up each time so that youll have loads to choose from Havent done this myself yet but always helpful to have a choice of feels available
bull Some things sound better rigid and robotic with equal velocities Some things sound better rigid and robotic with differing velocities Some things sound better with swing Some things sound better with everything ever-so-slightly off Its down to what the track needs
bull Drum Break Swing ProgrammingNicolas Hall wwwbreakbeat-cafenet wroteI think most people who make anything funk breakbeat drum amp bass or hip-hop would agree that Swing is crucial to the effectiveness of a beat The other key factors in a programming sense are dynamic and accent So many people get wound up when their beats sound sterile or mechanical this is due to the fact that computers and sequencers lock to perfect BPM A computer on its own does not interpret rhythm the way a good drummer does There are however certain machines that have their own swing parameters like the Akai MPC range of sampling drum machines which are used extensively by hip hop producers
Swing is not the easiest thing in the world to analyze but as a general rule good drummers will play slightly late and thats why in all funky records you get that slight dip at the start of the bar take Superstition by Stevie Wonder or Billie Jean by Michael Jackson these are both very simple beats Superstition is of course live drums whilst Billie Jean was programmed but no less funky than Superstition I emphasize this point to demonstrate that a programmed beat can be every bit at groovy as a beat played on a drum kit
Expanding on the Billie Jean point Hip Hop beats are really very simple If you listen to the Neptunes they tend to create the swing in their beats by quantizing the kicks and snares and playing the hi hats in by hand this creates a very tight beat which is off set by a loose hi hat try it works but dont forget your accents - As a starting point just take the first snare of your beat and turn the velocity down then notice how your head starts nodding and your foot starts tapping a little more you are giving the beat feel Also remember that if you are using reverb the louder snare will push the reverb harder than the soft snare so your creating more ambience that way Then try your kick drums if your not sure which hits to adjust just pick apart a beat your feeling I remember me and friend picking apart a Gangstarr beat and were able to almost replicate it by adjusting the velocities of each hit (admittedly it took a while to get it right)
If youre a newbie then a common trick when learning to make good grooves is to create a template with an existing loop The idea is take a loop you like thats got a good feel to it and then place your own hits over the break then take the break out and see if your hits are sounding funky This can take a while and its crucial to think about the strength of each hit or the dynamic Each kick will not be the same strength nor will the snares or the hats pick the loop apart dissect it and youll soon see that there are certain consistencies in all good beats
If youre using live loops and like to layer them with drum sequences you should be thinking about time space and frequencies So if you have a fairly heavy loop then layering it with heavy kick drums is probably not gonna sound good Think about filling holes are their any frequencies that could be filled up Or is there space in the loop for extra hits Try working in layers just adding one hit at a time also filtering works well you could take some of the frequencies out of your loop as you drop your drum sequences in to make room for them I think one the masters of this technique is Liam Howlett of the Prodigy He runs breakbeats and gives them extra balls by laying a kick drum underneath to add extra intensity to certain passages in his set but hes careful not to overlap frequencies to much A good place to start if you using breakbeats is the Roland Tr-808 kick drum which is around the 50hz mark which is sub bass territory so it will sit underneath most breaks very well
If your hell bent on making killer beats and loops then perseverance is crucial keep at it it will come together listen to beats you like and pick them apart identify the subtleties that make it happen I know some producers get fed up when their beats sound to clean or they are trying to create a new breakbeat and then compare it to sample they took from vinyl and get down on there own beat Think about what a breakbeat really is think about its history what has happened to it to make it sound the way it does Im
Page 32
sure youve noticed how some breaks have a certain something like a magic dust you cant put your finger on Let me share what I know with you about that
Most breaks though not all are taken from recordings of live drums some of them are pretty old so you have the ambience of live drums and the room they were recorded in you have the fact that natural decay and reverb of each drum is likely to have bled into the other mics on the kit and that most engineers used overhead mics which pick up the whole kit with two mics Then consider that many of these breaks will have been recorded to analogue tape with saturation which will create extra warmth and harmonics The next step comes from old sampling technology like the SP-1200 and the Akai s-950 mpc -60 these samplers sampled at 12- bit (bear in mind that most computers now are at least 24-bit if not more) and that the samples themselves where taken from vinyl and on and on the process goes with each new reverb and eq adding more and more to the break In terms of giving your breaks that character there are a number of things you can try for example buying an old four track cassette machine to dump your beats onto then re-sample it if your using a sampler like the s-950 then try pushing the input meters a little harder than usual add reverbs and resample it each time you put your loop through a new channel you will be adding something to it Also distortion is fantastic for breaks if you have any amp plug ins then try them the Amplitude one is particularly good you dont need to go mad with it just used subtly it works great
To finish I would just like to say again stick with it keep trying keep listening to records if you like to read about technique then do so you can learn so much from other producers Remember the strength of your hits is important as is the way it swings good luck
UPDATE 08092008
ENHANCE SYNTHESIZED DRUM PARTS WITH FOUND SOUNDS
emusiciancom wroteLayering real-world sounds with synthesized drum parts puts a new spin on your drum tracks You probably already have usable sound effects on your hard drive because most commercial samplers have at least a modest collection in their factory library Beyond that youll find thousands of royalty-free sound effects online Soundsnapcom is one of my favorite sources and its free The recordings dont need to be pristine for layering over drums so dont overlook cheap sampling CDs and consider grabbing your own sounds with a portable recorderCollect and Save
Start by assembling a small Foley library of short percussive sounds divided into typical drum-sound categories kicks snares toms cymbals percussion and so on Youll generally want to layer drum sounds with Foley sounds that have a similar volume contour and frequency range If you layer a Foley sound that resembles a kick drum with the sound of your hi-hat for example youll quickly fill up all the space in your drum track
Industrial household military transportation and vocal sounds make excellent fodder but you will often want to extract a small slice such as the last shot in a volley of machine-gun fire (snare) or the first bounce of a plastic bottle on concrete (tom) A browsing tool like Audio Finder (icedaudiocom) is invaluable if you have a large sample library That lets you quickly audition clips make basic edits and drag-and-drop slices to your library
Sticks UpIf your synthesized drum part is step sequenced youll need to export its step sequences as MIDI files Many drum synths do that including Sonic Charge Tonic (sonicchargecom) Apple Logic UltraBeat (applecom) and Submersible DrumCore (submersiblemusiccom) All of those come with a large collection of patterns exportable as MIDI sequences Youll also need a sampler to play the Foley sounds drum-oriented samplers are handier for that but are by no means necessary
Start by loading a kit in the drum synth Export one of its sequenced patterns or create your own and place it on the sampler track For some of the drum synth sounds select compatible Foley sounds and map them to the same notes in the sampler that theyre mapped to in the drum synth Next solo the doubled voices one by one in both the drum synth and the sampler start the sequence playing and tweak the samplers voice parameters (filter level pan envelope and so on) to make the sounds work together (see Fig 1 and Web Clip 1) Dont tweak global parameters such as effects because that will affect all sounds played by the sampler
High HoopsOnce youve configured your Foley track you can do several things to add interest I frequently use a
Page 33
second sampler for short vocal sounds Ill have some notes trigger sounds in both samplers and others in only one Many samplers let you group sounds and assign notes and controllers to choose among them You can then sequence these notes and controllers or you can play them live to alter your Foley tracks
Try applying DSP effects to individual Foley sounds Multitap delays distortion phasing and granular effects all work well when used sparingly (see Web Clip 2) You can apply DSP effects inside your sampler or route the voices to a separate output for DSP processing in your DAW If your sampler doesnt offer either possibility spread the Foley parts over several sampler instances on different tracks
Sidechain compression or gating of the drum track with one or more of the Foley parts will highlight the Foley part as well as add variety to the drums With compression peaks in the sidechain signal will reduce the level of the drum track Use a high compression level say 201 and balance the sidechain-gain and the compression-threshold -attack and -release controls to get the ducking contour you want (see Web Clip 3) Gating has the opposite effect the drum track will be heard during peaks in the sidechain signal (see Web Clip 4) Here too the sidechain-gain and gate-threshold controls work in tandem to determine when the gate is opened Use envelope parameters (attack release and hold) to shape the gates contour
Keep in mind that once youve created a sampler instrument to complement your drum kit you can reuse it with other sequences You can also change one or more sounds in the sampler instrument without repeating the whole process
34 Sidechain Compression (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
4 Theory41 ndash Song Structure42 ndash Mixdown (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)43 ndash Mastering (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
44 Music Theory
The first thing to remember about music theory is that generally if it sounds right it probably is There are no rules in music and Music Theory is not about telling you how to write music Its about understanding the music
Broadly speaking it is fair to say that most music is essentially based upon two crucial factors scales and rhythm Scales make up melodies chords harmonies and basslines to name but a few whereas rhythm makes up the beat of the song In this part of the Production Bible you will learn the basics of Music Theory that will serve you not only in the production of Dubstep but for any of your future musical pursuits This information is intended to be easy to read and understand so I wonrsquot be mincing sentences But firstly please make sure you learn every single note on the keyboard by studying the image below Otherwise yoursquoll be completely lost here
Page 34
Scales Wersquoll begin with scales As I mentioned before scales are the building blocks of your song and without them your track will be atonal and completely unlistenable (probably not the effect yoursquore going for)
There are two main scales that you should learn inside out ndash the major scale and the minor scale A generalisation yoursquore bound to have heard before is that the major scale sounds ldquohappyrdquo and the minor scale sounds ldquodarkrdquo Although this is not always the case it is mostly true ndash and therefore yoursquoll usually be focussing on the minor scale when producing Dubstep However just in case yoursquore writing happy-dubstep (if that exists) here is a quick overview of both scales and how they are made up
Major Scale
The major scale is really easy to create It is made by a single rule that is simple to put in to place
ldquoTone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
In case you donrsquot know what a Tone or Semi-Tone is here is a quick explanation
Picture a keyboard (or if you canrsquot see the image above) Say you go from C to C that would be a semi-tone The same thing goes for if you go from an E to an F ndash it is still a semi-tone because you
Page 35
have gone up one key
A tone is two semi-tones ndash for example from C to D is a tone and the same goes for from G to A
The scalersquos name is taken from the note that it starts on For example C major will start on the note of C Similarly A major will start on the note of A and this is the case with every single scale
Here is a quick list of a few major scales After having seen a few try working the rest out for yourself in order to understand how the major scale is formulated Ideally you should practice your scales on a piano or keyboard so that you can physically see how to make the scale It might sound boring but itrsquos a small price to pay for a much deeper understanding of your music
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Major C D E F G A B C
C Major C D E F G A B C
D Major D E F G A B C D
D Major D E F G A B C D
E Major E F G A B C D E
F Major F G A Bb C D E F
F Major F G A B C D E F
G Major G A B C D E F G
G Major G A B C D E F G
A Major A B C D E F G A
A Major A B C D E F G A
B major B C D E F G A B
Now by arranging the different notes of each of these scales in any order you please you can create a melody bassline or harmony with extreme ease Rearranging the notes in the scale will give you a flawlessly in-key result and it is then up to you to use the notes in the scale as you see fit for your tune
Minor Scale
As was the case with the Major Scale the Minor is made up from a set rule or formula By knowing this formula you can understand how the Minor is made and how to use it to itrsquos maximum effect
ldquoTone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
As is the case with the major scales you should practice your scales as much as possible to make sure that you know them all like the back of your hand Here are a few Minor Scales see if you can
Page 36
work out the rest
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Minor C D Eb F G Ab B C
D Minor D E F G A Bb C D
F Minor F G A B C D E F
G Minor G A Bb C D Eb F G
Similarly to the Major now that you know your Minor Scales you can quickly just take any note from the scale rearrange it with another few notes in the scale and there you have a fat melody or bassline ready to be played at maximum volume
Diminished Chords
Diminished Chords are really quite spooky and dark chords that are made up of four different notes all a minor third apart from each other That means that for example the Diminished Chord starting on C would be C Eb F A because to get from one note to the next you have to use ldquoTone Semi-Tonerdquo (known as a minor third)
Because of the mathematical nature of the Diminished chord there are only three ldquoclustersrdquo of notes which can then be rearranged like the Major and Minor Scales
Cluster 1 C Eb F A
Cluster 2 C E G Bb
Cluster 3 D F Ab B
Use these clusters and rearrange them as you please For example you could rearrange cluster 1 as Eb F A C etc
Generally speaking you canrsquot make a song based entirely on Diminished Chords due to the fact that each cluster only has 4 notes However a Diminished Chord is perfect for adding a hint of darkness to your tune and is brilliant when mixed with some Minor Scales
Chords
Chords are basically two or more notes played together They are made up from a specific scale ndash for example the C major chord is made up of notes in the C major scale
Usually chords will include the first third and fifth note of the scale as well as possibly using other notes to give them colour For example the basic chord of C major would be C E G Then you could add the seventh note to it (in this case it is B) Really it is up to the producerrsquos discretion how heshe goes about making a chord ndash just remember to stick to the scale you are using
Chords will more than likely sound like shit if you play them on a complicated or layered synth patch You want to be playing chords on sustained sounds such as strings or pads Chords will really fill out your sound if used properly You want your chords to be supporting the melody or bassline and more than likely want to add some reverb so that it doesnrsquot sound too sharp Make
Page 37
your chords blend in with the music and yoursquoll have mastered them
Chord Inversions
Quite simply chord inversions are when you rearrange the notes in a chord so that it sounds a bit different and suits your arrangement better
For example if you were in the key of C major you could have a drone of E playing underneath some strings playing the notes E G C E
Due to the fact that the notes are the same and have only been inverted the chord will still be in key with the rest of the music This is a great way to add a touch of variation to your music instead of using the same chord structure all the time
Arpeggios
Arpeggios are much easier to understand than they sound They are quite simply the first third and fifth note of the scale played as individual notes For example the arpeggio of C minor would be C Eb G C etc
A great example of an arpeggio is the bassline in Bengarsquos ldquoCrunked Uprdquo He goes from playing the F minor arpeggio backwards to playing the F minor arpeggio backwards In other words he is playing
C A F and then C Ab F
Experiment with a few Minor Arpeggios and a couple of Diminished Arpeggios and you canrsquot go wrong in writing a huge bassline
Suggested Reading
List of All Scales With Finger Charts Included
Well thatrsquos it folks Thatrsquos basically all the music theory you need to know to start off with As you grow more used to the various scales yoursquoll notice that certain notes sound good with each other whilst others donrsquot Irsquom not here to tell you how to write music Irsquom here to teach you the language
of music Itrsquos up to you to write the poetry
copy Bruno Crosier (klimaxx) 2008
45 Random Tips
Random tips amp best piece of advice thread
5 Resources
Page 38
51 Books amp Magazines
Hello again people
Does anyone know of more music production books magazines or authors we can add to these lists
Thanks
------------------------------------------------
Music Production Magazines Computer Music - httpwwwcomputermusiccouk Music Tech Magazine - httpwwwmusictechmagcouk Future Music - httpwwwfuturemusiccouk Sound on Sound - httpwwwsoundonsoundcom Remix Magazine - httpremixmagcom Mix Magazine - httpmixonlinecom Electronic Musician - httpemusiciancom EQ Magazine - httpwwweqmagcom Audio Technology - wwwaudiotechnologycomau Tape Op - httpwwwtapeopcom
------------------------------------------------
Music Books
Authors Curtis Roads httpmitpressmiteducatalogauthor aspaid=93 - The Computer Music Tutorial (Really really really good book) Paul White - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea ul20White - Basic Series + more Rick Snowman - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea k20Snoman - The Dance Music Manual Tools Toys and Techniques Bobby Owsinski - httpbooksgooglecoukbooksas_auth=Bobby+Owsinski - The MixingRecording amp Mastering Engineers Handbooks Michael Paul Stavrou - httpwwwmixingwithyourmindcom
Publishers Thomson Course Technology - httpcoursecengagecom (Click on the Music Technology tab) - Series published include Power Overdrive Ignite and CSI Series + many more Backbeat Books - httpwwwbackbeatbookscom ndash Power Tools Series + many more Wiley Publishing - httpwwwdummiescom (Enter music in their search bar) - For Dummies Series Penguin Books - httpuspenguingroupcom (Enter music in their search bar) - The Complete Idiots Guide Series + many more MIT Press - httpmitpressmitedu - Many books on music theory Focal Press - httpwwwfocalpresscom - (Enter music in their search bar)
------------------------------------------------
Online Music Book Stores (We need more links here Do you know of any that we can add)
httpwwwmixbookscom ndash Excellent source that sells only books about music
Page 39
httpwwwamazoncom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
httpwwwbarnesandnoblecom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
------------------------------------------------
52 Wikipedia
A good music lexicon wiki Search for your term in the search bar ---gt httpenaudiolexicorgwikiMain_Page
0-9
14rdquo Jack - httpenwikipediaorgwikiJack_plug 3rd Bridge - httpenwikipediaorgwiki3rd_Bridge
Zero Crossing - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_crossing Zero Crossing Rate - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_Crossing_Rate
53 Other recommended production forums
for Logic users this is the shit httpwwwlogicprohelpcom
Ive found both these forums to be full of knowledgeable producers amp musicians
httpwwwkvraudiocomforum
httpacapellaharmony-centralcomforumsindexphp
httpwwwgearslutzcomboard
httpwwwsoundonsoundcomforum
httpwwwmusicradarcomforum
httpwwwidmforumscom
httpwwwdance-industriescomphpBB2 8cffbb3b02
httpwwwsubvertcentralcomforumindexphp
httpwwwbreakbeatcouk
httpwwwtweakheadzcom
httpwwwabletoncompagesforum
Explains lots about the music industry ---gt httpwwwbemusocom
Page 47
Ok so a massive thanks to all the contributors there are literally too many to mention But Thanks to Futures Untold Johnny Beat Klimaxx Deadly Habit amp JunglistRendr Daft Cunt in perticular
Thanks to all the artists producers and general music geeks making this early revision of the production bible an essential read
There are links missing and will be included in version 21(Please help with the unlinked chapters by going here - httpwwwdubstepforumcomthe-dubstep-production-bible-updated-2009-06-03-t14797html and updating missing info as needed)
Compiled by Daft Cunt and Futures Untold PDF Compiled by Depone
Page 14
httpwwwoneshotsamplescom httpwwwp2pnetnet httpwwwparadox-tunesdevu httpwwwpartnersinrhymecomcontontentssfxhtml httpwwwpeaceloveproductionscom (quality loops) httpwwwpeffcomreasonarchivenrpbhtml httpwwwpersonalcopycomsfarkfontshtm httpwwwphalanxcoukloopshtml httpwwwphatdrumloopscom httpwwwphatdrumloopscomold_site httpwwwphatdrumloopscomold_site (old skool breakz) httpwwwpitchforkmediacom httpwwwplatinumloopscom httpwwwplatinumloopscom httpwwwplug-in-worlddeindexhtml + downloads links etc ACHTUNG in deutsch httpwwwpocketfuelcom httpwwwpocketfuelcom (quality drums and more) httpwwwpocketfuelcom httpwwwpowerhouse-remixcombreakshtml httpwwwprimesoundscomprime2homejhtml httpwwwprofusioncom httpwwwprosoundwebcom httpwwwpyraplasticcomsampleshtm httpwwwq-musiccoukplatinumhtm httpwwwqueryservercomwebhtm httpwwwremixworldcomru httpwwwroyaltyfreemusicproductioncom httpwwwsamplearenacomsiteshtm httpwwwsamplecellcomdwnld1html httpwwwsamplecitynet httpwwwsamplecitynet (Shouts to Arctic^) httpwwwsamplecitynetindexhtml httpwwwsamplemaniaorg httpwwwsamplenetcouk httpwwwsamplenetcouk httpwwwsamplepoolzde httpwwwsamplepoolzde httpwwwsamples4unet httpwwwsamplezde httpwwwsamplezde httpwwwsamplezoneorg httpwwwsearchcom httpwwwsearchalotcomTopArtsamplesandLoops httpwwwslickmediacomsuperindex2html httpwwwsmallfishcoukhtmlhomepageasp httpwwwsonicfoundrycomloop_libraries httpwwwsonichoundcom httpwwwsonicimplantscom httpwwwsonicimplantscomfreesoundfontshtm httpwwwsonicmayhemcomsite_iehtml httpwwwsonicspotcomvstdxadaptervstdxadapterhtml httpwwwsonomiccom httpwwwsospubscouk + home of sound on sound httpwwwsoundburstcompolisixhtml httpwwwsoundburstcomtechnolabhtml httpwwwsoundcentralcom httpwwwsounddogscom httpwwwsounddogscom lt- lots and lots and lots of FX and samples made for media work an stuff httpwwwsounddogscomsearchresupKeyword=Loops httpwwwsoundeffectscom httpwwwsoundeffectscommusloopandsa1html httpwwwsound-effects-librarycom httpwwwsoundfontscomfreesoundfontsasp httpwwwsoundfontsit httpwwwsoundfxcomkillersoundmusiclibrarieshtm httpwwwsoundfxshopcom httpwwwsoundhuntercom httpwwwsoundofthewebcomsoundeffects
Page 15
httpwwwsound-planetdetopsitestopsites5html httpwwwsoundprozcom httpwwwsoundsonlinecom httpwwwsoundsonlinecomrevAI-100shtml httpwwwsoundsreasonablenet httpwwwsoundusercomlinkssamplesdownloadcfm httpwwwsoundzoneinfoindexphpzone=7section=2 httpwwwsquarecirclecouklinkshtml httpwwwsseyocomshowcasedemossoundfontshtml httpwwwsteinbergnet httpwwwstelaxyde httpwwwstonewashednetsfxhtml httpwwwstormtroniccoukfnpacapellashtml httpwwwstormtroniccoukghettobass httpwwwstudiocoverscom httpwwwstudiocoverscom links tutorials etc httpwwwstudioptcomaudio1html httpwwwsumerauerdeearly_patchshdownloadhtm httpwwwsuper-groovecomseppagesfree_loopsasp httpwwwsuperloopscomdefaulthtm httpwwwsurfwaxcom httpwwwsynthzonecomdrumshtm httpwwwsynthzonecomdrumshtm + links to drum sounds httpwwwsynthzonecomsamplinghtm httpwwwtapegermcomfreeloops httpwwwtasemixde httpwwwtcworksdehomecontentcomerender_top httpwwwtechnotoyscomsamplehtm httpwwwthelooplibrarycomindexhtml httpwwwthesoundsitenet httpwwwthesoundsitenet lt-- Mixed sample formats httpwwwthespeakerboycom httpwwwtigerbillcomsubjectsdloopshtm httpwwwtokyoloungecomculturetvhtml There is a pretty good article I wrote that mentions her httpwwwtopsitelistscomstartagtopsiteshtml - lots of links httpwwwtru-playazcouk httpwwwtsunamiwavscom httpwwwtutorialfindcomtutorialsmusic httpwwwtweakheadzcom httpwwwtweakheadzcomsampleshtml httpwwwtwilightrecordingstudiocom httpwwwtwilightrecordingstudiocomFreesampleshtm httpwwwucpzonecomacapsphp httpwwwunited-trackersorg2000asppost_id=357 httpwwwutopiasdcomutopialiveindex_livehtml httpwwwvgmusiccom httpwwwvirtualbassplayercom httpwwwvirtualdarknesscom httpwwwvirtualsoundstudiocomindexshtml info links etc httpwwwvisibleformcoukfreemusichtml httpwwwvorbiscom httpwwwwindowsxp-driverscom httpwwwwindriverscom httpwwwwixeasynetbeFREE_SAMPee_sampleshtml httpwwwwyzecomsampleshacksampleshackhtml httpwwwxdancecjbnet httpwwwxs4allnl~brainsampleshtml httpwwwyogencomvocalremover httpwwwzero-gcouk httpwww14brinkstercomhousesamplesahtml www123artistcomartArtsMusicSoples_and_Loops www16bitsamplescomindexhtml www4musicmindscom www714cartelcomloopsloopshtml wwwa1freesoundeffectscom wwwacapella-heaventk wwwacapella-heaventk wwwacapella-heaventkvocals
Here is a list of the most popular freeware analysers available
Voxengo SPAN
Bluecat Audio Freqanalyst
Roger Nichols Inspector
Page 20
For a long list of other free analysers visit httpwwwgersiccompluginsindexphpdaCat=2
3 Techniques
31 Bass311 Sub Bass
Sub-bass is a term used to describe audible sounds below 90Hz - sound in the range below this (under 16-17Hz) would be termed infrasound Sound systems often feature a subwoofer that is dedicated solely to amplifying sounds in the lower bass and sub-bass range Source Wikipedia
So the idea is to have the sub going up to ~90Hz The exact frequency it should be cut at depend on the kicks frequency Lets say you HP your kick at 100Hz then the sub should be LPed at 100Hz so they compliment each other without clashing
There are several ways of creating a sub here are the most common 1 - using a unique waveform (sine saw square or triangle) will give you a nice linear sub NB You dont need to filter out a sine wave as it doesnt have overtones 2 - using detuned waveforms take 2 identical waves (sine saw square or triangle) and detune them - lets say -25 +25 semitone This will produce a phase effect and give movement to your sub but itll also cause large volume amplitude and youll need to compress it after filtering Great Massive tutorial by Subfocus here 3 - using a 808 kick you dont have a TR-808 Grab that pack
jobbanaught wroteAn easy option to get a powerful subbass is to take a 808 kick sample put it in your favorite sampler and loop a single cycle of the waverform somewhere in the middle of the sample The 808 kick is made of a sine and some additional white noise The sine gives your sub that rattling low end pressure and the noise adds overtonesgrittiness = instant badass subbass
You can find more tips about mixing your kick n sub in the Random bass tips thread
312 lsquoWobblersquo
Page 21
Wobble GuideWobble Bass
Wobble Bass as it is known is simply a bassline that has an LFO assigned to a Low Pass Filter as an insert effect LFOstands for Low Frequency Oscillator and is used to change a sound by a defined speed (measured in either Hz or synced to the Tempo in relation to the barsnotes through quantization) The way the LFO changes the sound is up to you you can make the LFO adjust the Volume the amount of Saturation Filter Cutoff etc Basically any parameter you link it to Essentially you are just using the LFO to send a changing value to a parameter
--------------------
How to get a simple wobble bass
1) Choose a simple sound on your synth (Anything apart from a Sine wave )
2) Select your LFO and set it to the speed you want (18 would be a good starting point)
3) Now assign the LFO to the Filter Cutoff Which should for this example be a Low Pass Filter as the sound were going for is a deep bass
4) You now have a basic wobble bass from here the possibilities for tweaking this sound are endless
--------------------
A quick breakdown of whats actually going on Essentially you are taking a sound (that can be an audio files generated by a synth etc) and then passing it through a Low Pass Filter Now what exactly does a Low Pass Filter do you ask
A Low Pass Filter allows Low Frequency signals to pass through it but reduces the amplitude (volume) of all the Frequencies above the cutoff point In general most plug-ins have various Low Pass Filter settings where the more poles it has the more Dbs it will cut and will yield a harder knee to it Example 1 Pole Filter with a -6dBOct reduction Vs a 2 Pole Filter reducing -12DbOct However you dont necessarily need a LFO controlling your Low Pass Filter Cutoff frequency value you could just draw in the Automation yourself but a LFO will yield a loop of consistent values and prevents the possibility of human error All the LFO is doing is sending a value to your frequency cutoff to keep it consistently changing
--------------------
Tips amp Advice
1) Sub bass wobble would normally be a Sine wave at around the 40-50 Hz range which would repeat the same chords as the mid-range bass wobble The only difference being that with a sub bass wobble there is no point in assigning the LFO to a Low Pass Filter because the sound is too low for the low pass filter to have any effect so theLFO is assigned to the amplitude (volume) instead Another reason for not applying a Low Pass Filter to the Sub bass is because it would typically be a Sine wave which possesses no Harmonics to be adjusted by the Filter
2) The sound of an LFO can also be adjusted by the wave type you choose The default setting for an LFO generator is a Sine wave although on most synths you can chose from Triangle Sawtooth Square wave Random Noise To get a nice sounding bass it is a good idea to use as many oscillators as possible on different octaves
3) Try messing around with the attack and release of your sound as this can have an impact on the sound of the bass Long attacks tend to create a more ambient sound and is a technique traditionally used with ambient pads
Page 22
4) Something that I find useful is to bounce the bassline to a wav file so that it can be chopped up and put in-sync with other elements of the song because the majority of the time you will find the first wave of sound in the wobble bassline will will be half the length of the other waves due to attack rates So the best thing to do is to chop that freak sound off the beginning of the file in your DAW (Logic Pro Reason Cubase etc) and start off with the second wave which should be fully formed This way it will not be too early of late when keeping in sync with other elements such as a second bassline
5) Another method you can use is creating a clone layer of your original sound and setting up a new LFO setup for that to beat alternatively in the space left by the original LFO Or go that crazy Drum amp Bass Reese route and split the frequencies to Low Mid and High then set different LFO rates for each band then recombine into one sound
6) For more variation automate your LFO speed and intensity
7) Where you place insert effects in relation to the filter (pre or post) will yield different sounding results
8) Other methods to achieve a wobble like sound Tremolo (This effects volume rather than frequency) FM Synthesis Modulation of PWM Oscillator Pitch assigned (in a liberal amount) to LFO Filter Envelope assigned to LFO (using a re-triggered envelope) (submitted by Faun2500)
9) Assign a second LFO to modulate the speed of the first LFO
LFO Shapes
Sine wave The smooth value change possible
Triangle Similar to a Sine wave but slightly more ramped amp synthetic sounding
Random A mixed bag
Sawtooth Will have a very fast attack with a slower release which will sound very rugged
Square wave Will be a simple open close style Very harsh and will generally cause a very harsh sound (Often used in DJ Hazard style bass-lines) Detune two square waves for a nice dark sounding bass
Waveforms submitted by Skells wrotehttpi228photobucketcomalbumsee83 cleanjpgSimple Filter Sweep
httpi228photobucketcomalbumsee83 wobblejpgSine Wave LFO assigned to Filter Cutoff
LINKS etc
Fruity Loops Wobble Tutorial (Link submitted by Wub) Massive Wobble YouTube Tutorial (Video created by thesynthesist) Pause amp Play Wobble Tutorial (Link submitted by dubmo) Albino3 Wobble Guide (Guide created by axon)
By Rendr amp Deadly Habit and a little help from Macc
313 lsquoReecersquo
The Reese Bass
Page 23
History Lesson
The Reese bass was a form of huge sounding synth-bass first used by the Detroit Techno producer Kevin Saunderson aka Master Reese aka Reese Project aka on the track Just Want Another Chance and immortalised in the classic DnB track Terrorist by Renegade Since then it has been (over)used in many a DnB track and continues to evolve even nowadays through Dubstep and Jungle It is said to be as influential to DnB as the Amen break and probably as used and abused as the Amen
Capturing the Beast
1The Oscillator Stage
To nail the Reese you need a synth with at least 2 oscillators but for better-bigger results use as many oscillators as you can (not really but 4 oscillators give a nice deep rumble - ahhhhhh) All the oscillators are playing sawtooth waves and all except one are detuned by 25-50 cents so that all oscillators are out of phase with each other
2 The Filter Stage
The signal is then sent to a low-pass filter with the cutoff freq set around 150-200Hz (experiment with that you want the growl of the mid-frequencies but you also want it as deep as possible without sacrificing the midrange) The resonance of the filter should be cranked up almost all the way (but again tweak accordingly to your filtersynth)
3 Fuzz it Up
The second most important aspect of the Reese (after the detuned sawtooths) is distortion Tube distortion and tape saturation work extremely well but dont hesitate to use other more extreme distortion units (dont forget that the Reese has been done a million times you have to add something original to it) Again adjust to taste
4 Spices and Herbs
Now that is the main recipe for the sound but like all haute-cuisine there are more things you can do to spice up the Reese Namely effects Effects that have been associated with the Reese are
Phasers - to accentuate the phase-shifting effect of the detuned sawtooths Unison - a great way to make it even bigger Chorus - again a good way to phatten it up
5 And Some More Synth Magic
Another thing to do so you can bring out the old-school jungle character of the Reese is to use Legato and PortamentoGlide if your syth of choice has them available These are both great ways to move from one note to the next without listening to the transition To put it simply when legato is on and you play a sustained E followed by a sustained G the transition between the two notes gives the listener the impression that they heard a single note being sustained that has just changed its pitch from E to G without pausing at a certain point
Always remember though that if you use Legato you have to turn the polyphony of your synth down to 1 (something you should almost always do with basslines because two bass-notes playing together almost never sound good in electronic music bass chords are more the realm of prog-rock shit than dubstep)
For the more technical minded legato in synthesizers is a variation of monophonic operation In contrast to monophonic mode where every new note restarts the ADSR envelopes in legato mode they are not if the previous note remains depressed when the new note is played This causes the initial transient from the attack and decay phases to sound only once and the ADSRs to remain at sustain stage for the whole sequence of notes until the final note is released (Wikipedia)
EDIT I just found out that in one of the free vst links on the bible there is a thing called the Hotelsinus Reese Bassline Synth So I didnt miss the opportunity for a mini review The software itself is small (like most free vst-is) and quite easy to install (you just drop the dll in the vst folder) As for the sound weeeeeeell the sounds it produces are definitely Reese But weak somehow Its like listening to Terrorist from a battered cheap old cassette from 93 or something It has a tinny and tiny sound when compared to what you can achieve with powerhouses like Albino or
Page 24
Massive or (one of my personal favorites for Reese) Cakewalk Rupture You can try it if you want but i dont think it will impress steppers that much we are bass-headed folk
314 Random Bass Tips
Plz add yours or others youve spotted on the forum
miss_molinari wrotebasically i have been experimenting with cutting (not sidechaining) a notch (band reject) in the bass starting at 60hz and ending just before 70 this is only for those bass lines which only hit on the kick (quite specific) also the bass is then high passed at about 220hz to pretty much 0db which is where the kick starts (ending the kick with a non-too-aggressive-cut at about 2khz) this essentially means that the kick and the bass do not share any frequencies above abot 200hz but also between 60 and 70 and with them always hitting at the same time this gets around the fact that sidechaining this type of sequencing would leave you with no or little bass
this has worked well so far but is useful mainly for sub basses ending at around 250hz would not be as good for full spectrum wubsanyone else got any tech tips regarding the bass and kick
futures_untold wroteI simply cut everything under 90Hz on my kicks and roll off slightly at 1KHz
Sub I cut under 40Hz and roll off at 200Hz
I always compress both seperately and keep my levels low in the mix to create plenty of head room later whilst adding sounds with higher frequency content
Anything above 150Hz is what I consider midrange Anything above 150Hz can be heard on mobile phone speakers We all know that theyre designed to play heavy bass lol Wink
miss_molinari wroteDaft Cunt wroteTo me it feels like cutting the kick above 80 hz makes it sound weak I guess it depends on the style I rather cut below 60 to 80 depending on the tune
yeah its all about context in a dry minimal setting im of the opinion you can make a kick punch right up to about 180-200hz but yeah depends on when and on what kind of punch (im usually talking a bass hit at about 200hz coupled with a knock hit anywhere up to about 1200hz) i imagine you true dubsteppers prefer a denser thump from 60 through to about 300hz
Daft Cunt wroteI began recently the band-reject thing on the sub Little details that make big difference
And do you people cut the bass where the snare peaks
my basses arent usually middy enough to need that but yeah a slight sidechain on the main snare and say midbasspadwothavyer is nice especially if the limelight is stolen by a deeper sidechain on the kick and midbasspadwothavyer can create a nice flow (especially when used with long decay reveb linked to the midbasspadwothavyer so that it sounds louder and longer the higher the frequency played - might
have to post some piccies of that one )
Shonky wroteWhat Ive been doing lately is bouncing down the kick track lowpassing one somewhere between 100-140 depending on the highest frequencies of the low sub and then sidechaining the sub to the low kick
Then take a copy of the kick track highpass between 300-1000 and this will give you the beater noise to make the kick cut through I then sidechain this to the more middly basses You can also send a small amount to a reverb bus which allows you to avoid mud on the lower frequencies whilst still giving you the space
Doing it this way seems to make sense to me cause the sidechains work on the corresponding kicks in the same frequency range so it doesnt cause loads of unnecessary compression where you dont need it
Page 25
boh wroteAlways make sure your kicks are in tune with the rest of the track ull hear it pitching up and down and make sure if ur layering that the transients dont conflict(good monitors make this easy) It all comes down to kick selection Whats the point in cutting a kick at 80hz with a fundemental freq of say 60hz Sure you get whats happening before it but u wont get the nice thump of the fundemental freq Choose other kicks that hit the freq u want (80hz say) instead of cutting them when theres no need to Unless you really really know what your doing getting technical like this complicates the situation Esp for people with little experience
sullyharmitage wrote50 hz hi pass seems a bit high to me maybe gd for kicky techno or house but for subby stuff it seems a bit muchdefo roll off past 30-35 (most well engineered systems will do this anyways so any content below this is definately getting wasted)if yr gonna go higher make sure its a soft curvei find levelling subs is the hardest part of a mix - cos more always sounds better i remember reading breakage saying yr subs shouldnt add more than 3db to yr mix thats seems like a good guide
btw sub in kick an bassline simultaeously is gonna cause clashes (n maybe disortion) id either decrease the attack on the bass or cut the sub from the kick
unklefesta wroteI rolloff EVERYTHING at 40hz except my bass
standard
wang wroteAlways do it
Dont forget youre ROLLING off the frequencies not cutting them off all together Just a couple of dB of bass down there is enough to get some girth without removing all your headroom
Also analyse and cut off the lows on everything even if it doesnt appear to have messy lows -Youd be surprised how much bass there is in some high hats
Jtransition wroteAll of your tracks are going to be different so dont restrict yourself to a certain techniquetry different things and listen to the results
Shonky wrotewang wroteAlso analyse and cut off the lows on everything even if it doesnt appear to have messy lows -Youd be surprised how much bass there is in some high hats
Yep this is very true also worth filtering out the inaudible highs on low sounds as well found some of my subs which Id low passed still showed frequency activity much higher than expected
Jtransition wroteStick a high pass filter on everything apart form the kick drum and bass line70 hertz is a good starting point move up or down to tasteAnd remember try to mix at low levels(Walls not vibrating)
Deadly Habit wroteRendr wroteBasslines in my experience should be mono due to the fact that humans cannot easily decoded the stereo positioning of low frequencys so panning basslines (excluding bass sounds with high pitch sounds at around 500Hz+) is not recommended not only are the low frequencys hard to position with the human ear the low frequency sound waves are absorbed by the human head at a much higher ratio than high pitch sounds which tend to be reflected Another thing to note is that club systems are
mono Basslines that pan only belong in Psytrance
sub range should be mono especially if going to be cut to vinylmidrange bass on the other hand you can pan and add stereo fx to your hearts content
Page 26
32 Re-sampling
SafeAfter a few months of experimenting with resampling not really getting anywhere in terms of sound quality i came up with a pretty simple way of getting on the right track Ive got so much help since getting on this forum in terms of production i thought id share this for those who like myself are looking into the elusive yet highly rewarding technique of resamplingAll the vsts i use on this (save for the synth itself) are freenative plugs im using FL but itll transfer onto every DAW pretty much the same Ill explain it for a bassline but it can be applied to any sound
Step 1Make yourself a nice bassline get it sounding dirty with whatever you can within the synth Im using Albino so i tend to play about with the saturation modesFXs until its sounding pretty good
Step 2Hook up to a mixer channel then send this channel to a second mixer channel (FL users just click on another channel towards the bottom of the strip) On the second channel that the synth is hooked to from the first add CMt bitcrusher and downsample 3-16x (thanks to all the production forum users who pointed this out to me when i posted a few months ago on dirtying up basslines) Then add a chorus Turn the LFOs off and set the depthdelayetc to whatever sounds best Also set the crossover pretty high so only the treblehigh mids are being affected Then add Camel Audio Camel Crusher Turn the compressor off and set the tubemech to taste Add a parametric EQ if needs be to boost the high freqs Experiment with the chain of these effects swapping them according to the sound The choruscameleq in different orders should alter the sound quite alot depending on where their placed
Step 3 Set the level of the second affected channel with the original depending on whatever suits Play about with adding extra effects to both channels The way the second channel behaves once an effect is added to the first is quite extreme in even light application of effects So its possible to create a whole array of different sounds just from say adding a flangerchorusetc to the first channel then listening to how much it affects the sound as a whole as it goes through both channels By now it should be sounding pretty girthy
Step 4Export the riffsample (i use edison on the master channel in FL but whatever method will do) Reload and place into a mixer channel Add another Camel Crusher for abit more grit EQ and compress Set up a reverbdelay send and resample again for extra depth
Obviously this technique can be applied a 2nd3rd4th time to fuck the sound up even more so Which is what ive moved onto doing now into the territory of splitting the sound into basslow midhigh midtreble sections for ultimate control over each part Something which i was attempting to do before coming up with the above method but being left with a pile of unlistenable mushy shite
Hope this is a help to some peeps I know theres no secret technique to resamping only a whole load of practice and using your ears but this method got me on the right track in terms of hearing the benefits of it and encouraging me to experiment more in depth and realise that the possiblities are endless Im hooked now i resample pretty much every sound in one way or another Kick and snares benefit hugley from it for mega face melting wide drum sounds aswell so its worth trying it on some nice drum hits
Keep up the good work folksPeaceDC_WT
33 Drums
Read before reading on I am in no way entitled to any of those opinions It is up to you to decide whether you would like to incorporate them in your workflow I have just collected them from all the threads in this forum and will try to keep everything updated
I will update as regularly as I find updates
Page 27
Misc tips and tricks bull Good drums are usually layered - example 3 snares sounding as onebull The hats are often panned or widenedbull Pick great sounding samples different ones for different parts of the sounds you want 1
for snap and bite 1 for body 1 for thump distort and MAYBE EQ each to make them sound the best that they can separately combine in a bus MAYBE compress them together maybe accent the front and shorten the sound with a transient modifier 10 minutes tops
bull Do as little as possible with great-sounding bits and your basic sounds will be slamming leaves you time to focus on the arrangement people dont go around thinking wow that tune has an amazing snare as long as its thumping and not masked by a bunch of other stuff itll keep the dance moving
bull Listen to other producers work As its playing imagine the 1 2 3 4 on the step sequencer running in time to what youre listening to Try to visualize where the producer put their hits Not to say you should copy peoples drum patterns but learn from them
bull Ive noticed a lot of tunes (more minimal stuff where you can distinctly hear whats seperately going on) seem to use two differently pitched hi-hats that alternate to sound shuffley if you know what I mean and a less dramatic snare used sparsely in between the main lazy kick and snare An easy trick if you havent worked it out (which to be honest you should have if youre at all serious about producing dubstep) is to stick a smaller snare or hat the 116th before the kick or snare so it steps if you get me For example Bengas Night does this for all four beats in the bar which is part of what makes it so danceable But dont get stuck in always having kick on 1 and snare on 3 some tracks work with a kick on every beat others with a couple big snares etc The trick (unless you want proper lazy spaced out tunes) is to make sure youre nodding your head on all four beats of the bar Play around with a hat on every quaver (ie 8 per bar on the beat) compared to just four but on the off beat as well as adding in the steppy ones every now and then Theres often no need to over-complicate things though one of the my favourite drum tracks is the incredibly simplistic V by Distance Its a rhythm that could easilly be played by one guy on a real kit yet its so banging - check the use of hats and lower velocity kicks in this to make it nice and bouncy Also I once had a four bar drum loop and accidentally moved the sequence one bar to the right for one section and it ended up nicely varying the drums in a way you wouldnt expect
bull Really tight delays can help claps and snaps sound natural 5-20ms etcbull Recycle or phatmatik is your break-chopping friendbull Basically Hatrixxs method involved chopping everything from the main hits into a sample
Say you had a 2-step funk beat like the Amen Youd start your selection from the start of the first kick and select everything up to the start of the first snare Cut paste theres your first slice Then take everything from the start of the first snare up to the start of the second kick - including all the little hats and ghost hits - cut paste second sample and so on Then just map the samples onto some keys and bash away Both of them are quick compared to chopping Recycled slices where you have to copy and drag loads of little notes (one every little fucking tiny hit in the break arranged chromatically up the keyboard) around the piano roll These methods let you just concentrate on the main hits which can be both good or bad You can get a solid beat down with just a handful of hits but youre limited to the patterns already in the original break For a beginner to breakbeat science like yourself Id say try these methods first but dont rule out the really anal methods like RecyclePhatmatikFruity Slicer Sometimes they are a necessary evil Of course some of the drumfunk guys especially those who post on Subvert Central swear by these methods or the next one There are those who prefer to chop up the raw audio rather than bothering with MIDI and samplers They literally just drop the break file into Cubase or Logic and start chopping with the scissors tool and copying and pasting I can see the benefits of this You can see the waveform as youre chopping and youre not as restriced to the quantize grid as you are with MIDI But it takes aaaaages to build a drum track this way and theres the risk of RSI from all that Ctrl+C Ctrl+V youll be doing Then of course theres trackers They really are tailor-made for chopping up loops amongst other things They give you Sample Offset meaning that when you trigger a sample you can set it to start from 256 evenly spaced points throughout the sample So by starting a sample a quarter of the way through youre triggering the first snare (obviously you can fine-tune it when the snare isnt perfectly on the beat) You can edit breaks in a tracker without ever having to cut up a waveform and you can do all sorts of other nifty things like reverse the sample retrigger it to make drum rolls and so on
If recycles having trouble switch the break to mono in your sample editor and then apply tiny fades between the drum hits (especially useful if there are lots of rides that play over the other hits to keep things separate) This should help recycle pick up the start points and with any luck should leave you with a cleaner break
Page 28
Snaresbull Tune the snares so they all hit around the same pitch bull Change the Amp Envelopes of each to bring the strongest parts from each separate sample
and build up your sound like that bull Compressing all together is a good idea but dont over do it bull EQ the master out for the snare as well so you wont have to fuck about when you use the
sample in the future bull Donrsquot just use snares fling some random sound effects in there Claps and rim shots also
work well when layered bull Make subtle changes to them and export a few snares from the same setup this helps
when you need a ghost hit or a reverse that sounds similar but not identicalbull Watch that frequencies dont build up and make the layered bit sound overly whatever
is building up Really easy to get too much 200hz or 500hz or even 12k if youve got samples that are all beefythicksmack-y
bull If its peaking run it through a Spectrum Analyzer and see where its peaking I guess its peaking in the tune rather than just the snare sample playing on its own
bull Sometimes snare samples have a very short peak that doesnt seem to make them sound any better and keeps you from getting them louder without cliping Reduce that part by a few dBs and youre sorted
bull Make sure you are using subtractive eq to pull out the frequencies that could be clashing with other sounds If your frequencies are clashing that can hide the snare and then you end up turning it up to compensate and there you are with your snare peakingThe key is making the frequencies sit right in the mix so that they dont clash and you can set them right and not have to turn them up
bull You could always try clipping the snare normalise it in a wave editor amplify it as much as you can before it sounds distorted then sample it out Then replace the snare with the clipped version it will almost always sound louder with more body at a lower volume I would still point out that although this can be used as a replacement to compression compression is a vital tool to learn how to use Also a lot of peeps will say this does bad things to the waveform and it does but unless you intend to listen to your tune to be heard at home on an amazing hifi then it doesnt really matter that much IMO
bull Hi-pass overdrive limit and cut away space from other sounds for itbull Layer with its self or a different snare Layer with sub add effect to one layer add effect
to both layers layer zoom right in drag one wave form back or forth very slightly to create new snare sound Pitch updown EQ Filter distort reverb delay reverse
bull Record yourself beat boxing your best snare sounds then layer with snare samplesbull A good handclap never goes a miss or use a nice drum synth to get a very differentdigital
soundbull Try reversing the snare sample then changing the envelope settings so it only hits on the
beat Layer that with the same sample this time not reversed Add a little delay to the the reversed snare Change the settings til it sounds how you like
bull Particularly snares I layer up a lot I look for one that has the qualities that I want when run through verb and then I look for something shorter with more mid punch to keep things physical After someone notied snares were weak in a tune Ive really made a point of ensuring that when the snares hit its physical as well as textural You need to feel them a bit - so I look for some snares that have that real punch when layering but usually keep the more textural snappy one as the focus last couple tunes I did the standard kick snare hats w odd percussion and then I took an amen chopped it processed it and layered it overtop for more aggression and step (goddess being a perfect example) By removing a layer and adding it you can create a sense of progression through the tune Make sure the bottom layer is sounding really good and then add the top so that youre not mixing them to be reliant on one another - instead you want synergy Make sure the EQ on the top and bottom make sense with each other
Kicksbull Building a kick in Ableton Lives Impulse machine Provides some essential information
about layering that can be used with any DAWbull Making fat kicks
remixmag wroteWhether creating Miami Bass music is your lifes fantasy or your greatest fear you probably crave the know-how to manifest those car-rattling trunk-full-of-funk kick drums In the arenas of hip-hop house techno downtempo and almost any other electronic genre molding fat kick drums is absolutely essential Like grandmas homemade apple pie the recipe for kick drums is partially a matter of taste However theres no substitute for quality ingredients And just like every pie has its staple ingredients every slamming kick drum requires some common elements Lets take a look at the
Page 29
shopping list for killer kick drumsTHE CRUST
Youll need a basic shell to begin creating a thick strong kick The classics always work if youre fortunate enough to own a real Roland TR-808 909 or other famous drum machine with a killer kick use it copiously If youre not one of those chosen few pay close attention to your original source For example if you use a sampler understand that not all ldquo808 Kickrdquo samples are the same some sound great and some just plain suck There are a lot of reasons for that including how many generations from the original the sample is the sampling rate and bit depth of the sampler how the kick was first sampled and so on Be as choosy as possible with your individual samples mdash dont use a mediocre sample just because it has 808 in the name and therefore is ldquosupposedrdquo to sound fat Seek out a better 808 sample or use something else that is simply bigger sounding Remember the time you spend finding sweet original sources wont be in vain especially if you reuse the resulting samples for multiple songsBORROW SOME SUGAR
An old saying goes ldquoGood art borrows great art stealsrdquo A nice way to start out with great raw kick material is to sample directly from the source If you dont own but have access to a 909 then sample it directly Or take one of your favorite producers tracks on vinyl or CD find a naked kick drum in there and sample it Be cautious with that approach for a couple of reasons Copyright issues around sampling even small bits have become a dangerously gray area and I would never personally advise using any source straight out of the can even from a royalty-free sample library While it may be an excellent start its unoriginal Customize whatever you bite Treat your samples as a sculptor would treat clay mold each one to create a trademark sound for yourself One effective way to customize a fat kick is to take a tip from the synth manufacturers If a sound is thin pile another (or a few more) on top When doing so its important to use different sounds layering two identical kicks will result in a louder kick but it wont change the basic tone Remember the sculptor approach here Even if you are using two good-sounding individual samples they may not instantly sound great together For example I find that when layering kicks while the thickness may be good sustain is often overkill The final result often benefits from a little doctoring on the tail of one (or both) of the samples and other hands-on sonic surgeryADD THE FILLING
Once a nice basic kick is achieved treating it with two of the mastering engineers favorite tools is often the next step Artfully applying a compressor (to just the kick) can go a long way toward creating a signature sound and a huge kick Compression is one of those ldquosecret spicesrdquo and how to apply it is a whole topic in itself One recommendation I will make however is to use a multiband compressor With one of those you can isolate compression on certain frequency ranges That is perfect if for example you want to push the sub of your kick without emphasizing the higher frequencies (which often affect the tone of the attack) or vice-versa EQ comes after compression in my signal chain By now the kick should already sound pretty fat I aim to shave unnecessary frequencies here rather than artificially boosting too much This is also where you can actualize trademark sounds while also fine-tuning them to work alongside other elements in specific tracks I often scoop out mids and highs especially frequencies above about 500 Hz Even though I like thick deep kicks unless Im going for a really dublike sound I often truncate the lowest frequencies (usually the sub-50 Hz frequencies) Even when you cant hear the difference when trimming frequencies doing so can really tighten up your kicksEVEN IT OUT
You may ask why when youre trying to fatten up a kick would you want to trim frequencies That is one of the keys to achieving great mixes both in the case of kick drums and in general You want to avoid too many overlapping frequencies The more sonic separation you have between elements the more focused the entire mix will sound That can be especially important for club music which often gets played on huge not necessarily audiophile-quality sound systems If you havent run into the following scenario already I assure you at some point you will Your bass line and kick drum are competing and it sounds like you have a weak kick You boost the kick but it still sounds muddy Take the bass out and suddenly the kick doesnt sound so bad In a scenario like that solo the two sounds listen carefully for where frequencies are overlapping and then try subtractive EQ on one element then the other and sometimes a bit on both By scooping out overlapping frequencies you will often find that both elements seem to magically come forward in the mix before even touching their respective volume levels
Hi hatsbull Realism
Ive been a professional touring and recording drummer for 25 years and just thought I might share a couple of really simple ways to use fruity loops or fruity studio to create more realistic drum patterns
For what its worth try this out with Fruity Loops
Page 30
Take your hi hat tracks (are any tracks for that matter including melodic synth bubbles)
Drop down the bar graph box that allows you to scroll between velocity (volume) pitch panning cutoff resonance and a thing called shift which allows you to use each of these categories to effect each individual note that youve programmed (note this can be accomplished in other ways in most of the good midi sequencing apps or softwarehardware drum machines)
Drummers no matter how good they are just arent perfect and we can use the fact that each of these drop down bar graphs can make veryvery small changes in a sound to do some subtle things to a rolling drum groove like 16th notes on a hi hat
Not all drummers but many tend to favor their strong hand in a single stroke (hand over hand) drum roll Consequently if you make all odd numbered hi hats be slightly louder than their even numbered hits it will sound more realistic Start by making velocity differences that are really clearly audible Then lower the velocity until you can barely feel the difference We are going to make very subtle changes like this on each of the parameters of velocity pitch cutoff resonance and importantly shift
I cant stress enough that you should make these changes be so subtle that you can hardly notice them
Just going on the fact that the right handed players start their rolls with the right hand and favor it ever so slightly (or grossly for effect as well) means that the stroke will be harder with the right hand than the left hand
When a percussion instrument is hit harder the difference between the transient (or hi pitched attack) of the sound and the body of the instrument (or the sound that comes after the attack) becomes greater In general on drums that means that a harder attack tensions the drum very imperceptably (sp) and it also means that there will be more treble in the sound Consequently the pitch goes up a little teensy bit and their is more attack to the sound (increased resonance and slightly higher cutoff frequency)
Consequently you can make the pitch of each right hand be just barely noticeably higher the resonance should be just one or two of those little teeny bars higher The cutoff should be just a few bars lower (allowing less high frequencies through) on the left handed or even numbered strokes
Typically if drums have time inaccuracies they tend to drag the left hand a litte bit I have to keep stressing that if you can hear the changes you make you arent being realistic You need to make the changes subtle enough that you just barely feel that they arent perfect You can consequently make each left hand note shifted one or two bars late
Tigure out how much you can tweak each parameter before it becomes obvious and then you can just randomly tweak each one up to that limit With a little bit of variance in each stroke from parameter to parameter you will create more of a percolating texture in your programming - this is a great technique to make synth bubbles (the kind used in techno and house) more interesting and less mechanical feeling
Now you can avoid the biggest mistake that non-drummers do when trying to write realistic programs turn the overall volume of the hihats until you CANT hear them and then slowly bring up the volume until you just begin to hear them
Professional producers have spent countless hours trying to figure out how to gate and mix hihats OUT of tracks The reason is two fold1) Human beings have such a radical peak in their hearing around the 1-2khz range (or the intelligibility range of human speech) that we can play the hihats at incredible low volumes and they are still audible You cant do that with a bass drumI tell my drum students that you cannot play a hi hat or a snare drum so quietly that a person sitting in a room with you cant hear it2) Hi Hats the snare of snare drums and cymbals all seriously MASK human vocal intellibility How many people have gone to see live shows where they can hear the singer is singing but cant for the life of them figure out what they are actually singing That is ususally because drummers (or mixers which is frequently the case) are not hip to thisimportant fact
So turn down your hi hat tracks (or any track with a strong mid rangeshort envelope attack) and you have much more room for other musical goodies in your mix When in doubt make your hi hats quieter than you think they should be Trust me theyll come through the mix even at a quiet volume
Swingbull Dont know if you can do this in your sequencer but in Logic you can create a groove
template from your drums and then apply that to your other instruments If youre using separate midi channels for snares kicks and hats take the 8 bar loop youre using glue it together and then take the groove from that and then mute that track When you click down the quantize list youll see the template there and you can apply it to your other tracks Also if you do want to change the groove you can just change the hits in the muted template and itll automatically change all other hits to the new changes
bull Think if youre clever and organized you can basically cut breaks up in recycle load them into the exs24 (extract sequence) and then do the same with them That way if there are breaks you like the feel of you can just apply that swing to anything If you make a folder called grooves in your logic folder they should load up each time so that youll have loads to choose from Havent done this myself yet but always helpful to have a choice of feels available
bull Some things sound better rigid and robotic with equal velocities Some things sound better rigid and robotic with differing velocities Some things sound better with swing Some things sound better with everything ever-so-slightly off Its down to what the track needs
bull Drum Break Swing ProgrammingNicolas Hall wwwbreakbeat-cafenet wroteI think most people who make anything funk breakbeat drum amp bass or hip-hop would agree that Swing is crucial to the effectiveness of a beat The other key factors in a programming sense are dynamic and accent So many people get wound up when their beats sound sterile or mechanical this is due to the fact that computers and sequencers lock to perfect BPM A computer on its own does not interpret rhythm the way a good drummer does There are however certain machines that have their own swing parameters like the Akai MPC range of sampling drum machines which are used extensively by hip hop producers
Swing is not the easiest thing in the world to analyze but as a general rule good drummers will play slightly late and thats why in all funky records you get that slight dip at the start of the bar take Superstition by Stevie Wonder or Billie Jean by Michael Jackson these are both very simple beats Superstition is of course live drums whilst Billie Jean was programmed but no less funky than Superstition I emphasize this point to demonstrate that a programmed beat can be every bit at groovy as a beat played on a drum kit
Expanding on the Billie Jean point Hip Hop beats are really very simple If you listen to the Neptunes they tend to create the swing in their beats by quantizing the kicks and snares and playing the hi hats in by hand this creates a very tight beat which is off set by a loose hi hat try it works but dont forget your accents - As a starting point just take the first snare of your beat and turn the velocity down then notice how your head starts nodding and your foot starts tapping a little more you are giving the beat feel Also remember that if you are using reverb the louder snare will push the reverb harder than the soft snare so your creating more ambience that way Then try your kick drums if your not sure which hits to adjust just pick apart a beat your feeling I remember me and friend picking apart a Gangstarr beat and were able to almost replicate it by adjusting the velocities of each hit (admittedly it took a while to get it right)
If youre a newbie then a common trick when learning to make good grooves is to create a template with an existing loop The idea is take a loop you like thats got a good feel to it and then place your own hits over the break then take the break out and see if your hits are sounding funky This can take a while and its crucial to think about the strength of each hit or the dynamic Each kick will not be the same strength nor will the snares or the hats pick the loop apart dissect it and youll soon see that there are certain consistencies in all good beats
If youre using live loops and like to layer them with drum sequences you should be thinking about time space and frequencies So if you have a fairly heavy loop then layering it with heavy kick drums is probably not gonna sound good Think about filling holes are their any frequencies that could be filled up Or is there space in the loop for extra hits Try working in layers just adding one hit at a time also filtering works well you could take some of the frequencies out of your loop as you drop your drum sequences in to make room for them I think one the masters of this technique is Liam Howlett of the Prodigy He runs breakbeats and gives them extra balls by laying a kick drum underneath to add extra intensity to certain passages in his set but hes careful not to overlap frequencies to much A good place to start if you using breakbeats is the Roland Tr-808 kick drum which is around the 50hz mark which is sub bass territory so it will sit underneath most breaks very well
If your hell bent on making killer beats and loops then perseverance is crucial keep at it it will come together listen to beats you like and pick them apart identify the subtleties that make it happen I know some producers get fed up when their beats sound to clean or they are trying to create a new breakbeat and then compare it to sample they took from vinyl and get down on there own beat Think about what a breakbeat really is think about its history what has happened to it to make it sound the way it does Im
Page 32
sure youve noticed how some breaks have a certain something like a magic dust you cant put your finger on Let me share what I know with you about that
Most breaks though not all are taken from recordings of live drums some of them are pretty old so you have the ambience of live drums and the room they were recorded in you have the fact that natural decay and reverb of each drum is likely to have bled into the other mics on the kit and that most engineers used overhead mics which pick up the whole kit with two mics Then consider that many of these breaks will have been recorded to analogue tape with saturation which will create extra warmth and harmonics The next step comes from old sampling technology like the SP-1200 and the Akai s-950 mpc -60 these samplers sampled at 12- bit (bear in mind that most computers now are at least 24-bit if not more) and that the samples themselves where taken from vinyl and on and on the process goes with each new reverb and eq adding more and more to the break In terms of giving your breaks that character there are a number of things you can try for example buying an old four track cassette machine to dump your beats onto then re-sample it if your using a sampler like the s-950 then try pushing the input meters a little harder than usual add reverbs and resample it each time you put your loop through a new channel you will be adding something to it Also distortion is fantastic for breaks if you have any amp plug ins then try them the Amplitude one is particularly good you dont need to go mad with it just used subtly it works great
To finish I would just like to say again stick with it keep trying keep listening to records if you like to read about technique then do so you can learn so much from other producers Remember the strength of your hits is important as is the way it swings good luck
UPDATE 08092008
ENHANCE SYNTHESIZED DRUM PARTS WITH FOUND SOUNDS
emusiciancom wroteLayering real-world sounds with synthesized drum parts puts a new spin on your drum tracks You probably already have usable sound effects on your hard drive because most commercial samplers have at least a modest collection in their factory library Beyond that youll find thousands of royalty-free sound effects online Soundsnapcom is one of my favorite sources and its free The recordings dont need to be pristine for layering over drums so dont overlook cheap sampling CDs and consider grabbing your own sounds with a portable recorderCollect and Save
Start by assembling a small Foley library of short percussive sounds divided into typical drum-sound categories kicks snares toms cymbals percussion and so on Youll generally want to layer drum sounds with Foley sounds that have a similar volume contour and frequency range If you layer a Foley sound that resembles a kick drum with the sound of your hi-hat for example youll quickly fill up all the space in your drum track
Industrial household military transportation and vocal sounds make excellent fodder but you will often want to extract a small slice such as the last shot in a volley of machine-gun fire (snare) or the first bounce of a plastic bottle on concrete (tom) A browsing tool like Audio Finder (icedaudiocom) is invaluable if you have a large sample library That lets you quickly audition clips make basic edits and drag-and-drop slices to your library
Sticks UpIf your synthesized drum part is step sequenced youll need to export its step sequences as MIDI files Many drum synths do that including Sonic Charge Tonic (sonicchargecom) Apple Logic UltraBeat (applecom) and Submersible DrumCore (submersiblemusiccom) All of those come with a large collection of patterns exportable as MIDI sequences Youll also need a sampler to play the Foley sounds drum-oriented samplers are handier for that but are by no means necessary
Start by loading a kit in the drum synth Export one of its sequenced patterns or create your own and place it on the sampler track For some of the drum synth sounds select compatible Foley sounds and map them to the same notes in the sampler that theyre mapped to in the drum synth Next solo the doubled voices one by one in both the drum synth and the sampler start the sequence playing and tweak the samplers voice parameters (filter level pan envelope and so on) to make the sounds work together (see Fig 1 and Web Clip 1) Dont tweak global parameters such as effects because that will affect all sounds played by the sampler
High HoopsOnce youve configured your Foley track you can do several things to add interest I frequently use a
Page 33
second sampler for short vocal sounds Ill have some notes trigger sounds in both samplers and others in only one Many samplers let you group sounds and assign notes and controllers to choose among them You can then sequence these notes and controllers or you can play them live to alter your Foley tracks
Try applying DSP effects to individual Foley sounds Multitap delays distortion phasing and granular effects all work well when used sparingly (see Web Clip 2) You can apply DSP effects inside your sampler or route the voices to a separate output for DSP processing in your DAW If your sampler doesnt offer either possibility spread the Foley parts over several sampler instances on different tracks
Sidechain compression or gating of the drum track with one or more of the Foley parts will highlight the Foley part as well as add variety to the drums With compression peaks in the sidechain signal will reduce the level of the drum track Use a high compression level say 201 and balance the sidechain-gain and the compression-threshold -attack and -release controls to get the ducking contour you want (see Web Clip 3) Gating has the opposite effect the drum track will be heard during peaks in the sidechain signal (see Web Clip 4) Here too the sidechain-gain and gate-threshold controls work in tandem to determine when the gate is opened Use envelope parameters (attack release and hold) to shape the gates contour
Keep in mind that once youve created a sampler instrument to complement your drum kit you can reuse it with other sequences You can also change one or more sounds in the sampler instrument without repeating the whole process
34 Sidechain Compression (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
4 Theory41 ndash Song Structure42 ndash Mixdown (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)43 ndash Mastering (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
44 Music Theory
The first thing to remember about music theory is that generally if it sounds right it probably is There are no rules in music and Music Theory is not about telling you how to write music Its about understanding the music
Broadly speaking it is fair to say that most music is essentially based upon two crucial factors scales and rhythm Scales make up melodies chords harmonies and basslines to name but a few whereas rhythm makes up the beat of the song In this part of the Production Bible you will learn the basics of Music Theory that will serve you not only in the production of Dubstep but for any of your future musical pursuits This information is intended to be easy to read and understand so I wonrsquot be mincing sentences But firstly please make sure you learn every single note on the keyboard by studying the image below Otherwise yoursquoll be completely lost here
Page 34
Scales Wersquoll begin with scales As I mentioned before scales are the building blocks of your song and without them your track will be atonal and completely unlistenable (probably not the effect yoursquore going for)
There are two main scales that you should learn inside out ndash the major scale and the minor scale A generalisation yoursquore bound to have heard before is that the major scale sounds ldquohappyrdquo and the minor scale sounds ldquodarkrdquo Although this is not always the case it is mostly true ndash and therefore yoursquoll usually be focussing on the minor scale when producing Dubstep However just in case yoursquore writing happy-dubstep (if that exists) here is a quick overview of both scales and how they are made up
Major Scale
The major scale is really easy to create It is made by a single rule that is simple to put in to place
ldquoTone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
In case you donrsquot know what a Tone or Semi-Tone is here is a quick explanation
Picture a keyboard (or if you canrsquot see the image above) Say you go from C to C that would be a semi-tone The same thing goes for if you go from an E to an F ndash it is still a semi-tone because you
Page 35
have gone up one key
A tone is two semi-tones ndash for example from C to D is a tone and the same goes for from G to A
The scalersquos name is taken from the note that it starts on For example C major will start on the note of C Similarly A major will start on the note of A and this is the case with every single scale
Here is a quick list of a few major scales After having seen a few try working the rest out for yourself in order to understand how the major scale is formulated Ideally you should practice your scales on a piano or keyboard so that you can physically see how to make the scale It might sound boring but itrsquos a small price to pay for a much deeper understanding of your music
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Major C D E F G A B C
C Major C D E F G A B C
D Major D E F G A B C D
D Major D E F G A B C D
E Major E F G A B C D E
F Major F G A Bb C D E F
F Major F G A B C D E F
G Major G A B C D E F G
G Major G A B C D E F G
A Major A B C D E F G A
A Major A B C D E F G A
B major B C D E F G A B
Now by arranging the different notes of each of these scales in any order you please you can create a melody bassline or harmony with extreme ease Rearranging the notes in the scale will give you a flawlessly in-key result and it is then up to you to use the notes in the scale as you see fit for your tune
Minor Scale
As was the case with the Major Scale the Minor is made up from a set rule or formula By knowing this formula you can understand how the Minor is made and how to use it to itrsquos maximum effect
ldquoTone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
As is the case with the major scales you should practice your scales as much as possible to make sure that you know them all like the back of your hand Here are a few Minor Scales see if you can
Page 36
work out the rest
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Minor C D Eb F G Ab B C
D Minor D E F G A Bb C D
F Minor F G A B C D E F
G Minor G A Bb C D Eb F G
Similarly to the Major now that you know your Minor Scales you can quickly just take any note from the scale rearrange it with another few notes in the scale and there you have a fat melody or bassline ready to be played at maximum volume
Diminished Chords
Diminished Chords are really quite spooky and dark chords that are made up of four different notes all a minor third apart from each other That means that for example the Diminished Chord starting on C would be C Eb F A because to get from one note to the next you have to use ldquoTone Semi-Tonerdquo (known as a minor third)
Because of the mathematical nature of the Diminished chord there are only three ldquoclustersrdquo of notes which can then be rearranged like the Major and Minor Scales
Cluster 1 C Eb F A
Cluster 2 C E G Bb
Cluster 3 D F Ab B
Use these clusters and rearrange them as you please For example you could rearrange cluster 1 as Eb F A C etc
Generally speaking you canrsquot make a song based entirely on Diminished Chords due to the fact that each cluster only has 4 notes However a Diminished Chord is perfect for adding a hint of darkness to your tune and is brilliant when mixed with some Minor Scales
Chords
Chords are basically two or more notes played together They are made up from a specific scale ndash for example the C major chord is made up of notes in the C major scale
Usually chords will include the first third and fifth note of the scale as well as possibly using other notes to give them colour For example the basic chord of C major would be C E G Then you could add the seventh note to it (in this case it is B) Really it is up to the producerrsquos discretion how heshe goes about making a chord ndash just remember to stick to the scale you are using
Chords will more than likely sound like shit if you play them on a complicated or layered synth patch You want to be playing chords on sustained sounds such as strings or pads Chords will really fill out your sound if used properly You want your chords to be supporting the melody or bassline and more than likely want to add some reverb so that it doesnrsquot sound too sharp Make
Page 37
your chords blend in with the music and yoursquoll have mastered them
Chord Inversions
Quite simply chord inversions are when you rearrange the notes in a chord so that it sounds a bit different and suits your arrangement better
For example if you were in the key of C major you could have a drone of E playing underneath some strings playing the notes E G C E
Due to the fact that the notes are the same and have only been inverted the chord will still be in key with the rest of the music This is a great way to add a touch of variation to your music instead of using the same chord structure all the time
Arpeggios
Arpeggios are much easier to understand than they sound They are quite simply the first third and fifth note of the scale played as individual notes For example the arpeggio of C minor would be C Eb G C etc
A great example of an arpeggio is the bassline in Bengarsquos ldquoCrunked Uprdquo He goes from playing the F minor arpeggio backwards to playing the F minor arpeggio backwards In other words he is playing
C A F and then C Ab F
Experiment with a few Minor Arpeggios and a couple of Diminished Arpeggios and you canrsquot go wrong in writing a huge bassline
Suggested Reading
List of All Scales With Finger Charts Included
Well thatrsquos it folks Thatrsquos basically all the music theory you need to know to start off with As you grow more used to the various scales yoursquoll notice that certain notes sound good with each other whilst others donrsquot Irsquom not here to tell you how to write music Irsquom here to teach you the language
of music Itrsquos up to you to write the poetry
copy Bruno Crosier (klimaxx) 2008
45 Random Tips
Random tips amp best piece of advice thread
5 Resources
Page 38
51 Books amp Magazines
Hello again people
Does anyone know of more music production books magazines or authors we can add to these lists
Thanks
------------------------------------------------
Music Production Magazines Computer Music - httpwwwcomputermusiccouk Music Tech Magazine - httpwwwmusictechmagcouk Future Music - httpwwwfuturemusiccouk Sound on Sound - httpwwwsoundonsoundcom Remix Magazine - httpremixmagcom Mix Magazine - httpmixonlinecom Electronic Musician - httpemusiciancom EQ Magazine - httpwwweqmagcom Audio Technology - wwwaudiotechnologycomau Tape Op - httpwwwtapeopcom
------------------------------------------------
Music Books
Authors Curtis Roads httpmitpressmiteducatalogauthor aspaid=93 - The Computer Music Tutorial (Really really really good book) Paul White - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea ul20White - Basic Series + more Rick Snowman - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea k20Snoman - The Dance Music Manual Tools Toys and Techniques Bobby Owsinski - httpbooksgooglecoukbooksas_auth=Bobby+Owsinski - The MixingRecording amp Mastering Engineers Handbooks Michael Paul Stavrou - httpwwwmixingwithyourmindcom
Publishers Thomson Course Technology - httpcoursecengagecom (Click on the Music Technology tab) - Series published include Power Overdrive Ignite and CSI Series + many more Backbeat Books - httpwwwbackbeatbookscom ndash Power Tools Series + many more Wiley Publishing - httpwwwdummiescom (Enter music in their search bar) - For Dummies Series Penguin Books - httpuspenguingroupcom (Enter music in their search bar) - The Complete Idiots Guide Series + many more MIT Press - httpmitpressmitedu - Many books on music theory Focal Press - httpwwwfocalpresscom - (Enter music in their search bar)
------------------------------------------------
Online Music Book Stores (We need more links here Do you know of any that we can add)
httpwwwmixbookscom ndash Excellent source that sells only books about music
Page 39
httpwwwamazoncom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
httpwwwbarnesandnoblecom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
------------------------------------------------
52 Wikipedia
A good music lexicon wiki Search for your term in the search bar ---gt httpenaudiolexicorgwikiMain_Page
0-9
14rdquo Jack - httpenwikipediaorgwikiJack_plug 3rd Bridge - httpenwikipediaorgwiki3rd_Bridge
Zero Crossing - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_crossing Zero Crossing Rate - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_Crossing_Rate
53 Other recommended production forums
for Logic users this is the shit httpwwwlogicprohelpcom
Ive found both these forums to be full of knowledgeable producers amp musicians
httpwwwkvraudiocomforum
httpacapellaharmony-centralcomforumsindexphp
httpwwwgearslutzcomboard
httpwwwsoundonsoundcomforum
httpwwwmusicradarcomforum
httpwwwidmforumscom
httpwwwdance-industriescomphpBB2 8cffbb3b02
httpwwwsubvertcentralcomforumindexphp
httpwwwbreakbeatcouk
httpwwwtweakheadzcom
httpwwwabletoncompagesforum
Explains lots about the music industry ---gt httpwwwbemusocom
Page 47
Ok so a massive thanks to all the contributors there are literally too many to mention But Thanks to Futures Untold Johnny Beat Klimaxx Deadly Habit amp JunglistRendr Daft Cunt in perticular
Thanks to all the artists producers and general music geeks making this early revision of the production bible an essential read
There are links missing and will be included in version 21(Please help with the unlinked chapters by going here - httpwwwdubstepforumcomthe-dubstep-production-bible-updated-2009-06-03-t14797html and updating missing info as needed)
Compiled by Daft Cunt and Futures Untold PDF Compiled by Depone
Page 15
httpwwwsound-planetdetopsitestopsites5html httpwwwsoundprozcom httpwwwsoundsonlinecom httpwwwsoundsonlinecomrevAI-100shtml httpwwwsoundsreasonablenet httpwwwsoundusercomlinkssamplesdownloadcfm httpwwwsoundzoneinfoindexphpzone=7section=2 httpwwwsquarecirclecouklinkshtml httpwwwsseyocomshowcasedemossoundfontshtml httpwwwsteinbergnet httpwwwstelaxyde httpwwwstonewashednetsfxhtml httpwwwstormtroniccoukfnpacapellashtml httpwwwstormtroniccoukghettobass httpwwwstudiocoverscom httpwwwstudiocoverscom links tutorials etc httpwwwstudioptcomaudio1html httpwwwsumerauerdeearly_patchshdownloadhtm httpwwwsuper-groovecomseppagesfree_loopsasp httpwwwsuperloopscomdefaulthtm httpwwwsurfwaxcom httpwwwsynthzonecomdrumshtm httpwwwsynthzonecomdrumshtm + links to drum sounds httpwwwsynthzonecomsamplinghtm httpwwwtapegermcomfreeloops httpwwwtasemixde httpwwwtcworksdehomecontentcomerender_top httpwwwtechnotoyscomsamplehtm httpwwwthelooplibrarycomindexhtml httpwwwthesoundsitenet httpwwwthesoundsitenet lt-- Mixed sample formats httpwwwthespeakerboycom httpwwwtigerbillcomsubjectsdloopshtm httpwwwtokyoloungecomculturetvhtml There is a pretty good article I wrote that mentions her httpwwwtopsitelistscomstartagtopsiteshtml - lots of links httpwwwtru-playazcouk httpwwwtsunamiwavscom httpwwwtutorialfindcomtutorialsmusic httpwwwtweakheadzcom httpwwwtweakheadzcomsampleshtml httpwwwtwilightrecordingstudiocom httpwwwtwilightrecordingstudiocomFreesampleshtm httpwwwucpzonecomacapsphp httpwwwunited-trackersorg2000asppost_id=357 httpwwwutopiasdcomutopialiveindex_livehtml httpwwwvgmusiccom httpwwwvirtualbassplayercom httpwwwvirtualdarknesscom httpwwwvirtualsoundstudiocomindexshtml info links etc httpwwwvisibleformcoukfreemusichtml httpwwwvorbiscom httpwwwwindowsxp-driverscom httpwwwwindriverscom httpwwwwixeasynetbeFREE_SAMPee_sampleshtml httpwwwwyzecomsampleshacksampleshackhtml httpwwwxdancecjbnet httpwwwxs4allnl~brainsampleshtml httpwwwyogencomvocalremover httpwwwzero-gcouk httpwww14brinkstercomhousesamplesahtml www123artistcomartArtsMusicSoples_and_Loops www16bitsamplescomindexhtml www4musicmindscom www714cartelcomloopsloopshtml wwwa1freesoundeffectscom wwwacapella-heaventk wwwacapella-heaventk wwwacapella-heaventkvocals
Here is a list of the most popular freeware analysers available
Voxengo SPAN
Bluecat Audio Freqanalyst
Roger Nichols Inspector
Page 20
For a long list of other free analysers visit httpwwwgersiccompluginsindexphpdaCat=2
3 Techniques
31 Bass311 Sub Bass
Sub-bass is a term used to describe audible sounds below 90Hz - sound in the range below this (under 16-17Hz) would be termed infrasound Sound systems often feature a subwoofer that is dedicated solely to amplifying sounds in the lower bass and sub-bass range Source Wikipedia
So the idea is to have the sub going up to ~90Hz The exact frequency it should be cut at depend on the kicks frequency Lets say you HP your kick at 100Hz then the sub should be LPed at 100Hz so they compliment each other without clashing
There are several ways of creating a sub here are the most common 1 - using a unique waveform (sine saw square or triangle) will give you a nice linear sub NB You dont need to filter out a sine wave as it doesnt have overtones 2 - using detuned waveforms take 2 identical waves (sine saw square or triangle) and detune them - lets say -25 +25 semitone This will produce a phase effect and give movement to your sub but itll also cause large volume amplitude and youll need to compress it after filtering Great Massive tutorial by Subfocus here 3 - using a 808 kick you dont have a TR-808 Grab that pack
jobbanaught wroteAn easy option to get a powerful subbass is to take a 808 kick sample put it in your favorite sampler and loop a single cycle of the waverform somewhere in the middle of the sample The 808 kick is made of a sine and some additional white noise The sine gives your sub that rattling low end pressure and the noise adds overtonesgrittiness = instant badass subbass
You can find more tips about mixing your kick n sub in the Random bass tips thread
312 lsquoWobblersquo
Page 21
Wobble GuideWobble Bass
Wobble Bass as it is known is simply a bassline that has an LFO assigned to a Low Pass Filter as an insert effect LFOstands for Low Frequency Oscillator and is used to change a sound by a defined speed (measured in either Hz or synced to the Tempo in relation to the barsnotes through quantization) The way the LFO changes the sound is up to you you can make the LFO adjust the Volume the amount of Saturation Filter Cutoff etc Basically any parameter you link it to Essentially you are just using the LFO to send a changing value to a parameter
--------------------
How to get a simple wobble bass
1) Choose a simple sound on your synth (Anything apart from a Sine wave )
2) Select your LFO and set it to the speed you want (18 would be a good starting point)
3) Now assign the LFO to the Filter Cutoff Which should for this example be a Low Pass Filter as the sound were going for is a deep bass
4) You now have a basic wobble bass from here the possibilities for tweaking this sound are endless
--------------------
A quick breakdown of whats actually going on Essentially you are taking a sound (that can be an audio files generated by a synth etc) and then passing it through a Low Pass Filter Now what exactly does a Low Pass Filter do you ask
A Low Pass Filter allows Low Frequency signals to pass through it but reduces the amplitude (volume) of all the Frequencies above the cutoff point In general most plug-ins have various Low Pass Filter settings where the more poles it has the more Dbs it will cut and will yield a harder knee to it Example 1 Pole Filter with a -6dBOct reduction Vs a 2 Pole Filter reducing -12DbOct However you dont necessarily need a LFO controlling your Low Pass Filter Cutoff frequency value you could just draw in the Automation yourself but a LFO will yield a loop of consistent values and prevents the possibility of human error All the LFO is doing is sending a value to your frequency cutoff to keep it consistently changing
--------------------
Tips amp Advice
1) Sub bass wobble would normally be a Sine wave at around the 40-50 Hz range which would repeat the same chords as the mid-range bass wobble The only difference being that with a sub bass wobble there is no point in assigning the LFO to a Low Pass Filter because the sound is too low for the low pass filter to have any effect so theLFO is assigned to the amplitude (volume) instead Another reason for not applying a Low Pass Filter to the Sub bass is because it would typically be a Sine wave which possesses no Harmonics to be adjusted by the Filter
2) The sound of an LFO can also be adjusted by the wave type you choose The default setting for an LFO generator is a Sine wave although on most synths you can chose from Triangle Sawtooth Square wave Random Noise To get a nice sounding bass it is a good idea to use as many oscillators as possible on different octaves
3) Try messing around with the attack and release of your sound as this can have an impact on the sound of the bass Long attacks tend to create a more ambient sound and is a technique traditionally used with ambient pads
Page 22
4) Something that I find useful is to bounce the bassline to a wav file so that it can be chopped up and put in-sync with other elements of the song because the majority of the time you will find the first wave of sound in the wobble bassline will will be half the length of the other waves due to attack rates So the best thing to do is to chop that freak sound off the beginning of the file in your DAW (Logic Pro Reason Cubase etc) and start off with the second wave which should be fully formed This way it will not be too early of late when keeping in sync with other elements such as a second bassline
5) Another method you can use is creating a clone layer of your original sound and setting up a new LFO setup for that to beat alternatively in the space left by the original LFO Or go that crazy Drum amp Bass Reese route and split the frequencies to Low Mid and High then set different LFO rates for each band then recombine into one sound
6) For more variation automate your LFO speed and intensity
7) Where you place insert effects in relation to the filter (pre or post) will yield different sounding results
8) Other methods to achieve a wobble like sound Tremolo (This effects volume rather than frequency) FM Synthesis Modulation of PWM Oscillator Pitch assigned (in a liberal amount) to LFO Filter Envelope assigned to LFO (using a re-triggered envelope) (submitted by Faun2500)
9) Assign a second LFO to modulate the speed of the first LFO
LFO Shapes
Sine wave The smooth value change possible
Triangle Similar to a Sine wave but slightly more ramped amp synthetic sounding
Random A mixed bag
Sawtooth Will have a very fast attack with a slower release which will sound very rugged
Square wave Will be a simple open close style Very harsh and will generally cause a very harsh sound (Often used in DJ Hazard style bass-lines) Detune two square waves for a nice dark sounding bass
Waveforms submitted by Skells wrotehttpi228photobucketcomalbumsee83 cleanjpgSimple Filter Sweep
httpi228photobucketcomalbumsee83 wobblejpgSine Wave LFO assigned to Filter Cutoff
LINKS etc
Fruity Loops Wobble Tutorial (Link submitted by Wub) Massive Wobble YouTube Tutorial (Video created by thesynthesist) Pause amp Play Wobble Tutorial (Link submitted by dubmo) Albino3 Wobble Guide (Guide created by axon)
By Rendr amp Deadly Habit and a little help from Macc
313 lsquoReecersquo
The Reese Bass
Page 23
History Lesson
The Reese bass was a form of huge sounding synth-bass first used by the Detroit Techno producer Kevin Saunderson aka Master Reese aka Reese Project aka on the track Just Want Another Chance and immortalised in the classic DnB track Terrorist by Renegade Since then it has been (over)used in many a DnB track and continues to evolve even nowadays through Dubstep and Jungle It is said to be as influential to DnB as the Amen break and probably as used and abused as the Amen
Capturing the Beast
1The Oscillator Stage
To nail the Reese you need a synth with at least 2 oscillators but for better-bigger results use as many oscillators as you can (not really but 4 oscillators give a nice deep rumble - ahhhhhh) All the oscillators are playing sawtooth waves and all except one are detuned by 25-50 cents so that all oscillators are out of phase with each other
2 The Filter Stage
The signal is then sent to a low-pass filter with the cutoff freq set around 150-200Hz (experiment with that you want the growl of the mid-frequencies but you also want it as deep as possible without sacrificing the midrange) The resonance of the filter should be cranked up almost all the way (but again tweak accordingly to your filtersynth)
3 Fuzz it Up
The second most important aspect of the Reese (after the detuned sawtooths) is distortion Tube distortion and tape saturation work extremely well but dont hesitate to use other more extreme distortion units (dont forget that the Reese has been done a million times you have to add something original to it) Again adjust to taste
4 Spices and Herbs
Now that is the main recipe for the sound but like all haute-cuisine there are more things you can do to spice up the Reese Namely effects Effects that have been associated with the Reese are
Phasers - to accentuate the phase-shifting effect of the detuned sawtooths Unison - a great way to make it even bigger Chorus - again a good way to phatten it up
5 And Some More Synth Magic
Another thing to do so you can bring out the old-school jungle character of the Reese is to use Legato and PortamentoGlide if your syth of choice has them available These are both great ways to move from one note to the next without listening to the transition To put it simply when legato is on and you play a sustained E followed by a sustained G the transition between the two notes gives the listener the impression that they heard a single note being sustained that has just changed its pitch from E to G without pausing at a certain point
Always remember though that if you use Legato you have to turn the polyphony of your synth down to 1 (something you should almost always do with basslines because two bass-notes playing together almost never sound good in electronic music bass chords are more the realm of prog-rock shit than dubstep)
For the more technical minded legato in synthesizers is a variation of monophonic operation In contrast to monophonic mode where every new note restarts the ADSR envelopes in legato mode they are not if the previous note remains depressed when the new note is played This causes the initial transient from the attack and decay phases to sound only once and the ADSRs to remain at sustain stage for the whole sequence of notes until the final note is released (Wikipedia)
EDIT I just found out that in one of the free vst links on the bible there is a thing called the Hotelsinus Reese Bassline Synth So I didnt miss the opportunity for a mini review The software itself is small (like most free vst-is) and quite easy to install (you just drop the dll in the vst folder) As for the sound weeeeeeell the sounds it produces are definitely Reese But weak somehow Its like listening to Terrorist from a battered cheap old cassette from 93 or something It has a tinny and tiny sound when compared to what you can achieve with powerhouses like Albino or
Page 24
Massive or (one of my personal favorites for Reese) Cakewalk Rupture You can try it if you want but i dont think it will impress steppers that much we are bass-headed folk
314 Random Bass Tips
Plz add yours or others youve spotted on the forum
miss_molinari wrotebasically i have been experimenting with cutting (not sidechaining) a notch (band reject) in the bass starting at 60hz and ending just before 70 this is only for those bass lines which only hit on the kick (quite specific) also the bass is then high passed at about 220hz to pretty much 0db which is where the kick starts (ending the kick with a non-too-aggressive-cut at about 2khz) this essentially means that the kick and the bass do not share any frequencies above abot 200hz but also between 60 and 70 and with them always hitting at the same time this gets around the fact that sidechaining this type of sequencing would leave you with no or little bass
this has worked well so far but is useful mainly for sub basses ending at around 250hz would not be as good for full spectrum wubsanyone else got any tech tips regarding the bass and kick
futures_untold wroteI simply cut everything under 90Hz on my kicks and roll off slightly at 1KHz
Sub I cut under 40Hz and roll off at 200Hz
I always compress both seperately and keep my levels low in the mix to create plenty of head room later whilst adding sounds with higher frequency content
Anything above 150Hz is what I consider midrange Anything above 150Hz can be heard on mobile phone speakers We all know that theyre designed to play heavy bass lol Wink
miss_molinari wroteDaft Cunt wroteTo me it feels like cutting the kick above 80 hz makes it sound weak I guess it depends on the style I rather cut below 60 to 80 depending on the tune
yeah its all about context in a dry minimal setting im of the opinion you can make a kick punch right up to about 180-200hz but yeah depends on when and on what kind of punch (im usually talking a bass hit at about 200hz coupled with a knock hit anywhere up to about 1200hz) i imagine you true dubsteppers prefer a denser thump from 60 through to about 300hz
Daft Cunt wroteI began recently the band-reject thing on the sub Little details that make big difference
And do you people cut the bass where the snare peaks
my basses arent usually middy enough to need that but yeah a slight sidechain on the main snare and say midbasspadwothavyer is nice especially if the limelight is stolen by a deeper sidechain on the kick and midbasspadwothavyer can create a nice flow (especially when used with long decay reveb linked to the midbasspadwothavyer so that it sounds louder and longer the higher the frequency played - might
have to post some piccies of that one )
Shonky wroteWhat Ive been doing lately is bouncing down the kick track lowpassing one somewhere between 100-140 depending on the highest frequencies of the low sub and then sidechaining the sub to the low kick
Then take a copy of the kick track highpass between 300-1000 and this will give you the beater noise to make the kick cut through I then sidechain this to the more middly basses You can also send a small amount to a reverb bus which allows you to avoid mud on the lower frequencies whilst still giving you the space
Doing it this way seems to make sense to me cause the sidechains work on the corresponding kicks in the same frequency range so it doesnt cause loads of unnecessary compression where you dont need it
Page 25
boh wroteAlways make sure your kicks are in tune with the rest of the track ull hear it pitching up and down and make sure if ur layering that the transients dont conflict(good monitors make this easy) It all comes down to kick selection Whats the point in cutting a kick at 80hz with a fundemental freq of say 60hz Sure you get whats happening before it but u wont get the nice thump of the fundemental freq Choose other kicks that hit the freq u want (80hz say) instead of cutting them when theres no need to Unless you really really know what your doing getting technical like this complicates the situation Esp for people with little experience
sullyharmitage wrote50 hz hi pass seems a bit high to me maybe gd for kicky techno or house but for subby stuff it seems a bit muchdefo roll off past 30-35 (most well engineered systems will do this anyways so any content below this is definately getting wasted)if yr gonna go higher make sure its a soft curvei find levelling subs is the hardest part of a mix - cos more always sounds better i remember reading breakage saying yr subs shouldnt add more than 3db to yr mix thats seems like a good guide
btw sub in kick an bassline simultaeously is gonna cause clashes (n maybe disortion) id either decrease the attack on the bass or cut the sub from the kick
unklefesta wroteI rolloff EVERYTHING at 40hz except my bass
standard
wang wroteAlways do it
Dont forget youre ROLLING off the frequencies not cutting them off all together Just a couple of dB of bass down there is enough to get some girth without removing all your headroom
Also analyse and cut off the lows on everything even if it doesnt appear to have messy lows -Youd be surprised how much bass there is in some high hats
Jtransition wroteAll of your tracks are going to be different so dont restrict yourself to a certain techniquetry different things and listen to the results
Shonky wrotewang wroteAlso analyse and cut off the lows on everything even if it doesnt appear to have messy lows -Youd be surprised how much bass there is in some high hats
Yep this is very true also worth filtering out the inaudible highs on low sounds as well found some of my subs which Id low passed still showed frequency activity much higher than expected
Jtransition wroteStick a high pass filter on everything apart form the kick drum and bass line70 hertz is a good starting point move up or down to tasteAnd remember try to mix at low levels(Walls not vibrating)
Deadly Habit wroteRendr wroteBasslines in my experience should be mono due to the fact that humans cannot easily decoded the stereo positioning of low frequencys so panning basslines (excluding bass sounds with high pitch sounds at around 500Hz+) is not recommended not only are the low frequencys hard to position with the human ear the low frequency sound waves are absorbed by the human head at a much higher ratio than high pitch sounds which tend to be reflected Another thing to note is that club systems are
mono Basslines that pan only belong in Psytrance
sub range should be mono especially if going to be cut to vinylmidrange bass on the other hand you can pan and add stereo fx to your hearts content
Page 26
32 Re-sampling
SafeAfter a few months of experimenting with resampling not really getting anywhere in terms of sound quality i came up with a pretty simple way of getting on the right track Ive got so much help since getting on this forum in terms of production i thought id share this for those who like myself are looking into the elusive yet highly rewarding technique of resamplingAll the vsts i use on this (save for the synth itself) are freenative plugs im using FL but itll transfer onto every DAW pretty much the same Ill explain it for a bassline but it can be applied to any sound
Step 1Make yourself a nice bassline get it sounding dirty with whatever you can within the synth Im using Albino so i tend to play about with the saturation modesFXs until its sounding pretty good
Step 2Hook up to a mixer channel then send this channel to a second mixer channel (FL users just click on another channel towards the bottom of the strip) On the second channel that the synth is hooked to from the first add CMt bitcrusher and downsample 3-16x (thanks to all the production forum users who pointed this out to me when i posted a few months ago on dirtying up basslines) Then add a chorus Turn the LFOs off and set the depthdelayetc to whatever sounds best Also set the crossover pretty high so only the treblehigh mids are being affected Then add Camel Audio Camel Crusher Turn the compressor off and set the tubemech to taste Add a parametric EQ if needs be to boost the high freqs Experiment with the chain of these effects swapping them according to the sound The choruscameleq in different orders should alter the sound quite alot depending on where their placed
Step 3 Set the level of the second affected channel with the original depending on whatever suits Play about with adding extra effects to both channels The way the second channel behaves once an effect is added to the first is quite extreme in even light application of effects So its possible to create a whole array of different sounds just from say adding a flangerchorusetc to the first channel then listening to how much it affects the sound as a whole as it goes through both channels By now it should be sounding pretty girthy
Step 4Export the riffsample (i use edison on the master channel in FL but whatever method will do) Reload and place into a mixer channel Add another Camel Crusher for abit more grit EQ and compress Set up a reverbdelay send and resample again for extra depth
Obviously this technique can be applied a 2nd3rd4th time to fuck the sound up even more so Which is what ive moved onto doing now into the territory of splitting the sound into basslow midhigh midtreble sections for ultimate control over each part Something which i was attempting to do before coming up with the above method but being left with a pile of unlistenable mushy shite
Hope this is a help to some peeps I know theres no secret technique to resamping only a whole load of practice and using your ears but this method got me on the right track in terms of hearing the benefits of it and encouraging me to experiment more in depth and realise that the possiblities are endless Im hooked now i resample pretty much every sound in one way or another Kick and snares benefit hugley from it for mega face melting wide drum sounds aswell so its worth trying it on some nice drum hits
Keep up the good work folksPeaceDC_WT
33 Drums
Read before reading on I am in no way entitled to any of those opinions It is up to you to decide whether you would like to incorporate them in your workflow I have just collected them from all the threads in this forum and will try to keep everything updated
I will update as regularly as I find updates
Page 27
Misc tips and tricks bull Good drums are usually layered - example 3 snares sounding as onebull The hats are often panned or widenedbull Pick great sounding samples different ones for different parts of the sounds you want 1
for snap and bite 1 for body 1 for thump distort and MAYBE EQ each to make them sound the best that they can separately combine in a bus MAYBE compress them together maybe accent the front and shorten the sound with a transient modifier 10 minutes tops
bull Do as little as possible with great-sounding bits and your basic sounds will be slamming leaves you time to focus on the arrangement people dont go around thinking wow that tune has an amazing snare as long as its thumping and not masked by a bunch of other stuff itll keep the dance moving
bull Listen to other producers work As its playing imagine the 1 2 3 4 on the step sequencer running in time to what youre listening to Try to visualize where the producer put their hits Not to say you should copy peoples drum patterns but learn from them
bull Ive noticed a lot of tunes (more minimal stuff where you can distinctly hear whats seperately going on) seem to use two differently pitched hi-hats that alternate to sound shuffley if you know what I mean and a less dramatic snare used sparsely in between the main lazy kick and snare An easy trick if you havent worked it out (which to be honest you should have if youre at all serious about producing dubstep) is to stick a smaller snare or hat the 116th before the kick or snare so it steps if you get me For example Bengas Night does this for all four beats in the bar which is part of what makes it so danceable But dont get stuck in always having kick on 1 and snare on 3 some tracks work with a kick on every beat others with a couple big snares etc The trick (unless you want proper lazy spaced out tunes) is to make sure youre nodding your head on all four beats of the bar Play around with a hat on every quaver (ie 8 per bar on the beat) compared to just four but on the off beat as well as adding in the steppy ones every now and then Theres often no need to over-complicate things though one of the my favourite drum tracks is the incredibly simplistic V by Distance Its a rhythm that could easilly be played by one guy on a real kit yet its so banging - check the use of hats and lower velocity kicks in this to make it nice and bouncy Also I once had a four bar drum loop and accidentally moved the sequence one bar to the right for one section and it ended up nicely varying the drums in a way you wouldnt expect
bull Really tight delays can help claps and snaps sound natural 5-20ms etcbull Recycle or phatmatik is your break-chopping friendbull Basically Hatrixxs method involved chopping everything from the main hits into a sample
Say you had a 2-step funk beat like the Amen Youd start your selection from the start of the first kick and select everything up to the start of the first snare Cut paste theres your first slice Then take everything from the start of the first snare up to the start of the second kick - including all the little hats and ghost hits - cut paste second sample and so on Then just map the samples onto some keys and bash away Both of them are quick compared to chopping Recycled slices where you have to copy and drag loads of little notes (one every little fucking tiny hit in the break arranged chromatically up the keyboard) around the piano roll These methods let you just concentrate on the main hits which can be both good or bad You can get a solid beat down with just a handful of hits but youre limited to the patterns already in the original break For a beginner to breakbeat science like yourself Id say try these methods first but dont rule out the really anal methods like RecyclePhatmatikFruity Slicer Sometimes they are a necessary evil Of course some of the drumfunk guys especially those who post on Subvert Central swear by these methods or the next one There are those who prefer to chop up the raw audio rather than bothering with MIDI and samplers They literally just drop the break file into Cubase or Logic and start chopping with the scissors tool and copying and pasting I can see the benefits of this You can see the waveform as youre chopping and youre not as restriced to the quantize grid as you are with MIDI But it takes aaaaages to build a drum track this way and theres the risk of RSI from all that Ctrl+C Ctrl+V youll be doing Then of course theres trackers They really are tailor-made for chopping up loops amongst other things They give you Sample Offset meaning that when you trigger a sample you can set it to start from 256 evenly spaced points throughout the sample So by starting a sample a quarter of the way through youre triggering the first snare (obviously you can fine-tune it when the snare isnt perfectly on the beat) You can edit breaks in a tracker without ever having to cut up a waveform and you can do all sorts of other nifty things like reverse the sample retrigger it to make drum rolls and so on
If recycles having trouble switch the break to mono in your sample editor and then apply tiny fades between the drum hits (especially useful if there are lots of rides that play over the other hits to keep things separate) This should help recycle pick up the start points and with any luck should leave you with a cleaner break
Page 28
Snaresbull Tune the snares so they all hit around the same pitch bull Change the Amp Envelopes of each to bring the strongest parts from each separate sample
and build up your sound like that bull Compressing all together is a good idea but dont over do it bull EQ the master out for the snare as well so you wont have to fuck about when you use the
sample in the future bull Donrsquot just use snares fling some random sound effects in there Claps and rim shots also
work well when layered bull Make subtle changes to them and export a few snares from the same setup this helps
when you need a ghost hit or a reverse that sounds similar but not identicalbull Watch that frequencies dont build up and make the layered bit sound overly whatever
is building up Really easy to get too much 200hz or 500hz or even 12k if youve got samples that are all beefythicksmack-y
bull If its peaking run it through a Spectrum Analyzer and see where its peaking I guess its peaking in the tune rather than just the snare sample playing on its own
bull Sometimes snare samples have a very short peak that doesnt seem to make them sound any better and keeps you from getting them louder without cliping Reduce that part by a few dBs and youre sorted
bull Make sure you are using subtractive eq to pull out the frequencies that could be clashing with other sounds If your frequencies are clashing that can hide the snare and then you end up turning it up to compensate and there you are with your snare peakingThe key is making the frequencies sit right in the mix so that they dont clash and you can set them right and not have to turn them up
bull You could always try clipping the snare normalise it in a wave editor amplify it as much as you can before it sounds distorted then sample it out Then replace the snare with the clipped version it will almost always sound louder with more body at a lower volume I would still point out that although this can be used as a replacement to compression compression is a vital tool to learn how to use Also a lot of peeps will say this does bad things to the waveform and it does but unless you intend to listen to your tune to be heard at home on an amazing hifi then it doesnt really matter that much IMO
bull Hi-pass overdrive limit and cut away space from other sounds for itbull Layer with its self or a different snare Layer with sub add effect to one layer add effect
to both layers layer zoom right in drag one wave form back or forth very slightly to create new snare sound Pitch updown EQ Filter distort reverb delay reverse
bull Record yourself beat boxing your best snare sounds then layer with snare samplesbull A good handclap never goes a miss or use a nice drum synth to get a very differentdigital
soundbull Try reversing the snare sample then changing the envelope settings so it only hits on the
beat Layer that with the same sample this time not reversed Add a little delay to the the reversed snare Change the settings til it sounds how you like
bull Particularly snares I layer up a lot I look for one that has the qualities that I want when run through verb and then I look for something shorter with more mid punch to keep things physical After someone notied snares were weak in a tune Ive really made a point of ensuring that when the snares hit its physical as well as textural You need to feel them a bit - so I look for some snares that have that real punch when layering but usually keep the more textural snappy one as the focus last couple tunes I did the standard kick snare hats w odd percussion and then I took an amen chopped it processed it and layered it overtop for more aggression and step (goddess being a perfect example) By removing a layer and adding it you can create a sense of progression through the tune Make sure the bottom layer is sounding really good and then add the top so that youre not mixing them to be reliant on one another - instead you want synergy Make sure the EQ on the top and bottom make sense with each other
Kicksbull Building a kick in Ableton Lives Impulse machine Provides some essential information
about layering that can be used with any DAWbull Making fat kicks
remixmag wroteWhether creating Miami Bass music is your lifes fantasy or your greatest fear you probably crave the know-how to manifest those car-rattling trunk-full-of-funk kick drums In the arenas of hip-hop house techno downtempo and almost any other electronic genre molding fat kick drums is absolutely essential Like grandmas homemade apple pie the recipe for kick drums is partially a matter of taste However theres no substitute for quality ingredients And just like every pie has its staple ingredients every slamming kick drum requires some common elements Lets take a look at the
Page 29
shopping list for killer kick drumsTHE CRUST
Youll need a basic shell to begin creating a thick strong kick The classics always work if youre fortunate enough to own a real Roland TR-808 909 or other famous drum machine with a killer kick use it copiously If youre not one of those chosen few pay close attention to your original source For example if you use a sampler understand that not all ldquo808 Kickrdquo samples are the same some sound great and some just plain suck There are a lot of reasons for that including how many generations from the original the sample is the sampling rate and bit depth of the sampler how the kick was first sampled and so on Be as choosy as possible with your individual samples mdash dont use a mediocre sample just because it has 808 in the name and therefore is ldquosupposedrdquo to sound fat Seek out a better 808 sample or use something else that is simply bigger sounding Remember the time you spend finding sweet original sources wont be in vain especially if you reuse the resulting samples for multiple songsBORROW SOME SUGAR
An old saying goes ldquoGood art borrows great art stealsrdquo A nice way to start out with great raw kick material is to sample directly from the source If you dont own but have access to a 909 then sample it directly Or take one of your favorite producers tracks on vinyl or CD find a naked kick drum in there and sample it Be cautious with that approach for a couple of reasons Copyright issues around sampling even small bits have become a dangerously gray area and I would never personally advise using any source straight out of the can even from a royalty-free sample library While it may be an excellent start its unoriginal Customize whatever you bite Treat your samples as a sculptor would treat clay mold each one to create a trademark sound for yourself One effective way to customize a fat kick is to take a tip from the synth manufacturers If a sound is thin pile another (or a few more) on top When doing so its important to use different sounds layering two identical kicks will result in a louder kick but it wont change the basic tone Remember the sculptor approach here Even if you are using two good-sounding individual samples they may not instantly sound great together For example I find that when layering kicks while the thickness may be good sustain is often overkill The final result often benefits from a little doctoring on the tail of one (or both) of the samples and other hands-on sonic surgeryADD THE FILLING
Once a nice basic kick is achieved treating it with two of the mastering engineers favorite tools is often the next step Artfully applying a compressor (to just the kick) can go a long way toward creating a signature sound and a huge kick Compression is one of those ldquosecret spicesrdquo and how to apply it is a whole topic in itself One recommendation I will make however is to use a multiband compressor With one of those you can isolate compression on certain frequency ranges That is perfect if for example you want to push the sub of your kick without emphasizing the higher frequencies (which often affect the tone of the attack) or vice-versa EQ comes after compression in my signal chain By now the kick should already sound pretty fat I aim to shave unnecessary frequencies here rather than artificially boosting too much This is also where you can actualize trademark sounds while also fine-tuning them to work alongside other elements in specific tracks I often scoop out mids and highs especially frequencies above about 500 Hz Even though I like thick deep kicks unless Im going for a really dublike sound I often truncate the lowest frequencies (usually the sub-50 Hz frequencies) Even when you cant hear the difference when trimming frequencies doing so can really tighten up your kicksEVEN IT OUT
You may ask why when youre trying to fatten up a kick would you want to trim frequencies That is one of the keys to achieving great mixes both in the case of kick drums and in general You want to avoid too many overlapping frequencies The more sonic separation you have between elements the more focused the entire mix will sound That can be especially important for club music which often gets played on huge not necessarily audiophile-quality sound systems If you havent run into the following scenario already I assure you at some point you will Your bass line and kick drum are competing and it sounds like you have a weak kick You boost the kick but it still sounds muddy Take the bass out and suddenly the kick doesnt sound so bad In a scenario like that solo the two sounds listen carefully for where frequencies are overlapping and then try subtractive EQ on one element then the other and sometimes a bit on both By scooping out overlapping frequencies you will often find that both elements seem to magically come forward in the mix before even touching their respective volume levels
Hi hatsbull Realism
Ive been a professional touring and recording drummer for 25 years and just thought I might share a couple of really simple ways to use fruity loops or fruity studio to create more realistic drum patterns
For what its worth try this out with Fruity Loops
Page 30
Take your hi hat tracks (are any tracks for that matter including melodic synth bubbles)
Drop down the bar graph box that allows you to scroll between velocity (volume) pitch panning cutoff resonance and a thing called shift which allows you to use each of these categories to effect each individual note that youve programmed (note this can be accomplished in other ways in most of the good midi sequencing apps or softwarehardware drum machines)
Drummers no matter how good they are just arent perfect and we can use the fact that each of these drop down bar graphs can make veryvery small changes in a sound to do some subtle things to a rolling drum groove like 16th notes on a hi hat
Not all drummers but many tend to favor their strong hand in a single stroke (hand over hand) drum roll Consequently if you make all odd numbered hi hats be slightly louder than their even numbered hits it will sound more realistic Start by making velocity differences that are really clearly audible Then lower the velocity until you can barely feel the difference We are going to make very subtle changes like this on each of the parameters of velocity pitch cutoff resonance and importantly shift
I cant stress enough that you should make these changes be so subtle that you can hardly notice them
Just going on the fact that the right handed players start their rolls with the right hand and favor it ever so slightly (or grossly for effect as well) means that the stroke will be harder with the right hand than the left hand
When a percussion instrument is hit harder the difference between the transient (or hi pitched attack) of the sound and the body of the instrument (or the sound that comes after the attack) becomes greater In general on drums that means that a harder attack tensions the drum very imperceptably (sp) and it also means that there will be more treble in the sound Consequently the pitch goes up a little teensy bit and their is more attack to the sound (increased resonance and slightly higher cutoff frequency)
Consequently you can make the pitch of each right hand be just barely noticeably higher the resonance should be just one or two of those little teeny bars higher The cutoff should be just a few bars lower (allowing less high frequencies through) on the left handed or even numbered strokes
Typically if drums have time inaccuracies they tend to drag the left hand a litte bit I have to keep stressing that if you can hear the changes you make you arent being realistic You need to make the changes subtle enough that you just barely feel that they arent perfect You can consequently make each left hand note shifted one or two bars late
Tigure out how much you can tweak each parameter before it becomes obvious and then you can just randomly tweak each one up to that limit With a little bit of variance in each stroke from parameter to parameter you will create more of a percolating texture in your programming - this is a great technique to make synth bubbles (the kind used in techno and house) more interesting and less mechanical feeling
Now you can avoid the biggest mistake that non-drummers do when trying to write realistic programs turn the overall volume of the hihats until you CANT hear them and then slowly bring up the volume until you just begin to hear them
Professional producers have spent countless hours trying to figure out how to gate and mix hihats OUT of tracks The reason is two fold1) Human beings have such a radical peak in their hearing around the 1-2khz range (or the intelligibility range of human speech) that we can play the hihats at incredible low volumes and they are still audible You cant do that with a bass drumI tell my drum students that you cannot play a hi hat or a snare drum so quietly that a person sitting in a room with you cant hear it2) Hi Hats the snare of snare drums and cymbals all seriously MASK human vocal intellibility How many people have gone to see live shows where they can hear the singer is singing but cant for the life of them figure out what they are actually singing That is ususally because drummers (or mixers which is frequently the case) are not hip to thisimportant fact
So turn down your hi hat tracks (or any track with a strong mid rangeshort envelope attack) and you have much more room for other musical goodies in your mix When in doubt make your hi hats quieter than you think they should be Trust me theyll come through the mix even at a quiet volume
Swingbull Dont know if you can do this in your sequencer but in Logic you can create a groove
template from your drums and then apply that to your other instruments If youre using separate midi channels for snares kicks and hats take the 8 bar loop youre using glue it together and then take the groove from that and then mute that track When you click down the quantize list youll see the template there and you can apply it to your other tracks Also if you do want to change the groove you can just change the hits in the muted template and itll automatically change all other hits to the new changes
bull Think if youre clever and organized you can basically cut breaks up in recycle load them into the exs24 (extract sequence) and then do the same with them That way if there are breaks you like the feel of you can just apply that swing to anything If you make a folder called grooves in your logic folder they should load up each time so that youll have loads to choose from Havent done this myself yet but always helpful to have a choice of feels available
bull Some things sound better rigid and robotic with equal velocities Some things sound better rigid and robotic with differing velocities Some things sound better with swing Some things sound better with everything ever-so-slightly off Its down to what the track needs
bull Drum Break Swing ProgrammingNicolas Hall wwwbreakbeat-cafenet wroteI think most people who make anything funk breakbeat drum amp bass or hip-hop would agree that Swing is crucial to the effectiveness of a beat The other key factors in a programming sense are dynamic and accent So many people get wound up when their beats sound sterile or mechanical this is due to the fact that computers and sequencers lock to perfect BPM A computer on its own does not interpret rhythm the way a good drummer does There are however certain machines that have their own swing parameters like the Akai MPC range of sampling drum machines which are used extensively by hip hop producers
Swing is not the easiest thing in the world to analyze but as a general rule good drummers will play slightly late and thats why in all funky records you get that slight dip at the start of the bar take Superstition by Stevie Wonder or Billie Jean by Michael Jackson these are both very simple beats Superstition is of course live drums whilst Billie Jean was programmed but no less funky than Superstition I emphasize this point to demonstrate that a programmed beat can be every bit at groovy as a beat played on a drum kit
Expanding on the Billie Jean point Hip Hop beats are really very simple If you listen to the Neptunes they tend to create the swing in their beats by quantizing the kicks and snares and playing the hi hats in by hand this creates a very tight beat which is off set by a loose hi hat try it works but dont forget your accents - As a starting point just take the first snare of your beat and turn the velocity down then notice how your head starts nodding and your foot starts tapping a little more you are giving the beat feel Also remember that if you are using reverb the louder snare will push the reverb harder than the soft snare so your creating more ambience that way Then try your kick drums if your not sure which hits to adjust just pick apart a beat your feeling I remember me and friend picking apart a Gangstarr beat and were able to almost replicate it by adjusting the velocities of each hit (admittedly it took a while to get it right)
If youre a newbie then a common trick when learning to make good grooves is to create a template with an existing loop The idea is take a loop you like thats got a good feel to it and then place your own hits over the break then take the break out and see if your hits are sounding funky This can take a while and its crucial to think about the strength of each hit or the dynamic Each kick will not be the same strength nor will the snares or the hats pick the loop apart dissect it and youll soon see that there are certain consistencies in all good beats
If youre using live loops and like to layer them with drum sequences you should be thinking about time space and frequencies So if you have a fairly heavy loop then layering it with heavy kick drums is probably not gonna sound good Think about filling holes are their any frequencies that could be filled up Or is there space in the loop for extra hits Try working in layers just adding one hit at a time also filtering works well you could take some of the frequencies out of your loop as you drop your drum sequences in to make room for them I think one the masters of this technique is Liam Howlett of the Prodigy He runs breakbeats and gives them extra balls by laying a kick drum underneath to add extra intensity to certain passages in his set but hes careful not to overlap frequencies to much A good place to start if you using breakbeats is the Roland Tr-808 kick drum which is around the 50hz mark which is sub bass territory so it will sit underneath most breaks very well
If your hell bent on making killer beats and loops then perseverance is crucial keep at it it will come together listen to beats you like and pick them apart identify the subtleties that make it happen I know some producers get fed up when their beats sound to clean or they are trying to create a new breakbeat and then compare it to sample they took from vinyl and get down on there own beat Think about what a breakbeat really is think about its history what has happened to it to make it sound the way it does Im
Page 32
sure youve noticed how some breaks have a certain something like a magic dust you cant put your finger on Let me share what I know with you about that
Most breaks though not all are taken from recordings of live drums some of them are pretty old so you have the ambience of live drums and the room they were recorded in you have the fact that natural decay and reverb of each drum is likely to have bled into the other mics on the kit and that most engineers used overhead mics which pick up the whole kit with two mics Then consider that many of these breaks will have been recorded to analogue tape with saturation which will create extra warmth and harmonics The next step comes from old sampling technology like the SP-1200 and the Akai s-950 mpc -60 these samplers sampled at 12- bit (bear in mind that most computers now are at least 24-bit if not more) and that the samples themselves where taken from vinyl and on and on the process goes with each new reverb and eq adding more and more to the break In terms of giving your breaks that character there are a number of things you can try for example buying an old four track cassette machine to dump your beats onto then re-sample it if your using a sampler like the s-950 then try pushing the input meters a little harder than usual add reverbs and resample it each time you put your loop through a new channel you will be adding something to it Also distortion is fantastic for breaks if you have any amp plug ins then try them the Amplitude one is particularly good you dont need to go mad with it just used subtly it works great
To finish I would just like to say again stick with it keep trying keep listening to records if you like to read about technique then do so you can learn so much from other producers Remember the strength of your hits is important as is the way it swings good luck
UPDATE 08092008
ENHANCE SYNTHESIZED DRUM PARTS WITH FOUND SOUNDS
emusiciancom wroteLayering real-world sounds with synthesized drum parts puts a new spin on your drum tracks You probably already have usable sound effects on your hard drive because most commercial samplers have at least a modest collection in their factory library Beyond that youll find thousands of royalty-free sound effects online Soundsnapcom is one of my favorite sources and its free The recordings dont need to be pristine for layering over drums so dont overlook cheap sampling CDs and consider grabbing your own sounds with a portable recorderCollect and Save
Start by assembling a small Foley library of short percussive sounds divided into typical drum-sound categories kicks snares toms cymbals percussion and so on Youll generally want to layer drum sounds with Foley sounds that have a similar volume contour and frequency range If you layer a Foley sound that resembles a kick drum with the sound of your hi-hat for example youll quickly fill up all the space in your drum track
Industrial household military transportation and vocal sounds make excellent fodder but you will often want to extract a small slice such as the last shot in a volley of machine-gun fire (snare) or the first bounce of a plastic bottle on concrete (tom) A browsing tool like Audio Finder (icedaudiocom) is invaluable if you have a large sample library That lets you quickly audition clips make basic edits and drag-and-drop slices to your library
Sticks UpIf your synthesized drum part is step sequenced youll need to export its step sequences as MIDI files Many drum synths do that including Sonic Charge Tonic (sonicchargecom) Apple Logic UltraBeat (applecom) and Submersible DrumCore (submersiblemusiccom) All of those come with a large collection of patterns exportable as MIDI sequences Youll also need a sampler to play the Foley sounds drum-oriented samplers are handier for that but are by no means necessary
Start by loading a kit in the drum synth Export one of its sequenced patterns or create your own and place it on the sampler track For some of the drum synth sounds select compatible Foley sounds and map them to the same notes in the sampler that theyre mapped to in the drum synth Next solo the doubled voices one by one in both the drum synth and the sampler start the sequence playing and tweak the samplers voice parameters (filter level pan envelope and so on) to make the sounds work together (see Fig 1 and Web Clip 1) Dont tweak global parameters such as effects because that will affect all sounds played by the sampler
High HoopsOnce youve configured your Foley track you can do several things to add interest I frequently use a
Page 33
second sampler for short vocal sounds Ill have some notes trigger sounds in both samplers and others in only one Many samplers let you group sounds and assign notes and controllers to choose among them You can then sequence these notes and controllers or you can play them live to alter your Foley tracks
Try applying DSP effects to individual Foley sounds Multitap delays distortion phasing and granular effects all work well when used sparingly (see Web Clip 2) You can apply DSP effects inside your sampler or route the voices to a separate output for DSP processing in your DAW If your sampler doesnt offer either possibility spread the Foley parts over several sampler instances on different tracks
Sidechain compression or gating of the drum track with one or more of the Foley parts will highlight the Foley part as well as add variety to the drums With compression peaks in the sidechain signal will reduce the level of the drum track Use a high compression level say 201 and balance the sidechain-gain and the compression-threshold -attack and -release controls to get the ducking contour you want (see Web Clip 3) Gating has the opposite effect the drum track will be heard during peaks in the sidechain signal (see Web Clip 4) Here too the sidechain-gain and gate-threshold controls work in tandem to determine when the gate is opened Use envelope parameters (attack release and hold) to shape the gates contour
Keep in mind that once youve created a sampler instrument to complement your drum kit you can reuse it with other sequences You can also change one or more sounds in the sampler instrument without repeating the whole process
34 Sidechain Compression (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
4 Theory41 ndash Song Structure42 ndash Mixdown (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)43 ndash Mastering (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
44 Music Theory
The first thing to remember about music theory is that generally if it sounds right it probably is There are no rules in music and Music Theory is not about telling you how to write music Its about understanding the music
Broadly speaking it is fair to say that most music is essentially based upon two crucial factors scales and rhythm Scales make up melodies chords harmonies and basslines to name but a few whereas rhythm makes up the beat of the song In this part of the Production Bible you will learn the basics of Music Theory that will serve you not only in the production of Dubstep but for any of your future musical pursuits This information is intended to be easy to read and understand so I wonrsquot be mincing sentences But firstly please make sure you learn every single note on the keyboard by studying the image below Otherwise yoursquoll be completely lost here
Page 34
Scales Wersquoll begin with scales As I mentioned before scales are the building blocks of your song and without them your track will be atonal and completely unlistenable (probably not the effect yoursquore going for)
There are two main scales that you should learn inside out ndash the major scale and the minor scale A generalisation yoursquore bound to have heard before is that the major scale sounds ldquohappyrdquo and the minor scale sounds ldquodarkrdquo Although this is not always the case it is mostly true ndash and therefore yoursquoll usually be focussing on the minor scale when producing Dubstep However just in case yoursquore writing happy-dubstep (if that exists) here is a quick overview of both scales and how they are made up
Major Scale
The major scale is really easy to create It is made by a single rule that is simple to put in to place
ldquoTone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
In case you donrsquot know what a Tone or Semi-Tone is here is a quick explanation
Picture a keyboard (or if you canrsquot see the image above) Say you go from C to C that would be a semi-tone The same thing goes for if you go from an E to an F ndash it is still a semi-tone because you
Page 35
have gone up one key
A tone is two semi-tones ndash for example from C to D is a tone and the same goes for from G to A
The scalersquos name is taken from the note that it starts on For example C major will start on the note of C Similarly A major will start on the note of A and this is the case with every single scale
Here is a quick list of a few major scales After having seen a few try working the rest out for yourself in order to understand how the major scale is formulated Ideally you should practice your scales on a piano or keyboard so that you can physically see how to make the scale It might sound boring but itrsquos a small price to pay for a much deeper understanding of your music
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Major C D E F G A B C
C Major C D E F G A B C
D Major D E F G A B C D
D Major D E F G A B C D
E Major E F G A B C D E
F Major F G A Bb C D E F
F Major F G A B C D E F
G Major G A B C D E F G
G Major G A B C D E F G
A Major A B C D E F G A
A Major A B C D E F G A
B major B C D E F G A B
Now by arranging the different notes of each of these scales in any order you please you can create a melody bassline or harmony with extreme ease Rearranging the notes in the scale will give you a flawlessly in-key result and it is then up to you to use the notes in the scale as you see fit for your tune
Minor Scale
As was the case with the Major Scale the Minor is made up from a set rule or formula By knowing this formula you can understand how the Minor is made and how to use it to itrsquos maximum effect
ldquoTone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
As is the case with the major scales you should practice your scales as much as possible to make sure that you know them all like the back of your hand Here are a few Minor Scales see if you can
Page 36
work out the rest
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Minor C D Eb F G Ab B C
D Minor D E F G A Bb C D
F Minor F G A B C D E F
G Minor G A Bb C D Eb F G
Similarly to the Major now that you know your Minor Scales you can quickly just take any note from the scale rearrange it with another few notes in the scale and there you have a fat melody or bassline ready to be played at maximum volume
Diminished Chords
Diminished Chords are really quite spooky and dark chords that are made up of four different notes all a minor third apart from each other That means that for example the Diminished Chord starting on C would be C Eb F A because to get from one note to the next you have to use ldquoTone Semi-Tonerdquo (known as a minor third)
Because of the mathematical nature of the Diminished chord there are only three ldquoclustersrdquo of notes which can then be rearranged like the Major and Minor Scales
Cluster 1 C Eb F A
Cluster 2 C E G Bb
Cluster 3 D F Ab B
Use these clusters and rearrange them as you please For example you could rearrange cluster 1 as Eb F A C etc
Generally speaking you canrsquot make a song based entirely on Diminished Chords due to the fact that each cluster only has 4 notes However a Diminished Chord is perfect for adding a hint of darkness to your tune and is brilliant when mixed with some Minor Scales
Chords
Chords are basically two or more notes played together They are made up from a specific scale ndash for example the C major chord is made up of notes in the C major scale
Usually chords will include the first third and fifth note of the scale as well as possibly using other notes to give them colour For example the basic chord of C major would be C E G Then you could add the seventh note to it (in this case it is B) Really it is up to the producerrsquos discretion how heshe goes about making a chord ndash just remember to stick to the scale you are using
Chords will more than likely sound like shit if you play them on a complicated or layered synth patch You want to be playing chords on sustained sounds such as strings or pads Chords will really fill out your sound if used properly You want your chords to be supporting the melody or bassline and more than likely want to add some reverb so that it doesnrsquot sound too sharp Make
Page 37
your chords blend in with the music and yoursquoll have mastered them
Chord Inversions
Quite simply chord inversions are when you rearrange the notes in a chord so that it sounds a bit different and suits your arrangement better
For example if you were in the key of C major you could have a drone of E playing underneath some strings playing the notes E G C E
Due to the fact that the notes are the same and have only been inverted the chord will still be in key with the rest of the music This is a great way to add a touch of variation to your music instead of using the same chord structure all the time
Arpeggios
Arpeggios are much easier to understand than they sound They are quite simply the first third and fifth note of the scale played as individual notes For example the arpeggio of C minor would be C Eb G C etc
A great example of an arpeggio is the bassline in Bengarsquos ldquoCrunked Uprdquo He goes from playing the F minor arpeggio backwards to playing the F minor arpeggio backwards In other words he is playing
C A F and then C Ab F
Experiment with a few Minor Arpeggios and a couple of Diminished Arpeggios and you canrsquot go wrong in writing a huge bassline
Suggested Reading
List of All Scales With Finger Charts Included
Well thatrsquos it folks Thatrsquos basically all the music theory you need to know to start off with As you grow more used to the various scales yoursquoll notice that certain notes sound good with each other whilst others donrsquot Irsquom not here to tell you how to write music Irsquom here to teach you the language
of music Itrsquos up to you to write the poetry
copy Bruno Crosier (klimaxx) 2008
45 Random Tips
Random tips amp best piece of advice thread
5 Resources
Page 38
51 Books amp Magazines
Hello again people
Does anyone know of more music production books magazines or authors we can add to these lists
Thanks
------------------------------------------------
Music Production Magazines Computer Music - httpwwwcomputermusiccouk Music Tech Magazine - httpwwwmusictechmagcouk Future Music - httpwwwfuturemusiccouk Sound on Sound - httpwwwsoundonsoundcom Remix Magazine - httpremixmagcom Mix Magazine - httpmixonlinecom Electronic Musician - httpemusiciancom EQ Magazine - httpwwweqmagcom Audio Technology - wwwaudiotechnologycomau Tape Op - httpwwwtapeopcom
------------------------------------------------
Music Books
Authors Curtis Roads httpmitpressmiteducatalogauthor aspaid=93 - The Computer Music Tutorial (Really really really good book) Paul White - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea ul20White - Basic Series + more Rick Snowman - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea k20Snoman - The Dance Music Manual Tools Toys and Techniques Bobby Owsinski - httpbooksgooglecoukbooksas_auth=Bobby+Owsinski - The MixingRecording amp Mastering Engineers Handbooks Michael Paul Stavrou - httpwwwmixingwithyourmindcom
Publishers Thomson Course Technology - httpcoursecengagecom (Click on the Music Technology tab) - Series published include Power Overdrive Ignite and CSI Series + many more Backbeat Books - httpwwwbackbeatbookscom ndash Power Tools Series + many more Wiley Publishing - httpwwwdummiescom (Enter music in their search bar) - For Dummies Series Penguin Books - httpuspenguingroupcom (Enter music in their search bar) - The Complete Idiots Guide Series + many more MIT Press - httpmitpressmitedu - Many books on music theory Focal Press - httpwwwfocalpresscom - (Enter music in their search bar)
------------------------------------------------
Online Music Book Stores (We need more links here Do you know of any that we can add)
httpwwwmixbookscom ndash Excellent source that sells only books about music
Page 39
httpwwwamazoncom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
httpwwwbarnesandnoblecom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
------------------------------------------------
52 Wikipedia
A good music lexicon wiki Search for your term in the search bar ---gt httpenaudiolexicorgwikiMain_Page
0-9
14rdquo Jack - httpenwikipediaorgwikiJack_plug 3rd Bridge - httpenwikipediaorgwiki3rd_Bridge
Zero Crossing - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_crossing Zero Crossing Rate - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_Crossing_Rate
53 Other recommended production forums
for Logic users this is the shit httpwwwlogicprohelpcom
Ive found both these forums to be full of knowledgeable producers amp musicians
httpwwwkvraudiocomforum
httpacapellaharmony-centralcomforumsindexphp
httpwwwgearslutzcomboard
httpwwwsoundonsoundcomforum
httpwwwmusicradarcomforum
httpwwwidmforumscom
httpwwwdance-industriescomphpBB2 8cffbb3b02
httpwwwsubvertcentralcomforumindexphp
httpwwwbreakbeatcouk
httpwwwtweakheadzcom
httpwwwabletoncompagesforum
Explains lots about the music industry ---gt httpwwwbemusocom
Page 47
Ok so a massive thanks to all the contributors there are literally too many to mention But Thanks to Futures Untold Johnny Beat Klimaxx Deadly Habit amp JunglistRendr Daft Cunt in perticular
Thanks to all the artists producers and general music geeks making this early revision of the production bible an essential read
There are links missing and will be included in version 21(Please help with the unlinked chapters by going here - httpwwwdubstepforumcomthe-dubstep-production-bible-updated-2009-06-03-t14797html and updating missing info as needed)
Compiled by Daft Cunt and Futures Untold PDF Compiled by Depone
Here is a list of the most popular freeware analysers available
Voxengo SPAN
Bluecat Audio Freqanalyst
Roger Nichols Inspector
Page 20
For a long list of other free analysers visit httpwwwgersiccompluginsindexphpdaCat=2
3 Techniques
31 Bass311 Sub Bass
Sub-bass is a term used to describe audible sounds below 90Hz - sound in the range below this (under 16-17Hz) would be termed infrasound Sound systems often feature a subwoofer that is dedicated solely to amplifying sounds in the lower bass and sub-bass range Source Wikipedia
So the idea is to have the sub going up to ~90Hz The exact frequency it should be cut at depend on the kicks frequency Lets say you HP your kick at 100Hz then the sub should be LPed at 100Hz so they compliment each other without clashing
There are several ways of creating a sub here are the most common 1 - using a unique waveform (sine saw square or triangle) will give you a nice linear sub NB You dont need to filter out a sine wave as it doesnt have overtones 2 - using detuned waveforms take 2 identical waves (sine saw square or triangle) and detune them - lets say -25 +25 semitone This will produce a phase effect and give movement to your sub but itll also cause large volume amplitude and youll need to compress it after filtering Great Massive tutorial by Subfocus here 3 - using a 808 kick you dont have a TR-808 Grab that pack
jobbanaught wroteAn easy option to get a powerful subbass is to take a 808 kick sample put it in your favorite sampler and loop a single cycle of the waverform somewhere in the middle of the sample The 808 kick is made of a sine and some additional white noise The sine gives your sub that rattling low end pressure and the noise adds overtonesgrittiness = instant badass subbass
You can find more tips about mixing your kick n sub in the Random bass tips thread
312 lsquoWobblersquo
Page 21
Wobble GuideWobble Bass
Wobble Bass as it is known is simply a bassline that has an LFO assigned to a Low Pass Filter as an insert effect LFOstands for Low Frequency Oscillator and is used to change a sound by a defined speed (measured in either Hz or synced to the Tempo in relation to the barsnotes through quantization) The way the LFO changes the sound is up to you you can make the LFO adjust the Volume the amount of Saturation Filter Cutoff etc Basically any parameter you link it to Essentially you are just using the LFO to send a changing value to a parameter
--------------------
How to get a simple wobble bass
1) Choose a simple sound on your synth (Anything apart from a Sine wave )
2) Select your LFO and set it to the speed you want (18 would be a good starting point)
3) Now assign the LFO to the Filter Cutoff Which should for this example be a Low Pass Filter as the sound were going for is a deep bass
4) You now have a basic wobble bass from here the possibilities for tweaking this sound are endless
--------------------
A quick breakdown of whats actually going on Essentially you are taking a sound (that can be an audio files generated by a synth etc) and then passing it through a Low Pass Filter Now what exactly does a Low Pass Filter do you ask
A Low Pass Filter allows Low Frequency signals to pass through it but reduces the amplitude (volume) of all the Frequencies above the cutoff point In general most plug-ins have various Low Pass Filter settings where the more poles it has the more Dbs it will cut and will yield a harder knee to it Example 1 Pole Filter with a -6dBOct reduction Vs a 2 Pole Filter reducing -12DbOct However you dont necessarily need a LFO controlling your Low Pass Filter Cutoff frequency value you could just draw in the Automation yourself but a LFO will yield a loop of consistent values and prevents the possibility of human error All the LFO is doing is sending a value to your frequency cutoff to keep it consistently changing
--------------------
Tips amp Advice
1) Sub bass wobble would normally be a Sine wave at around the 40-50 Hz range which would repeat the same chords as the mid-range bass wobble The only difference being that with a sub bass wobble there is no point in assigning the LFO to a Low Pass Filter because the sound is too low for the low pass filter to have any effect so theLFO is assigned to the amplitude (volume) instead Another reason for not applying a Low Pass Filter to the Sub bass is because it would typically be a Sine wave which possesses no Harmonics to be adjusted by the Filter
2) The sound of an LFO can also be adjusted by the wave type you choose The default setting for an LFO generator is a Sine wave although on most synths you can chose from Triangle Sawtooth Square wave Random Noise To get a nice sounding bass it is a good idea to use as many oscillators as possible on different octaves
3) Try messing around with the attack and release of your sound as this can have an impact on the sound of the bass Long attacks tend to create a more ambient sound and is a technique traditionally used with ambient pads
Page 22
4) Something that I find useful is to bounce the bassline to a wav file so that it can be chopped up and put in-sync with other elements of the song because the majority of the time you will find the first wave of sound in the wobble bassline will will be half the length of the other waves due to attack rates So the best thing to do is to chop that freak sound off the beginning of the file in your DAW (Logic Pro Reason Cubase etc) and start off with the second wave which should be fully formed This way it will not be too early of late when keeping in sync with other elements such as a second bassline
5) Another method you can use is creating a clone layer of your original sound and setting up a new LFO setup for that to beat alternatively in the space left by the original LFO Or go that crazy Drum amp Bass Reese route and split the frequencies to Low Mid and High then set different LFO rates for each band then recombine into one sound
6) For more variation automate your LFO speed and intensity
7) Where you place insert effects in relation to the filter (pre or post) will yield different sounding results
8) Other methods to achieve a wobble like sound Tremolo (This effects volume rather than frequency) FM Synthesis Modulation of PWM Oscillator Pitch assigned (in a liberal amount) to LFO Filter Envelope assigned to LFO (using a re-triggered envelope) (submitted by Faun2500)
9) Assign a second LFO to modulate the speed of the first LFO
LFO Shapes
Sine wave The smooth value change possible
Triangle Similar to a Sine wave but slightly more ramped amp synthetic sounding
Random A mixed bag
Sawtooth Will have a very fast attack with a slower release which will sound very rugged
Square wave Will be a simple open close style Very harsh and will generally cause a very harsh sound (Often used in DJ Hazard style bass-lines) Detune two square waves for a nice dark sounding bass
Waveforms submitted by Skells wrotehttpi228photobucketcomalbumsee83 cleanjpgSimple Filter Sweep
httpi228photobucketcomalbumsee83 wobblejpgSine Wave LFO assigned to Filter Cutoff
LINKS etc
Fruity Loops Wobble Tutorial (Link submitted by Wub) Massive Wobble YouTube Tutorial (Video created by thesynthesist) Pause amp Play Wobble Tutorial (Link submitted by dubmo) Albino3 Wobble Guide (Guide created by axon)
By Rendr amp Deadly Habit and a little help from Macc
313 lsquoReecersquo
The Reese Bass
Page 23
History Lesson
The Reese bass was a form of huge sounding synth-bass first used by the Detroit Techno producer Kevin Saunderson aka Master Reese aka Reese Project aka on the track Just Want Another Chance and immortalised in the classic DnB track Terrorist by Renegade Since then it has been (over)used in many a DnB track and continues to evolve even nowadays through Dubstep and Jungle It is said to be as influential to DnB as the Amen break and probably as used and abused as the Amen
Capturing the Beast
1The Oscillator Stage
To nail the Reese you need a synth with at least 2 oscillators but for better-bigger results use as many oscillators as you can (not really but 4 oscillators give a nice deep rumble - ahhhhhh) All the oscillators are playing sawtooth waves and all except one are detuned by 25-50 cents so that all oscillators are out of phase with each other
2 The Filter Stage
The signal is then sent to a low-pass filter with the cutoff freq set around 150-200Hz (experiment with that you want the growl of the mid-frequencies but you also want it as deep as possible without sacrificing the midrange) The resonance of the filter should be cranked up almost all the way (but again tweak accordingly to your filtersynth)
3 Fuzz it Up
The second most important aspect of the Reese (after the detuned sawtooths) is distortion Tube distortion and tape saturation work extremely well but dont hesitate to use other more extreme distortion units (dont forget that the Reese has been done a million times you have to add something original to it) Again adjust to taste
4 Spices and Herbs
Now that is the main recipe for the sound but like all haute-cuisine there are more things you can do to spice up the Reese Namely effects Effects that have been associated with the Reese are
Phasers - to accentuate the phase-shifting effect of the detuned sawtooths Unison - a great way to make it even bigger Chorus - again a good way to phatten it up
5 And Some More Synth Magic
Another thing to do so you can bring out the old-school jungle character of the Reese is to use Legato and PortamentoGlide if your syth of choice has them available These are both great ways to move from one note to the next without listening to the transition To put it simply when legato is on and you play a sustained E followed by a sustained G the transition between the two notes gives the listener the impression that they heard a single note being sustained that has just changed its pitch from E to G without pausing at a certain point
Always remember though that if you use Legato you have to turn the polyphony of your synth down to 1 (something you should almost always do with basslines because two bass-notes playing together almost never sound good in electronic music bass chords are more the realm of prog-rock shit than dubstep)
For the more technical minded legato in synthesizers is a variation of monophonic operation In contrast to monophonic mode where every new note restarts the ADSR envelopes in legato mode they are not if the previous note remains depressed when the new note is played This causes the initial transient from the attack and decay phases to sound only once and the ADSRs to remain at sustain stage for the whole sequence of notes until the final note is released (Wikipedia)
EDIT I just found out that in one of the free vst links on the bible there is a thing called the Hotelsinus Reese Bassline Synth So I didnt miss the opportunity for a mini review The software itself is small (like most free vst-is) and quite easy to install (you just drop the dll in the vst folder) As for the sound weeeeeeell the sounds it produces are definitely Reese But weak somehow Its like listening to Terrorist from a battered cheap old cassette from 93 or something It has a tinny and tiny sound when compared to what you can achieve with powerhouses like Albino or
Page 24
Massive or (one of my personal favorites for Reese) Cakewalk Rupture You can try it if you want but i dont think it will impress steppers that much we are bass-headed folk
314 Random Bass Tips
Plz add yours or others youve spotted on the forum
miss_molinari wrotebasically i have been experimenting with cutting (not sidechaining) a notch (band reject) in the bass starting at 60hz and ending just before 70 this is only for those bass lines which only hit on the kick (quite specific) also the bass is then high passed at about 220hz to pretty much 0db which is where the kick starts (ending the kick with a non-too-aggressive-cut at about 2khz) this essentially means that the kick and the bass do not share any frequencies above abot 200hz but also between 60 and 70 and with them always hitting at the same time this gets around the fact that sidechaining this type of sequencing would leave you with no or little bass
this has worked well so far but is useful mainly for sub basses ending at around 250hz would not be as good for full spectrum wubsanyone else got any tech tips regarding the bass and kick
futures_untold wroteI simply cut everything under 90Hz on my kicks and roll off slightly at 1KHz
Sub I cut under 40Hz and roll off at 200Hz
I always compress both seperately and keep my levels low in the mix to create plenty of head room later whilst adding sounds with higher frequency content
Anything above 150Hz is what I consider midrange Anything above 150Hz can be heard on mobile phone speakers We all know that theyre designed to play heavy bass lol Wink
miss_molinari wroteDaft Cunt wroteTo me it feels like cutting the kick above 80 hz makes it sound weak I guess it depends on the style I rather cut below 60 to 80 depending on the tune
yeah its all about context in a dry minimal setting im of the opinion you can make a kick punch right up to about 180-200hz but yeah depends on when and on what kind of punch (im usually talking a bass hit at about 200hz coupled with a knock hit anywhere up to about 1200hz) i imagine you true dubsteppers prefer a denser thump from 60 through to about 300hz
Daft Cunt wroteI began recently the band-reject thing on the sub Little details that make big difference
And do you people cut the bass where the snare peaks
my basses arent usually middy enough to need that but yeah a slight sidechain on the main snare and say midbasspadwothavyer is nice especially if the limelight is stolen by a deeper sidechain on the kick and midbasspadwothavyer can create a nice flow (especially when used with long decay reveb linked to the midbasspadwothavyer so that it sounds louder and longer the higher the frequency played - might
have to post some piccies of that one )
Shonky wroteWhat Ive been doing lately is bouncing down the kick track lowpassing one somewhere between 100-140 depending on the highest frequencies of the low sub and then sidechaining the sub to the low kick
Then take a copy of the kick track highpass between 300-1000 and this will give you the beater noise to make the kick cut through I then sidechain this to the more middly basses You can also send a small amount to a reverb bus which allows you to avoid mud on the lower frequencies whilst still giving you the space
Doing it this way seems to make sense to me cause the sidechains work on the corresponding kicks in the same frequency range so it doesnt cause loads of unnecessary compression where you dont need it
Page 25
boh wroteAlways make sure your kicks are in tune with the rest of the track ull hear it pitching up and down and make sure if ur layering that the transients dont conflict(good monitors make this easy) It all comes down to kick selection Whats the point in cutting a kick at 80hz with a fundemental freq of say 60hz Sure you get whats happening before it but u wont get the nice thump of the fundemental freq Choose other kicks that hit the freq u want (80hz say) instead of cutting them when theres no need to Unless you really really know what your doing getting technical like this complicates the situation Esp for people with little experience
sullyharmitage wrote50 hz hi pass seems a bit high to me maybe gd for kicky techno or house but for subby stuff it seems a bit muchdefo roll off past 30-35 (most well engineered systems will do this anyways so any content below this is definately getting wasted)if yr gonna go higher make sure its a soft curvei find levelling subs is the hardest part of a mix - cos more always sounds better i remember reading breakage saying yr subs shouldnt add more than 3db to yr mix thats seems like a good guide
btw sub in kick an bassline simultaeously is gonna cause clashes (n maybe disortion) id either decrease the attack on the bass or cut the sub from the kick
unklefesta wroteI rolloff EVERYTHING at 40hz except my bass
standard
wang wroteAlways do it
Dont forget youre ROLLING off the frequencies not cutting them off all together Just a couple of dB of bass down there is enough to get some girth without removing all your headroom
Also analyse and cut off the lows on everything even if it doesnt appear to have messy lows -Youd be surprised how much bass there is in some high hats
Jtransition wroteAll of your tracks are going to be different so dont restrict yourself to a certain techniquetry different things and listen to the results
Shonky wrotewang wroteAlso analyse and cut off the lows on everything even if it doesnt appear to have messy lows -Youd be surprised how much bass there is in some high hats
Yep this is very true also worth filtering out the inaudible highs on low sounds as well found some of my subs which Id low passed still showed frequency activity much higher than expected
Jtransition wroteStick a high pass filter on everything apart form the kick drum and bass line70 hertz is a good starting point move up or down to tasteAnd remember try to mix at low levels(Walls not vibrating)
Deadly Habit wroteRendr wroteBasslines in my experience should be mono due to the fact that humans cannot easily decoded the stereo positioning of low frequencys so panning basslines (excluding bass sounds with high pitch sounds at around 500Hz+) is not recommended not only are the low frequencys hard to position with the human ear the low frequency sound waves are absorbed by the human head at a much higher ratio than high pitch sounds which tend to be reflected Another thing to note is that club systems are
mono Basslines that pan only belong in Psytrance
sub range should be mono especially if going to be cut to vinylmidrange bass on the other hand you can pan and add stereo fx to your hearts content
Page 26
32 Re-sampling
SafeAfter a few months of experimenting with resampling not really getting anywhere in terms of sound quality i came up with a pretty simple way of getting on the right track Ive got so much help since getting on this forum in terms of production i thought id share this for those who like myself are looking into the elusive yet highly rewarding technique of resamplingAll the vsts i use on this (save for the synth itself) are freenative plugs im using FL but itll transfer onto every DAW pretty much the same Ill explain it for a bassline but it can be applied to any sound
Step 1Make yourself a nice bassline get it sounding dirty with whatever you can within the synth Im using Albino so i tend to play about with the saturation modesFXs until its sounding pretty good
Step 2Hook up to a mixer channel then send this channel to a second mixer channel (FL users just click on another channel towards the bottom of the strip) On the second channel that the synth is hooked to from the first add CMt bitcrusher and downsample 3-16x (thanks to all the production forum users who pointed this out to me when i posted a few months ago on dirtying up basslines) Then add a chorus Turn the LFOs off and set the depthdelayetc to whatever sounds best Also set the crossover pretty high so only the treblehigh mids are being affected Then add Camel Audio Camel Crusher Turn the compressor off and set the tubemech to taste Add a parametric EQ if needs be to boost the high freqs Experiment with the chain of these effects swapping them according to the sound The choruscameleq in different orders should alter the sound quite alot depending on where their placed
Step 3 Set the level of the second affected channel with the original depending on whatever suits Play about with adding extra effects to both channels The way the second channel behaves once an effect is added to the first is quite extreme in even light application of effects So its possible to create a whole array of different sounds just from say adding a flangerchorusetc to the first channel then listening to how much it affects the sound as a whole as it goes through both channels By now it should be sounding pretty girthy
Step 4Export the riffsample (i use edison on the master channel in FL but whatever method will do) Reload and place into a mixer channel Add another Camel Crusher for abit more grit EQ and compress Set up a reverbdelay send and resample again for extra depth
Obviously this technique can be applied a 2nd3rd4th time to fuck the sound up even more so Which is what ive moved onto doing now into the territory of splitting the sound into basslow midhigh midtreble sections for ultimate control over each part Something which i was attempting to do before coming up with the above method but being left with a pile of unlistenable mushy shite
Hope this is a help to some peeps I know theres no secret technique to resamping only a whole load of practice and using your ears but this method got me on the right track in terms of hearing the benefits of it and encouraging me to experiment more in depth and realise that the possiblities are endless Im hooked now i resample pretty much every sound in one way or another Kick and snares benefit hugley from it for mega face melting wide drum sounds aswell so its worth trying it on some nice drum hits
Keep up the good work folksPeaceDC_WT
33 Drums
Read before reading on I am in no way entitled to any of those opinions It is up to you to decide whether you would like to incorporate them in your workflow I have just collected them from all the threads in this forum and will try to keep everything updated
I will update as regularly as I find updates
Page 27
Misc tips and tricks bull Good drums are usually layered - example 3 snares sounding as onebull The hats are often panned or widenedbull Pick great sounding samples different ones for different parts of the sounds you want 1
for snap and bite 1 for body 1 for thump distort and MAYBE EQ each to make them sound the best that they can separately combine in a bus MAYBE compress them together maybe accent the front and shorten the sound with a transient modifier 10 minutes tops
bull Do as little as possible with great-sounding bits and your basic sounds will be slamming leaves you time to focus on the arrangement people dont go around thinking wow that tune has an amazing snare as long as its thumping and not masked by a bunch of other stuff itll keep the dance moving
bull Listen to other producers work As its playing imagine the 1 2 3 4 on the step sequencer running in time to what youre listening to Try to visualize where the producer put their hits Not to say you should copy peoples drum patterns but learn from them
bull Ive noticed a lot of tunes (more minimal stuff where you can distinctly hear whats seperately going on) seem to use two differently pitched hi-hats that alternate to sound shuffley if you know what I mean and a less dramatic snare used sparsely in between the main lazy kick and snare An easy trick if you havent worked it out (which to be honest you should have if youre at all serious about producing dubstep) is to stick a smaller snare or hat the 116th before the kick or snare so it steps if you get me For example Bengas Night does this for all four beats in the bar which is part of what makes it so danceable But dont get stuck in always having kick on 1 and snare on 3 some tracks work with a kick on every beat others with a couple big snares etc The trick (unless you want proper lazy spaced out tunes) is to make sure youre nodding your head on all four beats of the bar Play around with a hat on every quaver (ie 8 per bar on the beat) compared to just four but on the off beat as well as adding in the steppy ones every now and then Theres often no need to over-complicate things though one of the my favourite drum tracks is the incredibly simplistic V by Distance Its a rhythm that could easilly be played by one guy on a real kit yet its so banging - check the use of hats and lower velocity kicks in this to make it nice and bouncy Also I once had a four bar drum loop and accidentally moved the sequence one bar to the right for one section and it ended up nicely varying the drums in a way you wouldnt expect
bull Really tight delays can help claps and snaps sound natural 5-20ms etcbull Recycle or phatmatik is your break-chopping friendbull Basically Hatrixxs method involved chopping everything from the main hits into a sample
Say you had a 2-step funk beat like the Amen Youd start your selection from the start of the first kick and select everything up to the start of the first snare Cut paste theres your first slice Then take everything from the start of the first snare up to the start of the second kick - including all the little hats and ghost hits - cut paste second sample and so on Then just map the samples onto some keys and bash away Both of them are quick compared to chopping Recycled slices where you have to copy and drag loads of little notes (one every little fucking tiny hit in the break arranged chromatically up the keyboard) around the piano roll These methods let you just concentrate on the main hits which can be both good or bad You can get a solid beat down with just a handful of hits but youre limited to the patterns already in the original break For a beginner to breakbeat science like yourself Id say try these methods first but dont rule out the really anal methods like RecyclePhatmatikFruity Slicer Sometimes they are a necessary evil Of course some of the drumfunk guys especially those who post on Subvert Central swear by these methods or the next one There are those who prefer to chop up the raw audio rather than bothering with MIDI and samplers They literally just drop the break file into Cubase or Logic and start chopping with the scissors tool and copying and pasting I can see the benefits of this You can see the waveform as youre chopping and youre not as restriced to the quantize grid as you are with MIDI But it takes aaaaages to build a drum track this way and theres the risk of RSI from all that Ctrl+C Ctrl+V youll be doing Then of course theres trackers They really are tailor-made for chopping up loops amongst other things They give you Sample Offset meaning that when you trigger a sample you can set it to start from 256 evenly spaced points throughout the sample So by starting a sample a quarter of the way through youre triggering the first snare (obviously you can fine-tune it when the snare isnt perfectly on the beat) You can edit breaks in a tracker without ever having to cut up a waveform and you can do all sorts of other nifty things like reverse the sample retrigger it to make drum rolls and so on
If recycles having trouble switch the break to mono in your sample editor and then apply tiny fades between the drum hits (especially useful if there are lots of rides that play over the other hits to keep things separate) This should help recycle pick up the start points and with any luck should leave you with a cleaner break
Page 28
Snaresbull Tune the snares so they all hit around the same pitch bull Change the Amp Envelopes of each to bring the strongest parts from each separate sample
and build up your sound like that bull Compressing all together is a good idea but dont over do it bull EQ the master out for the snare as well so you wont have to fuck about when you use the
sample in the future bull Donrsquot just use snares fling some random sound effects in there Claps and rim shots also
work well when layered bull Make subtle changes to them and export a few snares from the same setup this helps
when you need a ghost hit or a reverse that sounds similar but not identicalbull Watch that frequencies dont build up and make the layered bit sound overly whatever
is building up Really easy to get too much 200hz or 500hz or even 12k if youve got samples that are all beefythicksmack-y
bull If its peaking run it through a Spectrum Analyzer and see where its peaking I guess its peaking in the tune rather than just the snare sample playing on its own
bull Sometimes snare samples have a very short peak that doesnt seem to make them sound any better and keeps you from getting them louder without cliping Reduce that part by a few dBs and youre sorted
bull Make sure you are using subtractive eq to pull out the frequencies that could be clashing with other sounds If your frequencies are clashing that can hide the snare and then you end up turning it up to compensate and there you are with your snare peakingThe key is making the frequencies sit right in the mix so that they dont clash and you can set them right and not have to turn them up
bull You could always try clipping the snare normalise it in a wave editor amplify it as much as you can before it sounds distorted then sample it out Then replace the snare with the clipped version it will almost always sound louder with more body at a lower volume I would still point out that although this can be used as a replacement to compression compression is a vital tool to learn how to use Also a lot of peeps will say this does bad things to the waveform and it does but unless you intend to listen to your tune to be heard at home on an amazing hifi then it doesnt really matter that much IMO
bull Hi-pass overdrive limit and cut away space from other sounds for itbull Layer with its self or a different snare Layer with sub add effect to one layer add effect
to both layers layer zoom right in drag one wave form back or forth very slightly to create new snare sound Pitch updown EQ Filter distort reverb delay reverse
bull Record yourself beat boxing your best snare sounds then layer with snare samplesbull A good handclap never goes a miss or use a nice drum synth to get a very differentdigital
soundbull Try reversing the snare sample then changing the envelope settings so it only hits on the
beat Layer that with the same sample this time not reversed Add a little delay to the the reversed snare Change the settings til it sounds how you like
bull Particularly snares I layer up a lot I look for one that has the qualities that I want when run through verb and then I look for something shorter with more mid punch to keep things physical After someone notied snares were weak in a tune Ive really made a point of ensuring that when the snares hit its physical as well as textural You need to feel them a bit - so I look for some snares that have that real punch when layering but usually keep the more textural snappy one as the focus last couple tunes I did the standard kick snare hats w odd percussion and then I took an amen chopped it processed it and layered it overtop for more aggression and step (goddess being a perfect example) By removing a layer and adding it you can create a sense of progression through the tune Make sure the bottom layer is sounding really good and then add the top so that youre not mixing them to be reliant on one another - instead you want synergy Make sure the EQ on the top and bottom make sense with each other
Kicksbull Building a kick in Ableton Lives Impulse machine Provides some essential information
about layering that can be used with any DAWbull Making fat kicks
remixmag wroteWhether creating Miami Bass music is your lifes fantasy or your greatest fear you probably crave the know-how to manifest those car-rattling trunk-full-of-funk kick drums In the arenas of hip-hop house techno downtempo and almost any other electronic genre molding fat kick drums is absolutely essential Like grandmas homemade apple pie the recipe for kick drums is partially a matter of taste However theres no substitute for quality ingredients And just like every pie has its staple ingredients every slamming kick drum requires some common elements Lets take a look at the
Page 29
shopping list for killer kick drumsTHE CRUST
Youll need a basic shell to begin creating a thick strong kick The classics always work if youre fortunate enough to own a real Roland TR-808 909 or other famous drum machine with a killer kick use it copiously If youre not one of those chosen few pay close attention to your original source For example if you use a sampler understand that not all ldquo808 Kickrdquo samples are the same some sound great and some just plain suck There are a lot of reasons for that including how many generations from the original the sample is the sampling rate and bit depth of the sampler how the kick was first sampled and so on Be as choosy as possible with your individual samples mdash dont use a mediocre sample just because it has 808 in the name and therefore is ldquosupposedrdquo to sound fat Seek out a better 808 sample or use something else that is simply bigger sounding Remember the time you spend finding sweet original sources wont be in vain especially if you reuse the resulting samples for multiple songsBORROW SOME SUGAR
An old saying goes ldquoGood art borrows great art stealsrdquo A nice way to start out with great raw kick material is to sample directly from the source If you dont own but have access to a 909 then sample it directly Or take one of your favorite producers tracks on vinyl or CD find a naked kick drum in there and sample it Be cautious with that approach for a couple of reasons Copyright issues around sampling even small bits have become a dangerously gray area and I would never personally advise using any source straight out of the can even from a royalty-free sample library While it may be an excellent start its unoriginal Customize whatever you bite Treat your samples as a sculptor would treat clay mold each one to create a trademark sound for yourself One effective way to customize a fat kick is to take a tip from the synth manufacturers If a sound is thin pile another (or a few more) on top When doing so its important to use different sounds layering two identical kicks will result in a louder kick but it wont change the basic tone Remember the sculptor approach here Even if you are using two good-sounding individual samples they may not instantly sound great together For example I find that when layering kicks while the thickness may be good sustain is often overkill The final result often benefits from a little doctoring on the tail of one (or both) of the samples and other hands-on sonic surgeryADD THE FILLING
Once a nice basic kick is achieved treating it with two of the mastering engineers favorite tools is often the next step Artfully applying a compressor (to just the kick) can go a long way toward creating a signature sound and a huge kick Compression is one of those ldquosecret spicesrdquo and how to apply it is a whole topic in itself One recommendation I will make however is to use a multiband compressor With one of those you can isolate compression on certain frequency ranges That is perfect if for example you want to push the sub of your kick without emphasizing the higher frequencies (which often affect the tone of the attack) or vice-versa EQ comes after compression in my signal chain By now the kick should already sound pretty fat I aim to shave unnecessary frequencies here rather than artificially boosting too much This is also where you can actualize trademark sounds while also fine-tuning them to work alongside other elements in specific tracks I often scoop out mids and highs especially frequencies above about 500 Hz Even though I like thick deep kicks unless Im going for a really dublike sound I often truncate the lowest frequencies (usually the sub-50 Hz frequencies) Even when you cant hear the difference when trimming frequencies doing so can really tighten up your kicksEVEN IT OUT
You may ask why when youre trying to fatten up a kick would you want to trim frequencies That is one of the keys to achieving great mixes both in the case of kick drums and in general You want to avoid too many overlapping frequencies The more sonic separation you have between elements the more focused the entire mix will sound That can be especially important for club music which often gets played on huge not necessarily audiophile-quality sound systems If you havent run into the following scenario already I assure you at some point you will Your bass line and kick drum are competing and it sounds like you have a weak kick You boost the kick but it still sounds muddy Take the bass out and suddenly the kick doesnt sound so bad In a scenario like that solo the two sounds listen carefully for where frequencies are overlapping and then try subtractive EQ on one element then the other and sometimes a bit on both By scooping out overlapping frequencies you will often find that both elements seem to magically come forward in the mix before even touching their respective volume levels
Hi hatsbull Realism
Ive been a professional touring and recording drummer for 25 years and just thought I might share a couple of really simple ways to use fruity loops or fruity studio to create more realistic drum patterns
For what its worth try this out with Fruity Loops
Page 30
Take your hi hat tracks (are any tracks for that matter including melodic synth bubbles)
Drop down the bar graph box that allows you to scroll between velocity (volume) pitch panning cutoff resonance and a thing called shift which allows you to use each of these categories to effect each individual note that youve programmed (note this can be accomplished in other ways in most of the good midi sequencing apps or softwarehardware drum machines)
Drummers no matter how good they are just arent perfect and we can use the fact that each of these drop down bar graphs can make veryvery small changes in a sound to do some subtle things to a rolling drum groove like 16th notes on a hi hat
Not all drummers but many tend to favor their strong hand in a single stroke (hand over hand) drum roll Consequently if you make all odd numbered hi hats be slightly louder than their even numbered hits it will sound more realistic Start by making velocity differences that are really clearly audible Then lower the velocity until you can barely feel the difference We are going to make very subtle changes like this on each of the parameters of velocity pitch cutoff resonance and importantly shift
I cant stress enough that you should make these changes be so subtle that you can hardly notice them
Just going on the fact that the right handed players start their rolls with the right hand and favor it ever so slightly (or grossly for effect as well) means that the stroke will be harder with the right hand than the left hand
When a percussion instrument is hit harder the difference between the transient (or hi pitched attack) of the sound and the body of the instrument (or the sound that comes after the attack) becomes greater In general on drums that means that a harder attack tensions the drum very imperceptably (sp) and it also means that there will be more treble in the sound Consequently the pitch goes up a little teensy bit and their is more attack to the sound (increased resonance and slightly higher cutoff frequency)
Consequently you can make the pitch of each right hand be just barely noticeably higher the resonance should be just one or two of those little teeny bars higher The cutoff should be just a few bars lower (allowing less high frequencies through) on the left handed or even numbered strokes
Typically if drums have time inaccuracies they tend to drag the left hand a litte bit I have to keep stressing that if you can hear the changes you make you arent being realistic You need to make the changes subtle enough that you just barely feel that they arent perfect You can consequently make each left hand note shifted one or two bars late
Tigure out how much you can tweak each parameter before it becomes obvious and then you can just randomly tweak each one up to that limit With a little bit of variance in each stroke from parameter to parameter you will create more of a percolating texture in your programming - this is a great technique to make synth bubbles (the kind used in techno and house) more interesting and less mechanical feeling
Now you can avoid the biggest mistake that non-drummers do when trying to write realistic programs turn the overall volume of the hihats until you CANT hear them and then slowly bring up the volume until you just begin to hear them
Professional producers have spent countless hours trying to figure out how to gate and mix hihats OUT of tracks The reason is two fold1) Human beings have such a radical peak in their hearing around the 1-2khz range (or the intelligibility range of human speech) that we can play the hihats at incredible low volumes and they are still audible You cant do that with a bass drumI tell my drum students that you cannot play a hi hat or a snare drum so quietly that a person sitting in a room with you cant hear it2) Hi Hats the snare of snare drums and cymbals all seriously MASK human vocal intellibility How many people have gone to see live shows where they can hear the singer is singing but cant for the life of them figure out what they are actually singing That is ususally because drummers (or mixers which is frequently the case) are not hip to thisimportant fact
So turn down your hi hat tracks (or any track with a strong mid rangeshort envelope attack) and you have much more room for other musical goodies in your mix When in doubt make your hi hats quieter than you think they should be Trust me theyll come through the mix even at a quiet volume
Swingbull Dont know if you can do this in your sequencer but in Logic you can create a groove
template from your drums and then apply that to your other instruments If youre using separate midi channels for snares kicks and hats take the 8 bar loop youre using glue it together and then take the groove from that and then mute that track When you click down the quantize list youll see the template there and you can apply it to your other tracks Also if you do want to change the groove you can just change the hits in the muted template and itll automatically change all other hits to the new changes
bull Think if youre clever and organized you can basically cut breaks up in recycle load them into the exs24 (extract sequence) and then do the same with them That way if there are breaks you like the feel of you can just apply that swing to anything If you make a folder called grooves in your logic folder they should load up each time so that youll have loads to choose from Havent done this myself yet but always helpful to have a choice of feels available
bull Some things sound better rigid and robotic with equal velocities Some things sound better rigid and robotic with differing velocities Some things sound better with swing Some things sound better with everything ever-so-slightly off Its down to what the track needs
bull Drum Break Swing ProgrammingNicolas Hall wwwbreakbeat-cafenet wroteI think most people who make anything funk breakbeat drum amp bass or hip-hop would agree that Swing is crucial to the effectiveness of a beat The other key factors in a programming sense are dynamic and accent So many people get wound up when their beats sound sterile or mechanical this is due to the fact that computers and sequencers lock to perfect BPM A computer on its own does not interpret rhythm the way a good drummer does There are however certain machines that have their own swing parameters like the Akai MPC range of sampling drum machines which are used extensively by hip hop producers
Swing is not the easiest thing in the world to analyze but as a general rule good drummers will play slightly late and thats why in all funky records you get that slight dip at the start of the bar take Superstition by Stevie Wonder or Billie Jean by Michael Jackson these are both very simple beats Superstition is of course live drums whilst Billie Jean was programmed but no less funky than Superstition I emphasize this point to demonstrate that a programmed beat can be every bit at groovy as a beat played on a drum kit
Expanding on the Billie Jean point Hip Hop beats are really very simple If you listen to the Neptunes they tend to create the swing in their beats by quantizing the kicks and snares and playing the hi hats in by hand this creates a very tight beat which is off set by a loose hi hat try it works but dont forget your accents - As a starting point just take the first snare of your beat and turn the velocity down then notice how your head starts nodding and your foot starts tapping a little more you are giving the beat feel Also remember that if you are using reverb the louder snare will push the reverb harder than the soft snare so your creating more ambience that way Then try your kick drums if your not sure which hits to adjust just pick apart a beat your feeling I remember me and friend picking apart a Gangstarr beat and were able to almost replicate it by adjusting the velocities of each hit (admittedly it took a while to get it right)
If youre a newbie then a common trick when learning to make good grooves is to create a template with an existing loop The idea is take a loop you like thats got a good feel to it and then place your own hits over the break then take the break out and see if your hits are sounding funky This can take a while and its crucial to think about the strength of each hit or the dynamic Each kick will not be the same strength nor will the snares or the hats pick the loop apart dissect it and youll soon see that there are certain consistencies in all good beats
If youre using live loops and like to layer them with drum sequences you should be thinking about time space and frequencies So if you have a fairly heavy loop then layering it with heavy kick drums is probably not gonna sound good Think about filling holes are their any frequencies that could be filled up Or is there space in the loop for extra hits Try working in layers just adding one hit at a time also filtering works well you could take some of the frequencies out of your loop as you drop your drum sequences in to make room for them I think one the masters of this technique is Liam Howlett of the Prodigy He runs breakbeats and gives them extra balls by laying a kick drum underneath to add extra intensity to certain passages in his set but hes careful not to overlap frequencies to much A good place to start if you using breakbeats is the Roland Tr-808 kick drum which is around the 50hz mark which is sub bass territory so it will sit underneath most breaks very well
If your hell bent on making killer beats and loops then perseverance is crucial keep at it it will come together listen to beats you like and pick them apart identify the subtleties that make it happen I know some producers get fed up when their beats sound to clean or they are trying to create a new breakbeat and then compare it to sample they took from vinyl and get down on there own beat Think about what a breakbeat really is think about its history what has happened to it to make it sound the way it does Im
Page 32
sure youve noticed how some breaks have a certain something like a magic dust you cant put your finger on Let me share what I know with you about that
Most breaks though not all are taken from recordings of live drums some of them are pretty old so you have the ambience of live drums and the room they were recorded in you have the fact that natural decay and reverb of each drum is likely to have bled into the other mics on the kit and that most engineers used overhead mics which pick up the whole kit with two mics Then consider that many of these breaks will have been recorded to analogue tape with saturation which will create extra warmth and harmonics The next step comes from old sampling technology like the SP-1200 and the Akai s-950 mpc -60 these samplers sampled at 12- bit (bear in mind that most computers now are at least 24-bit if not more) and that the samples themselves where taken from vinyl and on and on the process goes with each new reverb and eq adding more and more to the break In terms of giving your breaks that character there are a number of things you can try for example buying an old four track cassette machine to dump your beats onto then re-sample it if your using a sampler like the s-950 then try pushing the input meters a little harder than usual add reverbs and resample it each time you put your loop through a new channel you will be adding something to it Also distortion is fantastic for breaks if you have any amp plug ins then try them the Amplitude one is particularly good you dont need to go mad with it just used subtly it works great
To finish I would just like to say again stick with it keep trying keep listening to records if you like to read about technique then do so you can learn so much from other producers Remember the strength of your hits is important as is the way it swings good luck
UPDATE 08092008
ENHANCE SYNTHESIZED DRUM PARTS WITH FOUND SOUNDS
emusiciancom wroteLayering real-world sounds with synthesized drum parts puts a new spin on your drum tracks You probably already have usable sound effects on your hard drive because most commercial samplers have at least a modest collection in their factory library Beyond that youll find thousands of royalty-free sound effects online Soundsnapcom is one of my favorite sources and its free The recordings dont need to be pristine for layering over drums so dont overlook cheap sampling CDs and consider grabbing your own sounds with a portable recorderCollect and Save
Start by assembling a small Foley library of short percussive sounds divided into typical drum-sound categories kicks snares toms cymbals percussion and so on Youll generally want to layer drum sounds with Foley sounds that have a similar volume contour and frequency range If you layer a Foley sound that resembles a kick drum with the sound of your hi-hat for example youll quickly fill up all the space in your drum track
Industrial household military transportation and vocal sounds make excellent fodder but you will often want to extract a small slice such as the last shot in a volley of machine-gun fire (snare) or the first bounce of a plastic bottle on concrete (tom) A browsing tool like Audio Finder (icedaudiocom) is invaluable if you have a large sample library That lets you quickly audition clips make basic edits and drag-and-drop slices to your library
Sticks UpIf your synthesized drum part is step sequenced youll need to export its step sequences as MIDI files Many drum synths do that including Sonic Charge Tonic (sonicchargecom) Apple Logic UltraBeat (applecom) and Submersible DrumCore (submersiblemusiccom) All of those come with a large collection of patterns exportable as MIDI sequences Youll also need a sampler to play the Foley sounds drum-oriented samplers are handier for that but are by no means necessary
Start by loading a kit in the drum synth Export one of its sequenced patterns or create your own and place it on the sampler track For some of the drum synth sounds select compatible Foley sounds and map them to the same notes in the sampler that theyre mapped to in the drum synth Next solo the doubled voices one by one in both the drum synth and the sampler start the sequence playing and tweak the samplers voice parameters (filter level pan envelope and so on) to make the sounds work together (see Fig 1 and Web Clip 1) Dont tweak global parameters such as effects because that will affect all sounds played by the sampler
High HoopsOnce youve configured your Foley track you can do several things to add interest I frequently use a
Page 33
second sampler for short vocal sounds Ill have some notes trigger sounds in both samplers and others in only one Many samplers let you group sounds and assign notes and controllers to choose among them You can then sequence these notes and controllers or you can play them live to alter your Foley tracks
Try applying DSP effects to individual Foley sounds Multitap delays distortion phasing and granular effects all work well when used sparingly (see Web Clip 2) You can apply DSP effects inside your sampler or route the voices to a separate output for DSP processing in your DAW If your sampler doesnt offer either possibility spread the Foley parts over several sampler instances on different tracks
Sidechain compression or gating of the drum track with one or more of the Foley parts will highlight the Foley part as well as add variety to the drums With compression peaks in the sidechain signal will reduce the level of the drum track Use a high compression level say 201 and balance the sidechain-gain and the compression-threshold -attack and -release controls to get the ducking contour you want (see Web Clip 3) Gating has the opposite effect the drum track will be heard during peaks in the sidechain signal (see Web Clip 4) Here too the sidechain-gain and gate-threshold controls work in tandem to determine when the gate is opened Use envelope parameters (attack release and hold) to shape the gates contour
Keep in mind that once youve created a sampler instrument to complement your drum kit you can reuse it with other sequences You can also change one or more sounds in the sampler instrument without repeating the whole process
34 Sidechain Compression (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
4 Theory41 ndash Song Structure42 ndash Mixdown (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)43 ndash Mastering (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
44 Music Theory
The first thing to remember about music theory is that generally if it sounds right it probably is There are no rules in music and Music Theory is not about telling you how to write music Its about understanding the music
Broadly speaking it is fair to say that most music is essentially based upon two crucial factors scales and rhythm Scales make up melodies chords harmonies and basslines to name but a few whereas rhythm makes up the beat of the song In this part of the Production Bible you will learn the basics of Music Theory that will serve you not only in the production of Dubstep but for any of your future musical pursuits This information is intended to be easy to read and understand so I wonrsquot be mincing sentences But firstly please make sure you learn every single note on the keyboard by studying the image below Otherwise yoursquoll be completely lost here
Page 34
Scales Wersquoll begin with scales As I mentioned before scales are the building blocks of your song and without them your track will be atonal and completely unlistenable (probably not the effect yoursquore going for)
There are two main scales that you should learn inside out ndash the major scale and the minor scale A generalisation yoursquore bound to have heard before is that the major scale sounds ldquohappyrdquo and the minor scale sounds ldquodarkrdquo Although this is not always the case it is mostly true ndash and therefore yoursquoll usually be focussing on the minor scale when producing Dubstep However just in case yoursquore writing happy-dubstep (if that exists) here is a quick overview of both scales and how they are made up
Major Scale
The major scale is really easy to create It is made by a single rule that is simple to put in to place
ldquoTone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
In case you donrsquot know what a Tone or Semi-Tone is here is a quick explanation
Picture a keyboard (or if you canrsquot see the image above) Say you go from C to C that would be a semi-tone The same thing goes for if you go from an E to an F ndash it is still a semi-tone because you
Page 35
have gone up one key
A tone is two semi-tones ndash for example from C to D is a tone and the same goes for from G to A
The scalersquos name is taken from the note that it starts on For example C major will start on the note of C Similarly A major will start on the note of A and this is the case with every single scale
Here is a quick list of a few major scales After having seen a few try working the rest out for yourself in order to understand how the major scale is formulated Ideally you should practice your scales on a piano or keyboard so that you can physically see how to make the scale It might sound boring but itrsquos a small price to pay for a much deeper understanding of your music
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Major C D E F G A B C
C Major C D E F G A B C
D Major D E F G A B C D
D Major D E F G A B C D
E Major E F G A B C D E
F Major F G A Bb C D E F
F Major F G A B C D E F
G Major G A B C D E F G
G Major G A B C D E F G
A Major A B C D E F G A
A Major A B C D E F G A
B major B C D E F G A B
Now by arranging the different notes of each of these scales in any order you please you can create a melody bassline or harmony with extreme ease Rearranging the notes in the scale will give you a flawlessly in-key result and it is then up to you to use the notes in the scale as you see fit for your tune
Minor Scale
As was the case with the Major Scale the Minor is made up from a set rule or formula By knowing this formula you can understand how the Minor is made and how to use it to itrsquos maximum effect
ldquoTone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
As is the case with the major scales you should practice your scales as much as possible to make sure that you know them all like the back of your hand Here are a few Minor Scales see if you can
Page 36
work out the rest
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Minor C D Eb F G Ab B C
D Minor D E F G A Bb C D
F Minor F G A B C D E F
G Minor G A Bb C D Eb F G
Similarly to the Major now that you know your Minor Scales you can quickly just take any note from the scale rearrange it with another few notes in the scale and there you have a fat melody or bassline ready to be played at maximum volume
Diminished Chords
Diminished Chords are really quite spooky and dark chords that are made up of four different notes all a minor third apart from each other That means that for example the Diminished Chord starting on C would be C Eb F A because to get from one note to the next you have to use ldquoTone Semi-Tonerdquo (known as a minor third)
Because of the mathematical nature of the Diminished chord there are only three ldquoclustersrdquo of notes which can then be rearranged like the Major and Minor Scales
Cluster 1 C Eb F A
Cluster 2 C E G Bb
Cluster 3 D F Ab B
Use these clusters and rearrange them as you please For example you could rearrange cluster 1 as Eb F A C etc
Generally speaking you canrsquot make a song based entirely on Diminished Chords due to the fact that each cluster only has 4 notes However a Diminished Chord is perfect for adding a hint of darkness to your tune and is brilliant when mixed with some Minor Scales
Chords
Chords are basically two or more notes played together They are made up from a specific scale ndash for example the C major chord is made up of notes in the C major scale
Usually chords will include the first third and fifth note of the scale as well as possibly using other notes to give them colour For example the basic chord of C major would be C E G Then you could add the seventh note to it (in this case it is B) Really it is up to the producerrsquos discretion how heshe goes about making a chord ndash just remember to stick to the scale you are using
Chords will more than likely sound like shit if you play them on a complicated or layered synth patch You want to be playing chords on sustained sounds such as strings or pads Chords will really fill out your sound if used properly You want your chords to be supporting the melody or bassline and more than likely want to add some reverb so that it doesnrsquot sound too sharp Make
Page 37
your chords blend in with the music and yoursquoll have mastered them
Chord Inversions
Quite simply chord inversions are when you rearrange the notes in a chord so that it sounds a bit different and suits your arrangement better
For example if you were in the key of C major you could have a drone of E playing underneath some strings playing the notes E G C E
Due to the fact that the notes are the same and have only been inverted the chord will still be in key with the rest of the music This is a great way to add a touch of variation to your music instead of using the same chord structure all the time
Arpeggios
Arpeggios are much easier to understand than they sound They are quite simply the first third and fifth note of the scale played as individual notes For example the arpeggio of C minor would be C Eb G C etc
A great example of an arpeggio is the bassline in Bengarsquos ldquoCrunked Uprdquo He goes from playing the F minor arpeggio backwards to playing the F minor arpeggio backwards In other words he is playing
C A F and then C Ab F
Experiment with a few Minor Arpeggios and a couple of Diminished Arpeggios and you canrsquot go wrong in writing a huge bassline
Suggested Reading
List of All Scales With Finger Charts Included
Well thatrsquos it folks Thatrsquos basically all the music theory you need to know to start off with As you grow more used to the various scales yoursquoll notice that certain notes sound good with each other whilst others donrsquot Irsquom not here to tell you how to write music Irsquom here to teach you the language
of music Itrsquos up to you to write the poetry
copy Bruno Crosier (klimaxx) 2008
45 Random Tips
Random tips amp best piece of advice thread
5 Resources
Page 38
51 Books amp Magazines
Hello again people
Does anyone know of more music production books magazines or authors we can add to these lists
Thanks
------------------------------------------------
Music Production Magazines Computer Music - httpwwwcomputermusiccouk Music Tech Magazine - httpwwwmusictechmagcouk Future Music - httpwwwfuturemusiccouk Sound on Sound - httpwwwsoundonsoundcom Remix Magazine - httpremixmagcom Mix Magazine - httpmixonlinecom Electronic Musician - httpemusiciancom EQ Magazine - httpwwweqmagcom Audio Technology - wwwaudiotechnologycomau Tape Op - httpwwwtapeopcom
------------------------------------------------
Music Books
Authors Curtis Roads httpmitpressmiteducatalogauthor aspaid=93 - The Computer Music Tutorial (Really really really good book) Paul White - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea ul20White - Basic Series + more Rick Snowman - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea k20Snoman - The Dance Music Manual Tools Toys and Techniques Bobby Owsinski - httpbooksgooglecoukbooksas_auth=Bobby+Owsinski - The MixingRecording amp Mastering Engineers Handbooks Michael Paul Stavrou - httpwwwmixingwithyourmindcom
Publishers Thomson Course Technology - httpcoursecengagecom (Click on the Music Technology tab) - Series published include Power Overdrive Ignite and CSI Series + many more Backbeat Books - httpwwwbackbeatbookscom ndash Power Tools Series + many more Wiley Publishing - httpwwwdummiescom (Enter music in their search bar) - For Dummies Series Penguin Books - httpuspenguingroupcom (Enter music in their search bar) - The Complete Idiots Guide Series + many more MIT Press - httpmitpressmitedu - Many books on music theory Focal Press - httpwwwfocalpresscom - (Enter music in their search bar)
------------------------------------------------
Online Music Book Stores (We need more links here Do you know of any that we can add)
httpwwwmixbookscom ndash Excellent source that sells only books about music
Page 39
httpwwwamazoncom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
httpwwwbarnesandnoblecom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
------------------------------------------------
52 Wikipedia
A good music lexicon wiki Search for your term in the search bar ---gt httpenaudiolexicorgwikiMain_Page
0-9
14rdquo Jack - httpenwikipediaorgwikiJack_plug 3rd Bridge - httpenwikipediaorgwiki3rd_Bridge
Zero Crossing - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_crossing Zero Crossing Rate - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_Crossing_Rate
53 Other recommended production forums
for Logic users this is the shit httpwwwlogicprohelpcom
Ive found both these forums to be full of knowledgeable producers amp musicians
httpwwwkvraudiocomforum
httpacapellaharmony-centralcomforumsindexphp
httpwwwgearslutzcomboard
httpwwwsoundonsoundcomforum
httpwwwmusicradarcomforum
httpwwwidmforumscom
httpwwwdance-industriescomphpBB2 8cffbb3b02
httpwwwsubvertcentralcomforumindexphp
httpwwwbreakbeatcouk
httpwwwtweakheadzcom
httpwwwabletoncompagesforum
Explains lots about the music industry ---gt httpwwwbemusocom
Page 47
Ok so a massive thanks to all the contributors there are literally too many to mention But Thanks to Futures Untold Johnny Beat Klimaxx Deadly Habit amp JunglistRendr Daft Cunt in perticular
Thanks to all the artists producers and general music geeks making this early revision of the production bible an essential read
There are links missing and will be included in version 21(Please help with the unlinked chapters by going here - httpwwwdubstepforumcomthe-dubstep-production-bible-updated-2009-06-03-t14797html and updating missing info as needed)
Compiled by Daft Cunt and Futures Untold PDF Compiled by Depone
Here is a list of the most popular freeware analysers available
Voxengo SPAN
Bluecat Audio Freqanalyst
Roger Nichols Inspector
Page 20
For a long list of other free analysers visit httpwwwgersiccompluginsindexphpdaCat=2
3 Techniques
31 Bass311 Sub Bass
Sub-bass is a term used to describe audible sounds below 90Hz - sound in the range below this (under 16-17Hz) would be termed infrasound Sound systems often feature a subwoofer that is dedicated solely to amplifying sounds in the lower bass and sub-bass range Source Wikipedia
So the idea is to have the sub going up to ~90Hz The exact frequency it should be cut at depend on the kicks frequency Lets say you HP your kick at 100Hz then the sub should be LPed at 100Hz so they compliment each other without clashing
There are several ways of creating a sub here are the most common 1 - using a unique waveform (sine saw square or triangle) will give you a nice linear sub NB You dont need to filter out a sine wave as it doesnt have overtones 2 - using detuned waveforms take 2 identical waves (sine saw square or triangle) and detune them - lets say -25 +25 semitone This will produce a phase effect and give movement to your sub but itll also cause large volume amplitude and youll need to compress it after filtering Great Massive tutorial by Subfocus here 3 - using a 808 kick you dont have a TR-808 Grab that pack
jobbanaught wroteAn easy option to get a powerful subbass is to take a 808 kick sample put it in your favorite sampler and loop a single cycle of the waverform somewhere in the middle of the sample The 808 kick is made of a sine and some additional white noise The sine gives your sub that rattling low end pressure and the noise adds overtonesgrittiness = instant badass subbass
You can find more tips about mixing your kick n sub in the Random bass tips thread
312 lsquoWobblersquo
Page 21
Wobble GuideWobble Bass
Wobble Bass as it is known is simply a bassline that has an LFO assigned to a Low Pass Filter as an insert effect LFOstands for Low Frequency Oscillator and is used to change a sound by a defined speed (measured in either Hz or synced to the Tempo in relation to the barsnotes through quantization) The way the LFO changes the sound is up to you you can make the LFO adjust the Volume the amount of Saturation Filter Cutoff etc Basically any parameter you link it to Essentially you are just using the LFO to send a changing value to a parameter
--------------------
How to get a simple wobble bass
1) Choose a simple sound on your synth (Anything apart from a Sine wave )
2) Select your LFO and set it to the speed you want (18 would be a good starting point)
3) Now assign the LFO to the Filter Cutoff Which should for this example be a Low Pass Filter as the sound were going for is a deep bass
4) You now have a basic wobble bass from here the possibilities for tweaking this sound are endless
--------------------
A quick breakdown of whats actually going on Essentially you are taking a sound (that can be an audio files generated by a synth etc) and then passing it through a Low Pass Filter Now what exactly does a Low Pass Filter do you ask
A Low Pass Filter allows Low Frequency signals to pass through it but reduces the amplitude (volume) of all the Frequencies above the cutoff point In general most plug-ins have various Low Pass Filter settings where the more poles it has the more Dbs it will cut and will yield a harder knee to it Example 1 Pole Filter with a -6dBOct reduction Vs a 2 Pole Filter reducing -12DbOct However you dont necessarily need a LFO controlling your Low Pass Filter Cutoff frequency value you could just draw in the Automation yourself but a LFO will yield a loop of consistent values and prevents the possibility of human error All the LFO is doing is sending a value to your frequency cutoff to keep it consistently changing
--------------------
Tips amp Advice
1) Sub bass wobble would normally be a Sine wave at around the 40-50 Hz range which would repeat the same chords as the mid-range bass wobble The only difference being that with a sub bass wobble there is no point in assigning the LFO to a Low Pass Filter because the sound is too low for the low pass filter to have any effect so theLFO is assigned to the amplitude (volume) instead Another reason for not applying a Low Pass Filter to the Sub bass is because it would typically be a Sine wave which possesses no Harmonics to be adjusted by the Filter
2) The sound of an LFO can also be adjusted by the wave type you choose The default setting for an LFO generator is a Sine wave although on most synths you can chose from Triangle Sawtooth Square wave Random Noise To get a nice sounding bass it is a good idea to use as many oscillators as possible on different octaves
3) Try messing around with the attack and release of your sound as this can have an impact on the sound of the bass Long attacks tend to create a more ambient sound and is a technique traditionally used with ambient pads
Page 22
4) Something that I find useful is to bounce the bassline to a wav file so that it can be chopped up and put in-sync with other elements of the song because the majority of the time you will find the first wave of sound in the wobble bassline will will be half the length of the other waves due to attack rates So the best thing to do is to chop that freak sound off the beginning of the file in your DAW (Logic Pro Reason Cubase etc) and start off with the second wave which should be fully formed This way it will not be too early of late when keeping in sync with other elements such as a second bassline
5) Another method you can use is creating a clone layer of your original sound and setting up a new LFO setup for that to beat alternatively in the space left by the original LFO Or go that crazy Drum amp Bass Reese route and split the frequencies to Low Mid and High then set different LFO rates for each band then recombine into one sound
6) For more variation automate your LFO speed and intensity
7) Where you place insert effects in relation to the filter (pre or post) will yield different sounding results
8) Other methods to achieve a wobble like sound Tremolo (This effects volume rather than frequency) FM Synthesis Modulation of PWM Oscillator Pitch assigned (in a liberal amount) to LFO Filter Envelope assigned to LFO (using a re-triggered envelope) (submitted by Faun2500)
9) Assign a second LFO to modulate the speed of the first LFO
LFO Shapes
Sine wave The smooth value change possible
Triangle Similar to a Sine wave but slightly more ramped amp synthetic sounding
Random A mixed bag
Sawtooth Will have a very fast attack with a slower release which will sound very rugged
Square wave Will be a simple open close style Very harsh and will generally cause a very harsh sound (Often used in DJ Hazard style bass-lines) Detune two square waves for a nice dark sounding bass
Waveforms submitted by Skells wrotehttpi228photobucketcomalbumsee83 cleanjpgSimple Filter Sweep
httpi228photobucketcomalbumsee83 wobblejpgSine Wave LFO assigned to Filter Cutoff
LINKS etc
Fruity Loops Wobble Tutorial (Link submitted by Wub) Massive Wobble YouTube Tutorial (Video created by thesynthesist) Pause amp Play Wobble Tutorial (Link submitted by dubmo) Albino3 Wobble Guide (Guide created by axon)
By Rendr amp Deadly Habit and a little help from Macc
313 lsquoReecersquo
The Reese Bass
Page 23
History Lesson
The Reese bass was a form of huge sounding synth-bass first used by the Detroit Techno producer Kevin Saunderson aka Master Reese aka Reese Project aka on the track Just Want Another Chance and immortalised in the classic DnB track Terrorist by Renegade Since then it has been (over)used in many a DnB track and continues to evolve even nowadays through Dubstep and Jungle It is said to be as influential to DnB as the Amen break and probably as used and abused as the Amen
Capturing the Beast
1The Oscillator Stage
To nail the Reese you need a synth with at least 2 oscillators but for better-bigger results use as many oscillators as you can (not really but 4 oscillators give a nice deep rumble - ahhhhhh) All the oscillators are playing sawtooth waves and all except one are detuned by 25-50 cents so that all oscillators are out of phase with each other
2 The Filter Stage
The signal is then sent to a low-pass filter with the cutoff freq set around 150-200Hz (experiment with that you want the growl of the mid-frequencies but you also want it as deep as possible without sacrificing the midrange) The resonance of the filter should be cranked up almost all the way (but again tweak accordingly to your filtersynth)
3 Fuzz it Up
The second most important aspect of the Reese (after the detuned sawtooths) is distortion Tube distortion and tape saturation work extremely well but dont hesitate to use other more extreme distortion units (dont forget that the Reese has been done a million times you have to add something original to it) Again adjust to taste
4 Spices and Herbs
Now that is the main recipe for the sound but like all haute-cuisine there are more things you can do to spice up the Reese Namely effects Effects that have been associated with the Reese are
Phasers - to accentuate the phase-shifting effect of the detuned sawtooths Unison - a great way to make it even bigger Chorus - again a good way to phatten it up
5 And Some More Synth Magic
Another thing to do so you can bring out the old-school jungle character of the Reese is to use Legato and PortamentoGlide if your syth of choice has them available These are both great ways to move from one note to the next without listening to the transition To put it simply when legato is on and you play a sustained E followed by a sustained G the transition between the two notes gives the listener the impression that they heard a single note being sustained that has just changed its pitch from E to G without pausing at a certain point
Always remember though that if you use Legato you have to turn the polyphony of your synth down to 1 (something you should almost always do with basslines because two bass-notes playing together almost never sound good in electronic music bass chords are more the realm of prog-rock shit than dubstep)
For the more technical minded legato in synthesizers is a variation of monophonic operation In contrast to monophonic mode where every new note restarts the ADSR envelopes in legato mode they are not if the previous note remains depressed when the new note is played This causes the initial transient from the attack and decay phases to sound only once and the ADSRs to remain at sustain stage for the whole sequence of notes until the final note is released (Wikipedia)
EDIT I just found out that in one of the free vst links on the bible there is a thing called the Hotelsinus Reese Bassline Synth So I didnt miss the opportunity for a mini review The software itself is small (like most free vst-is) and quite easy to install (you just drop the dll in the vst folder) As for the sound weeeeeeell the sounds it produces are definitely Reese But weak somehow Its like listening to Terrorist from a battered cheap old cassette from 93 or something It has a tinny and tiny sound when compared to what you can achieve with powerhouses like Albino or
Page 24
Massive or (one of my personal favorites for Reese) Cakewalk Rupture You can try it if you want but i dont think it will impress steppers that much we are bass-headed folk
314 Random Bass Tips
Plz add yours or others youve spotted on the forum
miss_molinari wrotebasically i have been experimenting with cutting (not sidechaining) a notch (band reject) in the bass starting at 60hz and ending just before 70 this is only for those bass lines which only hit on the kick (quite specific) also the bass is then high passed at about 220hz to pretty much 0db which is where the kick starts (ending the kick with a non-too-aggressive-cut at about 2khz) this essentially means that the kick and the bass do not share any frequencies above abot 200hz but also between 60 and 70 and with them always hitting at the same time this gets around the fact that sidechaining this type of sequencing would leave you with no or little bass
this has worked well so far but is useful mainly for sub basses ending at around 250hz would not be as good for full spectrum wubsanyone else got any tech tips regarding the bass and kick
futures_untold wroteI simply cut everything under 90Hz on my kicks and roll off slightly at 1KHz
Sub I cut under 40Hz and roll off at 200Hz
I always compress both seperately and keep my levels low in the mix to create plenty of head room later whilst adding sounds with higher frequency content
Anything above 150Hz is what I consider midrange Anything above 150Hz can be heard on mobile phone speakers We all know that theyre designed to play heavy bass lol Wink
miss_molinari wroteDaft Cunt wroteTo me it feels like cutting the kick above 80 hz makes it sound weak I guess it depends on the style I rather cut below 60 to 80 depending on the tune
yeah its all about context in a dry minimal setting im of the opinion you can make a kick punch right up to about 180-200hz but yeah depends on when and on what kind of punch (im usually talking a bass hit at about 200hz coupled with a knock hit anywhere up to about 1200hz) i imagine you true dubsteppers prefer a denser thump from 60 through to about 300hz
Daft Cunt wroteI began recently the band-reject thing on the sub Little details that make big difference
And do you people cut the bass where the snare peaks
my basses arent usually middy enough to need that but yeah a slight sidechain on the main snare and say midbasspadwothavyer is nice especially if the limelight is stolen by a deeper sidechain on the kick and midbasspadwothavyer can create a nice flow (especially when used with long decay reveb linked to the midbasspadwothavyer so that it sounds louder and longer the higher the frequency played - might
have to post some piccies of that one )
Shonky wroteWhat Ive been doing lately is bouncing down the kick track lowpassing one somewhere between 100-140 depending on the highest frequencies of the low sub and then sidechaining the sub to the low kick
Then take a copy of the kick track highpass between 300-1000 and this will give you the beater noise to make the kick cut through I then sidechain this to the more middly basses You can also send a small amount to a reverb bus which allows you to avoid mud on the lower frequencies whilst still giving you the space
Doing it this way seems to make sense to me cause the sidechains work on the corresponding kicks in the same frequency range so it doesnt cause loads of unnecessary compression where you dont need it
Page 25
boh wroteAlways make sure your kicks are in tune with the rest of the track ull hear it pitching up and down and make sure if ur layering that the transients dont conflict(good monitors make this easy) It all comes down to kick selection Whats the point in cutting a kick at 80hz with a fundemental freq of say 60hz Sure you get whats happening before it but u wont get the nice thump of the fundemental freq Choose other kicks that hit the freq u want (80hz say) instead of cutting them when theres no need to Unless you really really know what your doing getting technical like this complicates the situation Esp for people with little experience
sullyharmitage wrote50 hz hi pass seems a bit high to me maybe gd for kicky techno or house but for subby stuff it seems a bit muchdefo roll off past 30-35 (most well engineered systems will do this anyways so any content below this is definately getting wasted)if yr gonna go higher make sure its a soft curvei find levelling subs is the hardest part of a mix - cos more always sounds better i remember reading breakage saying yr subs shouldnt add more than 3db to yr mix thats seems like a good guide
btw sub in kick an bassline simultaeously is gonna cause clashes (n maybe disortion) id either decrease the attack on the bass or cut the sub from the kick
unklefesta wroteI rolloff EVERYTHING at 40hz except my bass
standard
wang wroteAlways do it
Dont forget youre ROLLING off the frequencies not cutting them off all together Just a couple of dB of bass down there is enough to get some girth without removing all your headroom
Also analyse and cut off the lows on everything even if it doesnt appear to have messy lows -Youd be surprised how much bass there is in some high hats
Jtransition wroteAll of your tracks are going to be different so dont restrict yourself to a certain techniquetry different things and listen to the results
Shonky wrotewang wroteAlso analyse and cut off the lows on everything even if it doesnt appear to have messy lows -Youd be surprised how much bass there is in some high hats
Yep this is very true also worth filtering out the inaudible highs on low sounds as well found some of my subs which Id low passed still showed frequency activity much higher than expected
Jtransition wroteStick a high pass filter on everything apart form the kick drum and bass line70 hertz is a good starting point move up or down to tasteAnd remember try to mix at low levels(Walls not vibrating)
Deadly Habit wroteRendr wroteBasslines in my experience should be mono due to the fact that humans cannot easily decoded the stereo positioning of low frequencys so panning basslines (excluding bass sounds with high pitch sounds at around 500Hz+) is not recommended not only are the low frequencys hard to position with the human ear the low frequency sound waves are absorbed by the human head at a much higher ratio than high pitch sounds which tend to be reflected Another thing to note is that club systems are
mono Basslines that pan only belong in Psytrance
sub range should be mono especially if going to be cut to vinylmidrange bass on the other hand you can pan and add stereo fx to your hearts content
Page 26
32 Re-sampling
SafeAfter a few months of experimenting with resampling not really getting anywhere in terms of sound quality i came up with a pretty simple way of getting on the right track Ive got so much help since getting on this forum in terms of production i thought id share this for those who like myself are looking into the elusive yet highly rewarding technique of resamplingAll the vsts i use on this (save for the synth itself) are freenative plugs im using FL but itll transfer onto every DAW pretty much the same Ill explain it for a bassline but it can be applied to any sound
Step 1Make yourself a nice bassline get it sounding dirty with whatever you can within the synth Im using Albino so i tend to play about with the saturation modesFXs until its sounding pretty good
Step 2Hook up to a mixer channel then send this channel to a second mixer channel (FL users just click on another channel towards the bottom of the strip) On the second channel that the synth is hooked to from the first add CMt bitcrusher and downsample 3-16x (thanks to all the production forum users who pointed this out to me when i posted a few months ago on dirtying up basslines) Then add a chorus Turn the LFOs off and set the depthdelayetc to whatever sounds best Also set the crossover pretty high so only the treblehigh mids are being affected Then add Camel Audio Camel Crusher Turn the compressor off and set the tubemech to taste Add a parametric EQ if needs be to boost the high freqs Experiment with the chain of these effects swapping them according to the sound The choruscameleq in different orders should alter the sound quite alot depending on where their placed
Step 3 Set the level of the second affected channel with the original depending on whatever suits Play about with adding extra effects to both channels The way the second channel behaves once an effect is added to the first is quite extreme in even light application of effects So its possible to create a whole array of different sounds just from say adding a flangerchorusetc to the first channel then listening to how much it affects the sound as a whole as it goes through both channels By now it should be sounding pretty girthy
Step 4Export the riffsample (i use edison on the master channel in FL but whatever method will do) Reload and place into a mixer channel Add another Camel Crusher for abit more grit EQ and compress Set up a reverbdelay send and resample again for extra depth
Obviously this technique can be applied a 2nd3rd4th time to fuck the sound up even more so Which is what ive moved onto doing now into the territory of splitting the sound into basslow midhigh midtreble sections for ultimate control over each part Something which i was attempting to do before coming up with the above method but being left with a pile of unlistenable mushy shite
Hope this is a help to some peeps I know theres no secret technique to resamping only a whole load of practice and using your ears but this method got me on the right track in terms of hearing the benefits of it and encouraging me to experiment more in depth and realise that the possiblities are endless Im hooked now i resample pretty much every sound in one way or another Kick and snares benefit hugley from it for mega face melting wide drum sounds aswell so its worth trying it on some nice drum hits
Keep up the good work folksPeaceDC_WT
33 Drums
Read before reading on I am in no way entitled to any of those opinions It is up to you to decide whether you would like to incorporate them in your workflow I have just collected them from all the threads in this forum and will try to keep everything updated
I will update as regularly as I find updates
Page 27
Misc tips and tricks bull Good drums are usually layered - example 3 snares sounding as onebull The hats are often panned or widenedbull Pick great sounding samples different ones for different parts of the sounds you want 1
for snap and bite 1 for body 1 for thump distort and MAYBE EQ each to make them sound the best that they can separately combine in a bus MAYBE compress them together maybe accent the front and shorten the sound with a transient modifier 10 minutes tops
bull Do as little as possible with great-sounding bits and your basic sounds will be slamming leaves you time to focus on the arrangement people dont go around thinking wow that tune has an amazing snare as long as its thumping and not masked by a bunch of other stuff itll keep the dance moving
bull Listen to other producers work As its playing imagine the 1 2 3 4 on the step sequencer running in time to what youre listening to Try to visualize where the producer put their hits Not to say you should copy peoples drum patterns but learn from them
bull Ive noticed a lot of tunes (more minimal stuff where you can distinctly hear whats seperately going on) seem to use two differently pitched hi-hats that alternate to sound shuffley if you know what I mean and a less dramatic snare used sparsely in between the main lazy kick and snare An easy trick if you havent worked it out (which to be honest you should have if youre at all serious about producing dubstep) is to stick a smaller snare or hat the 116th before the kick or snare so it steps if you get me For example Bengas Night does this for all four beats in the bar which is part of what makes it so danceable But dont get stuck in always having kick on 1 and snare on 3 some tracks work with a kick on every beat others with a couple big snares etc The trick (unless you want proper lazy spaced out tunes) is to make sure youre nodding your head on all four beats of the bar Play around with a hat on every quaver (ie 8 per bar on the beat) compared to just four but on the off beat as well as adding in the steppy ones every now and then Theres often no need to over-complicate things though one of the my favourite drum tracks is the incredibly simplistic V by Distance Its a rhythm that could easilly be played by one guy on a real kit yet its so banging - check the use of hats and lower velocity kicks in this to make it nice and bouncy Also I once had a four bar drum loop and accidentally moved the sequence one bar to the right for one section and it ended up nicely varying the drums in a way you wouldnt expect
bull Really tight delays can help claps and snaps sound natural 5-20ms etcbull Recycle or phatmatik is your break-chopping friendbull Basically Hatrixxs method involved chopping everything from the main hits into a sample
Say you had a 2-step funk beat like the Amen Youd start your selection from the start of the first kick and select everything up to the start of the first snare Cut paste theres your first slice Then take everything from the start of the first snare up to the start of the second kick - including all the little hats and ghost hits - cut paste second sample and so on Then just map the samples onto some keys and bash away Both of them are quick compared to chopping Recycled slices where you have to copy and drag loads of little notes (one every little fucking tiny hit in the break arranged chromatically up the keyboard) around the piano roll These methods let you just concentrate on the main hits which can be both good or bad You can get a solid beat down with just a handful of hits but youre limited to the patterns already in the original break For a beginner to breakbeat science like yourself Id say try these methods first but dont rule out the really anal methods like RecyclePhatmatikFruity Slicer Sometimes they are a necessary evil Of course some of the drumfunk guys especially those who post on Subvert Central swear by these methods or the next one There are those who prefer to chop up the raw audio rather than bothering with MIDI and samplers They literally just drop the break file into Cubase or Logic and start chopping with the scissors tool and copying and pasting I can see the benefits of this You can see the waveform as youre chopping and youre not as restriced to the quantize grid as you are with MIDI But it takes aaaaages to build a drum track this way and theres the risk of RSI from all that Ctrl+C Ctrl+V youll be doing Then of course theres trackers They really are tailor-made for chopping up loops amongst other things They give you Sample Offset meaning that when you trigger a sample you can set it to start from 256 evenly spaced points throughout the sample So by starting a sample a quarter of the way through youre triggering the first snare (obviously you can fine-tune it when the snare isnt perfectly on the beat) You can edit breaks in a tracker without ever having to cut up a waveform and you can do all sorts of other nifty things like reverse the sample retrigger it to make drum rolls and so on
If recycles having trouble switch the break to mono in your sample editor and then apply tiny fades between the drum hits (especially useful if there are lots of rides that play over the other hits to keep things separate) This should help recycle pick up the start points and with any luck should leave you with a cleaner break
Page 28
Snaresbull Tune the snares so they all hit around the same pitch bull Change the Amp Envelopes of each to bring the strongest parts from each separate sample
and build up your sound like that bull Compressing all together is a good idea but dont over do it bull EQ the master out for the snare as well so you wont have to fuck about when you use the
sample in the future bull Donrsquot just use snares fling some random sound effects in there Claps and rim shots also
work well when layered bull Make subtle changes to them and export a few snares from the same setup this helps
when you need a ghost hit or a reverse that sounds similar but not identicalbull Watch that frequencies dont build up and make the layered bit sound overly whatever
is building up Really easy to get too much 200hz or 500hz or even 12k if youve got samples that are all beefythicksmack-y
bull If its peaking run it through a Spectrum Analyzer and see where its peaking I guess its peaking in the tune rather than just the snare sample playing on its own
bull Sometimes snare samples have a very short peak that doesnt seem to make them sound any better and keeps you from getting them louder without cliping Reduce that part by a few dBs and youre sorted
bull Make sure you are using subtractive eq to pull out the frequencies that could be clashing with other sounds If your frequencies are clashing that can hide the snare and then you end up turning it up to compensate and there you are with your snare peakingThe key is making the frequencies sit right in the mix so that they dont clash and you can set them right and not have to turn them up
bull You could always try clipping the snare normalise it in a wave editor amplify it as much as you can before it sounds distorted then sample it out Then replace the snare with the clipped version it will almost always sound louder with more body at a lower volume I would still point out that although this can be used as a replacement to compression compression is a vital tool to learn how to use Also a lot of peeps will say this does bad things to the waveform and it does but unless you intend to listen to your tune to be heard at home on an amazing hifi then it doesnt really matter that much IMO
bull Hi-pass overdrive limit and cut away space from other sounds for itbull Layer with its self or a different snare Layer with sub add effect to one layer add effect
to both layers layer zoom right in drag one wave form back or forth very slightly to create new snare sound Pitch updown EQ Filter distort reverb delay reverse
bull Record yourself beat boxing your best snare sounds then layer with snare samplesbull A good handclap never goes a miss or use a nice drum synth to get a very differentdigital
soundbull Try reversing the snare sample then changing the envelope settings so it only hits on the
beat Layer that with the same sample this time not reversed Add a little delay to the the reversed snare Change the settings til it sounds how you like
bull Particularly snares I layer up a lot I look for one that has the qualities that I want when run through verb and then I look for something shorter with more mid punch to keep things physical After someone notied snares were weak in a tune Ive really made a point of ensuring that when the snares hit its physical as well as textural You need to feel them a bit - so I look for some snares that have that real punch when layering but usually keep the more textural snappy one as the focus last couple tunes I did the standard kick snare hats w odd percussion and then I took an amen chopped it processed it and layered it overtop for more aggression and step (goddess being a perfect example) By removing a layer and adding it you can create a sense of progression through the tune Make sure the bottom layer is sounding really good and then add the top so that youre not mixing them to be reliant on one another - instead you want synergy Make sure the EQ on the top and bottom make sense with each other
Kicksbull Building a kick in Ableton Lives Impulse machine Provides some essential information
about layering that can be used with any DAWbull Making fat kicks
remixmag wroteWhether creating Miami Bass music is your lifes fantasy or your greatest fear you probably crave the know-how to manifest those car-rattling trunk-full-of-funk kick drums In the arenas of hip-hop house techno downtempo and almost any other electronic genre molding fat kick drums is absolutely essential Like grandmas homemade apple pie the recipe for kick drums is partially a matter of taste However theres no substitute for quality ingredients And just like every pie has its staple ingredients every slamming kick drum requires some common elements Lets take a look at the
Page 29
shopping list for killer kick drumsTHE CRUST
Youll need a basic shell to begin creating a thick strong kick The classics always work if youre fortunate enough to own a real Roland TR-808 909 or other famous drum machine with a killer kick use it copiously If youre not one of those chosen few pay close attention to your original source For example if you use a sampler understand that not all ldquo808 Kickrdquo samples are the same some sound great and some just plain suck There are a lot of reasons for that including how many generations from the original the sample is the sampling rate and bit depth of the sampler how the kick was first sampled and so on Be as choosy as possible with your individual samples mdash dont use a mediocre sample just because it has 808 in the name and therefore is ldquosupposedrdquo to sound fat Seek out a better 808 sample or use something else that is simply bigger sounding Remember the time you spend finding sweet original sources wont be in vain especially if you reuse the resulting samples for multiple songsBORROW SOME SUGAR
An old saying goes ldquoGood art borrows great art stealsrdquo A nice way to start out with great raw kick material is to sample directly from the source If you dont own but have access to a 909 then sample it directly Or take one of your favorite producers tracks on vinyl or CD find a naked kick drum in there and sample it Be cautious with that approach for a couple of reasons Copyright issues around sampling even small bits have become a dangerously gray area and I would never personally advise using any source straight out of the can even from a royalty-free sample library While it may be an excellent start its unoriginal Customize whatever you bite Treat your samples as a sculptor would treat clay mold each one to create a trademark sound for yourself One effective way to customize a fat kick is to take a tip from the synth manufacturers If a sound is thin pile another (or a few more) on top When doing so its important to use different sounds layering two identical kicks will result in a louder kick but it wont change the basic tone Remember the sculptor approach here Even if you are using two good-sounding individual samples they may not instantly sound great together For example I find that when layering kicks while the thickness may be good sustain is often overkill The final result often benefits from a little doctoring on the tail of one (or both) of the samples and other hands-on sonic surgeryADD THE FILLING
Once a nice basic kick is achieved treating it with two of the mastering engineers favorite tools is often the next step Artfully applying a compressor (to just the kick) can go a long way toward creating a signature sound and a huge kick Compression is one of those ldquosecret spicesrdquo and how to apply it is a whole topic in itself One recommendation I will make however is to use a multiband compressor With one of those you can isolate compression on certain frequency ranges That is perfect if for example you want to push the sub of your kick without emphasizing the higher frequencies (which often affect the tone of the attack) or vice-versa EQ comes after compression in my signal chain By now the kick should already sound pretty fat I aim to shave unnecessary frequencies here rather than artificially boosting too much This is also where you can actualize trademark sounds while also fine-tuning them to work alongside other elements in specific tracks I often scoop out mids and highs especially frequencies above about 500 Hz Even though I like thick deep kicks unless Im going for a really dublike sound I often truncate the lowest frequencies (usually the sub-50 Hz frequencies) Even when you cant hear the difference when trimming frequencies doing so can really tighten up your kicksEVEN IT OUT
You may ask why when youre trying to fatten up a kick would you want to trim frequencies That is one of the keys to achieving great mixes both in the case of kick drums and in general You want to avoid too many overlapping frequencies The more sonic separation you have between elements the more focused the entire mix will sound That can be especially important for club music which often gets played on huge not necessarily audiophile-quality sound systems If you havent run into the following scenario already I assure you at some point you will Your bass line and kick drum are competing and it sounds like you have a weak kick You boost the kick but it still sounds muddy Take the bass out and suddenly the kick doesnt sound so bad In a scenario like that solo the two sounds listen carefully for where frequencies are overlapping and then try subtractive EQ on one element then the other and sometimes a bit on both By scooping out overlapping frequencies you will often find that both elements seem to magically come forward in the mix before even touching their respective volume levels
Hi hatsbull Realism
Ive been a professional touring and recording drummer for 25 years and just thought I might share a couple of really simple ways to use fruity loops or fruity studio to create more realistic drum patterns
For what its worth try this out with Fruity Loops
Page 30
Take your hi hat tracks (are any tracks for that matter including melodic synth bubbles)
Drop down the bar graph box that allows you to scroll between velocity (volume) pitch panning cutoff resonance and a thing called shift which allows you to use each of these categories to effect each individual note that youve programmed (note this can be accomplished in other ways in most of the good midi sequencing apps or softwarehardware drum machines)
Drummers no matter how good they are just arent perfect and we can use the fact that each of these drop down bar graphs can make veryvery small changes in a sound to do some subtle things to a rolling drum groove like 16th notes on a hi hat
Not all drummers but many tend to favor their strong hand in a single stroke (hand over hand) drum roll Consequently if you make all odd numbered hi hats be slightly louder than their even numbered hits it will sound more realistic Start by making velocity differences that are really clearly audible Then lower the velocity until you can barely feel the difference We are going to make very subtle changes like this on each of the parameters of velocity pitch cutoff resonance and importantly shift
I cant stress enough that you should make these changes be so subtle that you can hardly notice them
Just going on the fact that the right handed players start their rolls with the right hand and favor it ever so slightly (or grossly for effect as well) means that the stroke will be harder with the right hand than the left hand
When a percussion instrument is hit harder the difference between the transient (or hi pitched attack) of the sound and the body of the instrument (or the sound that comes after the attack) becomes greater In general on drums that means that a harder attack tensions the drum very imperceptably (sp) and it also means that there will be more treble in the sound Consequently the pitch goes up a little teensy bit and their is more attack to the sound (increased resonance and slightly higher cutoff frequency)
Consequently you can make the pitch of each right hand be just barely noticeably higher the resonance should be just one or two of those little teeny bars higher The cutoff should be just a few bars lower (allowing less high frequencies through) on the left handed or even numbered strokes
Typically if drums have time inaccuracies they tend to drag the left hand a litte bit I have to keep stressing that if you can hear the changes you make you arent being realistic You need to make the changes subtle enough that you just barely feel that they arent perfect You can consequently make each left hand note shifted one or two bars late
Tigure out how much you can tweak each parameter before it becomes obvious and then you can just randomly tweak each one up to that limit With a little bit of variance in each stroke from parameter to parameter you will create more of a percolating texture in your programming - this is a great technique to make synth bubbles (the kind used in techno and house) more interesting and less mechanical feeling
Now you can avoid the biggest mistake that non-drummers do when trying to write realistic programs turn the overall volume of the hihats until you CANT hear them and then slowly bring up the volume until you just begin to hear them
Professional producers have spent countless hours trying to figure out how to gate and mix hihats OUT of tracks The reason is two fold1) Human beings have such a radical peak in their hearing around the 1-2khz range (or the intelligibility range of human speech) that we can play the hihats at incredible low volumes and they are still audible You cant do that with a bass drumI tell my drum students that you cannot play a hi hat or a snare drum so quietly that a person sitting in a room with you cant hear it2) Hi Hats the snare of snare drums and cymbals all seriously MASK human vocal intellibility How many people have gone to see live shows where they can hear the singer is singing but cant for the life of them figure out what they are actually singing That is ususally because drummers (or mixers which is frequently the case) are not hip to thisimportant fact
So turn down your hi hat tracks (or any track with a strong mid rangeshort envelope attack) and you have much more room for other musical goodies in your mix When in doubt make your hi hats quieter than you think they should be Trust me theyll come through the mix even at a quiet volume
Swingbull Dont know if you can do this in your sequencer but in Logic you can create a groove
template from your drums and then apply that to your other instruments If youre using separate midi channels for snares kicks and hats take the 8 bar loop youre using glue it together and then take the groove from that and then mute that track When you click down the quantize list youll see the template there and you can apply it to your other tracks Also if you do want to change the groove you can just change the hits in the muted template and itll automatically change all other hits to the new changes
bull Think if youre clever and organized you can basically cut breaks up in recycle load them into the exs24 (extract sequence) and then do the same with them That way if there are breaks you like the feel of you can just apply that swing to anything If you make a folder called grooves in your logic folder they should load up each time so that youll have loads to choose from Havent done this myself yet but always helpful to have a choice of feels available
bull Some things sound better rigid and robotic with equal velocities Some things sound better rigid and robotic with differing velocities Some things sound better with swing Some things sound better with everything ever-so-slightly off Its down to what the track needs
bull Drum Break Swing ProgrammingNicolas Hall wwwbreakbeat-cafenet wroteI think most people who make anything funk breakbeat drum amp bass or hip-hop would agree that Swing is crucial to the effectiveness of a beat The other key factors in a programming sense are dynamic and accent So many people get wound up when their beats sound sterile or mechanical this is due to the fact that computers and sequencers lock to perfect BPM A computer on its own does not interpret rhythm the way a good drummer does There are however certain machines that have their own swing parameters like the Akai MPC range of sampling drum machines which are used extensively by hip hop producers
Swing is not the easiest thing in the world to analyze but as a general rule good drummers will play slightly late and thats why in all funky records you get that slight dip at the start of the bar take Superstition by Stevie Wonder or Billie Jean by Michael Jackson these are both very simple beats Superstition is of course live drums whilst Billie Jean was programmed but no less funky than Superstition I emphasize this point to demonstrate that a programmed beat can be every bit at groovy as a beat played on a drum kit
Expanding on the Billie Jean point Hip Hop beats are really very simple If you listen to the Neptunes they tend to create the swing in their beats by quantizing the kicks and snares and playing the hi hats in by hand this creates a very tight beat which is off set by a loose hi hat try it works but dont forget your accents - As a starting point just take the first snare of your beat and turn the velocity down then notice how your head starts nodding and your foot starts tapping a little more you are giving the beat feel Also remember that if you are using reverb the louder snare will push the reverb harder than the soft snare so your creating more ambience that way Then try your kick drums if your not sure which hits to adjust just pick apart a beat your feeling I remember me and friend picking apart a Gangstarr beat and were able to almost replicate it by adjusting the velocities of each hit (admittedly it took a while to get it right)
If youre a newbie then a common trick when learning to make good grooves is to create a template with an existing loop The idea is take a loop you like thats got a good feel to it and then place your own hits over the break then take the break out and see if your hits are sounding funky This can take a while and its crucial to think about the strength of each hit or the dynamic Each kick will not be the same strength nor will the snares or the hats pick the loop apart dissect it and youll soon see that there are certain consistencies in all good beats
If youre using live loops and like to layer them with drum sequences you should be thinking about time space and frequencies So if you have a fairly heavy loop then layering it with heavy kick drums is probably not gonna sound good Think about filling holes are their any frequencies that could be filled up Or is there space in the loop for extra hits Try working in layers just adding one hit at a time also filtering works well you could take some of the frequencies out of your loop as you drop your drum sequences in to make room for them I think one the masters of this technique is Liam Howlett of the Prodigy He runs breakbeats and gives them extra balls by laying a kick drum underneath to add extra intensity to certain passages in his set but hes careful not to overlap frequencies to much A good place to start if you using breakbeats is the Roland Tr-808 kick drum which is around the 50hz mark which is sub bass territory so it will sit underneath most breaks very well
If your hell bent on making killer beats and loops then perseverance is crucial keep at it it will come together listen to beats you like and pick them apart identify the subtleties that make it happen I know some producers get fed up when their beats sound to clean or they are trying to create a new breakbeat and then compare it to sample they took from vinyl and get down on there own beat Think about what a breakbeat really is think about its history what has happened to it to make it sound the way it does Im
Page 32
sure youve noticed how some breaks have a certain something like a magic dust you cant put your finger on Let me share what I know with you about that
Most breaks though not all are taken from recordings of live drums some of them are pretty old so you have the ambience of live drums and the room they were recorded in you have the fact that natural decay and reverb of each drum is likely to have bled into the other mics on the kit and that most engineers used overhead mics which pick up the whole kit with two mics Then consider that many of these breaks will have been recorded to analogue tape with saturation which will create extra warmth and harmonics The next step comes from old sampling technology like the SP-1200 and the Akai s-950 mpc -60 these samplers sampled at 12- bit (bear in mind that most computers now are at least 24-bit if not more) and that the samples themselves where taken from vinyl and on and on the process goes with each new reverb and eq adding more and more to the break In terms of giving your breaks that character there are a number of things you can try for example buying an old four track cassette machine to dump your beats onto then re-sample it if your using a sampler like the s-950 then try pushing the input meters a little harder than usual add reverbs and resample it each time you put your loop through a new channel you will be adding something to it Also distortion is fantastic for breaks if you have any amp plug ins then try them the Amplitude one is particularly good you dont need to go mad with it just used subtly it works great
To finish I would just like to say again stick with it keep trying keep listening to records if you like to read about technique then do so you can learn so much from other producers Remember the strength of your hits is important as is the way it swings good luck
UPDATE 08092008
ENHANCE SYNTHESIZED DRUM PARTS WITH FOUND SOUNDS
emusiciancom wroteLayering real-world sounds with synthesized drum parts puts a new spin on your drum tracks You probably already have usable sound effects on your hard drive because most commercial samplers have at least a modest collection in their factory library Beyond that youll find thousands of royalty-free sound effects online Soundsnapcom is one of my favorite sources and its free The recordings dont need to be pristine for layering over drums so dont overlook cheap sampling CDs and consider grabbing your own sounds with a portable recorderCollect and Save
Start by assembling a small Foley library of short percussive sounds divided into typical drum-sound categories kicks snares toms cymbals percussion and so on Youll generally want to layer drum sounds with Foley sounds that have a similar volume contour and frequency range If you layer a Foley sound that resembles a kick drum with the sound of your hi-hat for example youll quickly fill up all the space in your drum track
Industrial household military transportation and vocal sounds make excellent fodder but you will often want to extract a small slice such as the last shot in a volley of machine-gun fire (snare) or the first bounce of a plastic bottle on concrete (tom) A browsing tool like Audio Finder (icedaudiocom) is invaluable if you have a large sample library That lets you quickly audition clips make basic edits and drag-and-drop slices to your library
Sticks UpIf your synthesized drum part is step sequenced youll need to export its step sequences as MIDI files Many drum synths do that including Sonic Charge Tonic (sonicchargecom) Apple Logic UltraBeat (applecom) and Submersible DrumCore (submersiblemusiccom) All of those come with a large collection of patterns exportable as MIDI sequences Youll also need a sampler to play the Foley sounds drum-oriented samplers are handier for that but are by no means necessary
Start by loading a kit in the drum synth Export one of its sequenced patterns or create your own and place it on the sampler track For some of the drum synth sounds select compatible Foley sounds and map them to the same notes in the sampler that theyre mapped to in the drum synth Next solo the doubled voices one by one in both the drum synth and the sampler start the sequence playing and tweak the samplers voice parameters (filter level pan envelope and so on) to make the sounds work together (see Fig 1 and Web Clip 1) Dont tweak global parameters such as effects because that will affect all sounds played by the sampler
High HoopsOnce youve configured your Foley track you can do several things to add interest I frequently use a
Page 33
second sampler for short vocal sounds Ill have some notes trigger sounds in both samplers and others in only one Many samplers let you group sounds and assign notes and controllers to choose among them You can then sequence these notes and controllers or you can play them live to alter your Foley tracks
Try applying DSP effects to individual Foley sounds Multitap delays distortion phasing and granular effects all work well when used sparingly (see Web Clip 2) You can apply DSP effects inside your sampler or route the voices to a separate output for DSP processing in your DAW If your sampler doesnt offer either possibility spread the Foley parts over several sampler instances on different tracks
Sidechain compression or gating of the drum track with one or more of the Foley parts will highlight the Foley part as well as add variety to the drums With compression peaks in the sidechain signal will reduce the level of the drum track Use a high compression level say 201 and balance the sidechain-gain and the compression-threshold -attack and -release controls to get the ducking contour you want (see Web Clip 3) Gating has the opposite effect the drum track will be heard during peaks in the sidechain signal (see Web Clip 4) Here too the sidechain-gain and gate-threshold controls work in tandem to determine when the gate is opened Use envelope parameters (attack release and hold) to shape the gates contour
Keep in mind that once youve created a sampler instrument to complement your drum kit you can reuse it with other sequences You can also change one or more sounds in the sampler instrument without repeating the whole process
34 Sidechain Compression (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
4 Theory41 ndash Song Structure42 ndash Mixdown (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)43 ndash Mastering (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
44 Music Theory
The first thing to remember about music theory is that generally if it sounds right it probably is There are no rules in music and Music Theory is not about telling you how to write music Its about understanding the music
Broadly speaking it is fair to say that most music is essentially based upon two crucial factors scales and rhythm Scales make up melodies chords harmonies and basslines to name but a few whereas rhythm makes up the beat of the song In this part of the Production Bible you will learn the basics of Music Theory that will serve you not only in the production of Dubstep but for any of your future musical pursuits This information is intended to be easy to read and understand so I wonrsquot be mincing sentences But firstly please make sure you learn every single note on the keyboard by studying the image below Otherwise yoursquoll be completely lost here
Page 34
Scales Wersquoll begin with scales As I mentioned before scales are the building blocks of your song and without them your track will be atonal and completely unlistenable (probably not the effect yoursquore going for)
There are two main scales that you should learn inside out ndash the major scale and the minor scale A generalisation yoursquore bound to have heard before is that the major scale sounds ldquohappyrdquo and the minor scale sounds ldquodarkrdquo Although this is not always the case it is mostly true ndash and therefore yoursquoll usually be focussing on the minor scale when producing Dubstep However just in case yoursquore writing happy-dubstep (if that exists) here is a quick overview of both scales and how they are made up
Major Scale
The major scale is really easy to create It is made by a single rule that is simple to put in to place
ldquoTone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
In case you donrsquot know what a Tone or Semi-Tone is here is a quick explanation
Picture a keyboard (or if you canrsquot see the image above) Say you go from C to C that would be a semi-tone The same thing goes for if you go from an E to an F ndash it is still a semi-tone because you
Page 35
have gone up one key
A tone is two semi-tones ndash for example from C to D is a tone and the same goes for from G to A
The scalersquos name is taken from the note that it starts on For example C major will start on the note of C Similarly A major will start on the note of A and this is the case with every single scale
Here is a quick list of a few major scales After having seen a few try working the rest out for yourself in order to understand how the major scale is formulated Ideally you should practice your scales on a piano or keyboard so that you can physically see how to make the scale It might sound boring but itrsquos a small price to pay for a much deeper understanding of your music
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Major C D E F G A B C
C Major C D E F G A B C
D Major D E F G A B C D
D Major D E F G A B C D
E Major E F G A B C D E
F Major F G A Bb C D E F
F Major F G A B C D E F
G Major G A B C D E F G
G Major G A B C D E F G
A Major A B C D E F G A
A Major A B C D E F G A
B major B C D E F G A B
Now by arranging the different notes of each of these scales in any order you please you can create a melody bassline or harmony with extreme ease Rearranging the notes in the scale will give you a flawlessly in-key result and it is then up to you to use the notes in the scale as you see fit for your tune
Minor Scale
As was the case with the Major Scale the Minor is made up from a set rule or formula By knowing this formula you can understand how the Minor is made and how to use it to itrsquos maximum effect
ldquoTone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
As is the case with the major scales you should practice your scales as much as possible to make sure that you know them all like the back of your hand Here are a few Minor Scales see if you can
Page 36
work out the rest
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Minor C D Eb F G Ab B C
D Minor D E F G A Bb C D
F Minor F G A B C D E F
G Minor G A Bb C D Eb F G
Similarly to the Major now that you know your Minor Scales you can quickly just take any note from the scale rearrange it with another few notes in the scale and there you have a fat melody or bassline ready to be played at maximum volume
Diminished Chords
Diminished Chords are really quite spooky and dark chords that are made up of four different notes all a minor third apart from each other That means that for example the Diminished Chord starting on C would be C Eb F A because to get from one note to the next you have to use ldquoTone Semi-Tonerdquo (known as a minor third)
Because of the mathematical nature of the Diminished chord there are only three ldquoclustersrdquo of notes which can then be rearranged like the Major and Minor Scales
Cluster 1 C Eb F A
Cluster 2 C E G Bb
Cluster 3 D F Ab B
Use these clusters and rearrange them as you please For example you could rearrange cluster 1 as Eb F A C etc
Generally speaking you canrsquot make a song based entirely on Diminished Chords due to the fact that each cluster only has 4 notes However a Diminished Chord is perfect for adding a hint of darkness to your tune and is brilliant when mixed with some Minor Scales
Chords
Chords are basically two or more notes played together They are made up from a specific scale ndash for example the C major chord is made up of notes in the C major scale
Usually chords will include the first third and fifth note of the scale as well as possibly using other notes to give them colour For example the basic chord of C major would be C E G Then you could add the seventh note to it (in this case it is B) Really it is up to the producerrsquos discretion how heshe goes about making a chord ndash just remember to stick to the scale you are using
Chords will more than likely sound like shit if you play them on a complicated or layered synth patch You want to be playing chords on sustained sounds such as strings or pads Chords will really fill out your sound if used properly You want your chords to be supporting the melody or bassline and more than likely want to add some reverb so that it doesnrsquot sound too sharp Make
Page 37
your chords blend in with the music and yoursquoll have mastered them
Chord Inversions
Quite simply chord inversions are when you rearrange the notes in a chord so that it sounds a bit different and suits your arrangement better
For example if you were in the key of C major you could have a drone of E playing underneath some strings playing the notes E G C E
Due to the fact that the notes are the same and have only been inverted the chord will still be in key with the rest of the music This is a great way to add a touch of variation to your music instead of using the same chord structure all the time
Arpeggios
Arpeggios are much easier to understand than they sound They are quite simply the first third and fifth note of the scale played as individual notes For example the arpeggio of C minor would be C Eb G C etc
A great example of an arpeggio is the bassline in Bengarsquos ldquoCrunked Uprdquo He goes from playing the F minor arpeggio backwards to playing the F minor arpeggio backwards In other words he is playing
C A F and then C Ab F
Experiment with a few Minor Arpeggios and a couple of Diminished Arpeggios and you canrsquot go wrong in writing a huge bassline
Suggested Reading
List of All Scales With Finger Charts Included
Well thatrsquos it folks Thatrsquos basically all the music theory you need to know to start off with As you grow more used to the various scales yoursquoll notice that certain notes sound good with each other whilst others donrsquot Irsquom not here to tell you how to write music Irsquom here to teach you the language
of music Itrsquos up to you to write the poetry
copy Bruno Crosier (klimaxx) 2008
45 Random Tips
Random tips amp best piece of advice thread
5 Resources
Page 38
51 Books amp Magazines
Hello again people
Does anyone know of more music production books magazines or authors we can add to these lists
Thanks
------------------------------------------------
Music Production Magazines Computer Music - httpwwwcomputermusiccouk Music Tech Magazine - httpwwwmusictechmagcouk Future Music - httpwwwfuturemusiccouk Sound on Sound - httpwwwsoundonsoundcom Remix Magazine - httpremixmagcom Mix Magazine - httpmixonlinecom Electronic Musician - httpemusiciancom EQ Magazine - httpwwweqmagcom Audio Technology - wwwaudiotechnologycomau Tape Op - httpwwwtapeopcom
------------------------------------------------
Music Books
Authors Curtis Roads httpmitpressmiteducatalogauthor aspaid=93 - The Computer Music Tutorial (Really really really good book) Paul White - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea ul20White - Basic Series + more Rick Snowman - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea k20Snoman - The Dance Music Manual Tools Toys and Techniques Bobby Owsinski - httpbooksgooglecoukbooksas_auth=Bobby+Owsinski - The MixingRecording amp Mastering Engineers Handbooks Michael Paul Stavrou - httpwwwmixingwithyourmindcom
Publishers Thomson Course Technology - httpcoursecengagecom (Click on the Music Technology tab) - Series published include Power Overdrive Ignite and CSI Series + many more Backbeat Books - httpwwwbackbeatbookscom ndash Power Tools Series + many more Wiley Publishing - httpwwwdummiescom (Enter music in their search bar) - For Dummies Series Penguin Books - httpuspenguingroupcom (Enter music in their search bar) - The Complete Idiots Guide Series + many more MIT Press - httpmitpressmitedu - Many books on music theory Focal Press - httpwwwfocalpresscom - (Enter music in their search bar)
------------------------------------------------
Online Music Book Stores (We need more links here Do you know of any that we can add)
httpwwwmixbookscom ndash Excellent source that sells only books about music
Page 39
httpwwwamazoncom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
httpwwwbarnesandnoblecom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
------------------------------------------------
52 Wikipedia
A good music lexicon wiki Search for your term in the search bar ---gt httpenaudiolexicorgwikiMain_Page
0-9
14rdquo Jack - httpenwikipediaorgwikiJack_plug 3rd Bridge - httpenwikipediaorgwiki3rd_Bridge
Zero Crossing - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_crossing Zero Crossing Rate - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_Crossing_Rate
53 Other recommended production forums
for Logic users this is the shit httpwwwlogicprohelpcom
Ive found both these forums to be full of knowledgeable producers amp musicians
httpwwwkvraudiocomforum
httpacapellaharmony-centralcomforumsindexphp
httpwwwgearslutzcomboard
httpwwwsoundonsoundcomforum
httpwwwmusicradarcomforum
httpwwwidmforumscom
httpwwwdance-industriescomphpBB2 8cffbb3b02
httpwwwsubvertcentralcomforumindexphp
httpwwwbreakbeatcouk
httpwwwtweakheadzcom
httpwwwabletoncompagesforum
Explains lots about the music industry ---gt httpwwwbemusocom
Page 47
Ok so a massive thanks to all the contributors there are literally too many to mention But Thanks to Futures Untold Johnny Beat Klimaxx Deadly Habit amp JunglistRendr Daft Cunt in perticular
Thanks to all the artists producers and general music geeks making this early revision of the production bible an essential read
There are links missing and will be included in version 21(Please help with the unlinked chapters by going here - httpwwwdubstepforumcomthe-dubstep-production-bible-updated-2009-06-03-t14797html and updating missing info as needed)
Compiled by Daft Cunt and Futures Untold PDF Compiled by Depone
Here is a list of the most popular freeware analysers available
Voxengo SPAN
Bluecat Audio Freqanalyst
Roger Nichols Inspector
Page 20
For a long list of other free analysers visit httpwwwgersiccompluginsindexphpdaCat=2
3 Techniques
31 Bass311 Sub Bass
Sub-bass is a term used to describe audible sounds below 90Hz - sound in the range below this (under 16-17Hz) would be termed infrasound Sound systems often feature a subwoofer that is dedicated solely to amplifying sounds in the lower bass and sub-bass range Source Wikipedia
So the idea is to have the sub going up to ~90Hz The exact frequency it should be cut at depend on the kicks frequency Lets say you HP your kick at 100Hz then the sub should be LPed at 100Hz so they compliment each other without clashing
There are several ways of creating a sub here are the most common 1 - using a unique waveform (sine saw square or triangle) will give you a nice linear sub NB You dont need to filter out a sine wave as it doesnt have overtones 2 - using detuned waveforms take 2 identical waves (sine saw square or triangle) and detune them - lets say -25 +25 semitone This will produce a phase effect and give movement to your sub but itll also cause large volume amplitude and youll need to compress it after filtering Great Massive tutorial by Subfocus here 3 - using a 808 kick you dont have a TR-808 Grab that pack
jobbanaught wroteAn easy option to get a powerful subbass is to take a 808 kick sample put it in your favorite sampler and loop a single cycle of the waverform somewhere in the middle of the sample The 808 kick is made of a sine and some additional white noise The sine gives your sub that rattling low end pressure and the noise adds overtonesgrittiness = instant badass subbass
You can find more tips about mixing your kick n sub in the Random bass tips thread
312 lsquoWobblersquo
Page 21
Wobble GuideWobble Bass
Wobble Bass as it is known is simply a bassline that has an LFO assigned to a Low Pass Filter as an insert effect LFOstands for Low Frequency Oscillator and is used to change a sound by a defined speed (measured in either Hz or synced to the Tempo in relation to the barsnotes through quantization) The way the LFO changes the sound is up to you you can make the LFO adjust the Volume the amount of Saturation Filter Cutoff etc Basically any parameter you link it to Essentially you are just using the LFO to send a changing value to a parameter
--------------------
How to get a simple wobble bass
1) Choose a simple sound on your synth (Anything apart from a Sine wave )
2) Select your LFO and set it to the speed you want (18 would be a good starting point)
3) Now assign the LFO to the Filter Cutoff Which should for this example be a Low Pass Filter as the sound were going for is a deep bass
4) You now have a basic wobble bass from here the possibilities for tweaking this sound are endless
--------------------
A quick breakdown of whats actually going on Essentially you are taking a sound (that can be an audio files generated by a synth etc) and then passing it through a Low Pass Filter Now what exactly does a Low Pass Filter do you ask
A Low Pass Filter allows Low Frequency signals to pass through it but reduces the amplitude (volume) of all the Frequencies above the cutoff point In general most plug-ins have various Low Pass Filter settings where the more poles it has the more Dbs it will cut and will yield a harder knee to it Example 1 Pole Filter with a -6dBOct reduction Vs a 2 Pole Filter reducing -12DbOct However you dont necessarily need a LFO controlling your Low Pass Filter Cutoff frequency value you could just draw in the Automation yourself but a LFO will yield a loop of consistent values and prevents the possibility of human error All the LFO is doing is sending a value to your frequency cutoff to keep it consistently changing
--------------------
Tips amp Advice
1) Sub bass wobble would normally be a Sine wave at around the 40-50 Hz range which would repeat the same chords as the mid-range bass wobble The only difference being that with a sub bass wobble there is no point in assigning the LFO to a Low Pass Filter because the sound is too low for the low pass filter to have any effect so theLFO is assigned to the amplitude (volume) instead Another reason for not applying a Low Pass Filter to the Sub bass is because it would typically be a Sine wave which possesses no Harmonics to be adjusted by the Filter
2) The sound of an LFO can also be adjusted by the wave type you choose The default setting for an LFO generator is a Sine wave although on most synths you can chose from Triangle Sawtooth Square wave Random Noise To get a nice sounding bass it is a good idea to use as many oscillators as possible on different octaves
3) Try messing around with the attack and release of your sound as this can have an impact on the sound of the bass Long attacks tend to create a more ambient sound and is a technique traditionally used with ambient pads
Page 22
4) Something that I find useful is to bounce the bassline to a wav file so that it can be chopped up and put in-sync with other elements of the song because the majority of the time you will find the first wave of sound in the wobble bassline will will be half the length of the other waves due to attack rates So the best thing to do is to chop that freak sound off the beginning of the file in your DAW (Logic Pro Reason Cubase etc) and start off with the second wave which should be fully formed This way it will not be too early of late when keeping in sync with other elements such as a second bassline
5) Another method you can use is creating a clone layer of your original sound and setting up a new LFO setup for that to beat alternatively in the space left by the original LFO Or go that crazy Drum amp Bass Reese route and split the frequencies to Low Mid and High then set different LFO rates for each band then recombine into one sound
6) For more variation automate your LFO speed and intensity
7) Where you place insert effects in relation to the filter (pre or post) will yield different sounding results
8) Other methods to achieve a wobble like sound Tremolo (This effects volume rather than frequency) FM Synthesis Modulation of PWM Oscillator Pitch assigned (in a liberal amount) to LFO Filter Envelope assigned to LFO (using a re-triggered envelope) (submitted by Faun2500)
9) Assign a second LFO to modulate the speed of the first LFO
LFO Shapes
Sine wave The smooth value change possible
Triangle Similar to a Sine wave but slightly more ramped amp synthetic sounding
Random A mixed bag
Sawtooth Will have a very fast attack with a slower release which will sound very rugged
Square wave Will be a simple open close style Very harsh and will generally cause a very harsh sound (Often used in DJ Hazard style bass-lines) Detune two square waves for a nice dark sounding bass
Waveforms submitted by Skells wrotehttpi228photobucketcomalbumsee83 cleanjpgSimple Filter Sweep
httpi228photobucketcomalbumsee83 wobblejpgSine Wave LFO assigned to Filter Cutoff
LINKS etc
Fruity Loops Wobble Tutorial (Link submitted by Wub) Massive Wobble YouTube Tutorial (Video created by thesynthesist) Pause amp Play Wobble Tutorial (Link submitted by dubmo) Albino3 Wobble Guide (Guide created by axon)
By Rendr amp Deadly Habit and a little help from Macc
313 lsquoReecersquo
The Reese Bass
Page 23
History Lesson
The Reese bass was a form of huge sounding synth-bass first used by the Detroit Techno producer Kevin Saunderson aka Master Reese aka Reese Project aka on the track Just Want Another Chance and immortalised in the classic DnB track Terrorist by Renegade Since then it has been (over)used in many a DnB track and continues to evolve even nowadays through Dubstep and Jungle It is said to be as influential to DnB as the Amen break and probably as used and abused as the Amen
Capturing the Beast
1The Oscillator Stage
To nail the Reese you need a synth with at least 2 oscillators but for better-bigger results use as many oscillators as you can (not really but 4 oscillators give a nice deep rumble - ahhhhhh) All the oscillators are playing sawtooth waves and all except one are detuned by 25-50 cents so that all oscillators are out of phase with each other
2 The Filter Stage
The signal is then sent to a low-pass filter with the cutoff freq set around 150-200Hz (experiment with that you want the growl of the mid-frequencies but you also want it as deep as possible without sacrificing the midrange) The resonance of the filter should be cranked up almost all the way (but again tweak accordingly to your filtersynth)
3 Fuzz it Up
The second most important aspect of the Reese (after the detuned sawtooths) is distortion Tube distortion and tape saturation work extremely well but dont hesitate to use other more extreme distortion units (dont forget that the Reese has been done a million times you have to add something original to it) Again adjust to taste
4 Spices and Herbs
Now that is the main recipe for the sound but like all haute-cuisine there are more things you can do to spice up the Reese Namely effects Effects that have been associated with the Reese are
Phasers - to accentuate the phase-shifting effect of the detuned sawtooths Unison - a great way to make it even bigger Chorus - again a good way to phatten it up
5 And Some More Synth Magic
Another thing to do so you can bring out the old-school jungle character of the Reese is to use Legato and PortamentoGlide if your syth of choice has them available These are both great ways to move from one note to the next without listening to the transition To put it simply when legato is on and you play a sustained E followed by a sustained G the transition between the two notes gives the listener the impression that they heard a single note being sustained that has just changed its pitch from E to G without pausing at a certain point
Always remember though that if you use Legato you have to turn the polyphony of your synth down to 1 (something you should almost always do with basslines because two bass-notes playing together almost never sound good in electronic music bass chords are more the realm of prog-rock shit than dubstep)
For the more technical minded legato in synthesizers is a variation of monophonic operation In contrast to monophonic mode where every new note restarts the ADSR envelopes in legato mode they are not if the previous note remains depressed when the new note is played This causes the initial transient from the attack and decay phases to sound only once and the ADSRs to remain at sustain stage for the whole sequence of notes until the final note is released (Wikipedia)
EDIT I just found out that in one of the free vst links on the bible there is a thing called the Hotelsinus Reese Bassline Synth So I didnt miss the opportunity for a mini review The software itself is small (like most free vst-is) and quite easy to install (you just drop the dll in the vst folder) As for the sound weeeeeeell the sounds it produces are definitely Reese But weak somehow Its like listening to Terrorist from a battered cheap old cassette from 93 or something It has a tinny and tiny sound when compared to what you can achieve with powerhouses like Albino or
Page 24
Massive or (one of my personal favorites for Reese) Cakewalk Rupture You can try it if you want but i dont think it will impress steppers that much we are bass-headed folk
314 Random Bass Tips
Plz add yours or others youve spotted on the forum
miss_molinari wrotebasically i have been experimenting with cutting (not sidechaining) a notch (band reject) in the bass starting at 60hz and ending just before 70 this is only for those bass lines which only hit on the kick (quite specific) also the bass is then high passed at about 220hz to pretty much 0db which is where the kick starts (ending the kick with a non-too-aggressive-cut at about 2khz) this essentially means that the kick and the bass do not share any frequencies above abot 200hz but also between 60 and 70 and with them always hitting at the same time this gets around the fact that sidechaining this type of sequencing would leave you with no or little bass
this has worked well so far but is useful mainly for sub basses ending at around 250hz would not be as good for full spectrum wubsanyone else got any tech tips regarding the bass and kick
futures_untold wroteI simply cut everything under 90Hz on my kicks and roll off slightly at 1KHz
Sub I cut under 40Hz and roll off at 200Hz
I always compress both seperately and keep my levels low in the mix to create plenty of head room later whilst adding sounds with higher frequency content
Anything above 150Hz is what I consider midrange Anything above 150Hz can be heard on mobile phone speakers We all know that theyre designed to play heavy bass lol Wink
miss_molinari wroteDaft Cunt wroteTo me it feels like cutting the kick above 80 hz makes it sound weak I guess it depends on the style I rather cut below 60 to 80 depending on the tune
yeah its all about context in a dry minimal setting im of the opinion you can make a kick punch right up to about 180-200hz but yeah depends on when and on what kind of punch (im usually talking a bass hit at about 200hz coupled with a knock hit anywhere up to about 1200hz) i imagine you true dubsteppers prefer a denser thump from 60 through to about 300hz
Daft Cunt wroteI began recently the band-reject thing on the sub Little details that make big difference
And do you people cut the bass where the snare peaks
my basses arent usually middy enough to need that but yeah a slight sidechain on the main snare and say midbasspadwothavyer is nice especially if the limelight is stolen by a deeper sidechain on the kick and midbasspadwothavyer can create a nice flow (especially when used with long decay reveb linked to the midbasspadwothavyer so that it sounds louder and longer the higher the frequency played - might
have to post some piccies of that one )
Shonky wroteWhat Ive been doing lately is bouncing down the kick track lowpassing one somewhere between 100-140 depending on the highest frequencies of the low sub and then sidechaining the sub to the low kick
Then take a copy of the kick track highpass between 300-1000 and this will give you the beater noise to make the kick cut through I then sidechain this to the more middly basses You can also send a small amount to a reverb bus which allows you to avoid mud on the lower frequencies whilst still giving you the space
Doing it this way seems to make sense to me cause the sidechains work on the corresponding kicks in the same frequency range so it doesnt cause loads of unnecessary compression where you dont need it
Page 25
boh wroteAlways make sure your kicks are in tune with the rest of the track ull hear it pitching up and down and make sure if ur layering that the transients dont conflict(good monitors make this easy) It all comes down to kick selection Whats the point in cutting a kick at 80hz with a fundemental freq of say 60hz Sure you get whats happening before it but u wont get the nice thump of the fundemental freq Choose other kicks that hit the freq u want (80hz say) instead of cutting them when theres no need to Unless you really really know what your doing getting technical like this complicates the situation Esp for people with little experience
sullyharmitage wrote50 hz hi pass seems a bit high to me maybe gd for kicky techno or house but for subby stuff it seems a bit muchdefo roll off past 30-35 (most well engineered systems will do this anyways so any content below this is definately getting wasted)if yr gonna go higher make sure its a soft curvei find levelling subs is the hardest part of a mix - cos more always sounds better i remember reading breakage saying yr subs shouldnt add more than 3db to yr mix thats seems like a good guide
btw sub in kick an bassline simultaeously is gonna cause clashes (n maybe disortion) id either decrease the attack on the bass or cut the sub from the kick
unklefesta wroteI rolloff EVERYTHING at 40hz except my bass
standard
wang wroteAlways do it
Dont forget youre ROLLING off the frequencies not cutting them off all together Just a couple of dB of bass down there is enough to get some girth without removing all your headroom
Also analyse and cut off the lows on everything even if it doesnt appear to have messy lows -Youd be surprised how much bass there is in some high hats
Jtransition wroteAll of your tracks are going to be different so dont restrict yourself to a certain techniquetry different things and listen to the results
Shonky wrotewang wroteAlso analyse and cut off the lows on everything even if it doesnt appear to have messy lows -Youd be surprised how much bass there is in some high hats
Yep this is very true also worth filtering out the inaudible highs on low sounds as well found some of my subs which Id low passed still showed frequency activity much higher than expected
Jtransition wroteStick a high pass filter on everything apart form the kick drum and bass line70 hertz is a good starting point move up or down to tasteAnd remember try to mix at low levels(Walls not vibrating)
Deadly Habit wroteRendr wroteBasslines in my experience should be mono due to the fact that humans cannot easily decoded the stereo positioning of low frequencys so panning basslines (excluding bass sounds with high pitch sounds at around 500Hz+) is not recommended not only are the low frequencys hard to position with the human ear the low frequency sound waves are absorbed by the human head at a much higher ratio than high pitch sounds which tend to be reflected Another thing to note is that club systems are
mono Basslines that pan only belong in Psytrance
sub range should be mono especially if going to be cut to vinylmidrange bass on the other hand you can pan and add stereo fx to your hearts content
Page 26
32 Re-sampling
SafeAfter a few months of experimenting with resampling not really getting anywhere in terms of sound quality i came up with a pretty simple way of getting on the right track Ive got so much help since getting on this forum in terms of production i thought id share this for those who like myself are looking into the elusive yet highly rewarding technique of resamplingAll the vsts i use on this (save for the synth itself) are freenative plugs im using FL but itll transfer onto every DAW pretty much the same Ill explain it for a bassline but it can be applied to any sound
Step 1Make yourself a nice bassline get it sounding dirty with whatever you can within the synth Im using Albino so i tend to play about with the saturation modesFXs until its sounding pretty good
Step 2Hook up to a mixer channel then send this channel to a second mixer channel (FL users just click on another channel towards the bottom of the strip) On the second channel that the synth is hooked to from the first add CMt bitcrusher and downsample 3-16x (thanks to all the production forum users who pointed this out to me when i posted a few months ago on dirtying up basslines) Then add a chorus Turn the LFOs off and set the depthdelayetc to whatever sounds best Also set the crossover pretty high so only the treblehigh mids are being affected Then add Camel Audio Camel Crusher Turn the compressor off and set the tubemech to taste Add a parametric EQ if needs be to boost the high freqs Experiment with the chain of these effects swapping them according to the sound The choruscameleq in different orders should alter the sound quite alot depending on where their placed
Step 3 Set the level of the second affected channel with the original depending on whatever suits Play about with adding extra effects to both channels The way the second channel behaves once an effect is added to the first is quite extreme in even light application of effects So its possible to create a whole array of different sounds just from say adding a flangerchorusetc to the first channel then listening to how much it affects the sound as a whole as it goes through both channels By now it should be sounding pretty girthy
Step 4Export the riffsample (i use edison on the master channel in FL but whatever method will do) Reload and place into a mixer channel Add another Camel Crusher for abit more grit EQ and compress Set up a reverbdelay send and resample again for extra depth
Obviously this technique can be applied a 2nd3rd4th time to fuck the sound up even more so Which is what ive moved onto doing now into the territory of splitting the sound into basslow midhigh midtreble sections for ultimate control over each part Something which i was attempting to do before coming up with the above method but being left with a pile of unlistenable mushy shite
Hope this is a help to some peeps I know theres no secret technique to resamping only a whole load of practice and using your ears but this method got me on the right track in terms of hearing the benefits of it and encouraging me to experiment more in depth and realise that the possiblities are endless Im hooked now i resample pretty much every sound in one way or another Kick and snares benefit hugley from it for mega face melting wide drum sounds aswell so its worth trying it on some nice drum hits
Keep up the good work folksPeaceDC_WT
33 Drums
Read before reading on I am in no way entitled to any of those opinions It is up to you to decide whether you would like to incorporate them in your workflow I have just collected them from all the threads in this forum and will try to keep everything updated
I will update as regularly as I find updates
Page 27
Misc tips and tricks bull Good drums are usually layered - example 3 snares sounding as onebull The hats are often panned or widenedbull Pick great sounding samples different ones for different parts of the sounds you want 1
for snap and bite 1 for body 1 for thump distort and MAYBE EQ each to make them sound the best that they can separately combine in a bus MAYBE compress them together maybe accent the front and shorten the sound with a transient modifier 10 minutes tops
bull Do as little as possible with great-sounding bits and your basic sounds will be slamming leaves you time to focus on the arrangement people dont go around thinking wow that tune has an amazing snare as long as its thumping and not masked by a bunch of other stuff itll keep the dance moving
bull Listen to other producers work As its playing imagine the 1 2 3 4 on the step sequencer running in time to what youre listening to Try to visualize where the producer put their hits Not to say you should copy peoples drum patterns but learn from them
bull Ive noticed a lot of tunes (more minimal stuff where you can distinctly hear whats seperately going on) seem to use two differently pitched hi-hats that alternate to sound shuffley if you know what I mean and a less dramatic snare used sparsely in between the main lazy kick and snare An easy trick if you havent worked it out (which to be honest you should have if youre at all serious about producing dubstep) is to stick a smaller snare or hat the 116th before the kick or snare so it steps if you get me For example Bengas Night does this for all four beats in the bar which is part of what makes it so danceable But dont get stuck in always having kick on 1 and snare on 3 some tracks work with a kick on every beat others with a couple big snares etc The trick (unless you want proper lazy spaced out tunes) is to make sure youre nodding your head on all four beats of the bar Play around with a hat on every quaver (ie 8 per bar on the beat) compared to just four but on the off beat as well as adding in the steppy ones every now and then Theres often no need to over-complicate things though one of the my favourite drum tracks is the incredibly simplistic V by Distance Its a rhythm that could easilly be played by one guy on a real kit yet its so banging - check the use of hats and lower velocity kicks in this to make it nice and bouncy Also I once had a four bar drum loop and accidentally moved the sequence one bar to the right for one section and it ended up nicely varying the drums in a way you wouldnt expect
bull Really tight delays can help claps and snaps sound natural 5-20ms etcbull Recycle or phatmatik is your break-chopping friendbull Basically Hatrixxs method involved chopping everything from the main hits into a sample
Say you had a 2-step funk beat like the Amen Youd start your selection from the start of the first kick and select everything up to the start of the first snare Cut paste theres your first slice Then take everything from the start of the first snare up to the start of the second kick - including all the little hats and ghost hits - cut paste second sample and so on Then just map the samples onto some keys and bash away Both of them are quick compared to chopping Recycled slices where you have to copy and drag loads of little notes (one every little fucking tiny hit in the break arranged chromatically up the keyboard) around the piano roll These methods let you just concentrate on the main hits which can be both good or bad You can get a solid beat down with just a handful of hits but youre limited to the patterns already in the original break For a beginner to breakbeat science like yourself Id say try these methods first but dont rule out the really anal methods like RecyclePhatmatikFruity Slicer Sometimes they are a necessary evil Of course some of the drumfunk guys especially those who post on Subvert Central swear by these methods or the next one There are those who prefer to chop up the raw audio rather than bothering with MIDI and samplers They literally just drop the break file into Cubase or Logic and start chopping with the scissors tool and copying and pasting I can see the benefits of this You can see the waveform as youre chopping and youre not as restriced to the quantize grid as you are with MIDI But it takes aaaaages to build a drum track this way and theres the risk of RSI from all that Ctrl+C Ctrl+V youll be doing Then of course theres trackers They really are tailor-made for chopping up loops amongst other things They give you Sample Offset meaning that when you trigger a sample you can set it to start from 256 evenly spaced points throughout the sample So by starting a sample a quarter of the way through youre triggering the first snare (obviously you can fine-tune it when the snare isnt perfectly on the beat) You can edit breaks in a tracker without ever having to cut up a waveform and you can do all sorts of other nifty things like reverse the sample retrigger it to make drum rolls and so on
If recycles having trouble switch the break to mono in your sample editor and then apply tiny fades between the drum hits (especially useful if there are lots of rides that play over the other hits to keep things separate) This should help recycle pick up the start points and with any luck should leave you with a cleaner break
Page 28
Snaresbull Tune the snares so they all hit around the same pitch bull Change the Amp Envelopes of each to bring the strongest parts from each separate sample
and build up your sound like that bull Compressing all together is a good idea but dont over do it bull EQ the master out for the snare as well so you wont have to fuck about when you use the
sample in the future bull Donrsquot just use snares fling some random sound effects in there Claps and rim shots also
work well when layered bull Make subtle changes to them and export a few snares from the same setup this helps
when you need a ghost hit or a reverse that sounds similar but not identicalbull Watch that frequencies dont build up and make the layered bit sound overly whatever
is building up Really easy to get too much 200hz or 500hz or even 12k if youve got samples that are all beefythicksmack-y
bull If its peaking run it through a Spectrum Analyzer and see where its peaking I guess its peaking in the tune rather than just the snare sample playing on its own
bull Sometimes snare samples have a very short peak that doesnt seem to make them sound any better and keeps you from getting them louder without cliping Reduce that part by a few dBs and youre sorted
bull Make sure you are using subtractive eq to pull out the frequencies that could be clashing with other sounds If your frequencies are clashing that can hide the snare and then you end up turning it up to compensate and there you are with your snare peakingThe key is making the frequencies sit right in the mix so that they dont clash and you can set them right and not have to turn them up
bull You could always try clipping the snare normalise it in a wave editor amplify it as much as you can before it sounds distorted then sample it out Then replace the snare with the clipped version it will almost always sound louder with more body at a lower volume I would still point out that although this can be used as a replacement to compression compression is a vital tool to learn how to use Also a lot of peeps will say this does bad things to the waveform and it does but unless you intend to listen to your tune to be heard at home on an amazing hifi then it doesnt really matter that much IMO
bull Hi-pass overdrive limit and cut away space from other sounds for itbull Layer with its self or a different snare Layer with sub add effect to one layer add effect
to both layers layer zoom right in drag one wave form back or forth very slightly to create new snare sound Pitch updown EQ Filter distort reverb delay reverse
bull Record yourself beat boxing your best snare sounds then layer with snare samplesbull A good handclap never goes a miss or use a nice drum synth to get a very differentdigital
soundbull Try reversing the snare sample then changing the envelope settings so it only hits on the
beat Layer that with the same sample this time not reversed Add a little delay to the the reversed snare Change the settings til it sounds how you like
bull Particularly snares I layer up a lot I look for one that has the qualities that I want when run through verb and then I look for something shorter with more mid punch to keep things physical After someone notied snares were weak in a tune Ive really made a point of ensuring that when the snares hit its physical as well as textural You need to feel them a bit - so I look for some snares that have that real punch when layering but usually keep the more textural snappy one as the focus last couple tunes I did the standard kick snare hats w odd percussion and then I took an amen chopped it processed it and layered it overtop for more aggression and step (goddess being a perfect example) By removing a layer and adding it you can create a sense of progression through the tune Make sure the bottom layer is sounding really good and then add the top so that youre not mixing them to be reliant on one another - instead you want synergy Make sure the EQ on the top and bottom make sense with each other
Kicksbull Building a kick in Ableton Lives Impulse machine Provides some essential information
about layering that can be used with any DAWbull Making fat kicks
remixmag wroteWhether creating Miami Bass music is your lifes fantasy or your greatest fear you probably crave the know-how to manifest those car-rattling trunk-full-of-funk kick drums In the arenas of hip-hop house techno downtempo and almost any other electronic genre molding fat kick drums is absolutely essential Like grandmas homemade apple pie the recipe for kick drums is partially a matter of taste However theres no substitute for quality ingredients And just like every pie has its staple ingredients every slamming kick drum requires some common elements Lets take a look at the
Page 29
shopping list for killer kick drumsTHE CRUST
Youll need a basic shell to begin creating a thick strong kick The classics always work if youre fortunate enough to own a real Roland TR-808 909 or other famous drum machine with a killer kick use it copiously If youre not one of those chosen few pay close attention to your original source For example if you use a sampler understand that not all ldquo808 Kickrdquo samples are the same some sound great and some just plain suck There are a lot of reasons for that including how many generations from the original the sample is the sampling rate and bit depth of the sampler how the kick was first sampled and so on Be as choosy as possible with your individual samples mdash dont use a mediocre sample just because it has 808 in the name and therefore is ldquosupposedrdquo to sound fat Seek out a better 808 sample or use something else that is simply bigger sounding Remember the time you spend finding sweet original sources wont be in vain especially if you reuse the resulting samples for multiple songsBORROW SOME SUGAR
An old saying goes ldquoGood art borrows great art stealsrdquo A nice way to start out with great raw kick material is to sample directly from the source If you dont own but have access to a 909 then sample it directly Or take one of your favorite producers tracks on vinyl or CD find a naked kick drum in there and sample it Be cautious with that approach for a couple of reasons Copyright issues around sampling even small bits have become a dangerously gray area and I would never personally advise using any source straight out of the can even from a royalty-free sample library While it may be an excellent start its unoriginal Customize whatever you bite Treat your samples as a sculptor would treat clay mold each one to create a trademark sound for yourself One effective way to customize a fat kick is to take a tip from the synth manufacturers If a sound is thin pile another (or a few more) on top When doing so its important to use different sounds layering two identical kicks will result in a louder kick but it wont change the basic tone Remember the sculptor approach here Even if you are using two good-sounding individual samples they may not instantly sound great together For example I find that when layering kicks while the thickness may be good sustain is often overkill The final result often benefits from a little doctoring on the tail of one (or both) of the samples and other hands-on sonic surgeryADD THE FILLING
Once a nice basic kick is achieved treating it with two of the mastering engineers favorite tools is often the next step Artfully applying a compressor (to just the kick) can go a long way toward creating a signature sound and a huge kick Compression is one of those ldquosecret spicesrdquo and how to apply it is a whole topic in itself One recommendation I will make however is to use a multiband compressor With one of those you can isolate compression on certain frequency ranges That is perfect if for example you want to push the sub of your kick without emphasizing the higher frequencies (which often affect the tone of the attack) or vice-versa EQ comes after compression in my signal chain By now the kick should already sound pretty fat I aim to shave unnecessary frequencies here rather than artificially boosting too much This is also where you can actualize trademark sounds while also fine-tuning them to work alongside other elements in specific tracks I often scoop out mids and highs especially frequencies above about 500 Hz Even though I like thick deep kicks unless Im going for a really dublike sound I often truncate the lowest frequencies (usually the sub-50 Hz frequencies) Even when you cant hear the difference when trimming frequencies doing so can really tighten up your kicksEVEN IT OUT
You may ask why when youre trying to fatten up a kick would you want to trim frequencies That is one of the keys to achieving great mixes both in the case of kick drums and in general You want to avoid too many overlapping frequencies The more sonic separation you have between elements the more focused the entire mix will sound That can be especially important for club music which often gets played on huge not necessarily audiophile-quality sound systems If you havent run into the following scenario already I assure you at some point you will Your bass line and kick drum are competing and it sounds like you have a weak kick You boost the kick but it still sounds muddy Take the bass out and suddenly the kick doesnt sound so bad In a scenario like that solo the two sounds listen carefully for where frequencies are overlapping and then try subtractive EQ on one element then the other and sometimes a bit on both By scooping out overlapping frequencies you will often find that both elements seem to magically come forward in the mix before even touching their respective volume levels
Hi hatsbull Realism
Ive been a professional touring and recording drummer for 25 years and just thought I might share a couple of really simple ways to use fruity loops or fruity studio to create more realistic drum patterns
For what its worth try this out with Fruity Loops
Page 30
Take your hi hat tracks (are any tracks for that matter including melodic synth bubbles)
Drop down the bar graph box that allows you to scroll between velocity (volume) pitch panning cutoff resonance and a thing called shift which allows you to use each of these categories to effect each individual note that youve programmed (note this can be accomplished in other ways in most of the good midi sequencing apps or softwarehardware drum machines)
Drummers no matter how good they are just arent perfect and we can use the fact that each of these drop down bar graphs can make veryvery small changes in a sound to do some subtle things to a rolling drum groove like 16th notes on a hi hat
Not all drummers but many tend to favor their strong hand in a single stroke (hand over hand) drum roll Consequently if you make all odd numbered hi hats be slightly louder than their even numbered hits it will sound more realistic Start by making velocity differences that are really clearly audible Then lower the velocity until you can barely feel the difference We are going to make very subtle changes like this on each of the parameters of velocity pitch cutoff resonance and importantly shift
I cant stress enough that you should make these changes be so subtle that you can hardly notice them
Just going on the fact that the right handed players start their rolls with the right hand and favor it ever so slightly (or grossly for effect as well) means that the stroke will be harder with the right hand than the left hand
When a percussion instrument is hit harder the difference between the transient (or hi pitched attack) of the sound and the body of the instrument (or the sound that comes after the attack) becomes greater In general on drums that means that a harder attack tensions the drum very imperceptably (sp) and it also means that there will be more treble in the sound Consequently the pitch goes up a little teensy bit and their is more attack to the sound (increased resonance and slightly higher cutoff frequency)
Consequently you can make the pitch of each right hand be just barely noticeably higher the resonance should be just one or two of those little teeny bars higher The cutoff should be just a few bars lower (allowing less high frequencies through) on the left handed or even numbered strokes
Typically if drums have time inaccuracies they tend to drag the left hand a litte bit I have to keep stressing that if you can hear the changes you make you arent being realistic You need to make the changes subtle enough that you just barely feel that they arent perfect You can consequently make each left hand note shifted one or two bars late
Tigure out how much you can tweak each parameter before it becomes obvious and then you can just randomly tweak each one up to that limit With a little bit of variance in each stroke from parameter to parameter you will create more of a percolating texture in your programming - this is a great technique to make synth bubbles (the kind used in techno and house) more interesting and less mechanical feeling
Now you can avoid the biggest mistake that non-drummers do when trying to write realistic programs turn the overall volume of the hihats until you CANT hear them and then slowly bring up the volume until you just begin to hear them
Professional producers have spent countless hours trying to figure out how to gate and mix hihats OUT of tracks The reason is two fold1) Human beings have such a radical peak in their hearing around the 1-2khz range (or the intelligibility range of human speech) that we can play the hihats at incredible low volumes and they are still audible You cant do that with a bass drumI tell my drum students that you cannot play a hi hat or a snare drum so quietly that a person sitting in a room with you cant hear it2) Hi Hats the snare of snare drums and cymbals all seriously MASK human vocal intellibility How many people have gone to see live shows where they can hear the singer is singing but cant for the life of them figure out what they are actually singing That is ususally because drummers (or mixers which is frequently the case) are not hip to thisimportant fact
So turn down your hi hat tracks (or any track with a strong mid rangeshort envelope attack) and you have much more room for other musical goodies in your mix When in doubt make your hi hats quieter than you think they should be Trust me theyll come through the mix even at a quiet volume
Swingbull Dont know if you can do this in your sequencer but in Logic you can create a groove
template from your drums and then apply that to your other instruments If youre using separate midi channels for snares kicks and hats take the 8 bar loop youre using glue it together and then take the groove from that and then mute that track When you click down the quantize list youll see the template there and you can apply it to your other tracks Also if you do want to change the groove you can just change the hits in the muted template and itll automatically change all other hits to the new changes
bull Think if youre clever and organized you can basically cut breaks up in recycle load them into the exs24 (extract sequence) and then do the same with them That way if there are breaks you like the feel of you can just apply that swing to anything If you make a folder called grooves in your logic folder they should load up each time so that youll have loads to choose from Havent done this myself yet but always helpful to have a choice of feels available
bull Some things sound better rigid and robotic with equal velocities Some things sound better rigid and robotic with differing velocities Some things sound better with swing Some things sound better with everything ever-so-slightly off Its down to what the track needs
bull Drum Break Swing ProgrammingNicolas Hall wwwbreakbeat-cafenet wroteI think most people who make anything funk breakbeat drum amp bass or hip-hop would agree that Swing is crucial to the effectiveness of a beat The other key factors in a programming sense are dynamic and accent So many people get wound up when their beats sound sterile or mechanical this is due to the fact that computers and sequencers lock to perfect BPM A computer on its own does not interpret rhythm the way a good drummer does There are however certain machines that have their own swing parameters like the Akai MPC range of sampling drum machines which are used extensively by hip hop producers
Swing is not the easiest thing in the world to analyze but as a general rule good drummers will play slightly late and thats why in all funky records you get that slight dip at the start of the bar take Superstition by Stevie Wonder or Billie Jean by Michael Jackson these are both very simple beats Superstition is of course live drums whilst Billie Jean was programmed but no less funky than Superstition I emphasize this point to demonstrate that a programmed beat can be every bit at groovy as a beat played on a drum kit
Expanding on the Billie Jean point Hip Hop beats are really very simple If you listen to the Neptunes they tend to create the swing in their beats by quantizing the kicks and snares and playing the hi hats in by hand this creates a very tight beat which is off set by a loose hi hat try it works but dont forget your accents - As a starting point just take the first snare of your beat and turn the velocity down then notice how your head starts nodding and your foot starts tapping a little more you are giving the beat feel Also remember that if you are using reverb the louder snare will push the reverb harder than the soft snare so your creating more ambience that way Then try your kick drums if your not sure which hits to adjust just pick apart a beat your feeling I remember me and friend picking apart a Gangstarr beat and were able to almost replicate it by adjusting the velocities of each hit (admittedly it took a while to get it right)
If youre a newbie then a common trick when learning to make good grooves is to create a template with an existing loop The idea is take a loop you like thats got a good feel to it and then place your own hits over the break then take the break out and see if your hits are sounding funky This can take a while and its crucial to think about the strength of each hit or the dynamic Each kick will not be the same strength nor will the snares or the hats pick the loop apart dissect it and youll soon see that there are certain consistencies in all good beats
If youre using live loops and like to layer them with drum sequences you should be thinking about time space and frequencies So if you have a fairly heavy loop then layering it with heavy kick drums is probably not gonna sound good Think about filling holes are their any frequencies that could be filled up Or is there space in the loop for extra hits Try working in layers just adding one hit at a time also filtering works well you could take some of the frequencies out of your loop as you drop your drum sequences in to make room for them I think one the masters of this technique is Liam Howlett of the Prodigy He runs breakbeats and gives them extra balls by laying a kick drum underneath to add extra intensity to certain passages in his set but hes careful not to overlap frequencies to much A good place to start if you using breakbeats is the Roland Tr-808 kick drum which is around the 50hz mark which is sub bass territory so it will sit underneath most breaks very well
If your hell bent on making killer beats and loops then perseverance is crucial keep at it it will come together listen to beats you like and pick them apart identify the subtleties that make it happen I know some producers get fed up when their beats sound to clean or they are trying to create a new breakbeat and then compare it to sample they took from vinyl and get down on there own beat Think about what a breakbeat really is think about its history what has happened to it to make it sound the way it does Im
Page 32
sure youve noticed how some breaks have a certain something like a magic dust you cant put your finger on Let me share what I know with you about that
Most breaks though not all are taken from recordings of live drums some of them are pretty old so you have the ambience of live drums and the room they were recorded in you have the fact that natural decay and reverb of each drum is likely to have bled into the other mics on the kit and that most engineers used overhead mics which pick up the whole kit with two mics Then consider that many of these breaks will have been recorded to analogue tape with saturation which will create extra warmth and harmonics The next step comes from old sampling technology like the SP-1200 and the Akai s-950 mpc -60 these samplers sampled at 12- bit (bear in mind that most computers now are at least 24-bit if not more) and that the samples themselves where taken from vinyl and on and on the process goes with each new reverb and eq adding more and more to the break In terms of giving your breaks that character there are a number of things you can try for example buying an old four track cassette machine to dump your beats onto then re-sample it if your using a sampler like the s-950 then try pushing the input meters a little harder than usual add reverbs and resample it each time you put your loop through a new channel you will be adding something to it Also distortion is fantastic for breaks if you have any amp plug ins then try them the Amplitude one is particularly good you dont need to go mad with it just used subtly it works great
To finish I would just like to say again stick with it keep trying keep listening to records if you like to read about technique then do so you can learn so much from other producers Remember the strength of your hits is important as is the way it swings good luck
UPDATE 08092008
ENHANCE SYNTHESIZED DRUM PARTS WITH FOUND SOUNDS
emusiciancom wroteLayering real-world sounds with synthesized drum parts puts a new spin on your drum tracks You probably already have usable sound effects on your hard drive because most commercial samplers have at least a modest collection in their factory library Beyond that youll find thousands of royalty-free sound effects online Soundsnapcom is one of my favorite sources and its free The recordings dont need to be pristine for layering over drums so dont overlook cheap sampling CDs and consider grabbing your own sounds with a portable recorderCollect and Save
Start by assembling a small Foley library of short percussive sounds divided into typical drum-sound categories kicks snares toms cymbals percussion and so on Youll generally want to layer drum sounds with Foley sounds that have a similar volume contour and frequency range If you layer a Foley sound that resembles a kick drum with the sound of your hi-hat for example youll quickly fill up all the space in your drum track
Industrial household military transportation and vocal sounds make excellent fodder but you will often want to extract a small slice such as the last shot in a volley of machine-gun fire (snare) or the first bounce of a plastic bottle on concrete (tom) A browsing tool like Audio Finder (icedaudiocom) is invaluable if you have a large sample library That lets you quickly audition clips make basic edits and drag-and-drop slices to your library
Sticks UpIf your synthesized drum part is step sequenced youll need to export its step sequences as MIDI files Many drum synths do that including Sonic Charge Tonic (sonicchargecom) Apple Logic UltraBeat (applecom) and Submersible DrumCore (submersiblemusiccom) All of those come with a large collection of patterns exportable as MIDI sequences Youll also need a sampler to play the Foley sounds drum-oriented samplers are handier for that but are by no means necessary
Start by loading a kit in the drum synth Export one of its sequenced patterns or create your own and place it on the sampler track For some of the drum synth sounds select compatible Foley sounds and map them to the same notes in the sampler that theyre mapped to in the drum synth Next solo the doubled voices one by one in both the drum synth and the sampler start the sequence playing and tweak the samplers voice parameters (filter level pan envelope and so on) to make the sounds work together (see Fig 1 and Web Clip 1) Dont tweak global parameters such as effects because that will affect all sounds played by the sampler
High HoopsOnce youve configured your Foley track you can do several things to add interest I frequently use a
Page 33
second sampler for short vocal sounds Ill have some notes trigger sounds in both samplers and others in only one Many samplers let you group sounds and assign notes and controllers to choose among them You can then sequence these notes and controllers or you can play them live to alter your Foley tracks
Try applying DSP effects to individual Foley sounds Multitap delays distortion phasing and granular effects all work well when used sparingly (see Web Clip 2) You can apply DSP effects inside your sampler or route the voices to a separate output for DSP processing in your DAW If your sampler doesnt offer either possibility spread the Foley parts over several sampler instances on different tracks
Sidechain compression or gating of the drum track with one or more of the Foley parts will highlight the Foley part as well as add variety to the drums With compression peaks in the sidechain signal will reduce the level of the drum track Use a high compression level say 201 and balance the sidechain-gain and the compression-threshold -attack and -release controls to get the ducking contour you want (see Web Clip 3) Gating has the opposite effect the drum track will be heard during peaks in the sidechain signal (see Web Clip 4) Here too the sidechain-gain and gate-threshold controls work in tandem to determine when the gate is opened Use envelope parameters (attack release and hold) to shape the gates contour
Keep in mind that once youve created a sampler instrument to complement your drum kit you can reuse it with other sequences You can also change one or more sounds in the sampler instrument without repeating the whole process
34 Sidechain Compression (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
4 Theory41 ndash Song Structure42 ndash Mixdown (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)43 ndash Mastering (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
44 Music Theory
The first thing to remember about music theory is that generally if it sounds right it probably is There are no rules in music and Music Theory is not about telling you how to write music Its about understanding the music
Broadly speaking it is fair to say that most music is essentially based upon two crucial factors scales and rhythm Scales make up melodies chords harmonies and basslines to name but a few whereas rhythm makes up the beat of the song In this part of the Production Bible you will learn the basics of Music Theory that will serve you not only in the production of Dubstep but for any of your future musical pursuits This information is intended to be easy to read and understand so I wonrsquot be mincing sentences But firstly please make sure you learn every single note on the keyboard by studying the image below Otherwise yoursquoll be completely lost here
Page 34
Scales Wersquoll begin with scales As I mentioned before scales are the building blocks of your song and without them your track will be atonal and completely unlistenable (probably not the effect yoursquore going for)
There are two main scales that you should learn inside out ndash the major scale and the minor scale A generalisation yoursquore bound to have heard before is that the major scale sounds ldquohappyrdquo and the minor scale sounds ldquodarkrdquo Although this is not always the case it is mostly true ndash and therefore yoursquoll usually be focussing on the minor scale when producing Dubstep However just in case yoursquore writing happy-dubstep (if that exists) here is a quick overview of both scales and how they are made up
Major Scale
The major scale is really easy to create It is made by a single rule that is simple to put in to place
ldquoTone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
In case you donrsquot know what a Tone or Semi-Tone is here is a quick explanation
Picture a keyboard (or if you canrsquot see the image above) Say you go from C to C that would be a semi-tone The same thing goes for if you go from an E to an F ndash it is still a semi-tone because you
Page 35
have gone up one key
A tone is two semi-tones ndash for example from C to D is a tone and the same goes for from G to A
The scalersquos name is taken from the note that it starts on For example C major will start on the note of C Similarly A major will start on the note of A and this is the case with every single scale
Here is a quick list of a few major scales After having seen a few try working the rest out for yourself in order to understand how the major scale is formulated Ideally you should practice your scales on a piano or keyboard so that you can physically see how to make the scale It might sound boring but itrsquos a small price to pay for a much deeper understanding of your music
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Major C D E F G A B C
C Major C D E F G A B C
D Major D E F G A B C D
D Major D E F G A B C D
E Major E F G A B C D E
F Major F G A Bb C D E F
F Major F G A B C D E F
G Major G A B C D E F G
G Major G A B C D E F G
A Major A B C D E F G A
A Major A B C D E F G A
B major B C D E F G A B
Now by arranging the different notes of each of these scales in any order you please you can create a melody bassline or harmony with extreme ease Rearranging the notes in the scale will give you a flawlessly in-key result and it is then up to you to use the notes in the scale as you see fit for your tune
Minor Scale
As was the case with the Major Scale the Minor is made up from a set rule or formula By knowing this formula you can understand how the Minor is made and how to use it to itrsquos maximum effect
ldquoTone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
As is the case with the major scales you should practice your scales as much as possible to make sure that you know them all like the back of your hand Here are a few Minor Scales see if you can
Page 36
work out the rest
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Minor C D Eb F G Ab B C
D Minor D E F G A Bb C D
F Minor F G A B C D E F
G Minor G A Bb C D Eb F G
Similarly to the Major now that you know your Minor Scales you can quickly just take any note from the scale rearrange it with another few notes in the scale and there you have a fat melody or bassline ready to be played at maximum volume
Diminished Chords
Diminished Chords are really quite spooky and dark chords that are made up of four different notes all a minor third apart from each other That means that for example the Diminished Chord starting on C would be C Eb F A because to get from one note to the next you have to use ldquoTone Semi-Tonerdquo (known as a minor third)
Because of the mathematical nature of the Diminished chord there are only three ldquoclustersrdquo of notes which can then be rearranged like the Major and Minor Scales
Cluster 1 C Eb F A
Cluster 2 C E G Bb
Cluster 3 D F Ab B
Use these clusters and rearrange them as you please For example you could rearrange cluster 1 as Eb F A C etc
Generally speaking you canrsquot make a song based entirely on Diminished Chords due to the fact that each cluster only has 4 notes However a Diminished Chord is perfect for adding a hint of darkness to your tune and is brilliant when mixed with some Minor Scales
Chords
Chords are basically two or more notes played together They are made up from a specific scale ndash for example the C major chord is made up of notes in the C major scale
Usually chords will include the first third and fifth note of the scale as well as possibly using other notes to give them colour For example the basic chord of C major would be C E G Then you could add the seventh note to it (in this case it is B) Really it is up to the producerrsquos discretion how heshe goes about making a chord ndash just remember to stick to the scale you are using
Chords will more than likely sound like shit if you play them on a complicated or layered synth patch You want to be playing chords on sustained sounds such as strings or pads Chords will really fill out your sound if used properly You want your chords to be supporting the melody or bassline and more than likely want to add some reverb so that it doesnrsquot sound too sharp Make
Page 37
your chords blend in with the music and yoursquoll have mastered them
Chord Inversions
Quite simply chord inversions are when you rearrange the notes in a chord so that it sounds a bit different and suits your arrangement better
For example if you were in the key of C major you could have a drone of E playing underneath some strings playing the notes E G C E
Due to the fact that the notes are the same and have only been inverted the chord will still be in key with the rest of the music This is a great way to add a touch of variation to your music instead of using the same chord structure all the time
Arpeggios
Arpeggios are much easier to understand than they sound They are quite simply the first third and fifth note of the scale played as individual notes For example the arpeggio of C minor would be C Eb G C etc
A great example of an arpeggio is the bassline in Bengarsquos ldquoCrunked Uprdquo He goes from playing the F minor arpeggio backwards to playing the F minor arpeggio backwards In other words he is playing
C A F and then C Ab F
Experiment with a few Minor Arpeggios and a couple of Diminished Arpeggios and you canrsquot go wrong in writing a huge bassline
Suggested Reading
List of All Scales With Finger Charts Included
Well thatrsquos it folks Thatrsquos basically all the music theory you need to know to start off with As you grow more used to the various scales yoursquoll notice that certain notes sound good with each other whilst others donrsquot Irsquom not here to tell you how to write music Irsquom here to teach you the language
of music Itrsquos up to you to write the poetry
copy Bruno Crosier (klimaxx) 2008
45 Random Tips
Random tips amp best piece of advice thread
5 Resources
Page 38
51 Books amp Magazines
Hello again people
Does anyone know of more music production books magazines or authors we can add to these lists
Thanks
------------------------------------------------
Music Production Magazines Computer Music - httpwwwcomputermusiccouk Music Tech Magazine - httpwwwmusictechmagcouk Future Music - httpwwwfuturemusiccouk Sound on Sound - httpwwwsoundonsoundcom Remix Magazine - httpremixmagcom Mix Magazine - httpmixonlinecom Electronic Musician - httpemusiciancom EQ Magazine - httpwwweqmagcom Audio Technology - wwwaudiotechnologycomau Tape Op - httpwwwtapeopcom
------------------------------------------------
Music Books
Authors Curtis Roads httpmitpressmiteducatalogauthor aspaid=93 - The Computer Music Tutorial (Really really really good book) Paul White - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea ul20White - Basic Series + more Rick Snowman - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea k20Snoman - The Dance Music Manual Tools Toys and Techniques Bobby Owsinski - httpbooksgooglecoukbooksas_auth=Bobby+Owsinski - The MixingRecording amp Mastering Engineers Handbooks Michael Paul Stavrou - httpwwwmixingwithyourmindcom
Publishers Thomson Course Technology - httpcoursecengagecom (Click on the Music Technology tab) - Series published include Power Overdrive Ignite and CSI Series + many more Backbeat Books - httpwwwbackbeatbookscom ndash Power Tools Series + many more Wiley Publishing - httpwwwdummiescom (Enter music in their search bar) - For Dummies Series Penguin Books - httpuspenguingroupcom (Enter music in their search bar) - The Complete Idiots Guide Series + many more MIT Press - httpmitpressmitedu - Many books on music theory Focal Press - httpwwwfocalpresscom - (Enter music in their search bar)
------------------------------------------------
Online Music Book Stores (We need more links here Do you know of any that we can add)
httpwwwmixbookscom ndash Excellent source that sells only books about music
Page 39
httpwwwamazoncom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
httpwwwbarnesandnoblecom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
------------------------------------------------
52 Wikipedia
A good music lexicon wiki Search for your term in the search bar ---gt httpenaudiolexicorgwikiMain_Page
0-9
14rdquo Jack - httpenwikipediaorgwikiJack_plug 3rd Bridge - httpenwikipediaorgwiki3rd_Bridge
Zero Crossing - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_crossing Zero Crossing Rate - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_Crossing_Rate
53 Other recommended production forums
for Logic users this is the shit httpwwwlogicprohelpcom
Ive found both these forums to be full of knowledgeable producers amp musicians
httpwwwkvraudiocomforum
httpacapellaharmony-centralcomforumsindexphp
httpwwwgearslutzcomboard
httpwwwsoundonsoundcomforum
httpwwwmusicradarcomforum
httpwwwidmforumscom
httpwwwdance-industriescomphpBB2 8cffbb3b02
httpwwwsubvertcentralcomforumindexphp
httpwwwbreakbeatcouk
httpwwwtweakheadzcom
httpwwwabletoncompagesforum
Explains lots about the music industry ---gt httpwwwbemusocom
Page 47
Ok so a massive thanks to all the contributors there are literally too many to mention But Thanks to Futures Untold Johnny Beat Klimaxx Deadly Habit amp JunglistRendr Daft Cunt in perticular
Thanks to all the artists producers and general music geeks making this early revision of the production bible an essential read
There are links missing and will be included in version 21(Please help with the unlinked chapters by going here - httpwwwdubstepforumcomthe-dubstep-production-bible-updated-2009-06-03-t14797html and updating missing info as needed)
Compiled by Daft Cunt and Futures Untold PDF Compiled by Depone
Here is a list of the most popular freeware analysers available
Voxengo SPAN
Bluecat Audio Freqanalyst
Roger Nichols Inspector
Page 20
For a long list of other free analysers visit httpwwwgersiccompluginsindexphpdaCat=2
3 Techniques
31 Bass311 Sub Bass
Sub-bass is a term used to describe audible sounds below 90Hz - sound in the range below this (under 16-17Hz) would be termed infrasound Sound systems often feature a subwoofer that is dedicated solely to amplifying sounds in the lower bass and sub-bass range Source Wikipedia
So the idea is to have the sub going up to ~90Hz The exact frequency it should be cut at depend on the kicks frequency Lets say you HP your kick at 100Hz then the sub should be LPed at 100Hz so they compliment each other without clashing
There are several ways of creating a sub here are the most common 1 - using a unique waveform (sine saw square or triangle) will give you a nice linear sub NB You dont need to filter out a sine wave as it doesnt have overtones 2 - using detuned waveforms take 2 identical waves (sine saw square or triangle) and detune them - lets say -25 +25 semitone This will produce a phase effect and give movement to your sub but itll also cause large volume amplitude and youll need to compress it after filtering Great Massive tutorial by Subfocus here 3 - using a 808 kick you dont have a TR-808 Grab that pack
jobbanaught wroteAn easy option to get a powerful subbass is to take a 808 kick sample put it in your favorite sampler and loop a single cycle of the waverform somewhere in the middle of the sample The 808 kick is made of a sine and some additional white noise The sine gives your sub that rattling low end pressure and the noise adds overtonesgrittiness = instant badass subbass
You can find more tips about mixing your kick n sub in the Random bass tips thread
312 lsquoWobblersquo
Page 21
Wobble GuideWobble Bass
Wobble Bass as it is known is simply a bassline that has an LFO assigned to a Low Pass Filter as an insert effect LFOstands for Low Frequency Oscillator and is used to change a sound by a defined speed (measured in either Hz or synced to the Tempo in relation to the barsnotes through quantization) The way the LFO changes the sound is up to you you can make the LFO adjust the Volume the amount of Saturation Filter Cutoff etc Basically any parameter you link it to Essentially you are just using the LFO to send a changing value to a parameter
--------------------
How to get a simple wobble bass
1) Choose a simple sound on your synth (Anything apart from a Sine wave )
2) Select your LFO and set it to the speed you want (18 would be a good starting point)
3) Now assign the LFO to the Filter Cutoff Which should for this example be a Low Pass Filter as the sound were going for is a deep bass
4) You now have a basic wobble bass from here the possibilities for tweaking this sound are endless
--------------------
A quick breakdown of whats actually going on Essentially you are taking a sound (that can be an audio files generated by a synth etc) and then passing it through a Low Pass Filter Now what exactly does a Low Pass Filter do you ask
A Low Pass Filter allows Low Frequency signals to pass through it but reduces the amplitude (volume) of all the Frequencies above the cutoff point In general most plug-ins have various Low Pass Filter settings where the more poles it has the more Dbs it will cut and will yield a harder knee to it Example 1 Pole Filter with a -6dBOct reduction Vs a 2 Pole Filter reducing -12DbOct However you dont necessarily need a LFO controlling your Low Pass Filter Cutoff frequency value you could just draw in the Automation yourself but a LFO will yield a loop of consistent values and prevents the possibility of human error All the LFO is doing is sending a value to your frequency cutoff to keep it consistently changing
--------------------
Tips amp Advice
1) Sub bass wobble would normally be a Sine wave at around the 40-50 Hz range which would repeat the same chords as the mid-range bass wobble The only difference being that with a sub bass wobble there is no point in assigning the LFO to a Low Pass Filter because the sound is too low for the low pass filter to have any effect so theLFO is assigned to the amplitude (volume) instead Another reason for not applying a Low Pass Filter to the Sub bass is because it would typically be a Sine wave which possesses no Harmonics to be adjusted by the Filter
2) The sound of an LFO can also be adjusted by the wave type you choose The default setting for an LFO generator is a Sine wave although on most synths you can chose from Triangle Sawtooth Square wave Random Noise To get a nice sounding bass it is a good idea to use as many oscillators as possible on different octaves
3) Try messing around with the attack and release of your sound as this can have an impact on the sound of the bass Long attacks tend to create a more ambient sound and is a technique traditionally used with ambient pads
Page 22
4) Something that I find useful is to bounce the bassline to a wav file so that it can be chopped up and put in-sync with other elements of the song because the majority of the time you will find the first wave of sound in the wobble bassline will will be half the length of the other waves due to attack rates So the best thing to do is to chop that freak sound off the beginning of the file in your DAW (Logic Pro Reason Cubase etc) and start off with the second wave which should be fully formed This way it will not be too early of late when keeping in sync with other elements such as a second bassline
5) Another method you can use is creating a clone layer of your original sound and setting up a new LFO setup for that to beat alternatively in the space left by the original LFO Or go that crazy Drum amp Bass Reese route and split the frequencies to Low Mid and High then set different LFO rates for each band then recombine into one sound
6) For more variation automate your LFO speed and intensity
7) Where you place insert effects in relation to the filter (pre or post) will yield different sounding results
8) Other methods to achieve a wobble like sound Tremolo (This effects volume rather than frequency) FM Synthesis Modulation of PWM Oscillator Pitch assigned (in a liberal amount) to LFO Filter Envelope assigned to LFO (using a re-triggered envelope) (submitted by Faun2500)
9) Assign a second LFO to modulate the speed of the first LFO
LFO Shapes
Sine wave The smooth value change possible
Triangle Similar to a Sine wave but slightly more ramped amp synthetic sounding
Random A mixed bag
Sawtooth Will have a very fast attack with a slower release which will sound very rugged
Square wave Will be a simple open close style Very harsh and will generally cause a very harsh sound (Often used in DJ Hazard style bass-lines) Detune two square waves for a nice dark sounding bass
Waveforms submitted by Skells wrotehttpi228photobucketcomalbumsee83 cleanjpgSimple Filter Sweep
httpi228photobucketcomalbumsee83 wobblejpgSine Wave LFO assigned to Filter Cutoff
LINKS etc
Fruity Loops Wobble Tutorial (Link submitted by Wub) Massive Wobble YouTube Tutorial (Video created by thesynthesist) Pause amp Play Wobble Tutorial (Link submitted by dubmo) Albino3 Wobble Guide (Guide created by axon)
By Rendr amp Deadly Habit and a little help from Macc
313 lsquoReecersquo
The Reese Bass
Page 23
History Lesson
The Reese bass was a form of huge sounding synth-bass first used by the Detroit Techno producer Kevin Saunderson aka Master Reese aka Reese Project aka on the track Just Want Another Chance and immortalised in the classic DnB track Terrorist by Renegade Since then it has been (over)used in many a DnB track and continues to evolve even nowadays through Dubstep and Jungle It is said to be as influential to DnB as the Amen break and probably as used and abused as the Amen
Capturing the Beast
1The Oscillator Stage
To nail the Reese you need a synth with at least 2 oscillators but for better-bigger results use as many oscillators as you can (not really but 4 oscillators give a nice deep rumble - ahhhhhh) All the oscillators are playing sawtooth waves and all except one are detuned by 25-50 cents so that all oscillators are out of phase with each other
2 The Filter Stage
The signal is then sent to a low-pass filter with the cutoff freq set around 150-200Hz (experiment with that you want the growl of the mid-frequencies but you also want it as deep as possible without sacrificing the midrange) The resonance of the filter should be cranked up almost all the way (but again tweak accordingly to your filtersynth)
3 Fuzz it Up
The second most important aspect of the Reese (after the detuned sawtooths) is distortion Tube distortion and tape saturation work extremely well but dont hesitate to use other more extreme distortion units (dont forget that the Reese has been done a million times you have to add something original to it) Again adjust to taste
4 Spices and Herbs
Now that is the main recipe for the sound but like all haute-cuisine there are more things you can do to spice up the Reese Namely effects Effects that have been associated with the Reese are
Phasers - to accentuate the phase-shifting effect of the detuned sawtooths Unison - a great way to make it even bigger Chorus - again a good way to phatten it up
5 And Some More Synth Magic
Another thing to do so you can bring out the old-school jungle character of the Reese is to use Legato and PortamentoGlide if your syth of choice has them available These are both great ways to move from one note to the next without listening to the transition To put it simply when legato is on and you play a sustained E followed by a sustained G the transition between the two notes gives the listener the impression that they heard a single note being sustained that has just changed its pitch from E to G without pausing at a certain point
Always remember though that if you use Legato you have to turn the polyphony of your synth down to 1 (something you should almost always do with basslines because two bass-notes playing together almost never sound good in electronic music bass chords are more the realm of prog-rock shit than dubstep)
For the more technical minded legato in synthesizers is a variation of monophonic operation In contrast to monophonic mode where every new note restarts the ADSR envelopes in legato mode they are not if the previous note remains depressed when the new note is played This causes the initial transient from the attack and decay phases to sound only once and the ADSRs to remain at sustain stage for the whole sequence of notes until the final note is released (Wikipedia)
EDIT I just found out that in one of the free vst links on the bible there is a thing called the Hotelsinus Reese Bassline Synth So I didnt miss the opportunity for a mini review The software itself is small (like most free vst-is) and quite easy to install (you just drop the dll in the vst folder) As for the sound weeeeeeell the sounds it produces are definitely Reese But weak somehow Its like listening to Terrorist from a battered cheap old cassette from 93 or something It has a tinny and tiny sound when compared to what you can achieve with powerhouses like Albino or
Page 24
Massive or (one of my personal favorites for Reese) Cakewalk Rupture You can try it if you want but i dont think it will impress steppers that much we are bass-headed folk
314 Random Bass Tips
Plz add yours or others youve spotted on the forum
miss_molinari wrotebasically i have been experimenting with cutting (not sidechaining) a notch (band reject) in the bass starting at 60hz and ending just before 70 this is only for those bass lines which only hit on the kick (quite specific) also the bass is then high passed at about 220hz to pretty much 0db which is where the kick starts (ending the kick with a non-too-aggressive-cut at about 2khz) this essentially means that the kick and the bass do not share any frequencies above abot 200hz but also between 60 and 70 and with them always hitting at the same time this gets around the fact that sidechaining this type of sequencing would leave you with no or little bass
this has worked well so far but is useful mainly for sub basses ending at around 250hz would not be as good for full spectrum wubsanyone else got any tech tips regarding the bass and kick
futures_untold wroteI simply cut everything under 90Hz on my kicks and roll off slightly at 1KHz
Sub I cut under 40Hz and roll off at 200Hz
I always compress both seperately and keep my levels low in the mix to create plenty of head room later whilst adding sounds with higher frequency content
Anything above 150Hz is what I consider midrange Anything above 150Hz can be heard on mobile phone speakers We all know that theyre designed to play heavy bass lol Wink
miss_molinari wroteDaft Cunt wroteTo me it feels like cutting the kick above 80 hz makes it sound weak I guess it depends on the style I rather cut below 60 to 80 depending on the tune
yeah its all about context in a dry minimal setting im of the opinion you can make a kick punch right up to about 180-200hz but yeah depends on when and on what kind of punch (im usually talking a bass hit at about 200hz coupled with a knock hit anywhere up to about 1200hz) i imagine you true dubsteppers prefer a denser thump from 60 through to about 300hz
Daft Cunt wroteI began recently the band-reject thing on the sub Little details that make big difference
And do you people cut the bass where the snare peaks
my basses arent usually middy enough to need that but yeah a slight sidechain on the main snare and say midbasspadwothavyer is nice especially if the limelight is stolen by a deeper sidechain on the kick and midbasspadwothavyer can create a nice flow (especially when used with long decay reveb linked to the midbasspadwothavyer so that it sounds louder and longer the higher the frequency played - might
have to post some piccies of that one )
Shonky wroteWhat Ive been doing lately is bouncing down the kick track lowpassing one somewhere between 100-140 depending on the highest frequencies of the low sub and then sidechaining the sub to the low kick
Then take a copy of the kick track highpass between 300-1000 and this will give you the beater noise to make the kick cut through I then sidechain this to the more middly basses You can also send a small amount to a reverb bus which allows you to avoid mud on the lower frequencies whilst still giving you the space
Doing it this way seems to make sense to me cause the sidechains work on the corresponding kicks in the same frequency range so it doesnt cause loads of unnecessary compression where you dont need it
Page 25
boh wroteAlways make sure your kicks are in tune with the rest of the track ull hear it pitching up and down and make sure if ur layering that the transients dont conflict(good monitors make this easy) It all comes down to kick selection Whats the point in cutting a kick at 80hz with a fundemental freq of say 60hz Sure you get whats happening before it but u wont get the nice thump of the fundemental freq Choose other kicks that hit the freq u want (80hz say) instead of cutting them when theres no need to Unless you really really know what your doing getting technical like this complicates the situation Esp for people with little experience
sullyharmitage wrote50 hz hi pass seems a bit high to me maybe gd for kicky techno or house but for subby stuff it seems a bit muchdefo roll off past 30-35 (most well engineered systems will do this anyways so any content below this is definately getting wasted)if yr gonna go higher make sure its a soft curvei find levelling subs is the hardest part of a mix - cos more always sounds better i remember reading breakage saying yr subs shouldnt add more than 3db to yr mix thats seems like a good guide
btw sub in kick an bassline simultaeously is gonna cause clashes (n maybe disortion) id either decrease the attack on the bass or cut the sub from the kick
unklefesta wroteI rolloff EVERYTHING at 40hz except my bass
standard
wang wroteAlways do it
Dont forget youre ROLLING off the frequencies not cutting them off all together Just a couple of dB of bass down there is enough to get some girth without removing all your headroom
Also analyse and cut off the lows on everything even if it doesnt appear to have messy lows -Youd be surprised how much bass there is in some high hats
Jtransition wroteAll of your tracks are going to be different so dont restrict yourself to a certain techniquetry different things and listen to the results
Shonky wrotewang wroteAlso analyse and cut off the lows on everything even if it doesnt appear to have messy lows -Youd be surprised how much bass there is in some high hats
Yep this is very true also worth filtering out the inaudible highs on low sounds as well found some of my subs which Id low passed still showed frequency activity much higher than expected
Jtransition wroteStick a high pass filter on everything apart form the kick drum and bass line70 hertz is a good starting point move up or down to tasteAnd remember try to mix at low levels(Walls not vibrating)
Deadly Habit wroteRendr wroteBasslines in my experience should be mono due to the fact that humans cannot easily decoded the stereo positioning of low frequencys so panning basslines (excluding bass sounds with high pitch sounds at around 500Hz+) is not recommended not only are the low frequencys hard to position with the human ear the low frequency sound waves are absorbed by the human head at a much higher ratio than high pitch sounds which tend to be reflected Another thing to note is that club systems are
mono Basslines that pan only belong in Psytrance
sub range should be mono especially if going to be cut to vinylmidrange bass on the other hand you can pan and add stereo fx to your hearts content
Page 26
32 Re-sampling
SafeAfter a few months of experimenting with resampling not really getting anywhere in terms of sound quality i came up with a pretty simple way of getting on the right track Ive got so much help since getting on this forum in terms of production i thought id share this for those who like myself are looking into the elusive yet highly rewarding technique of resamplingAll the vsts i use on this (save for the synth itself) are freenative plugs im using FL but itll transfer onto every DAW pretty much the same Ill explain it for a bassline but it can be applied to any sound
Step 1Make yourself a nice bassline get it sounding dirty with whatever you can within the synth Im using Albino so i tend to play about with the saturation modesFXs until its sounding pretty good
Step 2Hook up to a mixer channel then send this channel to a second mixer channel (FL users just click on another channel towards the bottom of the strip) On the second channel that the synth is hooked to from the first add CMt bitcrusher and downsample 3-16x (thanks to all the production forum users who pointed this out to me when i posted a few months ago on dirtying up basslines) Then add a chorus Turn the LFOs off and set the depthdelayetc to whatever sounds best Also set the crossover pretty high so only the treblehigh mids are being affected Then add Camel Audio Camel Crusher Turn the compressor off and set the tubemech to taste Add a parametric EQ if needs be to boost the high freqs Experiment with the chain of these effects swapping them according to the sound The choruscameleq in different orders should alter the sound quite alot depending on where their placed
Step 3 Set the level of the second affected channel with the original depending on whatever suits Play about with adding extra effects to both channels The way the second channel behaves once an effect is added to the first is quite extreme in even light application of effects So its possible to create a whole array of different sounds just from say adding a flangerchorusetc to the first channel then listening to how much it affects the sound as a whole as it goes through both channels By now it should be sounding pretty girthy
Step 4Export the riffsample (i use edison on the master channel in FL but whatever method will do) Reload and place into a mixer channel Add another Camel Crusher for abit more grit EQ and compress Set up a reverbdelay send and resample again for extra depth
Obviously this technique can be applied a 2nd3rd4th time to fuck the sound up even more so Which is what ive moved onto doing now into the territory of splitting the sound into basslow midhigh midtreble sections for ultimate control over each part Something which i was attempting to do before coming up with the above method but being left with a pile of unlistenable mushy shite
Hope this is a help to some peeps I know theres no secret technique to resamping only a whole load of practice and using your ears but this method got me on the right track in terms of hearing the benefits of it and encouraging me to experiment more in depth and realise that the possiblities are endless Im hooked now i resample pretty much every sound in one way or another Kick and snares benefit hugley from it for mega face melting wide drum sounds aswell so its worth trying it on some nice drum hits
Keep up the good work folksPeaceDC_WT
33 Drums
Read before reading on I am in no way entitled to any of those opinions It is up to you to decide whether you would like to incorporate them in your workflow I have just collected them from all the threads in this forum and will try to keep everything updated
I will update as regularly as I find updates
Page 27
Misc tips and tricks bull Good drums are usually layered - example 3 snares sounding as onebull The hats are often panned or widenedbull Pick great sounding samples different ones for different parts of the sounds you want 1
for snap and bite 1 for body 1 for thump distort and MAYBE EQ each to make them sound the best that they can separately combine in a bus MAYBE compress them together maybe accent the front and shorten the sound with a transient modifier 10 minutes tops
bull Do as little as possible with great-sounding bits and your basic sounds will be slamming leaves you time to focus on the arrangement people dont go around thinking wow that tune has an amazing snare as long as its thumping and not masked by a bunch of other stuff itll keep the dance moving
bull Listen to other producers work As its playing imagine the 1 2 3 4 on the step sequencer running in time to what youre listening to Try to visualize where the producer put their hits Not to say you should copy peoples drum patterns but learn from them
bull Ive noticed a lot of tunes (more minimal stuff where you can distinctly hear whats seperately going on) seem to use two differently pitched hi-hats that alternate to sound shuffley if you know what I mean and a less dramatic snare used sparsely in between the main lazy kick and snare An easy trick if you havent worked it out (which to be honest you should have if youre at all serious about producing dubstep) is to stick a smaller snare or hat the 116th before the kick or snare so it steps if you get me For example Bengas Night does this for all four beats in the bar which is part of what makes it so danceable But dont get stuck in always having kick on 1 and snare on 3 some tracks work with a kick on every beat others with a couple big snares etc The trick (unless you want proper lazy spaced out tunes) is to make sure youre nodding your head on all four beats of the bar Play around with a hat on every quaver (ie 8 per bar on the beat) compared to just four but on the off beat as well as adding in the steppy ones every now and then Theres often no need to over-complicate things though one of the my favourite drum tracks is the incredibly simplistic V by Distance Its a rhythm that could easilly be played by one guy on a real kit yet its so banging - check the use of hats and lower velocity kicks in this to make it nice and bouncy Also I once had a four bar drum loop and accidentally moved the sequence one bar to the right for one section and it ended up nicely varying the drums in a way you wouldnt expect
bull Really tight delays can help claps and snaps sound natural 5-20ms etcbull Recycle or phatmatik is your break-chopping friendbull Basically Hatrixxs method involved chopping everything from the main hits into a sample
Say you had a 2-step funk beat like the Amen Youd start your selection from the start of the first kick and select everything up to the start of the first snare Cut paste theres your first slice Then take everything from the start of the first snare up to the start of the second kick - including all the little hats and ghost hits - cut paste second sample and so on Then just map the samples onto some keys and bash away Both of them are quick compared to chopping Recycled slices where you have to copy and drag loads of little notes (one every little fucking tiny hit in the break arranged chromatically up the keyboard) around the piano roll These methods let you just concentrate on the main hits which can be both good or bad You can get a solid beat down with just a handful of hits but youre limited to the patterns already in the original break For a beginner to breakbeat science like yourself Id say try these methods first but dont rule out the really anal methods like RecyclePhatmatikFruity Slicer Sometimes they are a necessary evil Of course some of the drumfunk guys especially those who post on Subvert Central swear by these methods or the next one There are those who prefer to chop up the raw audio rather than bothering with MIDI and samplers They literally just drop the break file into Cubase or Logic and start chopping with the scissors tool and copying and pasting I can see the benefits of this You can see the waveform as youre chopping and youre not as restriced to the quantize grid as you are with MIDI But it takes aaaaages to build a drum track this way and theres the risk of RSI from all that Ctrl+C Ctrl+V youll be doing Then of course theres trackers They really are tailor-made for chopping up loops amongst other things They give you Sample Offset meaning that when you trigger a sample you can set it to start from 256 evenly spaced points throughout the sample So by starting a sample a quarter of the way through youre triggering the first snare (obviously you can fine-tune it when the snare isnt perfectly on the beat) You can edit breaks in a tracker without ever having to cut up a waveform and you can do all sorts of other nifty things like reverse the sample retrigger it to make drum rolls and so on
If recycles having trouble switch the break to mono in your sample editor and then apply tiny fades between the drum hits (especially useful if there are lots of rides that play over the other hits to keep things separate) This should help recycle pick up the start points and with any luck should leave you with a cleaner break
Page 28
Snaresbull Tune the snares so they all hit around the same pitch bull Change the Amp Envelopes of each to bring the strongest parts from each separate sample
and build up your sound like that bull Compressing all together is a good idea but dont over do it bull EQ the master out for the snare as well so you wont have to fuck about when you use the
sample in the future bull Donrsquot just use snares fling some random sound effects in there Claps and rim shots also
work well when layered bull Make subtle changes to them and export a few snares from the same setup this helps
when you need a ghost hit or a reverse that sounds similar but not identicalbull Watch that frequencies dont build up and make the layered bit sound overly whatever
is building up Really easy to get too much 200hz or 500hz or even 12k if youve got samples that are all beefythicksmack-y
bull If its peaking run it through a Spectrum Analyzer and see where its peaking I guess its peaking in the tune rather than just the snare sample playing on its own
bull Sometimes snare samples have a very short peak that doesnt seem to make them sound any better and keeps you from getting them louder without cliping Reduce that part by a few dBs and youre sorted
bull Make sure you are using subtractive eq to pull out the frequencies that could be clashing with other sounds If your frequencies are clashing that can hide the snare and then you end up turning it up to compensate and there you are with your snare peakingThe key is making the frequencies sit right in the mix so that they dont clash and you can set them right and not have to turn them up
bull You could always try clipping the snare normalise it in a wave editor amplify it as much as you can before it sounds distorted then sample it out Then replace the snare with the clipped version it will almost always sound louder with more body at a lower volume I would still point out that although this can be used as a replacement to compression compression is a vital tool to learn how to use Also a lot of peeps will say this does bad things to the waveform and it does but unless you intend to listen to your tune to be heard at home on an amazing hifi then it doesnt really matter that much IMO
bull Hi-pass overdrive limit and cut away space from other sounds for itbull Layer with its self or a different snare Layer with sub add effect to one layer add effect
to both layers layer zoom right in drag one wave form back or forth very slightly to create new snare sound Pitch updown EQ Filter distort reverb delay reverse
bull Record yourself beat boxing your best snare sounds then layer with snare samplesbull A good handclap never goes a miss or use a nice drum synth to get a very differentdigital
soundbull Try reversing the snare sample then changing the envelope settings so it only hits on the
beat Layer that with the same sample this time not reversed Add a little delay to the the reversed snare Change the settings til it sounds how you like
bull Particularly snares I layer up a lot I look for one that has the qualities that I want when run through verb and then I look for something shorter with more mid punch to keep things physical After someone notied snares were weak in a tune Ive really made a point of ensuring that when the snares hit its physical as well as textural You need to feel them a bit - so I look for some snares that have that real punch when layering but usually keep the more textural snappy one as the focus last couple tunes I did the standard kick snare hats w odd percussion and then I took an amen chopped it processed it and layered it overtop for more aggression and step (goddess being a perfect example) By removing a layer and adding it you can create a sense of progression through the tune Make sure the bottom layer is sounding really good and then add the top so that youre not mixing them to be reliant on one another - instead you want synergy Make sure the EQ on the top and bottom make sense with each other
Kicksbull Building a kick in Ableton Lives Impulse machine Provides some essential information
about layering that can be used with any DAWbull Making fat kicks
remixmag wroteWhether creating Miami Bass music is your lifes fantasy or your greatest fear you probably crave the know-how to manifest those car-rattling trunk-full-of-funk kick drums In the arenas of hip-hop house techno downtempo and almost any other electronic genre molding fat kick drums is absolutely essential Like grandmas homemade apple pie the recipe for kick drums is partially a matter of taste However theres no substitute for quality ingredients And just like every pie has its staple ingredients every slamming kick drum requires some common elements Lets take a look at the
Page 29
shopping list for killer kick drumsTHE CRUST
Youll need a basic shell to begin creating a thick strong kick The classics always work if youre fortunate enough to own a real Roland TR-808 909 or other famous drum machine with a killer kick use it copiously If youre not one of those chosen few pay close attention to your original source For example if you use a sampler understand that not all ldquo808 Kickrdquo samples are the same some sound great and some just plain suck There are a lot of reasons for that including how many generations from the original the sample is the sampling rate and bit depth of the sampler how the kick was first sampled and so on Be as choosy as possible with your individual samples mdash dont use a mediocre sample just because it has 808 in the name and therefore is ldquosupposedrdquo to sound fat Seek out a better 808 sample or use something else that is simply bigger sounding Remember the time you spend finding sweet original sources wont be in vain especially if you reuse the resulting samples for multiple songsBORROW SOME SUGAR
An old saying goes ldquoGood art borrows great art stealsrdquo A nice way to start out with great raw kick material is to sample directly from the source If you dont own but have access to a 909 then sample it directly Or take one of your favorite producers tracks on vinyl or CD find a naked kick drum in there and sample it Be cautious with that approach for a couple of reasons Copyright issues around sampling even small bits have become a dangerously gray area and I would never personally advise using any source straight out of the can even from a royalty-free sample library While it may be an excellent start its unoriginal Customize whatever you bite Treat your samples as a sculptor would treat clay mold each one to create a trademark sound for yourself One effective way to customize a fat kick is to take a tip from the synth manufacturers If a sound is thin pile another (or a few more) on top When doing so its important to use different sounds layering two identical kicks will result in a louder kick but it wont change the basic tone Remember the sculptor approach here Even if you are using two good-sounding individual samples they may not instantly sound great together For example I find that when layering kicks while the thickness may be good sustain is often overkill The final result often benefits from a little doctoring on the tail of one (or both) of the samples and other hands-on sonic surgeryADD THE FILLING
Once a nice basic kick is achieved treating it with two of the mastering engineers favorite tools is often the next step Artfully applying a compressor (to just the kick) can go a long way toward creating a signature sound and a huge kick Compression is one of those ldquosecret spicesrdquo and how to apply it is a whole topic in itself One recommendation I will make however is to use a multiband compressor With one of those you can isolate compression on certain frequency ranges That is perfect if for example you want to push the sub of your kick without emphasizing the higher frequencies (which often affect the tone of the attack) or vice-versa EQ comes after compression in my signal chain By now the kick should already sound pretty fat I aim to shave unnecessary frequencies here rather than artificially boosting too much This is also where you can actualize trademark sounds while also fine-tuning them to work alongside other elements in specific tracks I often scoop out mids and highs especially frequencies above about 500 Hz Even though I like thick deep kicks unless Im going for a really dublike sound I often truncate the lowest frequencies (usually the sub-50 Hz frequencies) Even when you cant hear the difference when trimming frequencies doing so can really tighten up your kicksEVEN IT OUT
You may ask why when youre trying to fatten up a kick would you want to trim frequencies That is one of the keys to achieving great mixes both in the case of kick drums and in general You want to avoid too many overlapping frequencies The more sonic separation you have between elements the more focused the entire mix will sound That can be especially important for club music which often gets played on huge not necessarily audiophile-quality sound systems If you havent run into the following scenario already I assure you at some point you will Your bass line and kick drum are competing and it sounds like you have a weak kick You boost the kick but it still sounds muddy Take the bass out and suddenly the kick doesnt sound so bad In a scenario like that solo the two sounds listen carefully for where frequencies are overlapping and then try subtractive EQ on one element then the other and sometimes a bit on both By scooping out overlapping frequencies you will often find that both elements seem to magically come forward in the mix before even touching their respective volume levels
Hi hatsbull Realism
Ive been a professional touring and recording drummer for 25 years and just thought I might share a couple of really simple ways to use fruity loops or fruity studio to create more realistic drum patterns
For what its worth try this out with Fruity Loops
Page 30
Take your hi hat tracks (are any tracks for that matter including melodic synth bubbles)
Drop down the bar graph box that allows you to scroll between velocity (volume) pitch panning cutoff resonance and a thing called shift which allows you to use each of these categories to effect each individual note that youve programmed (note this can be accomplished in other ways in most of the good midi sequencing apps or softwarehardware drum machines)
Drummers no matter how good they are just arent perfect and we can use the fact that each of these drop down bar graphs can make veryvery small changes in a sound to do some subtle things to a rolling drum groove like 16th notes on a hi hat
Not all drummers but many tend to favor their strong hand in a single stroke (hand over hand) drum roll Consequently if you make all odd numbered hi hats be slightly louder than their even numbered hits it will sound more realistic Start by making velocity differences that are really clearly audible Then lower the velocity until you can barely feel the difference We are going to make very subtle changes like this on each of the parameters of velocity pitch cutoff resonance and importantly shift
I cant stress enough that you should make these changes be so subtle that you can hardly notice them
Just going on the fact that the right handed players start their rolls with the right hand and favor it ever so slightly (or grossly for effect as well) means that the stroke will be harder with the right hand than the left hand
When a percussion instrument is hit harder the difference between the transient (or hi pitched attack) of the sound and the body of the instrument (or the sound that comes after the attack) becomes greater In general on drums that means that a harder attack tensions the drum very imperceptably (sp) and it also means that there will be more treble in the sound Consequently the pitch goes up a little teensy bit and their is more attack to the sound (increased resonance and slightly higher cutoff frequency)
Consequently you can make the pitch of each right hand be just barely noticeably higher the resonance should be just one or two of those little teeny bars higher The cutoff should be just a few bars lower (allowing less high frequencies through) on the left handed or even numbered strokes
Typically if drums have time inaccuracies they tend to drag the left hand a litte bit I have to keep stressing that if you can hear the changes you make you arent being realistic You need to make the changes subtle enough that you just barely feel that they arent perfect You can consequently make each left hand note shifted one or two bars late
Tigure out how much you can tweak each parameter before it becomes obvious and then you can just randomly tweak each one up to that limit With a little bit of variance in each stroke from parameter to parameter you will create more of a percolating texture in your programming - this is a great technique to make synth bubbles (the kind used in techno and house) more interesting and less mechanical feeling
Now you can avoid the biggest mistake that non-drummers do when trying to write realistic programs turn the overall volume of the hihats until you CANT hear them and then slowly bring up the volume until you just begin to hear them
Professional producers have spent countless hours trying to figure out how to gate and mix hihats OUT of tracks The reason is two fold1) Human beings have such a radical peak in their hearing around the 1-2khz range (or the intelligibility range of human speech) that we can play the hihats at incredible low volumes and they are still audible You cant do that with a bass drumI tell my drum students that you cannot play a hi hat or a snare drum so quietly that a person sitting in a room with you cant hear it2) Hi Hats the snare of snare drums and cymbals all seriously MASK human vocal intellibility How many people have gone to see live shows where they can hear the singer is singing but cant for the life of them figure out what they are actually singing That is ususally because drummers (or mixers which is frequently the case) are not hip to thisimportant fact
So turn down your hi hat tracks (or any track with a strong mid rangeshort envelope attack) and you have much more room for other musical goodies in your mix When in doubt make your hi hats quieter than you think they should be Trust me theyll come through the mix even at a quiet volume
Swingbull Dont know if you can do this in your sequencer but in Logic you can create a groove
template from your drums and then apply that to your other instruments If youre using separate midi channels for snares kicks and hats take the 8 bar loop youre using glue it together and then take the groove from that and then mute that track When you click down the quantize list youll see the template there and you can apply it to your other tracks Also if you do want to change the groove you can just change the hits in the muted template and itll automatically change all other hits to the new changes
bull Think if youre clever and organized you can basically cut breaks up in recycle load them into the exs24 (extract sequence) and then do the same with them That way if there are breaks you like the feel of you can just apply that swing to anything If you make a folder called grooves in your logic folder they should load up each time so that youll have loads to choose from Havent done this myself yet but always helpful to have a choice of feels available
bull Some things sound better rigid and robotic with equal velocities Some things sound better rigid and robotic with differing velocities Some things sound better with swing Some things sound better with everything ever-so-slightly off Its down to what the track needs
bull Drum Break Swing ProgrammingNicolas Hall wwwbreakbeat-cafenet wroteI think most people who make anything funk breakbeat drum amp bass or hip-hop would agree that Swing is crucial to the effectiveness of a beat The other key factors in a programming sense are dynamic and accent So many people get wound up when their beats sound sterile or mechanical this is due to the fact that computers and sequencers lock to perfect BPM A computer on its own does not interpret rhythm the way a good drummer does There are however certain machines that have their own swing parameters like the Akai MPC range of sampling drum machines which are used extensively by hip hop producers
Swing is not the easiest thing in the world to analyze but as a general rule good drummers will play slightly late and thats why in all funky records you get that slight dip at the start of the bar take Superstition by Stevie Wonder or Billie Jean by Michael Jackson these are both very simple beats Superstition is of course live drums whilst Billie Jean was programmed but no less funky than Superstition I emphasize this point to demonstrate that a programmed beat can be every bit at groovy as a beat played on a drum kit
Expanding on the Billie Jean point Hip Hop beats are really very simple If you listen to the Neptunes they tend to create the swing in their beats by quantizing the kicks and snares and playing the hi hats in by hand this creates a very tight beat which is off set by a loose hi hat try it works but dont forget your accents - As a starting point just take the first snare of your beat and turn the velocity down then notice how your head starts nodding and your foot starts tapping a little more you are giving the beat feel Also remember that if you are using reverb the louder snare will push the reverb harder than the soft snare so your creating more ambience that way Then try your kick drums if your not sure which hits to adjust just pick apart a beat your feeling I remember me and friend picking apart a Gangstarr beat and were able to almost replicate it by adjusting the velocities of each hit (admittedly it took a while to get it right)
If youre a newbie then a common trick when learning to make good grooves is to create a template with an existing loop The idea is take a loop you like thats got a good feel to it and then place your own hits over the break then take the break out and see if your hits are sounding funky This can take a while and its crucial to think about the strength of each hit or the dynamic Each kick will not be the same strength nor will the snares or the hats pick the loop apart dissect it and youll soon see that there are certain consistencies in all good beats
If youre using live loops and like to layer them with drum sequences you should be thinking about time space and frequencies So if you have a fairly heavy loop then layering it with heavy kick drums is probably not gonna sound good Think about filling holes are their any frequencies that could be filled up Or is there space in the loop for extra hits Try working in layers just adding one hit at a time also filtering works well you could take some of the frequencies out of your loop as you drop your drum sequences in to make room for them I think one the masters of this technique is Liam Howlett of the Prodigy He runs breakbeats and gives them extra balls by laying a kick drum underneath to add extra intensity to certain passages in his set but hes careful not to overlap frequencies to much A good place to start if you using breakbeats is the Roland Tr-808 kick drum which is around the 50hz mark which is sub bass territory so it will sit underneath most breaks very well
If your hell bent on making killer beats and loops then perseverance is crucial keep at it it will come together listen to beats you like and pick them apart identify the subtleties that make it happen I know some producers get fed up when their beats sound to clean or they are trying to create a new breakbeat and then compare it to sample they took from vinyl and get down on there own beat Think about what a breakbeat really is think about its history what has happened to it to make it sound the way it does Im
Page 32
sure youve noticed how some breaks have a certain something like a magic dust you cant put your finger on Let me share what I know with you about that
Most breaks though not all are taken from recordings of live drums some of them are pretty old so you have the ambience of live drums and the room they were recorded in you have the fact that natural decay and reverb of each drum is likely to have bled into the other mics on the kit and that most engineers used overhead mics which pick up the whole kit with two mics Then consider that many of these breaks will have been recorded to analogue tape with saturation which will create extra warmth and harmonics The next step comes from old sampling technology like the SP-1200 and the Akai s-950 mpc -60 these samplers sampled at 12- bit (bear in mind that most computers now are at least 24-bit if not more) and that the samples themselves where taken from vinyl and on and on the process goes with each new reverb and eq adding more and more to the break In terms of giving your breaks that character there are a number of things you can try for example buying an old four track cassette machine to dump your beats onto then re-sample it if your using a sampler like the s-950 then try pushing the input meters a little harder than usual add reverbs and resample it each time you put your loop through a new channel you will be adding something to it Also distortion is fantastic for breaks if you have any amp plug ins then try them the Amplitude one is particularly good you dont need to go mad with it just used subtly it works great
To finish I would just like to say again stick with it keep trying keep listening to records if you like to read about technique then do so you can learn so much from other producers Remember the strength of your hits is important as is the way it swings good luck
UPDATE 08092008
ENHANCE SYNTHESIZED DRUM PARTS WITH FOUND SOUNDS
emusiciancom wroteLayering real-world sounds with synthesized drum parts puts a new spin on your drum tracks You probably already have usable sound effects on your hard drive because most commercial samplers have at least a modest collection in their factory library Beyond that youll find thousands of royalty-free sound effects online Soundsnapcom is one of my favorite sources and its free The recordings dont need to be pristine for layering over drums so dont overlook cheap sampling CDs and consider grabbing your own sounds with a portable recorderCollect and Save
Start by assembling a small Foley library of short percussive sounds divided into typical drum-sound categories kicks snares toms cymbals percussion and so on Youll generally want to layer drum sounds with Foley sounds that have a similar volume contour and frequency range If you layer a Foley sound that resembles a kick drum with the sound of your hi-hat for example youll quickly fill up all the space in your drum track
Industrial household military transportation and vocal sounds make excellent fodder but you will often want to extract a small slice such as the last shot in a volley of machine-gun fire (snare) or the first bounce of a plastic bottle on concrete (tom) A browsing tool like Audio Finder (icedaudiocom) is invaluable if you have a large sample library That lets you quickly audition clips make basic edits and drag-and-drop slices to your library
Sticks UpIf your synthesized drum part is step sequenced youll need to export its step sequences as MIDI files Many drum synths do that including Sonic Charge Tonic (sonicchargecom) Apple Logic UltraBeat (applecom) and Submersible DrumCore (submersiblemusiccom) All of those come with a large collection of patterns exportable as MIDI sequences Youll also need a sampler to play the Foley sounds drum-oriented samplers are handier for that but are by no means necessary
Start by loading a kit in the drum synth Export one of its sequenced patterns or create your own and place it on the sampler track For some of the drum synth sounds select compatible Foley sounds and map them to the same notes in the sampler that theyre mapped to in the drum synth Next solo the doubled voices one by one in both the drum synth and the sampler start the sequence playing and tweak the samplers voice parameters (filter level pan envelope and so on) to make the sounds work together (see Fig 1 and Web Clip 1) Dont tweak global parameters such as effects because that will affect all sounds played by the sampler
High HoopsOnce youve configured your Foley track you can do several things to add interest I frequently use a
Page 33
second sampler for short vocal sounds Ill have some notes trigger sounds in both samplers and others in only one Many samplers let you group sounds and assign notes and controllers to choose among them You can then sequence these notes and controllers or you can play them live to alter your Foley tracks
Try applying DSP effects to individual Foley sounds Multitap delays distortion phasing and granular effects all work well when used sparingly (see Web Clip 2) You can apply DSP effects inside your sampler or route the voices to a separate output for DSP processing in your DAW If your sampler doesnt offer either possibility spread the Foley parts over several sampler instances on different tracks
Sidechain compression or gating of the drum track with one or more of the Foley parts will highlight the Foley part as well as add variety to the drums With compression peaks in the sidechain signal will reduce the level of the drum track Use a high compression level say 201 and balance the sidechain-gain and the compression-threshold -attack and -release controls to get the ducking contour you want (see Web Clip 3) Gating has the opposite effect the drum track will be heard during peaks in the sidechain signal (see Web Clip 4) Here too the sidechain-gain and gate-threshold controls work in tandem to determine when the gate is opened Use envelope parameters (attack release and hold) to shape the gates contour
Keep in mind that once youve created a sampler instrument to complement your drum kit you can reuse it with other sequences You can also change one or more sounds in the sampler instrument without repeating the whole process
34 Sidechain Compression (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
4 Theory41 ndash Song Structure42 ndash Mixdown (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)43 ndash Mastering (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
44 Music Theory
The first thing to remember about music theory is that generally if it sounds right it probably is There are no rules in music and Music Theory is not about telling you how to write music Its about understanding the music
Broadly speaking it is fair to say that most music is essentially based upon two crucial factors scales and rhythm Scales make up melodies chords harmonies and basslines to name but a few whereas rhythm makes up the beat of the song In this part of the Production Bible you will learn the basics of Music Theory that will serve you not only in the production of Dubstep but for any of your future musical pursuits This information is intended to be easy to read and understand so I wonrsquot be mincing sentences But firstly please make sure you learn every single note on the keyboard by studying the image below Otherwise yoursquoll be completely lost here
Page 34
Scales Wersquoll begin with scales As I mentioned before scales are the building blocks of your song and without them your track will be atonal and completely unlistenable (probably not the effect yoursquore going for)
There are two main scales that you should learn inside out ndash the major scale and the minor scale A generalisation yoursquore bound to have heard before is that the major scale sounds ldquohappyrdquo and the minor scale sounds ldquodarkrdquo Although this is not always the case it is mostly true ndash and therefore yoursquoll usually be focussing on the minor scale when producing Dubstep However just in case yoursquore writing happy-dubstep (if that exists) here is a quick overview of both scales and how they are made up
Major Scale
The major scale is really easy to create It is made by a single rule that is simple to put in to place
ldquoTone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
In case you donrsquot know what a Tone or Semi-Tone is here is a quick explanation
Picture a keyboard (or if you canrsquot see the image above) Say you go from C to C that would be a semi-tone The same thing goes for if you go from an E to an F ndash it is still a semi-tone because you
Page 35
have gone up one key
A tone is two semi-tones ndash for example from C to D is a tone and the same goes for from G to A
The scalersquos name is taken from the note that it starts on For example C major will start on the note of C Similarly A major will start on the note of A and this is the case with every single scale
Here is a quick list of a few major scales After having seen a few try working the rest out for yourself in order to understand how the major scale is formulated Ideally you should practice your scales on a piano or keyboard so that you can physically see how to make the scale It might sound boring but itrsquos a small price to pay for a much deeper understanding of your music
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Major C D E F G A B C
C Major C D E F G A B C
D Major D E F G A B C D
D Major D E F G A B C D
E Major E F G A B C D E
F Major F G A Bb C D E F
F Major F G A B C D E F
G Major G A B C D E F G
G Major G A B C D E F G
A Major A B C D E F G A
A Major A B C D E F G A
B major B C D E F G A B
Now by arranging the different notes of each of these scales in any order you please you can create a melody bassline or harmony with extreme ease Rearranging the notes in the scale will give you a flawlessly in-key result and it is then up to you to use the notes in the scale as you see fit for your tune
Minor Scale
As was the case with the Major Scale the Minor is made up from a set rule or formula By knowing this formula you can understand how the Minor is made and how to use it to itrsquos maximum effect
ldquoTone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
As is the case with the major scales you should practice your scales as much as possible to make sure that you know them all like the back of your hand Here are a few Minor Scales see if you can
Page 36
work out the rest
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Minor C D Eb F G Ab B C
D Minor D E F G A Bb C D
F Minor F G A B C D E F
G Minor G A Bb C D Eb F G
Similarly to the Major now that you know your Minor Scales you can quickly just take any note from the scale rearrange it with another few notes in the scale and there you have a fat melody or bassline ready to be played at maximum volume
Diminished Chords
Diminished Chords are really quite spooky and dark chords that are made up of four different notes all a minor third apart from each other That means that for example the Diminished Chord starting on C would be C Eb F A because to get from one note to the next you have to use ldquoTone Semi-Tonerdquo (known as a minor third)
Because of the mathematical nature of the Diminished chord there are only three ldquoclustersrdquo of notes which can then be rearranged like the Major and Minor Scales
Cluster 1 C Eb F A
Cluster 2 C E G Bb
Cluster 3 D F Ab B
Use these clusters and rearrange them as you please For example you could rearrange cluster 1 as Eb F A C etc
Generally speaking you canrsquot make a song based entirely on Diminished Chords due to the fact that each cluster only has 4 notes However a Diminished Chord is perfect for adding a hint of darkness to your tune and is brilliant when mixed with some Minor Scales
Chords
Chords are basically two or more notes played together They are made up from a specific scale ndash for example the C major chord is made up of notes in the C major scale
Usually chords will include the first third and fifth note of the scale as well as possibly using other notes to give them colour For example the basic chord of C major would be C E G Then you could add the seventh note to it (in this case it is B) Really it is up to the producerrsquos discretion how heshe goes about making a chord ndash just remember to stick to the scale you are using
Chords will more than likely sound like shit if you play them on a complicated or layered synth patch You want to be playing chords on sustained sounds such as strings or pads Chords will really fill out your sound if used properly You want your chords to be supporting the melody or bassline and more than likely want to add some reverb so that it doesnrsquot sound too sharp Make
Page 37
your chords blend in with the music and yoursquoll have mastered them
Chord Inversions
Quite simply chord inversions are when you rearrange the notes in a chord so that it sounds a bit different and suits your arrangement better
For example if you were in the key of C major you could have a drone of E playing underneath some strings playing the notes E G C E
Due to the fact that the notes are the same and have only been inverted the chord will still be in key with the rest of the music This is a great way to add a touch of variation to your music instead of using the same chord structure all the time
Arpeggios
Arpeggios are much easier to understand than they sound They are quite simply the first third and fifth note of the scale played as individual notes For example the arpeggio of C minor would be C Eb G C etc
A great example of an arpeggio is the bassline in Bengarsquos ldquoCrunked Uprdquo He goes from playing the F minor arpeggio backwards to playing the F minor arpeggio backwards In other words he is playing
C A F and then C Ab F
Experiment with a few Minor Arpeggios and a couple of Diminished Arpeggios and you canrsquot go wrong in writing a huge bassline
Suggested Reading
List of All Scales With Finger Charts Included
Well thatrsquos it folks Thatrsquos basically all the music theory you need to know to start off with As you grow more used to the various scales yoursquoll notice that certain notes sound good with each other whilst others donrsquot Irsquom not here to tell you how to write music Irsquom here to teach you the language
of music Itrsquos up to you to write the poetry
copy Bruno Crosier (klimaxx) 2008
45 Random Tips
Random tips amp best piece of advice thread
5 Resources
Page 38
51 Books amp Magazines
Hello again people
Does anyone know of more music production books magazines or authors we can add to these lists
Thanks
------------------------------------------------
Music Production Magazines Computer Music - httpwwwcomputermusiccouk Music Tech Magazine - httpwwwmusictechmagcouk Future Music - httpwwwfuturemusiccouk Sound on Sound - httpwwwsoundonsoundcom Remix Magazine - httpremixmagcom Mix Magazine - httpmixonlinecom Electronic Musician - httpemusiciancom EQ Magazine - httpwwweqmagcom Audio Technology - wwwaudiotechnologycomau Tape Op - httpwwwtapeopcom
------------------------------------------------
Music Books
Authors Curtis Roads httpmitpressmiteducatalogauthor aspaid=93 - The Computer Music Tutorial (Really really really good book) Paul White - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea ul20White - Basic Series + more Rick Snowman - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea k20Snoman - The Dance Music Manual Tools Toys and Techniques Bobby Owsinski - httpbooksgooglecoukbooksas_auth=Bobby+Owsinski - The MixingRecording amp Mastering Engineers Handbooks Michael Paul Stavrou - httpwwwmixingwithyourmindcom
Publishers Thomson Course Technology - httpcoursecengagecom (Click on the Music Technology tab) - Series published include Power Overdrive Ignite and CSI Series + many more Backbeat Books - httpwwwbackbeatbookscom ndash Power Tools Series + many more Wiley Publishing - httpwwwdummiescom (Enter music in their search bar) - For Dummies Series Penguin Books - httpuspenguingroupcom (Enter music in their search bar) - The Complete Idiots Guide Series + many more MIT Press - httpmitpressmitedu - Many books on music theory Focal Press - httpwwwfocalpresscom - (Enter music in their search bar)
------------------------------------------------
Online Music Book Stores (We need more links here Do you know of any that we can add)
httpwwwmixbookscom ndash Excellent source that sells only books about music
Page 39
httpwwwamazoncom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
httpwwwbarnesandnoblecom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
------------------------------------------------
52 Wikipedia
A good music lexicon wiki Search for your term in the search bar ---gt httpenaudiolexicorgwikiMain_Page
0-9
14rdquo Jack - httpenwikipediaorgwikiJack_plug 3rd Bridge - httpenwikipediaorgwiki3rd_Bridge
Zero Crossing - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_crossing Zero Crossing Rate - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_Crossing_Rate
53 Other recommended production forums
for Logic users this is the shit httpwwwlogicprohelpcom
Ive found both these forums to be full of knowledgeable producers amp musicians
httpwwwkvraudiocomforum
httpacapellaharmony-centralcomforumsindexphp
httpwwwgearslutzcomboard
httpwwwsoundonsoundcomforum
httpwwwmusicradarcomforum
httpwwwidmforumscom
httpwwwdance-industriescomphpBB2 8cffbb3b02
httpwwwsubvertcentralcomforumindexphp
httpwwwbreakbeatcouk
httpwwwtweakheadzcom
httpwwwabletoncompagesforum
Explains lots about the music industry ---gt httpwwwbemusocom
Page 47
Ok so a massive thanks to all the contributors there are literally too many to mention But Thanks to Futures Untold Johnny Beat Klimaxx Deadly Habit amp JunglistRendr Daft Cunt in perticular
Thanks to all the artists producers and general music geeks making this early revision of the production bible an essential read
There are links missing and will be included in version 21(Please help with the unlinked chapters by going here - httpwwwdubstepforumcomthe-dubstep-production-bible-updated-2009-06-03-t14797html and updating missing info as needed)
Compiled by Daft Cunt and Futures Untold PDF Compiled by Depone
Page 20
For a long list of other free analysers visit httpwwwgersiccompluginsindexphpdaCat=2
3 Techniques
31 Bass311 Sub Bass
Sub-bass is a term used to describe audible sounds below 90Hz - sound in the range below this (under 16-17Hz) would be termed infrasound Sound systems often feature a subwoofer that is dedicated solely to amplifying sounds in the lower bass and sub-bass range Source Wikipedia
So the idea is to have the sub going up to ~90Hz The exact frequency it should be cut at depend on the kicks frequency Lets say you HP your kick at 100Hz then the sub should be LPed at 100Hz so they compliment each other without clashing
There are several ways of creating a sub here are the most common 1 - using a unique waveform (sine saw square or triangle) will give you a nice linear sub NB You dont need to filter out a sine wave as it doesnt have overtones 2 - using detuned waveforms take 2 identical waves (sine saw square or triangle) and detune them - lets say -25 +25 semitone This will produce a phase effect and give movement to your sub but itll also cause large volume amplitude and youll need to compress it after filtering Great Massive tutorial by Subfocus here 3 - using a 808 kick you dont have a TR-808 Grab that pack
jobbanaught wroteAn easy option to get a powerful subbass is to take a 808 kick sample put it in your favorite sampler and loop a single cycle of the waverform somewhere in the middle of the sample The 808 kick is made of a sine and some additional white noise The sine gives your sub that rattling low end pressure and the noise adds overtonesgrittiness = instant badass subbass
You can find more tips about mixing your kick n sub in the Random bass tips thread
312 lsquoWobblersquo
Page 21
Wobble GuideWobble Bass
Wobble Bass as it is known is simply a bassline that has an LFO assigned to a Low Pass Filter as an insert effect LFOstands for Low Frequency Oscillator and is used to change a sound by a defined speed (measured in either Hz or synced to the Tempo in relation to the barsnotes through quantization) The way the LFO changes the sound is up to you you can make the LFO adjust the Volume the amount of Saturation Filter Cutoff etc Basically any parameter you link it to Essentially you are just using the LFO to send a changing value to a parameter
--------------------
How to get a simple wobble bass
1) Choose a simple sound on your synth (Anything apart from a Sine wave )
2) Select your LFO and set it to the speed you want (18 would be a good starting point)
3) Now assign the LFO to the Filter Cutoff Which should for this example be a Low Pass Filter as the sound were going for is a deep bass
4) You now have a basic wobble bass from here the possibilities for tweaking this sound are endless
--------------------
A quick breakdown of whats actually going on Essentially you are taking a sound (that can be an audio files generated by a synth etc) and then passing it through a Low Pass Filter Now what exactly does a Low Pass Filter do you ask
A Low Pass Filter allows Low Frequency signals to pass through it but reduces the amplitude (volume) of all the Frequencies above the cutoff point In general most plug-ins have various Low Pass Filter settings where the more poles it has the more Dbs it will cut and will yield a harder knee to it Example 1 Pole Filter with a -6dBOct reduction Vs a 2 Pole Filter reducing -12DbOct However you dont necessarily need a LFO controlling your Low Pass Filter Cutoff frequency value you could just draw in the Automation yourself but a LFO will yield a loop of consistent values and prevents the possibility of human error All the LFO is doing is sending a value to your frequency cutoff to keep it consistently changing
--------------------
Tips amp Advice
1) Sub bass wobble would normally be a Sine wave at around the 40-50 Hz range which would repeat the same chords as the mid-range bass wobble The only difference being that with a sub bass wobble there is no point in assigning the LFO to a Low Pass Filter because the sound is too low for the low pass filter to have any effect so theLFO is assigned to the amplitude (volume) instead Another reason for not applying a Low Pass Filter to the Sub bass is because it would typically be a Sine wave which possesses no Harmonics to be adjusted by the Filter
2) The sound of an LFO can also be adjusted by the wave type you choose The default setting for an LFO generator is a Sine wave although on most synths you can chose from Triangle Sawtooth Square wave Random Noise To get a nice sounding bass it is a good idea to use as many oscillators as possible on different octaves
3) Try messing around with the attack and release of your sound as this can have an impact on the sound of the bass Long attacks tend to create a more ambient sound and is a technique traditionally used with ambient pads
Page 22
4) Something that I find useful is to bounce the bassline to a wav file so that it can be chopped up and put in-sync with other elements of the song because the majority of the time you will find the first wave of sound in the wobble bassline will will be half the length of the other waves due to attack rates So the best thing to do is to chop that freak sound off the beginning of the file in your DAW (Logic Pro Reason Cubase etc) and start off with the second wave which should be fully formed This way it will not be too early of late when keeping in sync with other elements such as a second bassline
5) Another method you can use is creating a clone layer of your original sound and setting up a new LFO setup for that to beat alternatively in the space left by the original LFO Or go that crazy Drum amp Bass Reese route and split the frequencies to Low Mid and High then set different LFO rates for each band then recombine into one sound
6) For more variation automate your LFO speed and intensity
7) Where you place insert effects in relation to the filter (pre or post) will yield different sounding results
8) Other methods to achieve a wobble like sound Tremolo (This effects volume rather than frequency) FM Synthesis Modulation of PWM Oscillator Pitch assigned (in a liberal amount) to LFO Filter Envelope assigned to LFO (using a re-triggered envelope) (submitted by Faun2500)
9) Assign a second LFO to modulate the speed of the first LFO
LFO Shapes
Sine wave The smooth value change possible
Triangle Similar to a Sine wave but slightly more ramped amp synthetic sounding
Random A mixed bag
Sawtooth Will have a very fast attack with a slower release which will sound very rugged
Square wave Will be a simple open close style Very harsh and will generally cause a very harsh sound (Often used in DJ Hazard style bass-lines) Detune two square waves for a nice dark sounding bass
Waveforms submitted by Skells wrotehttpi228photobucketcomalbumsee83 cleanjpgSimple Filter Sweep
httpi228photobucketcomalbumsee83 wobblejpgSine Wave LFO assigned to Filter Cutoff
LINKS etc
Fruity Loops Wobble Tutorial (Link submitted by Wub) Massive Wobble YouTube Tutorial (Video created by thesynthesist) Pause amp Play Wobble Tutorial (Link submitted by dubmo) Albino3 Wobble Guide (Guide created by axon)
By Rendr amp Deadly Habit and a little help from Macc
313 lsquoReecersquo
The Reese Bass
Page 23
History Lesson
The Reese bass was a form of huge sounding synth-bass first used by the Detroit Techno producer Kevin Saunderson aka Master Reese aka Reese Project aka on the track Just Want Another Chance and immortalised in the classic DnB track Terrorist by Renegade Since then it has been (over)used in many a DnB track and continues to evolve even nowadays through Dubstep and Jungle It is said to be as influential to DnB as the Amen break and probably as used and abused as the Amen
Capturing the Beast
1The Oscillator Stage
To nail the Reese you need a synth with at least 2 oscillators but for better-bigger results use as many oscillators as you can (not really but 4 oscillators give a nice deep rumble - ahhhhhh) All the oscillators are playing sawtooth waves and all except one are detuned by 25-50 cents so that all oscillators are out of phase with each other
2 The Filter Stage
The signal is then sent to a low-pass filter with the cutoff freq set around 150-200Hz (experiment with that you want the growl of the mid-frequencies but you also want it as deep as possible without sacrificing the midrange) The resonance of the filter should be cranked up almost all the way (but again tweak accordingly to your filtersynth)
3 Fuzz it Up
The second most important aspect of the Reese (after the detuned sawtooths) is distortion Tube distortion and tape saturation work extremely well but dont hesitate to use other more extreme distortion units (dont forget that the Reese has been done a million times you have to add something original to it) Again adjust to taste
4 Spices and Herbs
Now that is the main recipe for the sound but like all haute-cuisine there are more things you can do to spice up the Reese Namely effects Effects that have been associated with the Reese are
Phasers - to accentuate the phase-shifting effect of the detuned sawtooths Unison - a great way to make it even bigger Chorus - again a good way to phatten it up
5 And Some More Synth Magic
Another thing to do so you can bring out the old-school jungle character of the Reese is to use Legato and PortamentoGlide if your syth of choice has them available These are both great ways to move from one note to the next without listening to the transition To put it simply when legato is on and you play a sustained E followed by a sustained G the transition between the two notes gives the listener the impression that they heard a single note being sustained that has just changed its pitch from E to G without pausing at a certain point
Always remember though that if you use Legato you have to turn the polyphony of your synth down to 1 (something you should almost always do with basslines because two bass-notes playing together almost never sound good in electronic music bass chords are more the realm of prog-rock shit than dubstep)
For the more technical minded legato in synthesizers is a variation of monophonic operation In contrast to monophonic mode where every new note restarts the ADSR envelopes in legato mode they are not if the previous note remains depressed when the new note is played This causes the initial transient from the attack and decay phases to sound only once and the ADSRs to remain at sustain stage for the whole sequence of notes until the final note is released (Wikipedia)
EDIT I just found out that in one of the free vst links on the bible there is a thing called the Hotelsinus Reese Bassline Synth So I didnt miss the opportunity for a mini review The software itself is small (like most free vst-is) and quite easy to install (you just drop the dll in the vst folder) As for the sound weeeeeeell the sounds it produces are definitely Reese But weak somehow Its like listening to Terrorist from a battered cheap old cassette from 93 or something It has a tinny and tiny sound when compared to what you can achieve with powerhouses like Albino or
Page 24
Massive or (one of my personal favorites for Reese) Cakewalk Rupture You can try it if you want but i dont think it will impress steppers that much we are bass-headed folk
314 Random Bass Tips
Plz add yours or others youve spotted on the forum
miss_molinari wrotebasically i have been experimenting with cutting (not sidechaining) a notch (band reject) in the bass starting at 60hz and ending just before 70 this is only for those bass lines which only hit on the kick (quite specific) also the bass is then high passed at about 220hz to pretty much 0db which is where the kick starts (ending the kick with a non-too-aggressive-cut at about 2khz) this essentially means that the kick and the bass do not share any frequencies above abot 200hz but also between 60 and 70 and with them always hitting at the same time this gets around the fact that sidechaining this type of sequencing would leave you with no or little bass
this has worked well so far but is useful mainly for sub basses ending at around 250hz would not be as good for full spectrum wubsanyone else got any tech tips regarding the bass and kick
futures_untold wroteI simply cut everything under 90Hz on my kicks and roll off slightly at 1KHz
Sub I cut under 40Hz and roll off at 200Hz
I always compress both seperately and keep my levels low in the mix to create plenty of head room later whilst adding sounds with higher frequency content
Anything above 150Hz is what I consider midrange Anything above 150Hz can be heard on mobile phone speakers We all know that theyre designed to play heavy bass lol Wink
miss_molinari wroteDaft Cunt wroteTo me it feels like cutting the kick above 80 hz makes it sound weak I guess it depends on the style I rather cut below 60 to 80 depending on the tune
yeah its all about context in a dry minimal setting im of the opinion you can make a kick punch right up to about 180-200hz but yeah depends on when and on what kind of punch (im usually talking a bass hit at about 200hz coupled with a knock hit anywhere up to about 1200hz) i imagine you true dubsteppers prefer a denser thump from 60 through to about 300hz
Daft Cunt wroteI began recently the band-reject thing on the sub Little details that make big difference
And do you people cut the bass where the snare peaks
my basses arent usually middy enough to need that but yeah a slight sidechain on the main snare and say midbasspadwothavyer is nice especially if the limelight is stolen by a deeper sidechain on the kick and midbasspadwothavyer can create a nice flow (especially when used with long decay reveb linked to the midbasspadwothavyer so that it sounds louder and longer the higher the frequency played - might
have to post some piccies of that one )
Shonky wroteWhat Ive been doing lately is bouncing down the kick track lowpassing one somewhere between 100-140 depending on the highest frequencies of the low sub and then sidechaining the sub to the low kick
Then take a copy of the kick track highpass between 300-1000 and this will give you the beater noise to make the kick cut through I then sidechain this to the more middly basses You can also send a small amount to a reverb bus which allows you to avoid mud on the lower frequencies whilst still giving you the space
Doing it this way seems to make sense to me cause the sidechains work on the corresponding kicks in the same frequency range so it doesnt cause loads of unnecessary compression where you dont need it
Page 25
boh wroteAlways make sure your kicks are in tune with the rest of the track ull hear it pitching up and down and make sure if ur layering that the transients dont conflict(good monitors make this easy) It all comes down to kick selection Whats the point in cutting a kick at 80hz with a fundemental freq of say 60hz Sure you get whats happening before it but u wont get the nice thump of the fundemental freq Choose other kicks that hit the freq u want (80hz say) instead of cutting them when theres no need to Unless you really really know what your doing getting technical like this complicates the situation Esp for people with little experience
sullyharmitage wrote50 hz hi pass seems a bit high to me maybe gd for kicky techno or house but for subby stuff it seems a bit muchdefo roll off past 30-35 (most well engineered systems will do this anyways so any content below this is definately getting wasted)if yr gonna go higher make sure its a soft curvei find levelling subs is the hardest part of a mix - cos more always sounds better i remember reading breakage saying yr subs shouldnt add more than 3db to yr mix thats seems like a good guide
btw sub in kick an bassline simultaeously is gonna cause clashes (n maybe disortion) id either decrease the attack on the bass or cut the sub from the kick
unklefesta wroteI rolloff EVERYTHING at 40hz except my bass
standard
wang wroteAlways do it
Dont forget youre ROLLING off the frequencies not cutting them off all together Just a couple of dB of bass down there is enough to get some girth without removing all your headroom
Also analyse and cut off the lows on everything even if it doesnt appear to have messy lows -Youd be surprised how much bass there is in some high hats
Jtransition wroteAll of your tracks are going to be different so dont restrict yourself to a certain techniquetry different things and listen to the results
Shonky wrotewang wroteAlso analyse and cut off the lows on everything even if it doesnt appear to have messy lows -Youd be surprised how much bass there is in some high hats
Yep this is very true also worth filtering out the inaudible highs on low sounds as well found some of my subs which Id low passed still showed frequency activity much higher than expected
Jtransition wroteStick a high pass filter on everything apart form the kick drum and bass line70 hertz is a good starting point move up or down to tasteAnd remember try to mix at low levels(Walls not vibrating)
Deadly Habit wroteRendr wroteBasslines in my experience should be mono due to the fact that humans cannot easily decoded the stereo positioning of low frequencys so panning basslines (excluding bass sounds with high pitch sounds at around 500Hz+) is not recommended not only are the low frequencys hard to position with the human ear the low frequency sound waves are absorbed by the human head at a much higher ratio than high pitch sounds which tend to be reflected Another thing to note is that club systems are
mono Basslines that pan only belong in Psytrance
sub range should be mono especially if going to be cut to vinylmidrange bass on the other hand you can pan and add stereo fx to your hearts content
Page 26
32 Re-sampling
SafeAfter a few months of experimenting with resampling not really getting anywhere in terms of sound quality i came up with a pretty simple way of getting on the right track Ive got so much help since getting on this forum in terms of production i thought id share this for those who like myself are looking into the elusive yet highly rewarding technique of resamplingAll the vsts i use on this (save for the synth itself) are freenative plugs im using FL but itll transfer onto every DAW pretty much the same Ill explain it for a bassline but it can be applied to any sound
Step 1Make yourself a nice bassline get it sounding dirty with whatever you can within the synth Im using Albino so i tend to play about with the saturation modesFXs until its sounding pretty good
Step 2Hook up to a mixer channel then send this channel to a second mixer channel (FL users just click on another channel towards the bottom of the strip) On the second channel that the synth is hooked to from the first add CMt bitcrusher and downsample 3-16x (thanks to all the production forum users who pointed this out to me when i posted a few months ago on dirtying up basslines) Then add a chorus Turn the LFOs off and set the depthdelayetc to whatever sounds best Also set the crossover pretty high so only the treblehigh mids are being affected Then add Camel Audio Camel Crusher Turn the compressor off and set the tubemech to taste Add a parametric EQ if needs be to boost the high freqs Experiment with the chain of these effects swapping them according to the sound The choruscameleq in different orders should alter the sound quite alot depending on where their placed
Step 3 Set the level of the second affected channel with the original depending on whatever suits Play about with adding extra effects to both channels The way the second channel behaves once an effect is added to the first is quite extreme in even light application of effects So its possible to create a whole array of different sounds just from say adding a flangerchorusetc to the first channel then listening to how much it affects the sound as a whole as it goes through both channels By now it should be sounding pretty girthy
Step 4Export the riffsample (i use edison on the master channel in FL but whatever method will do) Reload and place into a mixer channel Add another Camel Crusher for abit more grit EQ and compress Set up a reverbdelay send and resample again for extra depth
Obviously this technique can be applied a 2nd3rd4th time to fuck the sound up even more so Which is what ive moved onto doing now into the territory of splitting the sound into basslow midhigh midtreble sections for ultimate control over each part Something which i was attempting to do before coming up with the above method but being left with a pile of unlistenable mushy shite
Hope this is a help to some peeps I know theres no secret technique to resamping only a whole load of practice and using your ears but this method got me on the right track in terms of hearing the benefits of it and encouraging me to experiment more in depth and realise that the possiblities are endless Im hooked now i resample pretty much every sound in one way or another Kick and snares benefit hugley from it for mega face melting wide drum sounds aswell so its worth trying it on some nice drum hits
Keep up the good work folksPeaceDC_WT
33 Drums
Read before reading on I am in no way entitled to any of those opinions It is up to you to decide whether you would like to incorporate them in your workflow I have just collected them from all the threads in this forum and will try to keep everything updated
I will update as regularly as I find updates
Page 27
Misc tips and tricks bull Good drums are usually layered - example 3 snares sounding as onebull The hats are often panned or widenedbull Pick great sounding samples different ones for different parts of the sounds you want 1
for snap and bite 1 for body 1 for thump distort and MAYBE EQ each to make them sound the best that they can separately combine in a bus MAYBE compress them together maybe accent the front and shorten the sound with a transient modifier 10 minutes tops
bull Do as little as possible with great-sounding bits and your basic sounds will be slamming leaves you time to focus on the arrangement people dont go around thinking wow that tune has an amazing snare as long as its thumping and not masked by a bunch of other stuff itll keep the dance moving
bull Listen to other producers work As its playing imagine the 1 2 3 4 on the step sequencer running in time to what youre listening to Try to visualize where the producer put their hits Not to say you should copy peoples drum patterns but learn from them
bull Ive noticed a lot of tunes (more minimal stuff where you can distinctly hear whats seperately going on) seem to use two differently pitched hi-hats that alternate to sound shuffley if you know what I mean and a less dramatic snare used sparsely in between the main lazy kick and snare An easy trick if you havent worked it out (which to be honest you should have if youre at all serious about producing dubstep) is to stick a smaller snare or hat the 116th before the kick or snare so it steps if you get me For example Bengas Night does this for all four beats in the bar which is part of what makes it so danceable But dont get stuck in always having kick on 1 and snare on 3 some tracks work with a kick on every beat others with a couple big snares etc The trick (unless you want proper lazy spaced out tunes) is to make sure youre nodding your head on all four beats of the bar Play around with a hat on every quaver (ie 8 per bar on the beat) compared to just four but on the off beat as well as adding in the steppy ones every now and then Theres often no need to over-complicate things though one of the my favourite drum tracks is the incredibly simplistic V by Distance Its a rhythm that could easilly be played by one guy on a real kit yet its so banging - check the use of hats and lower velocity kicks in this to make it nice and bouncy Also I once had a four bar drum loop and accidentally moved the sequence one bar to the right for one section and it ended up nicely varying the drums in a way you wouldnt expect
bull Really tight delays can help claps and snaps sound natural 5-20ms etcbull Recycle or phatmatik is your break-chopping friendbull Basically Hatrixxs method involved chopping everything from the main hits into a sample
Say you had a 2-step funk beat like the Amen Youd start your selection from the start of the first kick and select everything up to the start of the first snare Cut paste theres your first slice Then take everything from the start of the first snare up to the start of the second kick - including all the little hats and ghost hits - cut paste second sample and so on Then just map the samples onto some keys and bash away Both of them are quick compared to chopping Recycled slices where you have to copy and drag loads of little notes (one every little fucking tiny hit in the break arranged chromatically up the keyboard) around the piano roll These methods let you just concentrate on the main hits which can be both good or bad You can get a solid beat down with just a handful of hits but youre limited to the patterns already in the original break For a beginner to breakbeat science like yourself Id say try these methods first but dont rule out the really anal methods like RecyclePhatmatikFruity Slicer Sometimes they are a necessary evil Of course some of the drumfunk guys especially those who post on Subvert Central swear by these methods or the next one There are those who prefer to chop up the raw audio rather than bothering with MIDI and samplers They literally just drop the break file into Cubase or Logic and start chopping with the scissors tool and copying and pasting I can see the benefits of this You can see the waveform as youre chopping and youre not as restriced to the quantize grid as you are with MIDI But it takes aaaaages to build a drum track this way and theres the risk of RSI from all that Ctrl+C Ctrl+V youll be doing Then of course theres trackers They really are tailor-made for chopping up loops amongst other things They give you Sample Offset meaning that when you trigger a sample you can set it to start from 256 evenly spaced points throughout the sample So by starting a sample a quarter of the way through youre triggering the first snare (obviously you can fine-tune it when the snare isnt perfectly on the beat) You can edit breaks in a tracker without ever having to cut up a waveform and you can do all sorts of other nifty things like reverse the sample retrigger it to make drum rolls and so on
If recycles having trouble switch the break to mono in your sample editor and then apply tiny fades between the drum hits (especially useful if there are lots of rides that play over the other hits to keep things separate) This should help recycle pick up the start points and with any luck should leave you with a cleaner break
Page 28
Snaresbull Tune the snares so they all hit around the same pitch bull Change the Amp Envelopes of each to bring the strongest parts from each separate sample
and build up your sound like that bull Compressing all together is a good idea but dont over do it bull EQ the master out for the snare as well so you wont have to fuck about when you use the
sample in the future bull Donrsquot just use snares fling some random sound effects in there Claps and rim shots also
work well when layered bull Make subtle changes to them and export a few snares from the same setup this helps
when you need a ghost hit or a reverse that sounds similar but not identicalbull Watch that frequencies dont build up and make the layered bit sound overly whatever
is building up Really easy to get too much 200hz or 500hz or even 12k if youve got samples that are all beefythicksmack-y
bull If its peaking run it through a Spectrum Analyzer and see where its peaking I guess its peaking in the tune rather than just the snare sample playing on its own
bull Sometimes snare samples have a very short peak that doesnt seem to make them sound any better and keeps you from getting them louder without cliping Reduce that part by a few dBs and youre sorted
bull Make sure you are using subtractive eq to pull out the frequencies that could be clashing with other sounds If your frequencies are clashing that can hide the snare and then you end up turning it up to compensate and there you are with your snare peakingThe key is making the frequencies sit right in the mix so that they dont clash and you can set them right and not have to turn them up
bull You could always try clipping the snare normalise it in a wave editor amplify it as much as you can before it sounds distorted then sample it out Then replace the snare with the clipped version it will almost always sound louder with more body at a lower volume I would still point out that although this can be used as a replacement to compression compression is a vital tool to learn how to use Also a lot of peeps will say this does bad things to the waveform and it does but unless you intend to listen to your tune to be heard at home on an amazing hifi then it doesnt really matter that much IMO
bull Hi-pass overdrive limit and cut away space from other sounds for itbull Layer with its self or a different snare Layer with sub add effect to one layer add effect
to both layers layer zoom right in drag one wave form back or forth very slightly to create new snare sound Pitch updown EQ Filter distort reverb delay reverse
bull Record yourself beat boxing your best snare sounds then layer with snare samplesbull A good handclap never goes a miss or use a nice drum synth to get a very differentdigital
soundbull Try reversing the snare sample then changing the envelope settings so it only hits on the
beat Layer that with the same sample this time not reversed Add a little delay to the the reversed snare Change the settings til it sounds how you like
bull Particularly snares I layer up a lot I look for one that has the qualities that I want when run through verb and then I look for something shorter with more mid punch to keep things physical After someone notied snares were weak in a tune Ive really made a point of ensuring that when the snares hit its physical as well as textural You need to feel them a bit - so I look for some snares that have that real punch when layering but usually keep the more textural snappy one as the focus last couple tunes I did the standard kick snare hats w odd percussion and then I took an amen chopped it processed it and layered it overtop for more aggression and step (goddess being a perfect example) By removing a layer and adding it you can create a sense of progression through the tune Make sure the bottom layer is sounding really good and then add the top so that youre not mixing them to be reliant on one another - instead you want synergy Make sure the EQ on the top and bottom make sense with each other
Kicksbull Building a kick in Ableton Lives Impulse machine Provides some essential information
about layering that can be used with any DAWbull Making fat kicks
remixmag wroteWhether creating Miami Bass music is your lifes fantasy or your greatest fear you probably crave the know-how to manifest those car-rattling trunk-full-of-funk kick drums In the arenas of hip-hop house techno downtempo and almost any other electronic genre molding fat kick drums is absolutely essential Like grandmas homemade apple pie the recipe for kick drums is partially a matter of taste However theres no substitute for quality ingredients And just like every pie has its staple ingredients every slamming kick drum requires some common elements Lets take a look at the
Page 29
shopping list for killer kick drumsTHE CRUST
Youll need a basic shell to begin creating a thick strong kick The classics always work if youre fortunate enough to own a real Roland TR-808 909 or other famous drum machine with a killer kick use it copiously If youre not one of those chosen few pay close attention to your original source For example if you use a sampler understand that not all ldquo808 Kickrdquo samples are the same some sound great and some just plain suck There are a lot of reasons for that including how many generations from the original the sample is the sampling rate and bit depth of the sampler how the kick was first sampled and so on Be as choosy as possible with your individual samples mdash dont use a mediocre sample just because it has 808 in the name and therefore is ldquosupposedrdquo to sound fat Seek out a better 808 sample or use something else that is simply bigger sounding Remember the time you spend finding sweet original sources wont be in vain especially if you reuse the resulting samples for multiple songsBORROW SOME SUGAR
An old saying goes ldquoGood art borrows great art stealsrdquo A nice way to start out with great raw kick material is to sample directly from the source If you dont own but have access to a 909 then sample it directly Or take one of your favorite producers tracks on vinyl or CD find a naked kick drum in there and sample it Be cautious with that approach for a couple of reasons Copyright issues around sampling even small bits have become a dangerously gray area and I would never personally advise using any source straight out of the can even from a royalty-free sample library While it may be an excellent start its unoriginal Customize whatever you bite Treat your samples as a sculptor would treat clay mold each one to create a trademark sound for yourself One effective way to customize a fat kick is to take a tip from the synth manufacturers If a sound is thin pile another (or a few more) on top When doing so its important to use different sounds layering two identical kicks will result in a louder kick but it wont change the basic tone Remember the sculptor approach here Even if you are using two good-sounding individual samples they may not instantly sound great together For example I find that when layering kicks while the thickness may be good sustain is often overkill The final result often benefits from a little doctoring on the tail of one (or both) of the samples and other hands-on sonic surgeryADD THE FILLING
Once a nice basic kick is achieved treating it with two of the mastering engineers favorite tools is often the next step Artfully applying a compressor (to just the kick) can go a long way toward creating a signature sound and a huge kick Compression is one of those ldquosecret spicesrdquo and how to apply it is a whole topic in itself One recommendation I will make however is to use a multiband compressor With one of those you can isolate compression on certain frequency ranges That is perfect if for example you want to push the sub of your kick without emphasizing the higher frequencies (which often affect the tone of the attack) or vice-versa EQ comes after compression in my signal chain By now the kick should already sound pretty fat I aim to shave unnecessary frequencies here rather than artificially boosting too much This is also where you can actualize trademark sounds while also fine-tuning them to work alongside other elements in specific tracks I often scoop out mids and highs especially frequencies above about 500 Hz Even though I like thick deep kicks unless Im going for a really dublike sound I often truncate the lowest frequencies (usually the sub-50 Hz frequencies) Even when you cant hear the difference when trimming frequencies doing so can really tighten up your kicksEVEN IT OUT
You may ask why when youre trying to fatten up a kick would you want to trim frequencies That is one of the keys to achieving great mixes both in the case of kick drums and in general You want to avoid too many overlapping frequencies The more sonic separation you have between elements the more focused the entire mix will sound That can be especially important for club music which often gets played on huge not necessarily audiophile-quality sound systems If you havent run into the following scenario already I assure you at some point you will Your bass line and kick drum are competing and it sounds like you have a weak kick You boost the kick but it still sounds muddy Take the bass out and suddenly the kick doesnt sound so bad In a scenario like that solo the two sounds listen carefully for where frequencies are overlapping and then try subtractive EQ on one element then the other and sometimes a bit on both By scooping out overlapping frequencies you will often find that both elements seem to magically come forward in the mix before even touching their respective volume levels
Hi hatsbull Realism
Ive been a professional touring and recording drummer for 25 years and just thought I might share a couple of really simple ways to use fruity loops or fruity studio to create more realistic drum patterns
For what its worth try this out with Fruity Loops
Page 30
Take your hi hat tracks (are any tracks for that matter including melodic synth bubbles)
Drop down the bar graph box that allows you to scroll between velocity (volume) pitch panning cutoff resonance and a thing called shift which allows you to use each of these categories to effect each individual note that youve programmed (note this can be accomplished in other ways in most of the good midi sequencing apps or softwarehardware drum machines)
Drummers no matter how good they are just arent perfect and we can use the fact that each of these drop down bar graphs can make veryvery small changes in a sound to do some subtle things to a rolling drum groove like 16th notes on a hi hat
Not all drummers but many tend to favor their strong hand in a single stroke (hand over hand) drum roll Consequently if you make all odd numbered hi hats be slightly louder than their even numbered hits it will sound more realistic Start by making velocity differences that are really clearly audible Then lower the velocity until you can barely feel the difference We are going to make very subtle changes like this on each of the parameters of velocity pitch cutoff resonance and importantly shift
I cant stress enough that you should make these changes be so subtle that you can hardly notice them
Just going on the fact that the right handed players start their rolls with the right hand and favor it ever so slightly (or grossly for effect as well) means that the stroke will be harder with the right hand than the left hand
When a percussion instrument is hit harder the difference between the transient (or hi pitched attack) of the sound and the body of the instrument (or the sound that comes after the attack) becomes greater In general on drums that means that a harder attack tensions the drum very imperceptably (sp) and it also means that there will be more treble in the sound Consequently the pitch goes up a little teensy bit and their is more attack to the sound (increased resonance and slightly higher cutoff frequency)
Consequently you can make the pitch of each right hand be just barely noticeably higher the resonance should be just one or two of those little teeny bars higher The cutoff should be just a few bars lower (allowing less high frequencies through) on the left handed or even numbered strokes
Typically if drums have time inaccuracies they tend to drag the left hand a litte bit I have to keep stressing that if you can hear the changes you make you arent being realistic You need to make the changes subtle enough that you just barely feel that they arent perfect You can consequently make each left hand note shifted one or two bars late
Tigure out how much you can tweak each parameter before it becomes obvious and then you can just randomly tweak each one up to that limit With a little bit of variance in each stroke from parameter to parameter you will create more of a percolating texture in your programming - this is a great technique to make synth bubbles (the kind used in techno and house) more interesting and less mechanical feeling
Now you can avoid the biggest mistake that non-drummers do when trying to write realistic programs turn the overall volume of the hihats until you CANT hear them and then slowly bring up the volume until you just begin to hear them
Professional producers have spent countless hours trying to figure out how to gate and mix hihats OUT of tracks The reason is two fold1) Human beings have such a radical peak in their hearing around the 1-2khz range (or the intelligibility range of human speech) that we can play the hihats at incredible low volumes and they are still audible You cant do that with a bass drumI tell my drum students that you cannot play a hi hat or a snare drum so quietly that a person sitting in a room with you cant hear it2) Hi Hats the snare of snare drums and cymbals all seriously MASK human vocal intellibility How many people have gone to see live shows where they can hear the singer is singing but cant for the life of them figure out what they are actually singing That is ususally because drummers (or mixers which is frequently the case) are not hip to thisimportant fact
So turn down your hi hat tracks (or any track with a strong mid rangeshort envelope attack) and you have much more room for other musical goodies in your mix When in doubt make your hi hats quieter than you think they should be Trust me theyll come through the mix even at a quiet volume
Swingbull Dont know if you can do this in your sequencer but in Logic you can create a groove
template from your drums and then apply that to your other instruments If youre using separate midi channels for snares kicks and hats take the 8 bar loop youre using glue it together and then take the groove from that and then mute that track When you click down the quantize list youll see the template there and you can apply it to your other tracks Also if you do want to change the groove you can just change the hits in the muted template and itll automatically change all other hits to the new changes
bull Think if youre clever and organized you can basically cut breaks up in recycle load them into the exs24 (extract sequence) and then do the same with them That way if there are breaks you like the feel of you can just apply that swing to anything If you make a folder called grooves in your logic folder they should load up each time so that youll have loads to choose from Havent done this myself yet but always helpful to have a choice of feels available
bull Some things sound better rigid and robotic with equal velocities Some things sound better rigid and robotic with differing velocities Some things sound better with swing Some things sound better with everything ever-so-slightly off Its down to what the track needs
bull Drum Break Swing ProgrammingNicolas Hall wwwbreakbeat-cafenet wroteI think most people who make anything funk breakbeat drum amp bass or hip-hop would agree that Swing is crucial to the effectiveness of a beat The other key factors in a programming sense are dynamic and accent So many people get wound up when their beats sound sterile or mechanical this is due to the fact that computers and sequencers lock to perfect BPM A computer on its own does not interpret rhythm the way a good drummer does There are however certain machines that have their own swing parameters like the Akai MPC range of sampling drum machines which are used extensively by hip hop producers
Swing is not the easiest thing in the world to analyze but as a general rule good drummers will play slightly late and thats why in all funky records you get that slight dip at the start of the bar take Superstition by Stevie Wonder or Billie Jean by Michael Jackson these are both very simple beats Superstition is of course live drums whilst Billie Jean was programmed but no less funky than Superstition I emphasize this point to demonstrate that a programmed beat can be every bit at groovy as a beat played on a drum kit
Expanding on the Billie Jean point Hip Hop beats are really very simple If you listen to the Neptunes they tend to create the swing in their beats by quantizing the kicks and snares and playing the hi hats in by hand this creates a very tight beat which is off set by a loose hi hat try it works but dont forget your accents - As a starting point just take the first snare of your beat and turn the velocity down then notice how your head starts nodding and your foot starts tapping a little more you are giving the beat feel Also remember that if you are using reverb the louder snare will push the reverb harder than the soft snare so your creating more ambience that way Then try your kick drums if your not sure which hits to adjust just pick apart a beat your feeling I remember me and friend picking apart a Gangstarr beat and were able to almost replicate it by adjusting the velocities of each hit (admittedly it took a while to get it right)
If youre a newbie then a common trick when learning to make good grooves is to create a template with an existing loop The idea is take a loop you like thats got a good feel to it and then place your own hits over the break then take the break out and see if your hits are sounding funky This can take a while and its crucial to think about the strength of each hit or the dynamic Each kick will not be the same strength nor will the snares or the hats pick the loop apart dissect it and youll soon see that there are certain consistencies in all good beats
If youre using live loops and like to layer them with drum sequences you should be thinking about time space and frequencies So if you have a fairly heavy loop then layering it with heavy kick drums is probably not gonna sound good Think about filling holes are their any frequencies that could be filled up Or is there space in the loop for extra hits Try working in layers just adding one hit at a time also filtering works well you could take some of the frequencies out of your loop as you drop your drum sequences in to make room for them I think one the masters of this technique is Liam Howlett of the Prodigy He runs breakbeats and gives them extra balls by laying a kick drum underneath to add extra intensity to certain passages in his set but hes careful not to overlap frequencies to much A good place to start if you using breakbeats is the Roland Tr-808 kick drum which is around the 50hz mark which is sub bass territory so it will sit underneath most breaks very well
If your hell bent on making killer beats and loops then perseverance is crucial keep at it it will come together listen to beats you like and pick them apart identify the subtleties that make it happen I know some producers get fed up when their beats sound to clean or they are trying to create a new breakbeat and then compare it to sample they took from vinyl and get down on there own beat Think about what a breakbeat really is think about its history what has happened to it to make it sound the way it does Im
Page 32
sure youve noticed how some breaks have a certain something like a magic dust you cant put your finger on Let me share what I know with you about that
Most breaks though not all are taken from recordings of live drums some of them are pretty old so you have the ambience of live drums and the room they were recorded in you have the fact that natural decay and reverb of each drum is likely to have bled into the other mics on the kit and that most engineers used overhead mics which pick up the whole kit with two mics Then consider that many of these breaks will have been recorded to analogue tape with saturation which will create extra warmth and harmonics The next step comes from old sampling technology like the SP-1200 and the Akai s-950 mpc -60 these samplers sampled at 12- bit (bear in mind that most computers now are at least 24-bit if not more) and that the samples themselves where taken from vinyl and on and on the process goes with each new reverb and eq adding more and more to the break In terms of giving your breaks that character there are a number of things you can try for example buying an old four track cassette machine to dump your beats onto then re-sample it if your using a sampler like the s-950 then try pushing the input meters a little harder than usual add reverbs and resample it each time you put your loop through a new channel you will be adding something to it Also distortion is fantastic for breaks if you have any amp plug ins then try them the Amplitude one is particularly good you dont need to go mad with it just used subtly it works great
To finish I would just like to say again stick with it keep trying keep listening to records if you like to read about technique then do so you can learn so much from other producers Remember the strength of your hits is important as is the way it swings good luck
UPDATE 08092008
ENHANCE SYNTHESIZED DRUM PARTS WITH FOUND SOUNDS
emusiciancom wroteLayering real-world sounds with synthesized drum parts puts a new spin on your drum tracks You probably already have usable sound effects on your hard drive because most commercial samplers have at least a modest collection in their factory library Beyond that youll find thousands of royalty-free sound effects online Soundsnapcom is one of my favorite sources and its free The recordings dont need to be pristine for layering over drums so dont overlook cheap sampling CDs and consider grabbing your own sounds with a portable recorderCollect and Save
Start by assembling a small Foley library of short percussive sounds divided into typical drum-sound categories kicks snares toms cymbals percussion and so on Youll generally want to layer drum sounds with Foley sounds that have a similar volume contour and frequency range If you layer a Foley sound that resembles a kick drum with the sound of your hi-hat for example youll quickly fill up all the space in your drum track
Industrial household military transportation and vocal sounds make excellent fodder but you will often want to extract a small slice such as the last shot in a volley of machine-gun fire (snare) or the first bounce of a plastic bottle on concrete (tom) A browsing tool like Audio Finder (icedaudiocom) is invaluable if you have a large sample library That lets you quickly audition clips make basic edits and drag-and-drop slices to your library
Sticks UpIf your synthesized drum part is step sequenced youll need to export its step sequences as MIDI files Many drum synths do that including Sonic Charge Tonic (sonicchargecom) Apple Logic UltraBeat (applecom) and Submersible DrumCore (submersiblemusiccom) All of those come with a large collection of patterns exportable as MIDI sequences Youll also need a sampler to play the Foley sounds drum-oriented samplers are handier for that but are by no means necessary
Start by loading a kit in the drum synth Export one of its sequenced patterns or create your own and place it on the sampler track For some of the drum synth sounds select compatible Foley sounds and map them to the same notes in the sampler that theyre mapped to in the drum synth Next solo the doubled voices one by one in both the drum synth and the sampler start the sequence playing and tweak the samplers voice parameters (filter level pan envelope and so on) to make the sounds work together (see Fig 1 and Web Clip 1) Dont tweak global parameters such as effects because that will affect all sounds played by the sampler
High HoopsOnce youve configured your Foley track you can do several things to add interest I frequently use a
Page 33
second sampler for short vocal sounds Ill have some notes trigger sounds in both samplers and others in only one Many samplers let you group sounds and assign notes and controllers to choose among them You can then sequence these notes and controllers or you can play them live to alter your Foley tracks
Try applying DSP effects to individual Foley sounds Multitap delays distortion phasing and granular effects all work well when used sparingly (see Web Clip 2) You can apply DSP effects inside your sampler or route the voices to a separate output for DSP processing in your DAW If your sampler doesnt offer either possibility spread the Foley parts over several sampler instances on different tracks
Sidechain compression or gating of the drum track with one or more of the Foley parts will highlight the Foley part as well as add variety to the drums With compression peaks in the sidechain signal will reduce the level of the drum track Use a high compression level say 201 and balance the sidechain-gain and the compression-threshold -attack and -release controls to get the ducking contour you want (see Web Clip 3) Gating has the opposite effect the drum track will be heard during peaks in the sidechain signal (see Web Clip 4) Here too the sidechain-gain and gate-threshold controls work in tandem to determine when the gate is opened Use envelope parameters (attack release and hold) to shape the gates contour
Keep in mind that once youve created a sampler instrument to complement your drum kit you can reuse it with other sequences You can also change one or more sounds in the sampler instrument without repeating the whole process
34 Sidechain Compression (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
4 Theory41 ndash Song Structure42 ndash Mixdown (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)43 ndash Mastering (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
44 Music Theory
The first thing to remember about music theory is that generally if it sounds right it probably is There are no rules in music and Music Theory is not about telling you how to write music Its about understanding the music
Broadly speaking it is fair to say that most music is essentially based upon two crucial factors scales and rhythm Scales make up melodies chords harmonies and basslines to name but a few whereas rhythm makes up the beat of the song In this part of the Production Bible you will learn the basics of Music Theory that will serve you not only in the production of Dubstep but for any of your future musical pursuits This information is intended to be easy to read and understand so I wonrsquot be mincing sentences But firstly please make sure you learn every single note on the keyboard by studying the image below Otherwise yoursquoll be completely lost here
Page 34
Scales Wersquoll begin with scales As I mentioned before scales are the building blocks of your song and without them your track will be atonal and completely unlistenable (probably not the effect yoursquore going for)
There are two main scales that you should learn inside out ndash the major scale and the minor scale A generalisation yoursquore bound to have heard before is that the major scale sounds ldquohappyrdquo and the minor scale sounds ldquodarkrdquo Although this is not always the case it is mostly true ndash and therefore yoursquoll usually be focussing on the minor scale when producing Dubstep However just in case yoursquore writing happy-dubstep (if that exists) here is a quick overview of both scales and how they are made up
Major Scale
The major scale is really easy to create It is made by a single rule that is simple to put in to place
ldquoTone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
In case you donrsquot know what a Tone or Semi-Tone is here is a quick explanation
Picture a keyboard (or if you canrsquot see the image above) Say you go from C to C that would be a semi-tone The same thing goes for if you go from an E to an F ndash it is still a semi-tone because you
Page 35
have gone up one key
A tone is two semi-tones ndash for example from C to D is a tone and the same goes for from G to A
The scalersquos name is taken from the note that it starts on For example C major will start on the note of C Similarly A major will start on the note of A and this is the case with every single scale
Here is a quick list of a few major scales After having seen a few try working the rest out for yourself in order to understand how the major scale is formulated Ideally you should practice your scales on a piano or keyboard so that you can physically see how to make the scale It might sound boring but itrsquos a small price to pay for a much deeper understanding of your music
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Major C D E F G A B C
C Major C D E F G A B C
D Major D E F G A B C D
D Major D E F G A B C D
E Major E F G A B C D E
F Major F G A Bb C D E F
F Major F G A B C D E F
G Major G A B C D E F G
G Major G A B C D E F G
A Major A B C D E F G A
A Major A B C D E F G A
B major B C D E F G A B
Now by arranging the different notes of each of these scales in any order you please you can create a melody bassline or harmony with extreme ease Rearranging the notes in the scale will give you a flawlessly in-key result and it is then up to you to use the notes in the scale as you see fit for your tune
Minor Scale
As was the case with the Major Scale the Minor is made up from a set rule or formula By knowing this formula you can understand how the Minor is made and how to use it to itrsquos maximum effect
ldquoTone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
As is the case with the major scales you should practice your scales as much as possible to make sure that you know them all like the back of your hand Here are a few Minor Scales see if you can
Page 36
work out the rest
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Minor C D Eb F G Ab B C
D Minor D E F G A Bb C D
F Minor F G A B C D E F
G Minor G A Bb C D Eb F G
Similarly to the Major now that you know your Minor Scales you can quickly just take any note from the scale rearrange it with another few notes in the scale and there you have a fat melody or bassline ready to be played at maximum volume
Diminished Chords
Diminished Chords are really quite spooky and dark chords that are made up of four different notes all a minor third apart from each other That means that for example the Diminished Chord starting on C would be C Eb F A because to get from one note to the next you have to use ldquoTone Semi-Tonerdquo (known as a minor third)
Because of the mathematical nature of the Diminished chord there are only three ldquoclustersrdquo of notes which can then be rearranged like the Major and Minor Scales
Cluster 1 C Eb F A
Cluster 2 C E G Bb
Cluster 3 D F Ab B
Use these clusters and rearrange them as you please For example you could rearrange cluster 1 as Eb F A C etc
Generally speaking you canrsquot make a song based entirely on Diminished Chords due to the fact that each cluster only has 4 notes However a Diminished Chord is perfect for adding a hint of darkness to your tune and is brilliant when mixed with some Minor Scales
Chords
Chords are basically two or more notes played together They are made up from a specific scale ndash for example the C major chord is made up of notes in the C major scale
Usually chords will include the first third and fifth note of the scale as well as possibly using other notes to give them colour For example the basic chord of C major would be C E G Then you could add the seventh note to it (in this case it is B) Really it is up to the producerrsquos discretion how heshe goes about making a chord ndash just remember to stick to the scale you are using
Chords will more than likely sound like shit if you play them on a complicated or layered synth patch You want to be playing chords on sustained sounds such as strings or pads Chords will really fill out your sound if used properly You want your chords to be supporting the melody or bassline and more than likely want to add some reverb so that it doesnrsquot sound too sharp Make
Page 37
your chords blend in with the music and yoursquoll have mastered them
Chord Inversions
Quite simply chord inversions are when you rearrange the notes in a chord so that it sounds a bit different and suits your arrangement better
For example if you were in the key of C major you could have a drone of E playing underneath some strings playing the notes E G C E
Due to the fact that the notes are the same and have only been inverted the chord will still be in key with the rest of the music This is a great way to add a touch of variation to your music instead of using the same chord structure all the time
Arpeggios
Arpeggios are much easier to understand than they sound They are quite simply the first third and fifth note of the scale played as individual notes For example the arpeggio of C minor would be C Eb G C etc
A great example of an arpeggio is the bassline in Bengarsquos ldquoCrunked Uprdquo He goes from playing the F minor arpeggio backwards to playing the F minor arpeggio backwards In other words he is playing
C A F and then C Ab F
Experiment with a few Minor Arpeggios and a couple of Diminished Arpeggios and you canrsquot go wrong in writing a huge bassline
Suggested Reading
List of All Scales With Finger Charts Included
Well thatrsquos it folks Thatrsquos basically all the music theory you need to know to start off with As you grow more used to the various scales yoursquoll notice that certain notes sound good with each other whilst others donrsquot Irsquom not here to tell you how to write music Irsquom here to teach you the language
of music Itrsquos up to you to write the poetry
copy Bruno Crosier (klimaxx) 2008
45 Random Tips
Random tips amp best piece of advice thread
5 Resources
Page 38
51 Books amp Magazines
Hello again people
Does anyone know of more music production books magazines or authors we can add to these lists
Thanks
------------------------------------------------
Music Production Magazines Computer Music - httpwwwcomputermusiccouk Music Tech Magazine - httpwwwmusictechmagcouk Future Music - httpwwwfuturemusiccouk Sound on Sound - httpwwwsoundonsoundcom Remix Magazine - httpremixmagcom Mix Magazine - httpmixonlinecom Electronic Musician - httpemusiciancom EQ Magazine - httpwwweqmagcom Audio Technology - wwwaudiotechnologycomau Tape Op - httpwwwtapeopcom
------------------------------------------------
Music Books
Authors Curtis Roads httpmitpressmiteducatalogauthor aspaid=93 - The Computer Music Tutorial (Really really really good book) Paul White - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea ul20White - Basic Series + more Rick Snowman - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea k20Snoman - The Dance Music Manual Tools Toys and Techniques Bobby Owsinski - httpbooksgooglecoukbooksas_auth=Bobby+Owsinski - The MixingRecording amp Mastering Engineers Handbooks Michael Paul Stavrou - httpwwwmixingwithyourmindcom
Publishers Thomson Course Technology - httpcoursecengagecom (Click on the Music Technology tab) - Series published include Power Overdrive Ignite and CSI Series + many more Backbeat Books - httpwwwbackbeatbookscom ndash Power Tools Series + many more Wiley Publishing - httpwwwdummiescom (Enter music in their search bar) - For Dummies Series Penguin Books - httpuspenguingroupcom (Enter music in their search bar) - The Complete Idiots Guide Series + many more MIT Press - httpmitpressmitedu - Many books on music theory Focal Press - httpwwwfocalpresscom - (Enter music in their search bar)
------------------------------------------------
Online Music Book Stores (We need more links here Do you know of any that we can add)
httpwwwmixbookscom ndash Excellent source that sells only books about music
Page 39
httpwwwamazoncom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
httpwwwbarnesandnoblecom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
------------------------------------------------
52 Wikipedia
A good music lexicon wiki Search for your term in the search bar ---gt httpenaudiolexicorgwikiMain_Page
0-9
14rdquo Jack - httpenwikipediaorgwikiJack_plug 3rd Bridge - httpenwikipediaorgwiki3rd_Bridge
Zero Crossing - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_crossing Zero Crossing Rate - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_Crossing_Rate
53 Other recommended production forums
for Logic users this is the shit httpwwwlogicprohelpcom
Ive found both these forums to be full of knowledgeable producers amp musicians
httpwwwkvraudiocomforum
httpacapellaharmony-centralcomforumsindexphp
httpwwwgearslutzcomboard
httpwwwsoundonsoundcomforum
httpwwwmusicradarcomforum
httpwwwidmforumscom
httpwwwdance-industriescomphpBB2 8cffbb3b02
httpwwwsubvertcentralcomforumindexphp
httpwwwbreakbeatcouk
httpwwwtweakheadzcom
httpwwwabletoncompagesforum
Explains lots about the music industry ---gt httpwwwbemusocom
Page 47
Ok so a massive thanks to all the contributors there are literally too many to mention But Thanks to Futures Untold Johnny Beat Klimaxx Deadly Habit amp JunglistRendr Daft Cunt in perticular
Thanks to all the artists producers and general music geeks making this early revision of the production bible an essential read
There are links missing and will be included in version 21(Please help with the unlinked chapters by going here - httpwwwdubstepforumcomthe-dubstep-production-bible-updated-2009-06-03-t14797html and updating missing info as needed)
Compiled by Daft Cunt and Futures Untold PDF Compiled by Depone
Page 21
Wobble GuideWobble Bass
Wobble Bass as it is known is simply a bassline that has an LFO assigned to a Low Pass Filter as an insert effect LFOstands for Low Frequency Oscillator and is used to change a sound by a defined speed (measured in either Hz or synced to the Tempo in relation to the barsnotes through quantization) The way the LFO changes the sound is up to you you can make the LFO adjust the Volume the amount of Saturation Filter Cutoff etc Basically any parameter you link it to Essentially you are just using the LFO to send a changing value to a parameter
--------------------
How to get a simple wobble bass
1) Choose a simple sound on your synth (Anything apart from a Sine wave )
2) Select your LFO and set it to the speed you want (18 would be a good starting point)
3) Now assign the LFO to the Filter Cutoff Which should for this example be a Low Pass Filter as the sound were going for is a deep bass
4) You now have a basic wobble bass from here the possibilities for tweaking this sound are endless
--------------------
A quick breakdown of whats actually going on Essentially you are taking a sound (that can be an audio files generated by a synth etc) and then passing it through a Low Pass Filter Now what exactly does a Low Pass Filter do you ask
A Low Pass Filter allows Low Frequency signals to pass through it but reduces the amplitude (volume) of all the Frequencies above the cutoff point In general most plug-ins have various Low Pass Filter settings where the more poles it has the more Dbs it will cut and will yield a harder knee to it Example 1 Pole Filter with a -6dBOct reduction Vs a 2 Pole Filter reducing -12DbOct However you dont necessarily need a LFO controlling your Low Pass Filter Cutoff frequency value you could just draw in the Automation yourself but a LFO will yield a loop of consistent values and prevents the possibility of human error All the LFO is doing is sending a value to your frequency cutoff to keep it consistently changing
--------------------
Tips amp Advice
1) Sub bass wobble would normally be a Sine wave at around the 40-50 Hz range which would repeat the same chords as the mid-range bass wobble The only difference being that with a sub bass wobble there is no point in assigning the LFO to a Low Pass Filter because the sound is too low for the low pass filter to have any effect so theLFO is assigned to the amplitude (volume) instead Another reason for not applying a Low Pass Filter to the Sub bass is because it would typically be a Sine wave which possesses no Harmonics to be adjusted by the Filter
2) The sound of an LFO can also be adjusted by the wave type you choose The default setting for an LFO generator is a Sine wave although on most synths you can chose from Triangle Sawtooth Square wave Random Noise To get a nice sounding bass it is a good idea to use as many oscillators as possible on different octaves
3) Try messing around with the attack and release of your sound as this can have an impact on the sound of the bass Long attacks tend to create a more ambient sound and is a technique traditionally used with ambient pads
Page 22
4) Something that I find useful is to bounce the bassline to a wav file so that it can be chopped up and put in-sync with other elements of the song because the majority of the time you will find the first wave of sound in the wobble bassline will will be half the length of the other waves due to attack rates So the best thing to do is to chop that freak sound off the beginning of the file in your DAW (Logic Pro Reason Cubase etc) and start off with the second wave which should be fully formed This way it will not be too early of late when keeping in sync with other elements such as a second bassline
5) Another method you can use is creating a clone layer of your original sound and setting up a new LFO setup for that to beat alternatively in the space left by the original LFO Or go that crazy Drum amp Bass Reese route and split the frequencies to Low Mid and High then set different LFO rates for each band then recombine into one sound
6) For more variation automate your LFO speed and intensity
7) Where you place insert effects in relation to the filter (pre or post) will yield different sounding results
8) Other methods to achieve a wobble like sound Tremolo (This effects volume rather than frequency) FM Synthesis Modulation of PWM Oscillator Pitch assigned (in a liberal amount) to LFO Filter Envelope assigned to LFO (using a re-triggered envelope) (submitted by Faun2500)
9) Assign a second LFO to modulate the speed of the first LFO
LFO Shapes
Sine wave The smooth value change possible
Triangle Similar to a Sine wave but slightly more ramped amp synthetic sounding
Random A mixed bag
Sawtooth Will have a very fast attack with a slower release which will sound very rugged
Square wave Will be a simple open close style Very harsh and will generally cause a very harsh sound (Often used in DJ Hazard style bass-lines) Detune two square waves for a nice dark sounding bass
Waveforms submitted by Skells wrotehttpi228photobucketcomalbumsee83 cleanjpgSimple Filter Sweep
httpi228photobucketcomalbumsee83 wobblejpgSine Wave LFO assigned to Filter Cutoff
LINKS etc
Fruity Loops Wobble Tutorial (Link submitted by Wub) Massive Wobble YouTube Tutorial (Video created by thesynthesist) Pause amp Play Wobble Tutorial (Link submitted by dubmo) Albino3 Wobble Guide (Guide created by axon)
By Rendr amp Deadly Habit and a little help from Macc
313 lsquoReecersquo
The Reese Bass
Page 23
History Lesson
The Reese bass was a form of huge sounding synth-bass first used by the Detroit Techno producer Kevin Saunderson aka Master Reese aka Reese Project aka on the track Just Want Another Chance and immortalised in the classic DnB track Terrorist by Renegade Since then it has been (over)used in many a DnB track and continues to evolve even nowadays through Dubstep and Jungle It is said to be as influential to DnB as the Amen break and probably as used and abused as the Amen
Capturing the Beast
1The Oscillator Stage
To nail the Reese you need a synth with at least 2 oscillators but for better-bigger results use as many oscillators as you can (not really but 4 oscillators give a nice deep rumble - ahhhhhh) All the oscillators are playing sawtooth waves and all except one are detuned by 25-50 cents so that all oscillators are out of phase with each other
2 The Filter Stage
The signal is then sent to a low-pass filter with the cutoff freq set around 150-200Hz (experiment with that you want the growl of the mid-frequencies but you also want it as deep as possible without sacrificing the midrange) The resonance of the filter should be cranked up almost all the way (but again tweak accordingly to your filtersynth)
3 Fuzz it Up
The second most important aspect of the Reese (after the detuned sawtooths) is distortion Tube distortion and tape saturation work extremely well but dont hesitate to use other more extreme distortion units (dont forget that the Reese has been done a million times you have to add something original to it) Again adjust to taste
4 Spices and Herbs
Now that is the main recipe for the sound but like all haute-cuisine there are more things you can do to spice up the Reese Namely effects Effects that have been associated with the Reese are
Phasers - to accentuate the phase-shifting effect of the detuned sawtooths Unison - a great way to make it even bigger Chorus - again a good way to phatten it up
5 And Some More Synth Magic
Another thing to do so you can bring out the old-school jungle character of the Reese is to use Legato and PortamentoGlide if your syth of choice has them available These are both great ways to move from one note to the next without listening to the transition To put it simply when legato is on and you play a sustained E followed by a sustained G the transition between the two notes gives the listener the impression that they heard a single note being sustained that has just changed its pitch from E to G without pausing at a certain point
Always remember though that if you use Legato you have to turn the polyphony of your synth down to 1 (something you should almost always do with basslines because two bass-notes playing together almost never sound good in electronic music bass chords are more the realm of prog-rock shit than dubstep)
For the more technical minded legato in synthesizers is a variation of monophonic operation In contrast to monophonic mode where every new note restarts the ADSR envelopes in legato mode they are not if the previous note remains depressed when the new note is played This causes the initial transient from the attack and decay phases to sound only once and the ADSRs to remain at sustain stage for the whole sequence of notes until the final note is released (Wikipedia)
EDIT I just found out that in one of the free vst links on the bible there is a thing called the Hotelsinus Reese Bassline Synth So I didnt miss the opportunity for a mini review The software itself is small (like most free vst-is) and quite easy to install (you just drop the dll in the vst folder) As for the sound weeeeeeell the sounds it produces are definitely Reese But weak somehow Its like listening to Terrorist from a battered cheap old cassette from 93 or something It has a tinny and tiny sound when compared to what you can achieve with powerhouses like Albino or
Page 24
Massive or (one of my personal favorites for Reese) Cakewalk Rupture You can try it if you want but i dont think it will impress steppers that much we are bass-headed folk
314 Random Bass Tips
Plz add yours or others youve spotted on the forum
miss_molinari wrotebasically i have been experimenting with cutting (not sidechaining) a notch (band reject) in the bass starting at 60hz and ending just before 70 this is only for those bass lines which only hit on the kick (quite specific) also the bass is then high passed at about 220hz to pretty much 0db which is where the kick starts (ending the kick with a non-too-aggressive-cut at about 2khz) this essentially means that the kick and the bass do not share any frequencies above abot 200hz but also between 60 and 70 and with them always hitting at the same time this gets around the fact that sidechaining this type of sequencing would leave you with no or little bass
this has worked well so far but is useful mainly for sub basses ending at around 250hz would not be as good for full spectrum wubsanyone else got any tech tips regarding the bass and kick
futures_untold wroteI simply cut everything under 90Hz on my kicks and roll off slightly at 1KHz
Sub I cut under 40Hz and roll off at 200Hz
I always compress both seperately and keep my levels low in the mix to create plenty of head room later whilst adding sounds with higher frequency content
Anything above 150Hz is what I consider midrange Anything above 150Hz can be heard on mobile phone speakers We all know that theyre designed to play heavy bass lol Wink
miss_molinari wroteDaft Cunt wroteTo me it feels like cutting the kick above 80 hz makes it sound weak I guess it depends on the style I rather cut below 60 to 80 depending on the tune
yeah its all about context in a dry minimal setting im of the opinion you can make a kick punch right up to about 180-200hz but yeah depends on when and on what kind of punch (im usually talking a bass hit at about 200hz coupled with a knock hit anywhere up to about 1200hz) i imagine you true dubsteppers prefer a denser thump from 60 through to about 300hz
Daft Cunt wroteI began recently the band-reject thing on the sub Little details that make big difference
And do you people cut the bass where the snare peaks
my basses arent usually middy enough to need that but yeah a slight sidechain on the main snare and say midbasspadwothavyer is nice especially if the limelight is stolen by a deeper sidechain on the kick and midbasspadwothavyer can create a nice flow (especially when used with long decay reveb linked to the midbasspadwothavyer so that it sounds louder and longer the higher the frequency played - might
have to post some piccies of that one )
Shonky wroteWhat Ive been doing lately is bouncing down the kick track lowpassing one somewhere between 100-140 depending on the highest frequencies of the low sub and then sidechaining the sub to the low kick
Then take a copy of the kick track highpass between 300-1000 and this will give you the beater noise to make the kick cut through I then sidechain this to the more middly basses You can also send a small amount to a reverb bus which allows you to avoid mud on the lower frequencies whilst still giving you the space
Doing it this way seems to make sense to me cause the sidechains work on the corresponding kicks in the same frequency range so it doesnt cause loads of unnecessary compression where you dont need it
Page 25
boh wroteAlways make sure your kicks are in tune with the rest of the track ull hear it pitching up and down and make sure if ur layering that the transients dont conflict(good monitors make this easy) It all comes down to kick selection Whats the point in cutting a kick at 80hz with a fundemental freq of say 60hz Sure you get whats happening before it but u wont get the nice thump of the fundemental freq Choose other kicks that hit the freq u want (80hz say) instead of cutting them when theres no need to Unless you really really know what your doing getting technical like this complicates the situation Esp for people with little experience
sullyharmitage wrote50 hz hi pass seems a bit high to me maybe gd for kicky techno or house but for subby stuff it seems a bit muchdefo roll off past 30-35 (most well engineered systems will do this anyways so any content below this is definately getting wasted)if yr gonna go higher make sure its a soft curvei find levelling subs is the hardest part of a mix - cos more always sounds better i remember reading breakage saying yr subs shouldnt add more than 3db to yr mix thats seems like a good guide
btw sub in kick an bassline simultaeously is gonna cause clashes (n maybe disortion) id either decrease the attack on the bass or cut the sub from the kick
unklefesta wroteI rolloff EVERYTHING at 40hz except my bass
standard
wang wroteAlways do it
Dont forget youre ROLLING off the frequencies not cutting them off all together Just a couple of dB of bass down there is enough to get some girth without removing all your headroom
Also analyse and cut off the lows on everything even if it doesnt appear to have messy lows -Youd be surprised how much bass there is in some high hats
Jtransition wroteAll of your tracks are going to be different so dont restrict yourself to a certain techniquetry different things and listen to the results
Shonky wrotewang wroteAlso analyse and cut off the lows on everything even if it doesnt appear to have messy lows -Youd be surprised how much bass there is in some high hats
Yep this is very true also worth filtering out the inaudible highs on low sounds as well found some of my subs which Id low passed still showed frequency activity much higher than expected
Jtransition wroteStick a high pass filter on everything apart form the kick drum and bass line70 hertz is a good starting point move up or down to tasteAnd remember try to mix at low levels(Walls not vibrating)
Deadly Habit wroteRendr wroteBasslines in my experience should be mono due to the fact that humans cannot easily decoded the stereo positioning of low frequencys so panning basslines (excluding bass sounds with high pitch sounds at around 500Hz+) is not recommended not only are the low frequencys hard to position with the human ear the low frequency sound waves are absorbed by the human head at a much higher ratio than high pitch sounds which tend to be reflected Another thing to note is that club systems are
mono Basslines that pan only belong in Psytrance
sub range should be mono especially if going to be cut to vinylmidrange bass on the other hand you can pan and add stereo fx to your hearts content
Page 26
32 Re-sampling
SafeAfter a few months of experimenting with resampling not really getting anywhere in terms of sound quality i came up with a pretty simple way of getting on the right track Ive got so much help since getting on this forum in terms of production i thought id share this for those who like myself are looking into the elusive yet highly rewarding technique of resamplingAll the vsts i use on this (save for the synth itself) are freenative plugs im using FL but itll transfer onto every DAW pretty much the same Ill explain it for a bassline but it can be applied to any sound
Step 1Make yourself a nice bassline get it sounding dirty with whatever you can within the synth Im using Albino so i tend to play about with the saturation modesFXs until its sounding pretty good
Step 2Hook up to a mixer channel then send this channel to a second mixer channel (FL users just click on another channel towards the bottom of the strip) On the second channel that the synth is hooked to from the first add CMt bitcrusher and downsample 3-16x (thanks to all the production forum users who pointed this out to me when i posted a few months ago on dirtying up basslines) Then add a chorus Turn the LFOs off and set the depthdelayetc to whatever sounds best Also set the crossover pretty high so only the treblehigh mids are being affected Then add Camel Audio Camel Crusher Turn the compressor off and set the tubemech to taste Add a parametric EQ if needs be to boost the high freqs Experiment with the chain of these effects swapping them according to the sound The choruscameleq in different orders should alter the sound quite alot depending on where their placed
Step 3 Set the level of the second affected channel with the original depending on whatever suits Play about with adding extra effects to both channels The way the second channel behaves once an effect is added to the first is quite extreme in even light application of effects So its possible to create a whole array of different sounds just from say adding a flangerchorusetc to the first channel then listening to how much it affects the sound as a whole as it goes through both channels By now it should be sounding pretty girthy
Step 4Export the riffsample (i use edison on the master channel in FL but whatever method will do) Reload and place into a mixer channel Add another Camel Crusher for abit more grit EQ and compress Set up a reverbdelay send and resample again for extra depth
Obviously this technique can be applied a 2nd3rd4th time to fuck the sound up even more so Which is what ive moved onto doing now into the territory of splitting the sound into basslow midhigh midtreble sections for ultimate control over each part Something which i was attempting to do before coming up with the above method but being left with a pile of unlistenable mushy shite
Hope this is a help to some peeps I know theres no secret technique to resamping only a whole load of practice and using your ears but this method got me on the right track in terms of hearing the benefits of it and encouraging me to experiment more in depth and realise that the possiblities are endless Im hooked now i resample pretty much every sound in one way or another Kick and snares benefit hugley from it for mega face melting wide drum sounds aswell so its worth trying it on some nice drum hits
Keep up the good work folksPeaceDC_WT
33 Drums
Read before reading on I am in no way entitled to any of those opinions It is up to you to decide whether you would like to incorporate them in your workflow I have just collected them from all the threads in this forum and will try to keep everything updated
I will update as regularly as I find updates
Page 27
Misc tips and tricks bull Good drums are usually layered - example 3 snares sounding as onebull The hats are often panned or widenedbull Pick great sounding samples different ones for different parts of the sounds you want 1
for snap and bite 1 for body 1 for thump distort and MAYBE EQ each to make them sound the best that they can separately combine in a bus MAYBE compress them together maybe accent the front and shorten the sound with a transient modifier 10 minutes tops
bull Do as little as possible with great-sounding bits and your basic sounds will be slamming leaves you time to focus on the arrangement people dont go around thinking wow that tune has an amazing snare as long as its thumping and not masked by a bunch of other stuff itll keep the dance moving
bull Listen to other producers work As its playing imagine the 1 2 3 4 on the step sequencer running in time to what youre listening to Try to visualize where the producer put their hits Not to say you should copy peoples drum patterns but learn from them
bull Ive noticed a lot of tunes (more minimal stuff where you can distinctly hear whats seperately going on) seem to use two differently pitched hi-hats that alternate to sound shuffley if you know what I mean and a less dramatic snare used sparsely in between the main lazy kick and snare An easy trick if you havent worked it out (which to be honest you should have if youre at all serious about producing dubstep) is to stick a smaller snare or hat the 116th before the kick or snare so it steps if you get me For example Bengas Night does this for all four beats in the bar which is part of what makes it so danceable But dont get stuck in always having kick on 1 and snare on 3 some tracks work with a kick on every beat others with a couple big snares etc The trick (unless you want proper lazy spaced out tunes) is to make sure youre nodding your head on all four beats of the bar Play around with a hat on every quaver (ie 8 per bar on the beat) compared to just four but on the off beat as well as adding in the steppy ones every now and then Theres often no need to over-complicate things though one of the my favourite drum tracks is the incredibly simplistic V by Distance Its a rhythm that could easilly be played by one guy on a real kit yet its so banging - check the use of hats and lower velocity kicks in this to make it nice and bouncy Also I once had a four bar drum loop and accidentally moved the sequence one bar to the right for one section and it ended up nicely varying the drums in a way you wouldnt expect
bull Really tight delays can help claps and snaps sound natural 5-20ms etcbull Recycle or phatmatik is your break-chopping friendbull Basically Hatrixxs method involved chopping everything from the main hits into a sample
Say you had a 2-step funk beat like the Amen Youd start your selection from the start of the first kick and select everything up to the start of the first snare Cut paste theres your first slice Then take everything from the start of the first snare up to the start of the second kick - including all the little hats and ghost hits - cut paste second sample and so on Then just map the samples onto some keys and bash away Both of them are quick compared to chopping Recycled slices where you have to copy and drag loads of little notes (one every little fucking tiny hit in the break arranged chromatically up the keyboard) around the piano roll These methods let you just concentrate on the main hits which can be both good or bad You can get a solid beat down with just a handful of hits but youre limited to the patterns already in the original break For a beginner to breakbeat science like yourself Id say try these methods first but dont rule out the really anal methods like RecyclePhatmatikFruity Slicer Sometimes they are a necessary evil Of course some of the drumfunk guys especially those who post on Subvert Central swear by these methods or the next one There are those who prefer to chop up the raw audio rather than bothering with MIDI and samplers They literally just drop the break file into Cubase or Logic and start chopping with the scissors tool and copying and pasting I can see the benefits of this You can see the waveform as youre chopping and youre not as restriced to the quantize grid as you are with MIDI But it takes aaaaages to build a drum track this way and theres the risk of RSI from all that Ctrl+C Ctrl+V youll be doing Then of course theres trackers They really are tailor-made for chopping up loops amongst other things They give you Sample Offset meaning that when you trigger a sample you can set it to start from 256 evenly spaced points throughout the sample So by starting a sample a quarter of the way through youre triggering the first snare (obviously you can fine-tune it when the snare isnt perfectly on the beat) You can edit breaks in a tracker without ever having to cut up a waveform and you can do all sorts of other nifty things like reverse the sample retrigger it to make drum rolls and so on
If recycles having trouble switch the break to mono in your sample editor and then apply tiny fades between the drum hits (especially useful if there are lots of rides that play over the other hits to keep things separate) This should help recycle pick up the start points and with any luck should leave you with a cleaner break
Page 28
Snaresbull Tune the snares so they all hit around the same pitch bull Change the Amp Envelopes of each to bring the strongest parts from each separate sample
and build up your sound like that bull Compressing all together is a good idea but dont over do it bull EQ the master out for the snare as well so you wont have to fuck about when you use the
sample in the future bull Donrsquot just use snares fling some random sound effects in there Claps and rim shots also
work well when layered bull Make subtle changes to them and export a few snares from the same setup this helps
when you need a ghost hit or a reverse that sounds similar but not identicalbull Watch that frequencies dont build up and make the layered bit sound overly whatever
is building up Really easy to get too much 200hz or 500hz or even 12k if youve got samples that are all beefythicksmack-y
bull If its peaking run it through a Spectrum Analyzer and see where its peaking I guess its peaking in the tune rather than just the snare sample playing on its own
bull Sometimes snare samples have a very short peak that doesnt seem to make them sound any better and keeps you from getting them louder without cliping Reduce that part by a few dBs and youre sorted
bull Make sure you are using subtractive eq to pull out the frequencies that could be clashing with other sounds If your frequencies are clashing that can hide the snare and then you end up turning it up to compensate and there you are with your snare peakingThe key is making the frequencies sit right in the mix so that they dont clash and you can set them right and not have to turn them up
bull You could always try clipping the snare normalise it in a wave editor amplify it as much as you can before it sounds distorted then sample it out Then replace the snare with the clipped version it will almost always sound louder with more body at a lower volume I would still point out that although this can be used as a replacement to compression compression is a vital tool to learn how to use Also a lot of peeps will say this does bad things to the waveform and it does but unless you intend to listen to your tune to be heard at home on an amazing hifi then it doesnt really matter that much IMO
bull Hi-pass overdrive limit and cut away space from other sounds for itbull Layer with its self or a different snare Layer with sub add effect to one layer add effect
to both layers layer zoom right in drag one wave form back or forth very slightly to create new snare sound Pitch updown EQ Filter distort reverb delay reverse
bull Record yourself beat boxing your best snare sounds then layer with snare samplesbull A good handclap never goes a miss or use a nice drum synth to get a very differentdigital
soundbull Try reversing the snare sample then changing the envelope settings so it only hits on the
beat Layer that with the same sample this time not reversed Add a little delay to the the reversed snare Change the settings til it sounds how you like
bull Particularly snares I layer up a lot I look for one that has the qualities that I want when run through verb and then I look for something shorter with more mid punch to keep things physical After someone notied snares were weak in a tune Ive really made a point of ensuring that when the snares hit its physical as well as textural You need to feel them a bit - so I look for some snares that have that real punch when layering but usually keep the more textural snappy one as the focus last couple tunes I did the standard kick snare hats w odd percussion and then I took an amen chopped it processed it and layered it overtop for more aggression and step (goddess being a perfect example) By removing a layer and adding it you can create a sense of progression through the tune Make sure the bottom layer is sounding really good and then add the top so that youre not mixing them to be reliant on one another - instead you want synergy Make sure the EQ on the top and bottom make sense with each other
Kicksbull Building a kick in Ableton Lives Impulse machine Provides some essential information
about layering that can be used with any DAWbull Making fat kicks
remixmag wroteWhether creating Miami Bass music is your lifes fantasy or your greatest fear you probably crave the know-how to manifest those car-rattling trunk-full-of-funk kick drums In the arenas of hip-hop house techno downtempo and almost any other electronic genre molding fat kick drums is absolutely essential Like grandmas homemade apple pie the recipe for kick drums is partially a matter of taste However theres no substitute for quality ingredients And just like every pie has its staple ingredients every slamming kick drum requires some common elements Lets take a look at the
Page 29
shopping list for killer kick drumsTHE CRUST
Youll need a basic shell to begin creating a thick strong kick The classics always work if youre fortunate enough to own a real Roland TR-808 909 or other famous drum machine with a killer kick use it copiously If youre not one of those chosen few pay close attention to your original source For example if you use a sampler understand that not all ldquo808 Kickrdquo samples are the same some sound great and some just plain suck There are a lot of reasons for that including how many generations from the original the sample is the sampling rate and bit depth of the sampler how the kick was first sampled and so on Be as choosy as possible with your individual samples mdash dont use a mediocre sample just because it has 808 in the name and therefore is ldquosupposedrdquo to sound fat Seek out a better 808 sample or use something else that is simply bigger sounding Remember the time you spend finding sweet original sources wont be in vain especially if you reuse the resulting samples for multiple songsBORROW SOME SUGAR
An old saying goes ldquoGood art borrows great art stealsrdquo A nice way to start out with great raw kick material is to sample directly from the source If you dont own but have access to a 909 then sample it directly Or take one of your favorite producers tracks on vinyl or CD find a naked kick drum in there and sample it Be cautious with that approach for a couple of reasons Copyright issues around sampling even small bits have become a dangerously gray area and I would never personally advise using any source straight out of the can even from a royalty-free sample library While it may be an excellent start its unoriginal Customize whatever you bite Treat your samples as a sculptor would treat clay mold each one to create a trademark sound for yourself One effective way to customize a fat kick is to take a tip from the synth manufacturers If a sound is thin pile another (or a few more) on top When doing so its important to use different sounds layering two identical kicks will result in a louder kick but it wont change the basic tone Remember the sculptor approach here Even if you are using two good-sounding individual samples they may not instantly sound great together For example I find that when layering kicks while the thickness may be good sustain is often overkill The final result often benefits from a little doctoring on the tail of one (or both) of the samples and other hands-on sonic surgeryADD THE FILLING
Once a nice basic kick is achieved treating it with two of the mastering engineers favorite tools is often the next step Artfully applying a compressor (to just the kick) can go a long way toward creating a signature sound and a huge kick Compression is one of those ldquosecret spicesrdquo and how to apply it is a whole topic in itself One recommendation I will make however is to use a multiband compressor With one of those you can isolate compression on certain frequency ranges That is perfect if for example you want to push the sub of your kick without emphasizing the higher frequencies (which often affect the tone of the attack) or vice-versa EQ comes after compression in my signal chain By now the kick should already sound pretty fat I aim to shave unnecessary frequencies here rather than artificially boosting too much This is also where you can actualize trademark sounds while also fine-tuning them to work alongside other elements in specific tracks I often scoop out mids and highs especially frequencies above about 500 Hz Even though I like thick deep kicks unless Im going for a really dublike sound I often truncate the lowest frequencies (usually the sub-50 Hz frequencies) Even when you cant hear the difference when trimming frequencies doing so can really tighten up your kicksEVEN IT OUT
You may ask why when youre trying to fatten up a kick would you want to trim frequencies That is one of the keys to achieving great mixes both in the case of kick drums and in general You want to avoid too many overlapping frequencies The more sonic separation you have between elements the more focused the entire mix will sound That can be especially important for club music which often gets played on huge not necessarily audiophile-quality sound systems If you havent run into the following scenario already I assure you at some point you will Your bass line and kick drum are competing and it sounds like you have a weak kick You boost the kick but it still sounds muddy Take the bass out and suddenly the kick doesnt sound so bad In a scenario like that solo the two sounds listen carefully for where frequencies are overlapping and then try subtractive EQ on one element then the other and sometimes a bit on both By scooping out overlapping frequencies you will often find that both elements seem to magically come forward in the mix before even touching their respective volume levels
Hi hatsbull Realism
Ive been a professional touring and recording drummer for 25 years and just thought I might share a couple of really simple ways to use fruity loops or fruity studio to create more realistic drum patterns
For what its worth try this out with Fruity Loops
Page 30
Take your hi hat tracks (are any tracks for that matter including melodic synth bubbles)
Drop down the bar graph box that allows you to scroll between velocity (volume) pitch panning cutoff resonance and a thing called shift which allows you to use each of these categories to effect each individual note that youve programmed (note this can be accomplished in other ways in most of the good midi sequencing apps or softwarehardware drum machines)
Drummers no matter how good they are just arent perfect and we can use the fact that each of these drop down bar graphs can make veryvery small changes in a sound to do some subtle things to a rolling drum groove like 16th notes on a hi hat
Not all drummers but many tend to favor their strong hand in a single stroke (hand over hand) drum roll Consequently if you make all odd numbered hi hats be slightly louder than their even numbered hits it will sound more realistic Start by making velocity differences that are really clearly audible Then lower the velocity until you can barely feel the difference We are going to make very subtle changes like this on each of the parameters of velocity pitch cutoff resonance and importantly shift
I cant stress enough that you should make these changes be so subtle that you can hardly notice them
Just going on the fact that the right handed players start their rolls with the right hand and favor it ever so slightly (or grossly for effect as well) means that the stroke will be harder with the right hand than the left hand
When a percussion instrument is hit harder the difference between the transient (or hi pitched attack) of the sound and the body of the instrument (or the sound that comes after the attack) becomes greater In general on drums that means that a harder attack tensions the drum very imperceptably (sp) and it also means that there will be more treble in the sound Consequently the pitch goes up a little teensy bit and their is more attack to the sound (increased resonance and slightly higher cutoff frequency)
Consequently you can make the pitch of each right hand be just barely noticeably higher the resonance should be just one or two of those little teeny bars higher The cutoff should be just a few bars lower (allowing less high frequencies through) on the left handed or even numbered strokes
Typically if drums have time inaccuracies they tend to drag the left hand a litte bit I have to keep stressing that if you can hear the changes you make you arent being realistic You need to make the changes subtle enough that you just barely feel that they arent perfect You can consequently make each left hand note shifted one or two bars late
Tigure out how much you can tweak each parameter before it becomes obvious and then you can just randomly tweak each one up to that limit With a little bit of variance in each stroke from parameter to parameter you will create more of a percolating texture in your programming - this is a great technique to make synth bubbles (the kind used in techno and house) more interesting and less mechanical feeling
Now you can avoid the biggest mistake that non-drummers do when trying to write realistic programs turn the overall volume of the hihats until you CANT hear them and then slowly bring up the volume until you just begin to hear them
Professional producers have spent countless hours trying to figure out how to gate and mix hihats OUT of tracks The reason is two fold1) Human beings have such a radical peak in their hearing around the 1-2khz range (or the intelligibility range of human speech) that we can play the hihats at incredible low volumes and they are still audible You cant do that with a bass drumI tell my drum students that you cannot play a hi hat or a snare drum so quietly that a person sitting in a room with you cant hear it2) Hi Hats the snare of snare drums and cymbals all seriously MASK human vocal intellibility How many people have gone to see live shows where they can hear the singer is singing but cant for the life of them figure out what they are actually singing That is ususally because drummers (or mixers which is frequently the case) are not hip to thisimportant fact
So turn down your hi hat tracks (or any track with a strong mid rangeshort envelope attack) and you have much more room for other musical goodies in your mix When in doubt make your hi hats quieter than you think they should be Trust me theyll come through the mix even at a quiet volume
Swingbull Dont know if you can do this in your sequencer but in Logic you can create a groove
template from your drums and then apply that to your other instruments If youre using separate midi channels for snares kicks and hats take the 8 bar loop youre using glue it together and then take the groove from that and then mute that track When you click down the quantize list youll see the template there and you can apply it to your other tracks Also if you do want to change the groove you can just change the hits in the muted template and itll automatically change all other hits to the new changes
bull Think if youre clever and organized you can basically cut breaks up in recycle load them into the exs24 (extract sequence) and then do the same with them That way if there are breaks you like the feel of you can just apply that swing to anything If you make a folder called grooves in your logic folder they should load up each time so that youll have loads to choose from Havent done this myself yet but always helpful to have a choice of feels available
bull Some things sound better rigid and robotic with equal velocities Some things sound better rigid and robotic with differing velocities Some things sound better with swing Some things sound better with everything ever-so-slightly off Its down to what the track needs
bull Drum Break Swing ProgrammingNicolas Hall wwwbreakbeat-cafenet wroteI think most people who make anything funk breakbeat drum amp bass or hip-hop would agree that Swing is crucial to the effectiveness of a beat The other key factors in a programming sense are dynamic and accent So many people get wound up when their beats sound sterile or mechanical this is due to the fact that computers and sequencers lock to perfect BPM A computer on its own does not interpret rhythm the way a good drummer does There are however certain machines that have their own swing parameters like the Akai MPC range of sampling drum machines which are used extensively by hip hop producers
Swing is not the easiest thing in the world to analyze but as a general rule good drummers will play slightly late and thats why in all funky records you get that slight dip at the start of the bar take Superstition by Stevie Wonder or Billie Jean by Michael Jackson these are both very simple beats Superstition is of course live drums whilst Billie Jean was programmed but no less funky than Superstition I emphasize this point to demonstrate that a programmed beat can be every bit at groovy as a beat played on a drum kit
Expanding on the Billie Jean point Hip Hop beats are really very simple If you listen to the Neptunes they tend to create the swing in their beats by quantizing the kicks and snares and playing the hi hats in by hand this creates a very tight beat which is off set by a loose hi hat try it works but dont forget your accents - As a starting point just take the first snare of your beat and turn the velocity down then notice how your head starts nodding and your foot starts tapping a little more you are giving the beat feel Also remember that if you are using reverb the louder snare will push the reverb harder than the soft snare so your creating more ambience that way Then try your kick drums if your not sure which hits to adjust just pick apart a beat your feeling I remember me and friend picking apart a Gangstarr beat and were able to almost replicate it by adjusting the velocities of each hit (admittedly it took a while to get it right)
If youre a newbie then a common trick when learning to make good grooves is to create a template with an existing loop The idea is take a loop you like thats got a good feel to it and then place your own hits over the break then take the break out and see if your hits are sounding funky This can take a while and its crucial to think about the strength of each hit or the dynamic Each kick will not be the same strength nor will the snares or the hats pick the loop apart dissect it and youll soon see that there are certain consistencies in all good beats
If youre using live loops and like to layer them with drum sequences you should be thinking about time space and frequencies So if you have a fairly heavy loop then layering it with heavy kick drums is probably not gonna sound good Think about filling holes are their any frequencies that could be filled up Or is there space in the loop for extra hits Try working in layers just adding one hit at a time also filtering works well you could take some of the frequencies out of your loop as you drop your drum sequences in to make room for them I think one the masters of this technique is Liam Howlett of the Prodigy He runs breakbeats and gives them extra balls by laying a kick drum underneath to add extra intensity to certain passages in his set but hes careful not to overlap frequencies to much A good place to start if you using breakbeats is the Roland Tr-808 kick drum which is around the 50hz mark which is sub bass territory so it will sit underneath most breaks very well
If your hell bent on making killer beats and loops then perseverance is crucial keep at it it will come together listen to beats you like and pick them apart identify the subtleties that make it happen I know some producers get fed up when their beats sound to clean or they are trying to create a new breakbeat and then compare it to sample they took from vinyl and get down on there own beat Think about what a breakbeat really is think about its history what has happened to it to make it sound the way it does Im
Page 32
sure youve noticed how some breaks have a certain something like a magic dust you cant put your finger on Let me share what I know with you about that
Most breaks though not all are taken from recordings of live drums some of them are pretty old so you have the ambience of live drums and the room they were recorded in you have the fact that natural decay and reverb of each drum is likely to have bled into the other mics on the kit and that most engineers used overhead mics which pick up the whole kit with two mics Then consider that many of these breaks will have been recorded to analogue tape with saturation which will create extra warmth and harmonics The next step comes from old sampling technology like the SP-1200 and the Akai s-950 mpc -60 these samplers sampled at 12- bit (bear in mind that most computers now are at least 24-bit if not more) and that the samples themselves where taken from vinyl and on and on the process goes with each new reverb and eq adding more and more to the break In terms of giving your breaks that character there are a number of things you can try for example buying an old four track cassette machine to dump your beats onto then re-sample it if your using a sampler like the s-950 then try pushing the input meters a little harder than usual add reverbs and resample it each time you put your loop through a new channel you will be adding something to it Also distortion is fantastic for breaks if you have any amp plug ins then try them the Amplitude one is particularly good you dont need to go mad with it just used subtly it works great
To finish I would just like to say again stick with it keep trying keep listening to records if you like to read about technique then do so you can learn so much from other producers Remember the strength of your hits is important as is the way it swings good luck
UPDATE 08092008
ENHANCE SYNTHESIZED DRUM PARTS WITH FOUND SOUNDS
emusiciancom wroteLayering real-world sounds with synthesized drum parts puts a new spin on your drum tracks You probably already have usable sound effects on your hard drive because most commercial samplers have at least a modest collection in their factory library Beyond that youll find thousands of royalty-free sound effects online Soundsnapcom is one of my favorite sources and its free The recordings dont need to be pristine for layering over drums so dont overlook cheap sampling CDs and consider grabbing your own sounds with a portable recorderCollect and Save
Start by assembling a small Foley library of short percussive sounds divided into typical drum-sound categories kicks snares toms cymbals percussion and so on Youll generally want to layer drum sounds with Foley sounds that have a similar volume contour and frequency range If you layer a Foley sound that resembles a kick drum with the sound of your hi-hat for example youll quickly fill up all the space in your drum track
Industrial household military transportation and vocal sounds make excellent fodder but you will often want to extract a small slice such as the last shot in a volley of machine-gun fire (snare) or the first bounce of a plastic bottle on concrete (tom) A browsing tool like Audio Finder (icedaudiocom) is invaluable if you have a large sample library That lets you quickly audition clips make basic edits and drag-and-drop slices to your library
Sticks UpIf your synthesized drum part is step sequenced youll need to export its step sequences as MIDI files Many drum synths do that including Sonic Charge Tonic (sonicchargecom) Apple Logic UltraBeat (applecom) and Submersible DrumCore (submersiblemusiccom) All of those come with a large collection of patterns exportable as MIDI sequences Youll also need a sampler to play the Foley sounds drum-oriented samplers are handier for that but are by no means necessary
Start by loading a kit in the drum synth Export one of its sequenced patterns or create your own and place it on the sampler track For some of the drum synth sounds select compatible Foley sounds and map them to the same notes in the sampler that theyre mapped to in the drum synth Next solo the doubled voices one by one in both the drum synth and the sampler start the sequence playing and tweak the samplers voice parameters (filter level pan envelope and so on) to make the sounds work together (see Fig 1 and Web Clip 1) Dont tweak global parameters such as effects because that will affect all sounds played by the sampler
High HoopsOnce youve configured your Foley track you can do several things to add interest I frequently use a
Page 33
second sampler for short vocal sounds Ill have some notes trigger sounds in both samplers and others in only one Many samplers let you group sounds and assign notes and controllers to choose among them You can then sequence these notes and controllers or you can play them live to alter your Foley tracks
Try applying DSP effects to individual Foley sounds Multitap delays distortion phasing and granular effects all work well when used sparingly (see Web Clip 2) You can apply DSP effects inside your sampler or route the voices to a separate output for DSP processing in your DAW If your sampler doesnt offer either possibility spread the Foley parts over several sampler instances on different tracks
Sidechain compression or gating of the drum track with one or more of the Foley parts will highlight the Foley part as well as add variety to the drums With compression peaks in the sidechain signal will reduce the level of the drum track Use a high compression level say 201 and balance the sidechain-gain and the compression-threshold -attack and -release controls to get the ducking contour you want (see Web Clip 3) Gating has the opposite effect the drum track will be heard during peaks in the sidechain signal (see Web Clip 4) Here too the sidechain-gain and gate-threshold controls work in tandem to determine when the gate is opened Use envelope parameters (attack release and hold) to shape the gates contour
Keep in mind that once youve created a sampler instrument to complement your drum kit you can reuse it with other sequences You can also change one or more sounds in the sampler instrument without repeating the whole process
34 Sidechain Compression (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
4 Theory41 ndash Song Structure42 ndash Mixdown (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)43 ndash Mastering (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
44 Music Theory
The first thing to remember about music theory is that generally if it sounds right it probably is There are no rules in music and Music Theory is not about telling you how to write music Its about understanding the music
Broadly speaking it is fair to say that most music is essentially based upon two crucial factors scales and rhythm Scales make up melodies chords harmonies and basslines to name but a few whereas rhythm makes up the beat of the song In this part of the Production Bible you will learn the basics of Music Theory that will serve you not only in the production of Dubstep but for any of your future musical pursuits This information is intended to be easy to read and understand so I wonrsquot be mincing sentences But firstly please make sure you learn every single note on the keyboard by studying the image below Otherwise yoursquoll be completely lost here
Page 34
Scales Wersquoll begin with scales As I mentioned before scales are the building blocks of your song and without them your track will be atonal and completely unlistenable (probably not the effect yoursquore going for)
There are two main scales that you should learn inside out ndash the major scale and the minor scale A generalisation yoursquore bound to have heard before is that the major scale sounds ldquohappyrdquo and the minor scale sounds ldquodarkrdquo Although this is not always the case it is mostly true ndash and therefore yoursquoll usually be focussing on the minor scale when producing Dubstep However just in case yoursquore writing happy-dubstep (if that exists) here is a quick overview of both scales and how they are made up
Major Scale
The major scale is really easy to create It is made by a single rule that is simple to put in to place
ldquoTone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
In case you donrsquot know what a Tone or Semi-Tone is here is a quick explanation
Picture a keyboard (or if you canrsquot see the image above) Say you go from C to C that would be a semi-tone The same thing goes for if you go from an E to an F ndash it is still a semi-tone because you
Page 35
have gone up one key
A tone is two semi-tones ndash for example from C to D is a tone and the same goes for from G to A
The scalersquos name is taken from the note that it starts on For example C major will start on the note of C Similarly A major will start on the note of A and this is the case with every single scale
Here is a quick list of a few major scales After having seen a few try working the rest out for yourself in order to understand how the major scale is formulated Ideally you should practice your scales on a piano or keyboard so that you can physically see how to make the scale It might sound boring but itrsquos a small price to pay for a much deeper understanding of your music
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Major C D E F G A B C
C Major C D E F G A B C
D Major D E F G A B C D
D Major D E F G A B C D
E Major E F G A B C D E
F Major F G A Bb C D E F
F Major F G A B C D E F
G Major G A B C D E F G
G Major G A B C D E F G
A Major A B C D E F G A
A Major A B C D E F G A
B major B C D E F G A B
Now by arranging the different notes of each of these scales in any order you please you can create a melody bassline or harmony with extreme ease Rearranging the notes in the scale will give you a flawlessly in-key result and it is then up to you to use the notes in the scale as you see fit for your tune
Minor Scale
As was the case with the Major Scale the Minor is made up from a set rule or formula By knowing this formula you can understand how the Minor is made and how to use it to itrsquos maximum effect
ldquoTone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
As is the case with the major scales you should practice your scales as much as possible to make sure that you know them all like the back of your hand Here are a few Minor Scales see if you can
Page 36
work out the rest
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Minor C D Eb F G Ab B C
D Minor D E F G A Bb C D
F Minor F G A B C D E F
G Minor G A Bb C D Eb F G
Similarly to the Major now that you know your Minor Scales you can quickly just take any note from the scale rearrange it with another few notes in the scale and there you have a fat melody or bassline ready to be played at maximum volume
Diminished Chords
Diminished Chords are really quite spooky and dark chords that are made up of four different notes all a minor third apart from each other That means that for example the Diminished Chord starting on C would be C Eb F A because to get from one note to the next you have to use ldquoTone Semi-Tonerdquo (known as a minor third)
Because of the mathematical nature of the Diminished chord there are only three ldquoclustersrdquo of notes which can then be rearranged like the Major and Minor Scales
Cluster 1 C Eb F A
Cluster 2 C E G Bb
Cluster 3 D F Ab B
Use these clusters and rearrange them as you please For example you could rearrange cluster 1 as Eb F A C etc
Generally speaking you canrsquot make a song based entirely on Diminished Chords due to the fact that each cluster only has 4 notes However a Diminished Chord is perfect for adding a hint of darkness to your tune and is brilliant when mixed with some Minor Scales
Chords
Chords are basically two or more notes played together They are made up from a specific scale ndash for example the C major chord is made up of notes in the C major scale
Usually chords will include the first third and fifth note of the scale as well as possibly using other notes to give them colour For example the basic chord of C major would be C E G Then you could add the seventh note to it (in this case it is B) Really it is up to the producerrsquos discretion how heshe goes about making a chord ndash just remember to stick to the scale you are using
Chords will more than likely sound like shit if you play them on a complicated or layered synth patch You want to be playing chords on sustained sounds such as strings or pads Chords will really fill out your sound if used properly You want your chords to be supporting the melody or bassline and more than likely want to add some reverb so that it doesnrsquot sound too sharp Make
Page 37
your chords blend in with the music and yoursquoll have mastered them
Chord Inversions
Quite simply chord inversions are when you rearrange the notes in a chord so that it sounds a bit different and suits your arrangement better
For example if you were in the key of C major you could have a drone of E playing underneath some strings playing the notes E G C E
Due to the fact that the notes are the same and have only been inverted the chord will still be in key with the rest of the music This is a great way to add a touch of variation to your music instead of using the same chord structure all the time
Arpeggios
Arpeggios are much easier to understand than they sound They are quite simply the first third and fifth note of the scale played as individual notes For example the arpeggio of C minor would be C Eb G C etc
A great example of an arpeggio is the bassline in Bengarsquos ldquoCrunked Uprdquo He goes from playing the F minor arpeggio backwards to playing the F minor arpeggio backwards In other words he is playing
C A F and then C Ab F
Experiment with a few Minor Arpeggios and a couple of Diminished Arpeggios and you canrsquot go wrong in writing a huge bassline
Suggested Reading
List of All Scales With Finger Charts Included
Well thatrsquos it folks Thatrsquos basically all the music theory you need to know to start off with As you grow more used to the various scales yoursquoll notice that certain notes sound good with each other whilst others donrsquot Irsquom not here to tell you how to write music Irsquom here to teach you the language
of music Itrsquos up to you to write the poetry
copy Bruno Crosier (klimaxx) 2008
45 Random Tips
Random tips amp best piece of advice thread
5 Resources
Page 38
51 Books amp Magazines
Hello again people
Does anyone know of more music production books magazines or authors we can add to these lists
Thanks
------------------------------------------------
Music Production Magazines Computer Music - httpwwwcomputermusiccouk Music Tech Magazine - httpwwwmusictechmagcouk Future Music - httpwwwfuturemusiccouk Sound on Sound - httpwwwsoundonsoundcom Remix Magazine - httpremixmagcom Mix Magazine - httpmixonlinecom Electronic Musician - httpemusiciancom EQ Magazine - httpwwweqmagcom Audio Technology - wwwaudiotechnologycomau Tape Op - httpwwwtapeopcom
------------------------------------------------
Music Books
Authors Curtis Roads httpmitpressmiteducatalogauthor aspaid=93 - The Computer Music Tutorial (Really really really good book) Paul White - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea ul20White - Basic Series + more Rick Snowman - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea k20Snoman - The Dance Music Manual Tools Toys and Techniques Bobby Owsinski - httpbooksgooglecoukbooksas_auth=Bobby+Owsinski - The MixingRecording amp Mastering Engineers Handbooks Michael Paul Stavrou - httpwwwmixingwithyourmindcom
Publishers Thomson Course Technology - httpcoursecengagecom (Click on the Music Technology tab) - Series published include Power Overdrive Ignite and CSI Series + many more Backbeat Books - httpwwwbackbeatbookscom ndash Power Tools Series + many more Wiley Publishing - httpwwwdummiescom (Enter music in their search bar) - For Dummies Series Penguin Books - httpuspenguingroupcom (Enter music in their search bar) - The Complete Idiots Guide Series + many more MIT Press - httpmitpressmitedu - Many books on music theory Focal Press - httpwwwfocalpresscom - (Enter music in their search bar)
------------------------------------------------
Online Music Book Stores (We need more links here Do you know of any that we can add)
httpwwwmixbookscom ndash Excellent source that sells only books about music
Page 39
httpwwwamazoncom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
httpwwwbarnesandnoblecom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
------------------------------------------------
52 Wikipedia
A good music lexicon wiki Search for your term in the search bar ---gt httpenaudiolexicorgwikiMain_Page
0-9
14rdquo Jack - httpenwikipediaorgwikiJack_plug 3rd Bridge - httpenwikipediaorgwiki3rd_Bridge
Zero Crossing - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_crossing Zero Crossing Rate - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_Crossing_Rate
53 Other recommended production forums
for Logic users this is the shit httpwwwlogicprohelpcom
Ive found both these forums to be full of knowledgeable producers amp musicians
httpwwwkvraudiocomforum
httpacapellaharmony-centralcomforumsindexphp
httpwwwgearslutzcomboard
httpwwwsoundonsoundcomforum
httpwwwmusicradarcomforum
httpwwwidmforumscom
httpwwwdance-industriescomphpBB2 8cffbb3b02
httpwwwsubvertcentralcomforumindexphp
httpwwwbreakbeatcouk
httpwwwtweakheadzcom
httpwwwabletoncompagesforum
Explains lots about the music industry ---gt httpwwwbemusocom
Page 47
Ok so a massive thanks to all the contributors there are literally too many to mention But Thanks to Futures Untold Johnny Beat Klimaxx Deadly Habit amp JunglistRendr Daft Cunt in perticular
Thanks to all the artists producers and general music geeks making this early revision of the production bible an essential read
There are links missing and will be included in version 21(Please help with the unlinked chapters by going here - httpwwwdubstepforumcomthe-dubstep-production-bible-updated-2009-06-03-t14797html and updating missing info as needed)
Compiled by Daft Cunt and Futures Untold PDF Compiled by Depone
Page 22
4) Something that I find useful is to bounce the bassline to a wav file so that it can be chopped up and put in-sync with other elements of the song because the majority of the time you will find the first wave of sound in the wobble bassline will will be half the length of the other waves due to attack rates So the best thing to do is to chop that freak sound off the beginning of the file in your DAW (Logic Pro Reason Cubase etc) and start off with the second wave which should be fully formed This way it will not be too early of late when keeping in sync with other elements such as a second bassline
5) Another method you can use is creating a clone layer of your original sound and setting up a new LFO setup for that to beat alternatively in the space left by the original LFO Or go that crazy Drum amp Bass Reese route and split the frequencies to Low Mid and High then set different LFO rates for each band then recombine into one sound
6) For more variation automate your LFO speed and intensity
7) Where you place insert effects in relation to the filter (pre or post) will yield different sounding results
8) Other methods to achieve a wobble like sound Tremolo (This effects volume rather than frequency) FM Synthesis Modulation of PWM Oscillator Pitch assigned (in a liberal amount) to LFO Filter Envelope assigned to LFO (using a re-triggered envelope) (submitted by Faun2500)
9) Assign a second LFO to modulate the speed of the first LFO
LFO Shapes
Sine wave The smooth value change possible
Triangle Similar to a Sine wave but slightly more ramped amp synthetic sounding
Random A mixed bag
Sawtooth Will have a very fast attack with a slower release which will sound very rugged
Square wave Will be a simple open close style Very harsh and will generally cause a very harsh sound (Often used in DJ Hazard style bass-lines) Detune two square waves for a nice dark sounding bass
Waveforms submitted by Skells wrotehttpi228photobucketcomalbumsee83 cleanjpgSimple Filter Sweep
httpi228photobucketcomalbumsee83 wobblejpgSine Wave LFO assigned to Filter Cutoff
LINKS etc
Fruity Loops Wobble Tutorial (Link submitted by Wub) Massive Wobble YouTube Tutorial (Video created by thesynthesist) Pause amp Play Wobble Tutorial (Link submitted by dubmo) Albino3 Wobble Guide (Guide created by axon)
By Rendr amp Deadly Habit and a little help from Macc
313 lsquoReecersquo
The Reese Bass
Page 23
History Lesson
The Reese bass was a form of huge sounding synth-bass first used by the Detroit Techno producer Kevin Saunderson aka Master Reese aka Reese Project aka on the track Just Want Another Chance and immortalised in the classic DnB track Terrorist by Renegade Since then it has been (over)used in many a DnB track and continues to evolve even nowadays through Dubstep and Jungle It is said to be as influential to DnB as the Amen break and probably as used and abused as the Amen
Capturing the Beast
1The Oscillator Stage
To nail the Reese you need a synth with at least 2 oscillators but for better-bigger results use as many oscillators as you can (not really but 4 oscillators give a nice deep rumble - ahhhhhh) All the oscillators are playing sawtooth waves and all except one are detuned by 25-50 cents so that all oscillators are out of phase with each other
2 The Filter Stage
The signal is then sent to a low-pass filter with the cutoff freq set around 150-200Hz (experiment with that you want the growl of the mid-frequencies but you also want it as deep as possible without sacrificing the midrange) The resonance of the filter should be cranked up almost all the way (but again tweak accordingly to your filtersynth)
3 Fuzz it Up
The second most important aspect of the Reese (after the detuned sawtooths) is distortion Tube distortion and tape saturation work extremely well but dont hesitate to use other more extreme distortion units (dont forget that the Reese has been done a million times you have to add something original to it) Again adjust to taste
4 Spices and Herbs
Now that is the main recipe for the sound but like all haute-cuisine there are more things you can do to spice up the Reese Namely effects Effects that have been associated with the Reese are
Phasers - to accentuate the phase-shifting effect of the detuned sawtooths Unison - a great way to make it even bigger Chorus - again a good way to phatten it up
5 And Some More Synth Magic
Another thing to do so you can bring out the old-school jungle character of the Reese is to use Legato and PortamentoGlide if your syth of choice has them available These are both great ways to move from one note to the next without listening to the transition To put it simply when legato is on and you play a sustained E followed by a sustained G the transition between the two notes gives the listener the impression that they heard a single note being sustained that has just changed its pitch from E to G without pausing at a certain point
Always remember though that if you use Legato you have to turn the polyphony of your synth down to 1 (something you should almost always do with basslines because two bass-notes playing together almost never sound good in electronic music bass chords are more the realm of prog-rock shit than dubstep)
For the more technical minded legato in synthesizers is a variation of monophonic operation In contrast to monophonic mode where every new note restarts the ADSR envelopes in legato mode they are not if the previous note remains depressed when the new note is played This causes the initial transient from the attack and decay phases to sound only once and the ADSRs to remain at sustain stage for the whole sequence of notes until the final note is released (Wikipedia)
EDIT I just found out that in one of the free vst links on the bible there is a thing called the Hotelsinus Reese Bassline Synth So I didnt miss the opportunity for a mini review The software itself is small (like most free vst-is) and quite easy to install (you just drop the dll in the vst folder) As for the sound weeeeeeell the sounds it produces are definitely Reese But weak somehow Its like listening to Terrorist from a battered cheap old cassette from 93 or something It has a tinny and tiny sound when compared to what you can achieve with powerhouses like Albino or
Page 24
Massive or (one of my personal favorites for Reese) Cakewalk Rupture You can try it if you want but i dont think it will impress steppers that much we are bass-headed folk
314 Random Bass Tips
Plz add yours or others youve spotted on the forum
miss_molinari wrotebasically i have been experimenting with cutting (not sidechaining) a notch (band reject) in the bass starting at 60hz and ending just before 70 this is only for those bass lines which only hit on the kick (quite specific) also the bass is then high passed at about 220hz to pretty much 0db which is where the kick starts (ending the kick with a non-too-aggressive-cut at about 2khz) this essentially means that the kick and the bass do not share any frequencies above abot 200hz but also between 60 and 70 and with them always hitting at the same time this gets around the fact that sidechaining this type of sequencing would leave you with no or little bass
this has worked well so far but is useful mainly for sub basses ending at around 250hz would not be as good for full spectrum wubsanyone else got any tech tips regarding the bass and kick
futures_untold wroteI simply cut everything under 90Hz on my kicks and roll off slightly at 1KHz
Sub I cut under 40Hz and roll off at 200Hz
I always compress both seperately and keep my levels low in the mix to create plenty of head room later whilst adding sounds with higher frequency content
Anything above 150Hz is what I consider midrange Anything above 150Hz can be heard on mobile phone speakers We all know that theyre designed to play heavy bass lol Wink
miss_molinari wroteDaft Cunt wroteTo me it feels like cutting the kick above 80 hz makes it sound weak I guess it depends on the style I rather cut below 60 to 80 depending on the tune
yeah its all about context in a dry minimal setting im of the opinion you can make a kick punch right up to about 180-200hz but yeah depends on when and on what kind of punch (im usually talking a bass hit at about 200hz coupled with a knock hit anywhere up to about 1200hz) i imagine you true dubsteppers prefer a denser thump from 60 through to about 300hz
Daft Cunt wroteI began recently the band-reject thing on the sub Little details that make big difference
And do you people cut the bass where the snare peaks
my basses arent usually middy enough to need that but yeah a slight sidechain on the main snare and say midbasspadwothavyer is nice especially if the limelight is stolen by a deeper sidechain on the kick and midbasspadwothavyer can create a nice flow (especially when used with long decay reveb linked to the midbasspadwothavyer so that it sounds louder and longer the higher the frequency played - might
have to post some piccies of that one )
Shonky wroteWhat Ive been doing lately is bouncing down the kick track lowpassing one somewhere between 100-140 depending on the highest frequencies of the low sub and then sidechaining the sub to the low kick
Then take a copy of the kick track highpass between 300-1000 and this will give you the beater noise to make the kick cut through I then sidechain this to the more middly basses You can also send a small amount to a reverb bus which allows you to avoid mud on the lower frequencies whilst still giving you the space
Doing it this way seems to make sense to me cause the sidechains work on the corresponding kicks in the same frequency range so it doesnt cause loads of unnecessary compression where you dont need it
Page 25
boh wroteAlways make sure your kicks are in tune with the rest of the track ull hear it pitching up and down and make sure if ur layering that the transients dont conflict(good monitors make this easy) It all comes down to kick selection Whats the point in cutting a kick at 80hz with a fundemental freq of say 60hz Sure you get whats happening before it but u wont get the nice thump of the fundemental freq Choose other kicks that hit the freq u want (80hz say) instead of cutting them when theres no need to Unless you really really know what your doing getting technical like this complicates the situation Esp for people with little experience
sullyharmitage wrote50 hz hi pass seems a bit high to me maybe gd for kicky techno or house but for subby stuff it seems a bit muchdefo roll off past 30-35 (most well engineered systems will do this anyways so any content below this is definately getting wasted)if yr gonna go higher make sure its a soft curvei find levelling subs is the hardest part of a mix - cos more always sounds better i remember reading breakage saying yr subs shouldnt add more than 3db to yr mix thats seems like a good guide
btw sub in kick an bassline simultaeously is gonna cause clashes (n maybe disortion) id either decrease the attack on the bass or cut the sub from the kick
unklefesta wroteI rolloff EVERYTHING at 40hz except my bass
standard
wang wroteAlways do it
Dont forget youre ROLLING off the frequencies not cutting them off all together Just a couple of dB of bass down there is enough to get some girth without removing all your headroom
Also analyse and cut off the lows on everything even if it doesnt appear to have messy lows -Youd be surprised how much bass there is in some high hats
Jtransition wroteAll of your tracks are going to be different so dont restrict yourself to a certain techniquetry different things and listen to the results
Shonky wrotewang wroteAlso analyse and cut off the lows on everything even if it doesnt appear to have messy lows -Youd be surprised how much bass there is in some high hats
Yep this is very true also worth filtering out the inaudible highs on low sounds as well found some of my subs which Id low passed still showed frequency activity much higher than expected
Jtransition wroteStick a high pass filter on everything apart form the kick drum and bass line70 hertz is a good starting point move up or down to tasteAnd remember try to mix at low levels(Walls not vibrating)
Deadly Habit wroteRendr wroteBasslines in my experience should be mono due to the fact that humans cannot easily decoded the stereo positioning of low frequencys so panning basslines (excluding bass sounds with high pitch sounds at around 500Hz+) is not recommended not only are the low frequencys hard to position with the human ear the low frequency sound waves are absorbed by the human head at a much higher ratio than high pitch sounds which tend to be reflected Another thing to note is that club systems are
mono Basslines that pan only belong in Psytrance
sub range should be mono especially if going to be cut to vinylmidrange bass on the other hand you can pan and add stereo fx to your hearts content
Page 26
32 Re-sampling
SafeAfter a few months of experimenting with resampling not really getting anywhere in terms of sound quality i came up with a pretty simple way of getting on the right track Ive got so much help since getting on this forum in terms of production i thought id share this for those who like myself are looking into the elusive yet highly rewarding technique of resamplingAll the vsts i use on this (save for the synth itself) are freenative plugs im using FL but itll transfer onto every DAW pretty much the same Ill explain it for a bassline but it can be applied to any sound
Step 1Make yourself a nice bassline get it sounding dirty with whatever you can within the synth Im using Albino so i tend to play about with the saturation modesFXs until its sounding pretty good
Step 2Hook up to a mixer channel then send this channel to a second mixer channel (FL users just click on another channel towards the bottom of the strip) On the second channel that the synth is hooked to from the first add CMt bitcrusher and downsample 3-16x (thanks to all the production forum users who pointed this out to me when i posted a few months ago on dirtying up basslines) Then add a chorus Turn the LFOs off and set the depthdelayetc to whatever sounds best Also set the crossover pretty high so only the treblehigh mids are being affected Then add Camel Audio Camel Crusher Turn the compressor off and set the tubemech to taste Add a parametric EQ if needs be to boost the high freqs Experiment with the chain of these effects swapping them according to the sound The choruscameleq in different orders should alter the sound quite alot depending on where their placed
Step 3 Set the level of the second affected channel with the original depending on whatever suits Play about with adding extra effects to both channels The way the second channel behaves once an effect is added to the first is quite extreme in even light application of effects So its possible to create a whole array of different sounds just from say adding a flangerchorusetc to the first channel then listening to how much it affects the sound as a whole as it goes through both channels By now it should be sounding pretty girthy
Step 4Export the riffsample (i use edison on the master channel in FL but whatever method will do) Reload and place into a mixer channel Add another Camel Crusher for abit more grit EQ and compress Set up a reverbdelay send and resample again for extra depth
Obviously this technique can be applied a 2nd3rd4th time to fuck the sound up even more so Which is what ive moved onto doing now into the territory of splitting the sound into basslow midhigh midtreble sections for ultimate control over each part Something which i was attempting to do before coming up with the above method but being left with a pile of unlistenable mushy shite
Hope this is a help to some peeps I know theres no secret technique to resamping only a whole load of practice and using your ears but this method got me on the right track in terms of hearing the benefits of it and encouraging me to experiment more in depth and realise that the possiblities are endless Im hooked now i resample pretty much every sound in one way or another Kick and snares benefit hugley from it for mega face melting wide drum sounds aswell so its worth trying it on some nice drum hits
Keep up the good work folksPeaceDC_WT
33 Drums
Read before reading on I am in no way entitled to any of those opinions It is up to you to decide whether you would like to incorporate them in your workflow I have just collected them from all the threads in this forum and will try to keep everything updated
I will update as regularly as I find updates
Page 27
Misc tips and tricks bull Good drums are usually layered - example 3 snares sounding as onebull The hats are often panned or widenedbull Pick great sounding samples different ones for different parts of the sounds you want 1
for snap and bite 1 for body 1 for thump distort and MAYBE EQ each to make them sound the best that they can separately combine in a bus MAYBE compress them together maybe accent the front and shorten the sound with a transient modifier 10 minutes tops
bull Do as little as possible with great-sounding bits and your basic sounds will be slamming leaves you time to focus on the arrangement people dont go around thinking wow that tune has an amazing snare as long as its thumping and not masked by a bunch of other stuff itll keep the dance moving
bull Listen to other producers work As its playing imagine the 1 2 3 4 on the step sequencer running in time to what youre listening to Try to visualize where the producer put their hits Not to say you should copy peoples drum patterns but learn from them
bull Ive noticed a lot of tunes (more minimal stuff where you can distinctly hear whats seperately going on) seem to use two differently pitched hi-hats that alternate to sound shuffley if you know what I mean and a less dramatic snare used sparsely in between the main lazy kick and snare An easy trick if you havent worked it out (which to be honest you should have if youre at all serious about producing dubstep) is to stick a smaller snare or hat the 116th before the kick or snare so it steps if you get me For example Bengas Night does this for all four beats in the bar which is part of what makes it so danceable But dont get stuck in always having kick on 1 and snare on 3 some tracks work with a kick on every beat others with a couple big snares etc The trick (unless you want proper lazy spaced out tunes) is to make sure youre nodding your head on all four beats of the bar Play around with a hat on every quaver (ie 8 per bar on the beat) compared to just four but on the off beat as well as adding in the steppy ones every now and then Theres often no need to over-complicate things though one of the my favourite drum tracks is the incredibly simplistic V by Distance Its a rhythm that could easilly be played by one guy on a real kit yet its so banging - check the use of hats and lower velocity kicks in this to make it nice and bouncy Also I once had a four bar drum loop and accidentally moved the sequence one bar to the right for one section and it ended up nicely varying the drums in a way you wouldnt expect
bull Really tight delays can help claps and snaps sound natural 5-20ms etcbull Recycle or phatmatik is your break-chopping friendbull Basically Hatrixxs method involved chopping everything from the main hits into a sample
Say you had a 2-step funk beat like the Amen Youd start your selection from the start of the first kick and select everything up to the start of the first snare Cut paste theres your first slice Then take everything from the start of the first snare up to the start of the second kick - including all the little hats and ghost hits - cut paste second sample and so on Then just map the samples onto some keys and bash away Both of them are quick compared to chopping Recycled slices where you have to copy and drag loads of little notes (one every little fucking tiny hit in the break arranged chromatically up the keyboard) around the piano roll These methods let you just concentrate on the main hits which can be both good or bad You can get a solid beat down with just a handful of hits but youre limited to the patterns already in the original break For a beginner to breakbeat science like yourself Id say try these methods first but dont rule out the really anal methods like RecyclePhatmatikFruity Slicer Sometimes they are a necessary evil Of course some of the drumfunk guys especially those who post on Subvert Central swear by these methods or the next one There are those who prefer to chop up the raw audio rather than bothering with MIDI and samplers They literally just drop the break file into Cubase or Logic and start chopping with the scissors tool and copying and pasting I can see the benefits of this You can see the waveform as youre chopping and youre not as restriced to the quantize grid as you are with MIDI But it takes aaaaages to build a drum track this way and theres the risk of RSI from all that Ctrl+C Ctrl+V youll be doing Then of course theres trackers They really are tailor-made for chopping up loops amongst other things They give you Sample Offset meaning that when you trigger a sample you can set it to start from 256 evenly spaced points throughout the sample So by starting a sample a quarter of the way through youre triggering the first snare (obviously you can fine-tune it when the snare isnt perfectly on the beat) You can edit breaks in a tracker without ever having to cut up a waveform and you can do all sorts of other nifty things like reverse the sample retrigger it to make drum rolls and so on
If recycles having trouble switch the break to mono in your sample editor and then apply tiny fades between the drum hits (especially useful if there are lots of rides that play over the other hits to keep things separate) This should help recycle pick up the start points and with any luck should leave you with a cleaner break
Page 28
Snaresbull Tune the snares so they all hit around the same pitch bull Change the Amp Envelopes of each to bring the strongest parts from each separate sample
and build up your sound like that bull Compressing all together is a good idea but dont over do it bull EQ the master out for the snare as well so you wont have to fuck about when you use the
sample in the future bull Donrsquot just use snares fling some random sound effects in there Claps and rim shots also
work well when layered bull Make subtle changes to them and export a few snares from the same setup this helps
when you need a ghost hit or a reverse that sounds similar but not identicalbull Watch that frequencies dont build up and make the layered bit sound overly whatever
is building up Really easy to get too much 200hz or 500hz or even 12k if youve got samples that are all beefythicksmack-y
bull If its peaking run it through a Spectrum Analyzer and see where its peaking I guess its peaking in the tune rather than just the snare sample playing on its own
bull Sometimes snare samples have a very short peak that doesnt seem to make them sound any better and keeps you from getting them louder without cliping Reduce that part by a few dBs and youre sorted
bull Make sure you are using subtractive eq to pull out the frequencies that could be clashing with other sounds If your frequencies are clashing that can hide the snare and then you end up turning it up to compensate and there you are with your snare peakingThe key is making the frequencies sit right in the mix so that they dont clash and you can set them right and not have to turn them up
bull You could always try clipping the snare normalise it in a wave editor amplify it as much as you can before it sounds distorted then sample it out Then replace the snare with the clipped version it will almost always sound louder with more body at a lower volume I would still point out that although this can be used as a replacement to compression compression is a vital tool to learn how to use Also a lot of peeps will say this does bad things to the waveform and it does but unless you intend to listen to your tune to be heard at home on an amazing hifi then it doesnt really matter that much IMO
bull Hi-pass overdrive limit and cut away space from other sounds for itbull Layer with its self or a different snare Layer with sub add effect to one layer add effect
to both layers layer zoom right in drag one wave form back or forth very slightly to create new snare sound Pitch updown EQ Filter distort reverb delay reverse
bull Record yourself beat boxing your best snare sounds then layer with snare samplesbull A good handclap never goes a miss or use a nice drum synth to get a very differentdigital
soundbull Try reversing the snare sample then changing the envelope settings so it only hits on the
beat Layer that with the same sample this time not reversed Add a little delay to the the reversed snare Change the settings til it sounds how you like
bull Particularly snares I layer up a lot I look for one that has the qualities that I want when run through verb and then I look for something shorter with more mid punch to keep things physical After someone notied snares were weak in a tune Ive really made a point of ensuring that when the snares hit its physical as well as textural You need to feel them a bit - so I look for some snares that have that real punch when layering but usually keep the more textural snappy one as the focus last couple tunes I did the standard kick snare hats w odd percussion and then I took an amen chopped it processed it and layered it overtop for more aggression and step (goddess being a perfect example) By removing a layer and adding it you can create a sense of progression through the tune Make sure the bottom layer is sounding really good and then add the top so that youre not mixing them to be reliant on one another - instead you want synergy Make sure the EQ on the top and bottom make sense with each other
Kicksbull Building a kick in Ableton Lives Impulse machine Provides some essential information
about layering that can be used with any DAWbull Making fat kicks
remixmag wroteWhether creating Miami Bass music is your lifes fantasy or your greatest fear you probably crave the know-how to manifest those car-rattling trunk-full-of-funk kick drums In the arenas of hip-hop house techno downtempo and almost any other electronic genre molding fat kick drums is absolutely essential Like grandmas homemade apple pie the recipe for kick drums is partially a matter of taste However theres no substitute for quality ingredients And just like every pie has its staple ingredients every slamming kick drum requires some common elements Lets take a look at the
Page 29
shopping list for killer kick drumsTHE CRUST
Youll need a basic shell to begin creating a thick strong kick The classics always work if youre fortunate enough to own a real Roland TR-808 909 or other famous drum machine with a killer kick use it copiously If youre not one of those chosen few pay close attention to your original source For example if you use a sampler understand that not all ldquo808 Kickrdquo samples are the same some sound great and some just plain suck There are a lot of reasons for that including how many generations from the original the sample is the sampling rate and bit depth of the sampler how the kick was first sampled and so on Be as choosy as possible with your individual samples mdash dont use a mediocre sample just because it has 808 in the name and therefore is ldquosupposedrdquo to sound fat Seek out a better 808 sample or use something else that is simply bigger sounding Remember the time you spend finding sweet original sources wont be in vain especially if you reuse the resulting samples for multiple songsBORROW SOME SUGAR
An old saying goes ldquoGood art borrows great art stealsrdquo A nice way to start out with great raw kick material is to sample directly from the source If you dont own but have access to a 909 then sample it directly Or take one of your favorite producers tracks on vinyl or CD find a naked kick drum in there and sample it Be cautious with that approach for a couple of reasons Copyright issues around sampling even small bits have become a dangerously gray area and I would never personally advise using any source straight out of the can even from a royalty-free sample library While it may be an excellent start its unoriginal Customize whatever you bite Treat your samples as a sculptor would treat clay mold each one to create a trademark sound for yourself One effective way to customize a fat kick is to take a tip from the synth manufacturers If a sound is thin pile another (or a few more) on top When doing so its important to use different sounds layering two identical kicks will result in a louder kick but it wont change the basic tone Remember the sculptor approach here Even if you are using two good-sounding individual samples they may not instantly sound great together For example I find that when layering kicks while the thickness may be good sustain is often overkill The final result often benefits from a little doctoring on the tail of one (or both) of the samples and other hands-on sonic surgeryADD THE FILLING
Once a nice basic kick is achieved treating it with two of the mastering engineers favorite tools is often the next step Artfully applying a compressor (to just the kick) can go a long way toward creating a signature sound and a huge kick Compression is one of those ldquosecret spicesrdquo and how to apply it is a whole topic in itself One recommendation I will make however is to use a multiband compressor With one of those you can isolate compression on certain frequency ranges That is perfect if for example you want to push the sub of your kick without emphasizing the higher frequencies (which often affect the tone of the attack) or vice-versa EQ comes after compression in my signal chain By now the kick should already sound pretty fat I aim to shave unnecessary frequencies here rather than artificially boosting too much This is also where you can actualize trademark sounds while also fine-tuning them to work alongside other elements in specific tracks I often scoop out mids and highs especially frequencies above about 500 Hz Even though I like thick deep kicks unless Im going for a really dublike sound I often truncate the lowest frequencies (usually the sub-50 Hz frequencies) Even when you cant hear the difference when trimming frequencies doing so can really tighten up your kicksEVEN IT OUT
You may ask why when youre trying to fatten up a kick would you want to trim frequencies That is one of the keys to achieving great mixes both in the case of kick drums and in general You want to avoid too many overlapping frequencies The more sonic separation you have between elements the more focused the entire mix will sound That can be especially important for club music which often gets played on huge not necessarily audiophile-quality sound systems If you havent run into the following scenario already I assure you at some point you will Your bass line and kick drum are competing and it sounds like you have a weak kick You boost the kick but it still sounds muddy Take the bass out and suddenly the kick doesnt sound so bad In a scenario like that solo the two sounds listen carefully for where frequencies are overlapping and then try subtractive EQ on one element then the other and sometimes a bit on both By scooping out overlapping frequencies you will often find that both elements seem to magically come forward in the mix before even touching their respective volume levels
Hi hatsbull Realism
Ive been a professional touring and recording drummer for 25 years and just thought I might share a couple of really simple ways to use fruity loops or fruity studio to create more realistic drum patterns
For what its worth try this out with Fruity Loops
Page 30
Take your hi hat tracks (are any tracks for that matter including melodic synth bubbles)
Drop down the bar graph box that allows you to scroll between velocity (volume) pitch panning cutoff resonance and a thing called shift which allows you to use each of these categories to effect each individual note that youve programmed (note this can be accomplished in other ways in most of the good midi sequencing apps or softwarehardware drum machines)
Drummers no matter how good they are just arent perfect and we can use the fact that each of these drop down bar graphs can make veryvery small changes in a sound to do some subtle things to a rolling drum groove like 16th notes on a hi hat
Not all drummers but many tend to favor their strong hand in a single stroke (hand over hand) drum roll Consequently if you make all odd numbered hi hats be slightly louder than their even numbered hits it will sound more realistic Start by making velocity differences that are really clearly audible Then lower the velocity until you can barely feel the difference We are going to make very subtle changes like this on each of the parameters of velocity pitch cutoff resonance and importantly shift
I cant stress enough that you should make these changes be so subtle that you can hardly notice them
Just going on the fact that the right handed players start their rolls with the right hand and favor it ever so slightly (or grossly for effect as well) means that the stroke will be harder with the right hand than the left hand
When a percussion instrument is hit harder the difference between the transient (or hi pitched attack) of the sound and the body of the instrument (or the sound that comes after the attack) becomes greater In general on drums that means that a harder attack tensions the drum very imperceptably (sp) and it also means that there will be more treble in the sound Consequently the pitch goes up a little teensy bit and their is more attack to the sound (increased resonance and slightly higher cutoff frequency)
Consequently you can make the pitch of each right hand be just barely noticeably higher the resonance should be just one or two of those little teeny bars higher The cutoff should be just a few bars lower (allowing less high frequencies through) on the left handed or even numbered strokes
Typically if drums have time inaccuracies they tend to drag the left hand a litte bit I have to keep stressing that if you can hear the changes you make you arent being realistic You need to make the changes subtle enough that you just barely feel that they arent perfect You can consequently make each left hand note shifted one or two bars late
Tigure out how much you can tweak each parameter before it becomes obvious and then you can just randomly tweak each one up to that limit With a little bit of variance in each stroke from parameter to parameter you will create more of a percolating texture in your programming - this is a great technique to make synth bubbles (the kind used in techno and house) more interesting and less mechanical feeling
Now you can avoid the biggest mistake that non-drummers do when trying to write realistic programs turn the overall volume of the hihats until you CANT hear them and then slowly bring up the volume until you just begin to hear them
Professional producers have spent countless hours trying to figure out how to gate and mix hihats OUT of tracks The reason is two fold1) Human beings have such a radical peak in their hearing around the 1-2khz range (or the intelligibility range of human speech) that we can play the hihats at incredible low volumes and they are still audible You cant do that with a bass drumI tell my drum students that you cannot play a hi hat or a snare drum so quietly that a person sitting in a room with you cant hear it2) Hi Hats the snare of snare drums and cymbals all seriously MASK human vocal intellibility How many people have gone to see live shows where they can hear the singer is singing but cant for the life of them figure out what they are actually singing That is ususally because drummers (or mixers which is frequently the case) are not hip to thisimportant fact
So turn down your hi hat tracks (or any track with a strong mid rangeshort envelope attack) and you have much more room for other musical goodies in your mix When in doubt make your hi hats quieter than you think they should be Trust me theyll come through the mix even at a quiet volume
Swingbull Dont know if you can do this in your sequencer but in Logic you can create a groove
template from your drums and then apply that to your other instruments If youre using separate midi channels for snares kicks and hats take the 8 bar loop youre using glue it together and then take the groove from that and then mute that track When you click down the quantize list youll see the template there and you can apply it to your other tracks Also if you do want to change the groove you can just change the hits in the muted template and itll automatically change all other hits to the new changes
bull Think if youre clever and organized you can basically cut breaks up in recycle load them into the exs24 (extract sequence) and then do the same with them That way if there are breaks you like the feel of you can just apply that swing to anything If you make a folder called grooves in your logic folder they should load up each time so that youll have loads to choose from Havent done this myself yet but always helpful to have a choice of feels available
bull Some things sound better rigid and robotic with equal velocities Some things sound better rigid and robotic with differing velocities Some things sound better with swing Some things sound better with everything ever-so-slightly off Its down to what the track needs
bull Drum Break Swing ProgrammingNicolas Hall wwwbreakbeat-cafenet wroteI think most people who make anything funk breakbeat drum amp bass or hip-hop would agree that Swing is crucial to the effectiveness of a beat The other key factors in a programming sense are dynamic and accent So many people get wound up when their beats sound sterile or mechanical this is due to the fact that computers and sequencers lock to perfect BPM A computer on its own does not interpret rhythm the way a good drummer does There are however certain machines that have their own swing parameters like the Akai MPC range of sampling drum machines which are used extensively by hip hop producers
Swing is not the easiest thing in the world to analyze but as a general rule good drummers will play slightly late and thats why in all funky records you get that slight dip at the start of the bar take Superstition by Stevie Wonder or Billie Jean by Michael Jackson these are both very simple beats Superstition is of course live drums whilst Billie Jean was programmed but no less funky than Superstition I emphasize this point to demonstrate that a programmed beat can be every bit at groovy as a beat played on a drum kit
Expanding on the Billie Jean point Hip Hop beats are really very simple If you listen to the Neptunes they tend to create the swing in their beats by quantizing the kicks and snares and playing the hi hats in by hand this creates a very tight beat which is off set by a loose hi hat try it works but dont forget your accents - As a starting point just take the first snare of your beat and turn the velocity down then notice how your head starts nodding and your foot starts tapping a little more you are giving the beat feel Also remember that if you are using reverb the louder snare will push the reverb harder than the soft snare so your creating more ambience that way Then try your kick drums if your not sure which hits to adjust just pick apart a beat your feeling I remember me and friend picking apart a Gangstarr beat and were able to almost replicate it by adjusting the velocities of each hit (admittedly it took a while to get it right)
If youre a newbie then a common trick when learning to make good grooves is to create a template with an existing loop The idea is take a loop you like thats got a good feel to it and then place your own hits over the break then take the break out and see if your hits are sounding funky This can take a while and its crucial to think about the strength of each hit or the dynamic Each kick will not be the same strength nor will the snares or the hats pick the loop apart dissect it and youll soon see that there are certain consistencies in all good beats
If youre using live loops and like to layer them with drum sequences you should be thinking about time space and frequencies So if you have a fairly heavy loop then layering it with heavy kick drums is probably not gonna sound good Think about filling holes are their any frequencies that could be filled up Or is there space in the loop for extra hits Try working in layers just adding one hit at a time also filtering works well you could take some of the frequencies out of your loop as you drop your drum sequences in to make room for them I think one the masters of this technique is Liam Howlett of the Prodigy He runs breakbeats and gives them extra balls by laying a kick drum underneath to add extra intensity to certain passages in his set but hes careful not to overlap frequencies to much A good place to start if you using breakbeats is the Roland Tr-808 kick drum which is around the 50hz mark which is sub bass territory so it will sit underneath most breaks very well
If your hell bent on making killer beats and loops then perseverance is crucial keep at it it will come together listen to beats you like and pick them apart identify the subtleties that make it happen I know some producers get fed up when their beats sound to clean or they are trying to create a new breakbeat and then compare it to sample they took from vinyl and get down on there own beat Think about what a breakbeat really is think about its history what has happened to it to make it sound the way it does Im
Page 32
sure youve noticed how some breaks have a certain something like a magic dust you cant put your finger on Let me share what I know with you about that
Most breaks though not all are taken from recordings of live drums some of them are pretty old so you have the ambience of live drums and the room they were recorded in you have the fact that natural decay and reverb of each drum is likely to have bled into the other mics on the kit and that most engineers used overhead mics which pick up the whole kit with two mics Then consider that many of these breaks will have been recorded to analogue tape with saturation which will create extra warmth and harmonics The next step comes from old sampling technology like the SP-1200 and the Akai s-950 mpc -60 these samplers sampled at 12- bit (bear in mind that most computers now are at least 24-bit if not more) and that the samples themselves where taken from vinyl and on and on the process goes with each new reverb and eq adding more and more to the break In terms of giving your breaks that character there are a number of things you can try for example buying an old four track cassette machine to dump your beats onto then re-sample it if your using a sampler like the s-950 then try pushing the input meters a little harder than usual add reverbs and resample it each time you put your loop through a new channel you will be adding something to it Also distortion is fantastic for breaks if you have any amp plug ins then try them the Amplitude one is particularly good you dont need to go mad with it just used subtly it works great
To finish I would just like to say again stick with it keep trying keep listening to records if you like to read about technique then do so you can learn so much from other producers Remember the strength of your hits is important as is the way it swings good luck
UPDATE 08092008
ENHANCE SYNTHESIZED DRUM PARTS WITH FOUND SOUNDS
emusiciancom wroteLayering real-world sounds with synthesized drum parts puts a new spin on your drum tracks You probably already have usable sound effects on your hard drive because most commercial samplers have at least a modest collection in their factory library Beyond that youll find thousands of royalty-free sound effects online Soundsnapcom is one of my favorite sources and its free The recordings dont need to be pristine for layering over drums so dont overlook cheap sampling CDs and consider grabbing your own sounds with a portable recorderCollect and Save
Start by assembling a small Foley library of short percussive sounds divided into typical drum-sound categories kicks snares toms cymbals percussion and so on Youll generally want to layer drum sounds with Foley sounds that have a similar volume contour and frequency range If you layer a Foley sound that resembles a kick drum with the sound of your hi-hat for example youll quickly fill up all the space in your drum track
Industrial household military transportation and vocal sounds make excellent fodder but you will often want to extract a small slice such as the last shot in a volley of machine-gun fire (snare) or the first bounce of a plastic bottle on concrete (tom) A browsing tool like Audio Finder (icedaudiocom) is invaluable if you have a large sample library That lets you quickly audition clips make basic edits and drag-and-drop slices to your library
Sticks UpIf your synthesized drum part is step sequenced youll need to export its step sequences as MIDI files Many drum synths do that including Sonic Charge Tonic (sonicchargecom) Apple Logic UltraBeat (applecom) and Submersible DrumCore (submersiblemusiccom) All of those come with a large collection of patterns exportable as MIDI sequences Youll also need a sampler to play the Foley sounds drum-oriented samplers are handier for that but are by no means necessary
Start by loading a kit in the drum synth Export one of its sequenced patterns or create your own and place it on the sampler track For some of the drum synth sounds select compatible Foley sounds and map them to the same notes in the sampler that theyre mapped to in the drum synth Next solo the doubled voices one by one in both the drum synth and the sampler start the sequence playing and tweak the samplers voice parameters (filter level pan envelope and so on) to make the sounds work together (see Fig 1 and Web Clip 1) Dont tweak global parameters such as effects because that will affect all sounds played by the sampler
High HoopsOnce youve configured your Foley track you can do several things to add interest I frequently use a
Page 33
second sampler for short vocal sounds Ill have some notes trigger sounds in both samplers and others in only one Many samplers let you group sounds and assign notes and controllers to choose among them You can then sequence these notes and controllers or you can play them live to alter your Foley tracks
Try applying DSP effects to individual Foley sounds Multitap delays distortion phasing and granular effects all work well when used sparingly (see Web Clip 2) You can apply DSP effects inside your sampler or route the voices to a separate output for DSP processing in your DAW If your sampler doesnt offer either possibility spread the Foley parts over several sampler instances on different tracks
Sidechain compression or gating of the drum track with one or more of the Foley parts will highlight the Foley part as well as add variety to the drums With compression peaks in the sidechain signal will reduce the level of the drum track Use a high compression level say 201 and balance the sidechain-gain and the compression-threshold -attack and -release controls to get the ducking contour you want (see Web Clip 3) Gating has the opposite effect the drum track will be heard during peaks in the sidechain signal (see Web Clip 4) Here too the sidechain-gain and gate-threshold controls work in tandem to determine when the gate is opened Use envelope parameters (attack release and hold) to shape the gates contour
Keep in mind that once youve created a sampler instrument to complement your drum kit you can reuse it with other sequences You can also change one or more sounds in the sampler instrument without repeating the whole process
34 Sidechain Compression (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
4 Theory41 ndash Song Structure42 ndash Mixdown (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)43 ndash Mastering (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
44 Music Theory
The first thing to remember about music theory is that generally if it sounds right it probably is There are no rules in music and Music Theory is not about telling you how to write music Its about understanding the music
Broadly speaking it is fair to say that most music is essentially based upon two crucial factors scales and rhythm Scales make up melodies chords harmonies and basslines to name but a few whereas rhythm makes up the beat of the song In this part of the Production Bible you will learn the basics of Music Theory that will serve you not only in the production of Dubstep but for any of your future musical pursuits This information is intended to be easy to read and understand so I wonrsquot be mincing sentences But firstly please make sure you learn every single note on the keyboard by studying the image below Otherwise yoursquoll be completely lost here
Page 34
Scales Wersquoll begin with scales As I mentioned before scales are the building blocks of your song and without them your track will be atonal and completely unlistenable (probably not the effect yoursquore going for)
There are two main scales that you should learn inside out ndash the major scale and the minor scale A generalisation yoursquore bound to have heard before is that the major scale sounds ldquohappyrdquo and the minor scale sounds ldquodarkrdquo Although this is not always the case it is mostly true ndash and therefore yoursquoll usually be focussing on the minor scale when producing Dubstep However just in case yoursquore writing happy-dubstep (if that exists) here is a quick overview of both scales and how they are made up
Major Scale
The major scale is really easy to create It is made by a single rule that is simple to put in to place
ldquoTone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
In case you donrsquot know what a Tone or Semi-Tone is here is a quick explanation
Picture a keyboard (or if you canrsquot see the image above) Say you go from C to C that would be a semi-tone The same thing goes for if you go from an E to an F ndash it is still a semi-tone because you
Page 35
have gone up one key
A tone is two semi-tones ndash for example from C to D is a tone and the same goes for from G to A
The scalersquos name is taken from the note that it starts on For example C major will start on the note of C Similarly A major will start on the note of A and this is the case with every single scale
Here is a quick list of a few major scales After having seen a few try working the rest out for yourself in order to understand how the major scale is formulated Ideally you should practice your scales on a piano or keyboard so that you can physically see how to make the scale It might sound boring but itrsquos a small price to pay for a much deeper understanding of your music
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Major C D E F G A B C
C Major C D E F G A B C
D Major D E F G A B C D
D Major D E F G A B C D
E Major E F G A B C D E
F Major F G A Bb C D E F
F Major F G A B C D E F
G Major G A B C D E F G
G Major G A B C D E F G
A Major A B C D E F G A
A Major A B C D E F G A
B major B C D E F G A B
Now by arranging the different notes of each of these scales in any order you please you can create a melody bassline or harmony with extreme ease Rearranging the notes in the scale will give you a flawlessly in-key result and it is then up to you to use the notes in the scale as you see fit for your tune
Minor Scale
As was the case with the Major Scale the Minor is made up from a set rule or formula By knowing this formula you can understand how the Minor is made and how to use it to itrsquos maximum effect
ldquoTone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
As is the case with the major scales you should practice your scales as much as possible to make sure that you know them all like the back of your hand Here are a few Minor Scales see if you can
Page 36
work out the rest
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Minor C D Eb F G Ab B C
D Minor D E F G A Bb C D
F Minor F G A B C D E F
G Minor G A Bb C D Eb F G
Similarly to the Major now that you know your Minor Scales you can quickly just take any note from the scale rearrange it with another few notes in the scale and there you have a fat melody or bassline ready to be played at maximum volume
Diminished Chords
Diminished Chords are really quite spooky and dark chords that are made up of four different notes all a minor third apart from each other That means that for example the Diminished Chord starting on C would be C Eb F A because to get from one note to the next you have to use ldquoTone Semi-Tonerdquo (known as a minor third)
Because of the mathematical nature of the Diminished chord there are only three ldquoclustersrdquo of notes which can then be rearranged like the Major and Minor Scales
Cluster 1 C Eb F A
Cluster 2 C E G Bb
Cluster 3 D F Ab B
Use these clusters and rearrange them as you please For example you could rearrange cluster 1 as Eb F A C etc
Generally speaking you canrsquot make a song based entirely on Diminished Chords due to the fact that each cluster only has 4 notes However a Diminished Chord is perfect for adding a hint of darkness to your tune and is brilliant when mixed with some Minor Scales
Chords
Chords are basically two or more notes played together They are made up from a specific scale ndash for example the C major chord is made up of notes in the C major scale
Usually chords will include the first third and fifth note of the scale as well as possibly using other notes to give them colour For example the basic chord of C major would be C E G Then you could add the seventh note to it (in this case it is B) Really it is up to the producerrsquos discretion how heshe goes about making a chord ndash just remember to stick to the scale you are using
Chords will more than likely sound like shit if you play them on a complicated or layered synth patch You want to be playing chords on sustained sounds such as strings or pads Chords will really fill out your sound if used properly You want your chords to be supporting the melody or bassline and more than likely want to add some reverb so that it doesnrsquot sound too sharp Make
Page 37
your chords blend in with the music and yoursquoll have mastered them
Chord Inversions
Quite simply chord inversions are when you rearrange the notes in a chord so that it sounds a bit different and suits your arrangement better
For example if you were in the key of C major you could have a drone of E playing underneath some strings playing the notes E G C E
Due to the fact that the notes are the same and have only been inverted the chord will still be in key with the rest of the music This is a great way to add a touch of variation to your music instead of using the same chord structure all the time
Arpeggios
Arpeggios are much easier to understand than they sound They are quite simply the first third and fifth note of the scale played as individual notes For example the arpeggio of C minor would be C Eb G C etc
A great example of an arpeggio is the bassline in Bengarsquos ldquoCrunked Uprdquo He goes from playing the F minor arpeggio backwards to playing the F minor arpeggio backwards In other words he is playing
C A F and then C Ab F
Experiment with a few Minor Arpeggios and a couple of Diminished Arpeggios and you canrsquot go wrong in writing a huge bassline
Suggested Reading
List of All Scales With Finger Charts Included
Well thatrsquos it folks Thatrsquos basically all the music theory you need to know to start off with As you grow more used to the various scales yoursquoll notice that certain notes sound good with each other whilst others donrsquot Irsquom not here to tell you how to write music Irsquom here to teach you the language
of music Itrsquos up to you to write the poetry
copy Bruno Crosier (klimaxx) 2008
45 Random Tips
Random tips amp best piece of advice thread
5 Resources
Page 38
51 Books amp Magazines
Hello again people
Does anyone know of more music production books magazines or authors we can add to these lists
Thanks
------------------------------------------------
Music Production Magazines Computer Music - httpwwwcomputermusiccouk Music Tech Magazine - httpwwwmusictechmagcouk Future Music - httpwwwfuturemusiccouk Sound on Sound - httpwwwsoundonsoundcom Remix Magazine - httpremixmagcom Mix Magazine - httpmixonlinecom Electronic Musician - httpemusiciancom EQ Magazine - httpwwweqmagcom Audio Technology - wwwaudiotechnologycomau Tape Op - httpwwwtapeopcom
------------------------------------------------
Music Books
Authors Curtis Roads httpmitpressmiteducatalogauthor aspaid=93 - The Computer Music Tutorial (Really really really good book) Paul White - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea ul20White - Basic Series + more Rick Snowman - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea k20Snoman - The Dance Music Manual Tools Toys and Techniques Bobby Owsinski - httpbooksgooglecoukbooksas_auth=Bobby+Owsinski - The MixingRecording amp Mastering Engineers Handbooks Michael Paul Stavrou - httpwwwmixingwithyourmindcom
Publishers Thomson Course Technology - httpcoursecengagecom (Click on the Music Technology tab) - Series published include Power Overdrive Ignite and CSI Series + many more Backbeat Books - httpwwwbackbeatbookscom ndash Power Tools Series + many more Wiley Publishing - httpwwwdummiescom (Enter music in their search bar) - For Dummies Series Penguin Books - httpuspenguingroupcom (Enter music in their search bar) - The Complete Idiots Guide Series + many more MIT Press - httpmitpressmitedu - Many books on music theory Focal Press - httpwwwfocalpresscom - (Enter music in their search bar)
------------------------------------------------
Online Music Book Stores (We need more links here Do you know of any that we can add)
httpwwwmixbookscom ndash Excellent source that sells only books about music
Page 39
httpwwwamazoncom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
httpwwwbarnesandnoblecom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
------------------------------------------------
52 Wikipedia
A good music lexicon wiki Search for your term in the search bar ---gt httpenaudiolexicorgwikiMain_Page
0-9
14rdquo Jack - httpenwikipediaorgwikiJack_plug 3rd Bridge - httpenwikipediaorgwiki3rd_Bridge
Zero Crossing - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_crossing Zero Crossing Rate - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_Crossing_Rate
53 Other recommended production forums
for Logic users this is the shit httpwwwlogicprohelpcom
Ive found both these forums to be full of knowledgeable producers amp musicians
httpwwwkvraudiocomforum
httpacapellaharmony-centralcomforumsindexphp
httpwwwgearslutzcomboard
httpwwwsoundonsoundcomforum
httpwwwmusicradarcomforum
httpwwwidmforumscom
httpwwwdance-industriescomphpBB2 8cffbb3b02
httpwwwsubvertcentralcomforumindexphp
httpwwwbreakbeatcouk
httpwwwtweakheadzcom
httpwwwabletoncompagesforum
Explains lots about the music industry ---gt httpwwwbemusocom
Page 47
Ok so a massive thanks to all the contributors there are literally too many to mention But Thanks to Futures Untold Johnny Beat Klimaxx Deadly Habit amp JunglistRendr Daft Cunt in perticular
Thanks to all the artists producers and general music geeks making this early revision of the production bible an essential read
There are links missing and will be included in version 21(Please help with the unlinked chapters by going here - httpwwwdubstepforumcomthe-dubstep-production-bible-updated-2009-06-03-t14797html and updating missing info as needed)
Compiled by Daft Cunt and Futures Untold PDF Compiled by Depone
Page 23
History Lesson
The Reese bass was a form of huge sounding synth-bass first used by the Detroit Techno producer Kevin Saunderson aka Master Reese aka Reese Project aka on the track Just Want Another Chance and immortalised in the classic DnB track Terrorist by Renegade Since then it has been (over)used in many a DnB track and continues to evolve even nowadays through Dubstep and Jungle It is said to be as influential to DnB as the Amen break and probably as used and abused as the Amen
Capturing the Beast
1The Oscillator Stage
To nail the Reese you need a synth with at least 2 oscillators but for better-bigger results use as many oscillators as you can (not really but 4 oscillators give a nice deep rumble - ahhhhhh) All the oscillators are playing sawtooth waves and all except one are detuned by 25-50 cents so that all oscillators are out of phase with each other
2 The Filter Stage
The signal is then sent to a low-pass filter with the cutoff freq set around 150-200Hz (experiment with that you want the growl of the mid-frequencies but you also want it as deep as possible without sacrificing the midrange) The resonance of the filter should be cranked up almost all the way (but again tweak accordingly to your filtersynth)
3 Fuzz it Up
The second most important aspect of the Reese (after the detuned sawtooths) is distortion Tube distortion and tape saturation work extremely well but dont hesitate to use other more extreme distortion units (dont forget that the Reese has been done a million times you have to add something original to it) Again adjust to taste
4 Spices and Herbs
Now that is the main recipe for the sound but like all haute-cuisine there are more things you can do to spice up the Reese Namely effects Effects that have been associated with the Reese are
Phasers - to accentuate the phase-shifting effect of the detuned sawtooths Unison - a great way to make it even bigger Chorus - again a good way to phatten it up
5 And Some More Synth Magic
Another thing to do so you can bring out the old-school jungle character of the Reese is to use Legato and PortamentoGlide if your syth of choice has them available These are both great ways to move from one note to the next without listening to the transition To put it simply when legato is on and you play a sustained E followed by a sustained G the transition between the two notes gives the listener the impression that they heard a single note being sustained that has just changed its pitch from E to G without pausing at a certain point
Always remember though that if you use Legato you have to turn the polyphony of your synth down to 1 (something you should almost always do with basslines because two bass-notes playing together almost never sound good in electronic music bass chords are more the realm of prog-rock shit than dubstep)
For the more technical minded legato in synthesizers is a variation of monophonic operation In contrast to monophonic mode where every new note restarts the ADSR envelopes in legato mode they are not if the previous note remains depressed when the new note is played This causes the initial transient from the attack and decay phases to sound only once and the ADSRs to remain at sustain stage for the whole sequence of notes until the final note is released (Wikipedia)
EDIT I just found out that in one of the free vst links on the bible there is a thing called the Hotelsinus Reese Bassline Synth So I didnt miss the opportunity for a mini review The software itself is small (like most free vst-is) and quite easy to install (you just drop the dll in the vst folder) As for the sound weeeeeeell the sounds it produces are definitely Reese But weak somehow Its like listening to Terrorist from a battered cheap old cassette from 93 or something It has a tinny and tiny sound when compared to what you can achieve with powerhouses like Albino or
Page 24
Massive or (one of my personal favorites for Reese) Cakewalk Rupture You can try it if you want but i dont think it will impress steppers that much we are bass-headed folk
314 Random Bass Tips
Plz add yours or others youve spotted on the forum
miss_molinari wrotebasically i have been experimenting with cutting (not sidechaining) a notch (band reject) in the bass starting at 60hz and ending just before 70 this is only for those bass lines which only hit on the kick (quite specific) also the bass is then high passed at about 220hz to pretty much 0db which is where the kick starts (ending the kick with a non-too-aggressive-cut at about 2khz) this essentially means that the kick and the bass do not share any frequencies above abot 200hz but also between 60 and 70 and with them always hitting at the same time this gets around the fact that sidechaining this type of sequencing would leave you with no or little bass
this has worked well so far but is useful mainly for sub basses ending at around 250hz would not be as good for full spectrum wubsanyone else got any tech tips regarding the bass and kick
futures_untold wroteI simply cut everything under 90Hz on my kicks and roll off slightly at 1KHz
Sub I cut under 40Hz and roll off at 200Hz
I always compress both seperately and keep my levels low in the mix to create plenty of head room later whilst adding sounds with higher frequency content
Anything above 150Hz is what I consider midrange Anything above 150Hz can be heard on mobile phone speakers We all know that theyre designed to play heavy bass lol Wink
miss_molinari wroteDaft Cunt wroteTo me it feels like cutting the kick above 80 hz makes it sound weak I guess it depends on the style I rather cut below 60 to 80 depending on the tune
yeah its all about context in a dry minimal setting im of the opinion you can make a kick punch right up to about 180-200hz but yeah depends on when and on what kind of punch (im usually talking a bass hit at about 200hz coupled with a knock hit anywhere up to about 1200hz) i imagine you true dubsteppers prefer a denser thump from 60 through to about 300hz
Daft Cunt wroteI began recently the band-reject thing on the sub Little details that make big difference
And do you people cut the bass where the snare peaks
my basses arent usually middy enough to need that but yeah a slight sidechain on the main snare and say midbasspadwothavyer is nice especially if the limelight is stolen by a deeper sidechain on the kick and midbasspadwothavyer can create a nice flow (especially when used with long decay reveb linked to the midbasspadwothavyer so that it sounds louder and longer the higher the frequency played - might
have to post some piccies of that one )
Shonky wroteWhat Ive been doing lately is bouncing down the kick track lowpassing one somewhere between 100-140 depending on the highest frequencies of the low sub and then sidechaining the sub to the low kick
Then take a copy of the kick track highpass between 300-1000 and this will give you the beater noise to make the kick cut through I then sidechain this to the more middly basses You can also send a small amount to a reverb bus which allows you to avoid mud on the lower frequencies whilst still giving you the space
Doing it this way seems to make sense to me cause the sidechains work on the corresponding kicks in the same frequency range so it doesnt cause loads of unnecessary compression where you dont need it
Page 25
boh wroteAlways make sure your kicks are in tune with the rest of the track ull hear it pitching up and down and make sure if ur layering that the transients dont conflict(good monitors make this easy) It all comes down to kick selection Whats the point in cutting a kick at 80hz with a fundemental freq of say 60hz Sure you get whats happening before it but u wont get the nice thump of the fundemental freq Choose other kicks that hit the freq u want (80hz say) instead of cutting them when theres no need to Unless you really really know what your doing getting technical like this complicates the situation Esp for people with little experience
sullyharmitage wrote50 hz hi pass seems a bit high to me maybe gd for kicky techno or house but for subby stuff it seems a bit muchdefo roll off past 30-35 (most well engineered systems will do this anyways so any content below this is definately getting wasted)if yr gonna go higher make sure its a soft curvei find levelling subs is the hardest part of a mix - cos more always sounds better i remember reading breakage saying yr subs shouldnt add more than 3db to yr mix thats seems like a good guide
btw sub in kick an bassline simultaeously is gonna cause clashes (n maybe disortion) id either decrease the attack on the bass or cut the sub from the kick
unklefesta wroteI rolloff EVERYTHING at 40hz except my bass
standard
wang wroteAlways do it
Dont forget youre ROLLING off the frequencies not cutting them off all together Just a couple of dB of bass down there is enough to get some girth without removing all your headroom
Also analyse and cut off the lows on everything even if it doesnt appear to have messy lows -Youd be surprised how much bass there is in some high hats
Jtransition wroteAll of your tracks are going to be different so dont restrict yourself to a certain techniquetry different things and listen to the results
Shonky wrotewang wroteAlso analyse and cut off the lows on everything even if it doesnt appear to have messy lows -Youd be surprised how much bass there is in some high hats
Yep this is very true also worth filtering out the inaudible highs on low sounds as well found some of my subs which Id low passed still showed frequency activity much higher than expected
Jtransition wroteStick a high pass filter on everything apart form the kick drum and bass line70 hertz is a good starting point move up or down to tasteAnd remember try to mix at low levels(Walls not vibrating)
Deadly Habit wroteRendr wroteBasslines in my experience should be mono due to the fact that humans cannot easily decoded the stereo positioning of low frequencys so panning basslines (excluding bass sounds with high pitch sounds at around 500Hz+) is not recommended not only are the low frequencys hard to position with the human ear the low frequency sound waves are absorbed by the human head at a much higher ratio than high pitch sounds which tend to be reflected Another thing to note is that club systems are
mono Basslines that pan only belong in Psytrance
sub range should be mono especially if going to be cut to vinylmidrange bass on the other hand you can pan and add stereo fx to your hearts content
Page 26
32 Re-sampling
SafeAfter a few months of experimenting with resampling not really getting anywhere in terms of sound quality i came up with a pretty simple way of getting on the right track Ive got so much help since getting on this forum in terms of production i thought id share this for those who like myself are looking into the elusive yet highly rewarding technique of resamplingAll the vsts i use on this (save for the synth itself) are freenative plugs im using FL but itll transfer onto every DAW pretty much the same Ill explain it for a bassline but it can be applied to any sound
Step 1Make yourself a nice bassline get it sounding dirty with whatever you can within the synth Im using Albino so i tend to play about with the saturation modesFXs until its sounding pretty good
Step 2Hook up to a mixer channel then send this channel to a second mixer channel (FL users just click on another channel towards the bottom of the strip) On the second channel that the synth is hooked to from the first add CMt bitcrusher and downsample 3-16x (thanks to all the production forum users who pointed this out to me when i posted a few months ago on dirtying up basslines) Then add a chorus Turn the LFOs off and set the depthdelayetc to whatever sounds best Also set the crossover pretty high so only the treblehigh mids are being affected Then add Camel Audio Camel Crusher Turn the compressor off and set the tubemech to taste Add a parametric EQ if needs be to boost the high freqs Experiment with the chain of these effects swapping them according to the sound The choruscameleq in different orders should alter the sound quite alot depending on where their placed
Step 3 Set the level of the second affected channel with the original depending on whatever suits Play about with adding extra effects to both channels The way the second channel behaves once an effect is added to the first is quite extreme in even light application of effects So its possible to create a whole array of different sounds just from say adding a flangerchorusetc to the first channel then listening to how much it affects the sound as a whole as it goes through both channels By now it should be sounding pretty girthy
Step 4Export the riffsample (i use edison on the master channel in FL but whatever method will do) Reload and place into a mixer channel Add another Camel Crusher for abit more grit EQ and compress Set up a reverbdelay send and resample again for extra depth
Obviously this technique can be applied a 2nd3rd4th time to fuck the sound up even more so Which is what ive moved onto doing now into the territory of splitting the sound into basslow midhigh midtreble sections for ultimate control over each part Something which i was attempting to do before coming up with the above method but being left with a pile of unlistenable mushy shite
Hope this is a help to some peeps I know theres no secret technique to resamping only a whole load of practice and using your ears but this method got me on the right track in terms of hearing the benefits of it and encouraging me to experiment more in depth and realise that the possiblities are endless Im hooked now i resample pretty much every sound in one way or another Kick and snares benefit hugley from it for mega face melting wide drum sounds aswell so its worth trying it on some nice drum hits
Keep up the good work folksPeaceDC_WT
33 Drums
Read before reading on I am in no way entitled to any of those opinions It is up to you to decide whether you would like to incorporate them in your workflow I have just collected them from all the threads in this forum and will try to keep everything updated
I will update as regularly as I find updates
Page 27
Misc tips and tricks bull Good drums are usually layered - example 3 snares sounding as onebull The hats are often panned or widenedbull Pick great sounding samples different ones for different parts of the sounds you want 1
for snap and bite 1 for body 1 for thump distort and MAYBE EQ each to make them sound the best that they can separately combine in a bus MAYBE compress them together maybe accent the front and shorten the sound with a transient modifier 10 minutes tops
bull Do as little as possible with great-sounding bits and your basic sounds will be slamming leaves you time to focus on the arrangement people dont go around thinking wow that tune has an amazing snare as long as its thumping and not masked by a bunch of other stuff itll keep the dance moving
bull Listen to other producers work As its playing imagine the 1 2 3 4 on the step sequencer running in time to what youre listening to Try to visualize where the producer put their hits Not to say you should copy peoples drum patterns but learn from them
bull Ive noticed a lot of tunes (more minimal stuff where you can distinctly hear whats seperately going on) seem to use two differently pitched hi-hats that alternate to sound shuffley if you know what I mean and a less dramatic snare used sparsely in between the main lazy kick and snare An easy trick if you havent worked it out (which to be honest you should have if youre at all serious about producing dubstep) is to stick a smaller snare or hat the 116th before the kick or snare so it steps if you get me For example Bengas Night does this for all four beats in the bar which is part of what makes it so danceable But dont get stuck in always having kick on 1 and snare on 3 some tracks work with a kick on every beat others with a couple big snares etc The trick (unless you want proper lazy spaced out tunes) is to make sure youre nodding your head on all four beats of the bar Play around with a hat on every quaver (ie 8 per bar on the beat) compared to just four but on the off beat as well as adding in the steppy ones every now and then Theres often no need to over-complicate things though one of the my favourite drum tracks is the incredibly simplistic V by Distance Its a rhythm that could easilly be played by one guy on a real kit yet its so banging - check the use of hats and lower velocity kicks in this to make it nice and bouncy Also I once had a four bar drum loop and accidentally moved the sequence one bar to the right for one section and it ended up nicely varying the drums in a way you wouldnt expect
bull Really tight delays can help claps and snaps sound natural 5-20ms etcbull Recycle or phatmatik is your break-chopping friendbull Basically Hatrixxs method involved chopping everything from the main hits into a sample
Say you had a 2-step funk beat like the Amen Youd start your selection from the start of the first kick and select everything up to the start of the first snare Cut paste theres your first slice Then take everything from the start of the first snare up to the start of the second kick - including all the little hats and ghost hits - cut paste second sample and so on Then just map the samples onto some keys and bash away Both of them are quick compared to chopping Recycled slices where you have to copy and drag loads of little notes (one every little fucking tiny hit in the break arranged chromatically up the keyboard) around the piano roll These methods let you just concentrate on the main hits which can be both good or bad You can get a solid beat down with just a handful of hits but youre limited to the patterns already in the original break For a beginner to breakbeat science like yourself Id say try these methods first but dont rule out the really anal methods like RecyclePhatmatikFruity Slicer Sometimes they are a necessary evil Of course some of the drumfunk guys especially those who post on Subvert Central swear by these methods or the next one There are those who prefer to chop up the raw audio rather than bothering with MIDI and samplers They literally just drop the break file into Cubase or Logic and start chopping with the scissors tool and copying and pasting I can see the benefits of this You can see the waveform as youre chopping and youre not as restriced to the quantize grid as you are with MIDI But it takes aaaaages to build a drum track this way and theres the risk of RSI from all that Ctrl+C Ctrl+V youll be doing Then of course theres trackers They really are tailor-made for chopping up loops amongst other things They give you Sample Offset meaning that when you trigger a sample you can set it to start from 256 evenly spaced points throughout the sample So by starting a sample a quarter of the way through youre triggering the first snare (obviously you can fine-tune it when the snare isnt perfectly on the beat) You can edit breaks in a tracker without ever having to cut up a waveform and you can do all sorts of other nifty things like reverse the sample retrigger it to make drum rolls and so on
If recycles having trouble switch the break to mono in your sample editor and then apply tiny fades between the drum hits (especially useful if there are lots of rides that play over the other hits to keep things separate) This should help recycle pick up the start points and with any luck should leave you with a cleaner break
Page 28
Snaresbull Tune the snares so they all hit around the same pitch bull Change the Amp Envelopes of each to bring the strongest parts from each separate sample
and build up your sound like that bull Compressing all together is a good idea but dont over do it bull EQ the master out for the snare as well so you wont have to fuck about when you use the
sample in the future bull Donrsquot just use snares fling some random sound effects in there Claps and rim shots also
work well when layered bull Make subtle changes to them and export a few snares from the same setup this helps
when you need a ghost hit or a reverse that sounds similar but not identicalbull Watch that frequencies dont build up and make the layered bit sound overly whatever
is building up Really easy to get too much 200hz or 500hz or even 12k if youve got samples that are all beefythicksmack-y
bull If its peaking run it through a Spectrum Analyzer and see where its peaking I guess its peaking in the tune rather than just the snare sample playing on its own
bull Sometimes snare samples have a very short peak that doesnt seem to make them sound any better and keeps you from getting them louder without cliping Reduce that part by a few dBs and youre sorted
bull Make sure you are using subtractive eq to pull out the frequencies that could be clashing with other sounds If your frequencies are clashing that can hide the snare and then you end up turning it up to compensate and there you are with your snare peakingThe key is making the frequencies sit right in the mix so that they dont clash and you can set them right and not have to turn them up
bull You could always try clipping the snare normalise it in a wave editor amplify it as much as you can before it sounds distorted then sample it out Then replace the snare with the clipped version it will almost always sound louder with more body at a lower volume I would still point out that although this can be used as a replacement to compression compression is a vital tool to learn how to use Also a lot of peeps will say this does bad things to the waveform and it does but unless you intend to listen to your tune to be heard at home on an amazing hifi then it doesnt really matter that much IMO
bull Hi-pass overdrive limit and cut away space from other sounds for itbull Layer with its self or a different snare Layer with sub add effect to one layer add effect
to both layers layer zoom right in drag one wave form back or forth very slightly to create new snare sound Pitch updown EQ Filter distort reverb delay reverse
bull Record yourself beat boxing your best snare sounds then layer with snare samplesbull A good handclap never goes a miss or use a nice drum synth to get a very differentdigital
soundbull Try reversing the snare sample then changing the envelope settings so it only hits on the
beat Layer that with the same sample this time not reversed Add a little delay to the the reversed snare Change the settings til it sounds how you like
bull Particularly snares I layer up a lot I look for one that has the qualities that I want when run through verb and then I look for something shorter with more mid punch to keep things physical After someone notied snares were weak in a tune Ive really made a point of ensuring that when the snares hit its physical as well as textural You need to feel them a bit - so I look for some snares that have that real punch when layering but usually keep the more textural snappy one as the focus last couple tunes I did the standard kick snare hats w odd percussion and then I took an amen chopped it processed it and layered it overtop for more aggression and step (goddess being a perfect example) By removing a layer and adding it you can create a sense of progression through the tune Make sure the bottom layer is sounding really good and then add the top so that youre not mixing them to be reliant on one another - instead you want synergy Make sure the EQ on the top and bottom make sense with each other
Kicksbull Building a kick in Ableton Lives Impulse machine Provides some essential information
about layering that can be used with any DAWbull Making fat kicks
remixmag wroteWhether creating Miami Bass music is your lifes fantasy or your greatest fear you probably crave the know-how to manifest those car-rattling trunk-full-of-funk kick drums In the arenas of hip-hop house techno downtempo and almost any other electronic genre molding fat kick drums is absolutely essential Like grandmas homemade apple pie the recipe for kick drums is partially a matter of taste However theres no substitute for quality ingredients And just like every pie has its staple ingredients every slamming kick drum requires some common elements Lets take a look at the
Page 29
shopping list for killer kick drumsTHE CRUST
Youll need a basic shell to begin creating a thick strong kick The classics always work if youre fortunate enough to own a real Roland TR-808 909 or other famous drum machine with a killer kick use it copiously If youre not one of those chosen few pay close attention to your original source For example if you use a sampler understand that not all ldquo808 Kickrdquo samples are the same some sound great and some just plain suck There are a lot of reasons for that including how many generations from the original the sample is the sampling rate and bit depth of the sampler how the kick was first sampled and so on Be as choosy as possible with your individual samples mdash dont use a mediocre sample just because it has 808 in the name and therefore is ldquosupposedrdquo to sound fat Seek out a better 808 sample or use something else that is simply bigger sounding Remember the time you spend finding sweet original sources wont be in vain especially if you reuse the resulting samples for multiple songsBORROW SOME SUGAR
An old saying goes ldquoGood art borrows great art stealsrdquo A nice way to start out with great raw kick material is to sample directly from the source If you dont own but have access to a 909 then sample it directly Or take one of your favorite producers tracks on vinyl or CD find a naked kick drum in there and sample it Be cautious with that approach for a couple of reasons Copyright issues around sampling even small bits have become a dangerously gray area and I would never personally advise using any source straight out of the can even from a royalty-free sample library While it may be an excellent start its unoriginal Customize whatever you bite Treat your samples as a sculptor would treat clay mold each one to create a trademark sound for yourself One effective way to customize a fat kick is to take a tip from the synth manufacturers If a sound is thin pile another (or a few more) on top When doing so its important to use different sounds layering two identical kicks will result in a louder kick but it wont change the basic tone Remember the sculptor approach here Even if you are using two good-sounding individual samples they may not instantly sound great together For example I find that when layering kicks while the thickness may be good sustain is often overkill The final result often benefits from a little doctoring on the tail of one (or both) of the samples and other hands-on sonic surgeryADD THE FILLING
Once a nice basic kick is achieved treating it with two of the mastering engineers favorite tools is often the next step Artfully applying a compressor (to just the kick) can go a long way toward creating a signature sound and a huge kick Compression is one of those ldquosecret spicesrdquo and how to apply it is a whole topic in itself One recommendation I will make however is to use a multiband compressor With one of those you can isolate compression on certain frequency ranges That is perfect if for example you want to push the sub of your kick without emphasizing the higher frequencies (which often affect the tone of the attack) or vice-versa EQ comes after compression in my signal chain By now the kick should already sound pretty fat I aim to shave unnecessary frequencies here rather than artificially boosting too much This is also where you can actualize trademark sounds while also fine-tuning them to work alongside other elements in specific tracks I often scoop out mids and highs especially frequencies above about 500 Hz Even though I like thick deep kicks unless Im going for a really dublike sound I often truncate the lowest frequencies (usually the sub-50 Hz frequencies) Even when you cant hear the difference when trimming frequencies doing so can really tighten up your kicksEVEN IT OUT
You may ask why when youre trying to fatten up a kick would you want to trim frequencies That is one of the keys to achieving great mixes both in the case of kick drums and in general You want to avoid too many overlapping frequencies The more sonic separation you have between elements the more focused the entire mix will sound That can be especially important for club music which often gets played on huge not necessarily audiophile-quality sound systems If you havent run into the following scenario already I assure you at some point you will Your bass line and kick drum are competing and it sounds like you have a weak kick You boost the kick but it still sounds muddy Take the bass out and suddenly the kick doesnt sound so bad In a scenario like that solo the two sounds listen carefully for where frequencies are overlapping and then try subtractive EQ on one element then the other and sometimes a bit on both By scooping out overlapping frequencies you will often find that both elements seem to magically come forward in the mix before even touching their respective volume levels
Hi hatsbull Realism
Ive been a professional touring and recording drummer for 25 years and just thought I might share a couple of really simple ways to use fruity loops or fruity studio to create more realistic drum patterns
For what its worth try this out with Fruity Loops
Page 30
Take your hi hat tracks (are any tracks for that matter including melodic synth bubbles)
Drop down the bar graph box that allows you to scroll between velocity (volume) pitch panning cutoff resonance and a thing called shift which allows you to use each of these categories to effect each individual note that youve programmed (note this can be accomplished in other ways in most of the good midi sequencing apps or softwarehardware drum machines)
Drummers no matter how good they are just arent perfect and we can use the fact that each of these drop down bar graphs can make veryvery small changes in a sound to do some subtle things to a rolling drum groove like 16th notes on a hi hat
Not all drummers but many tend to favor their strong hand in a single stroke (hand over hand) drum roll Consequently if you make all odd numbered hi hats be slightly louder than their even numbered hits it will sound more realistic Start by making velocity differences that are really clearly audible Then lower the velocity until you can barely feel the difference We are going to make very subtle changes like this on each of the parameters of velocity pitch cutoff resonance and importantly shift
I cant stress enough that you should make these changes be so subtle that you can hardly notice them
Just going on the fact that the right handed players start their rolls with the right hand and favor it ever so slightly (or grossly for effect as well) means that the stroke will be harder with the right hand than the left hand
When a percussion instrument is hit harder the difference between the transient (or hi pitched attack) of the sound and the body of the instrument (or the sound that comes after the attack) becomes greater In general on drums that means that a harder attack tensions the drum very imperceptably (sp) and it also means that there will be more treble in the sound Consequently the pitch goes up a little teensy bit and their is more attack to the sound (increased resonance and slightly higher cutoff frequency)
Consequently you can make the pitch of each right hand be just barely noticeably higher the resonance should be just one or two of those little teeny bars higher The cutoff should be just a few bars lower (allowing less high frequencies through) on the left handed or even numbered strokes
Typically if drums have time inaccuracies they tend to drag the left hand a litte bit I have to keep stressing that if you can hear the changes you make you arent being realistic You need to make the changes subtle enough that you just barely feel that they arent perfect You can consequently make each left hand note shifted one or two bars late
Tigure out how much you can tweak each parameter before it becomes obvious and then you can just randomly tweak each one up to that limit With a little bit of variance in each stroke from parameter to parameter you will create more of a percolating texture in your programming - this is a great technique to make synth bubbles (the kind used in techno and house) more interesting and less mechanical feeling
Now you can avoid the biggest mistake that non-drummers do when trying to write realistic programs turn the overall volume of the hihats until you CANT hear them and then slowly bring up the volume until you just begin to hear them
Professional producers have spent countless hours trying to figure out how to gate and mix hihats OUT of tracks The reason is two fold1) Human beings have such a radical peak in their hearing around the 1-2khz range (or the intelligibility range of human speech) that we can play the hihats at incredible low volumes and they are still audible You cant do that with a bass drumI tell my drum students that you cannot play a hi hat or a snare drum so quietly that a person sitting in a room with you cant hear it2) Hi Hats the snare of snare drums and cymbals all seriously MASK human vocal intellibility How many people have gone to see live shows where they can hear the singer is singing but cant for the life of them figure out what they are actually singing That is ususally because drummers (or mixers which is frequently the case) are not hip to thisimportant fact
So turn down your hi hat tracks (or any track with a strong mid rangeshort envelope attack) and you have much more room for other musical goodies in your mix When in doubt make your hi hats quieter than you think they should be Trust me theyll come through the mix even at a quiet volume
Swingbull Dont know if you can do this in your sequencer but in Logic you can create a groove
template from your drums and then apply that to your other instruments If youre using separate midi channels for snares kicks and hats take the 8 bar loop youre using glue it together and then take the groove from that and then mute that track When you click down the quantize list youll see the template there and you can apply it to your other tracks Also if you do want to change the groove you can just change the hits in the muted template and itll automatically change all other hits to the new changes
bull Think if youre clever and organized you can basically cut breaks up in recycle load them into the exs24 (extract sequence) and then do the same with them That way if there are breaks you like the feel of you can just apply that swing to anything If you make a folder called grooves in your logic folder they should load up each time so that youll have loads to choose from Havent done this myself yet but always helpful to have a choice of feels available
bull Some things sound better rigid and robotic with equal velocities Some things sound better rigid and robotic with differing velocities Some things sound better with swing Some things sound better with everything ever-so-slightly off Its down to what the track needs
bull Drum Break Swing ProgrammingNicolas Hall wwwbreakbeat-cafenet wroteI think most people who make anything funk breakbeat drum amp bass or hip-hop would agree that Swing is crucial to the effectiveness of a beat The other key factors in a programming sense are dynamic and accent So many people get wound up when their beats sound sterile or mechanical this is due to the fact that computers and sequencers lock to perfect BPM A computer on its own does not interpret rhythm the way a good drummer does There are however certain machines that have their own swing parameters like the Akai MPC range of sampling drum machines which are used extensively by hip hop producers
Swing is not the easiest thing in the world to analyze but as a general rule good drummers will play slightly late and thats why in all funky records you get that slight dip at the start of the bar take Superstition by Stevie Wonder or Billie Jean by Michael Jackson these are both very simple beats Superstition is of course live drums whilst Billie Jean was programmed but no less funky than Superstition I emphasize this point to demonstrate that a programmed beat can be every bit at groovy as a beat played on a drum kit
Expanding on the Billie Jean point Hip Hop beats are really very simple If you listen to the Neptunes they tend to create the swing in their beats by quantizing the kicks and snares and playing the hi hats in by hand this creates a very tight beat which is off set by a loose hi hat try it works but dont forget your accents - As a starting point just take the first snare of your beat and turn the velocity down then notice how your head starts nodding and your foot starts tapping a little more you are giving the beat feel Also remember that if you are using reverb the louder snare will push the reverb harder than the soft snare so your creating more ambience that way Then try your kick drums if your not sure which hits to adjust just pick apart a beat your feeling I remember me and friend picking apart a Gangstarr beat and were able to almost replicate it by adjusting the velocities of each hit (admittedly it took a while to get it right)
If youre a newbie then a common trick when learning to make good grooves is to create a template with an existing loop The idea is take a loop you like thats got a good feel to it and then place your own hits over the break then take the break out and see if your hits are sounding funky This can take a while and its crucial to think about the strength of each hit or the dynamic Each kick will not be the same strength nor will the snares or the hats pick the loop apart dissect it and youll soon see that there are certain consistencies in all good beats
If youre using live loops and like to layer them with drum sequences you should be thinking about time space and frequencies So if you have a fairly heavy loop then layering it with heavy kick drums is probably not gonna sound good Think about filling holes are their any frequencies that could be filled up Or is there space in the loop for extra hits Try working in layers just adding one hit at a time also filtering works well you could take some of the frequencies out of your loop as you drop your drum sequences in to make room for them I think one the masters of this technique is Liam Howlett of the Prodigy He runs breakbeats and gives them extra balls by laying a kick drum underneath to add extra intensity to certain passages in his set but hes careful not to overlap frequencies to much A good place to start if you using breakbeats is the Roland Tr-808 kick drum which is around the 50hz mark which is sub bass territory so it will sit underneath most breaks very well
If your hell bent on making killer beats and loops then perseverance is crucial keep at it it will come together listen to beats you like and pick them apart identify the subtleties that make it happen I know some producers get fed up when their beats sound to clean or they are trying to create a new breakbeat and then compare it to sample they took from vinyl and get down on there own beat Think about what a breakbeat really is think about its history what has happened to it to make it sound the way it does Im
Page 32
sure youve noticed how some breaks have a certain something like a magic dust you cant put your finger on Let me share what I know with you about that
Most breaks though not all are taken from recordings of live drums some of them are pretty old so you have the ambience of live drums and the room they were recorded in you have the fact that natural decay and reverb of each drum is likely to have bled into the other mics on the kit and that most engineers used overhead mics which pick up the whole kit with two mics Then consider that many of these breaks will have been recorded to analogue tape with saturation which will create extra warmth and harmonics The next step comes from old sampling technology like the SP-1200 and the Akai s-950 mpc -60 these samplers sampled at 12- bit (bear in mind that most computers now are at least 24-bit if not more) and that the samples themselves where taken from vinyl and on and on the process goes with each new reverb and eq adding more and more to the break In terms of giving your breaks that character there are a number of things you can try for example buying an old four track cassette machine to dump your beats onto then re-sample it if your using a sampler like the s-950 then try pushing the input meters a little harder than usual add reverbs and resample it each time you put your loop through a new channel you will be adding something to it Also distortion is fantastic for breaks if you have any amp plug ins then try them the Amplitude one is particularly good you dont need to go mad with it just used subtly it works great
To finish I would just like to say again stick with it keep trying keep listening to records if you like to read about technique then do so you can learn so much from other producers Remember the strength of your hits is important as is the way it swings good luck
UPDATE 08092008
ENHANCE SYNTHESIZED DRUM PARTS WITH FOUND SOUNDS
emusiciancom wroteLayering real-world sounds with synthesized drum parts puts a new spin on your drum tracks You probably already have usable sound effects on your hard drive because most commercial samplers have at least a modest collection in their factory library Beyond that youll find thousands of royalty-free sound effects online Soundsnapcom is one of my favorite sources and its free The recordings dont need to be pristine for layering over drums so dont overlook cheap sampling CDs and consider grabbing your own sounds with a portable recorderCollect and Save
Start by assembling a small Foley library of short percussive sounds divided into typical drum-sound categories kicks snares toms cymbals percussion and so on Youll generally want to layer drum sounds with Foley sounds that have a similar volume contour and frequency range If you layer a Foley sound that resembles a kick drum with the sound of your hi-hat for example youll quickly fill up all the space in your drum track
Industrial household military transportation and vocal sounds make excellent fodder but you will often want to extract a small slice such as the last shot in a volley of machine-gun fire (snare) or the first bounce of a plastic bottle on concrete (tom) A browsing tool like Audio Finder (icedaudiocom) is invaluable if you have a large sample library That lets you quickly audition clips make basic edits and drag-and-drop slices to your library
Sticks UpIf your synthesized drum part is step sequenced youll need to export its step sequences as MIDI files Many drum synths do that including Sonic Charge Tonic (sonicchargecom) Apple Logic UltraBeat (applecom) and Submersible DrumCore (submersiblemusiccom) All of those come with a large collection of patterns exportable as MIDI sequences Youll also need a sampler to play the Foley sounds drum-oriented samplers are handier for that but are by no means necessary
Start by loading a kit in the drum synth Export one of its sequenced patterns or create your own and place it on the sampler track For some of the drum synth sounds select compatible Foley sounds and map them to the same notes in the sampler that theyre mapped to in the drum synth Next solo the doubled voices one by one in both the drum synth and the sampler start the sequence playing and tweak the samplers voice parameters (filter level pan envelope and so on) to make the sounds work together (see Fig 1 and Web Clip 1) Dont tweak global parameters such as effects because that will affect all sounds played by the sampler
High HoopsOnce youve configured your Foley track you can do several things to add interest I frequently use a
Page 33
second sampler for short vocal sounds Ill have some notes trigger sounds in both samplers and others in only one Many samplers let you group sounds and assign notes and controllers to choose among them You can then sequence these notes and controllers or you can play them live to alter your Foley tracks
Try applying DSP effects to individual Foley sounds Multitap delays distortion phasing and granular effects all work well when used sparingly (see Web Clip 2) You can apply DSP effects inside your sampler or route the voices to a separate output for DSP processing in your DAW If your sampler doesnt offer either possibility spread the Foley parts over several sampler instances on different tracks
Sidechain compression or gating of the drum track with one or more of the Foley parts will highlight the Foley part as well as add variety to the drums With compression peaks in the sidechain signal will reduce the level of the drum track Use a high compression level say 201 and balance the sidechain-gain and the compression-threshold -attack and -release controls to get the ducking contour you want (see Web Clip 3) Gating has the opposite effect the drum track will be heard during peaks in the sidechain signal (see Web Clip 4) Here too the sidechain-gain and gate-threshold controls work in tandem to determine when the gate is opened Use envelope parameters (attack release and hold) to shape the gates contour
Keep in mind that once youve created a sampler instrument to complement your drum kit you can reuse it with other sequences You can also change one or more sounds in the sampler instrument without repeating the whole process
34 Sidechain Compression (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
4 Theory41 ndash Song Structure42 ndash Mixdown (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)43 ndash Mastering (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
44 Music Theory
The first thing to remember about music theory is that generally if it sounds right it probably is There are no rules in music and Music Theory is not about telling you how to write music Its about understanding the music
Broadly speaking it is fair to say that most music is essentially based upon two crucial factors scales and rhythm Scales make up melodies chords harmonies and basslines to name but a few whereas rhythm makes up the beat of the song In this part of the Production Bible you will learn the basics of Music Theory that will serve you not only in the production of Dubstep but for any of your future musical pursuits This information is intended to be easy to read and understand so I wonrsquot be mincing sentences But firstly please make sure you learn every single note on the keyboard by studying the image below Otherwise yoursquoll be completely lost here
Page 34
Scales Wersquoll begin with scales As I mentioned before scales are the building blocks of your song and without them your track will be atonal and completely unlistenable (probably not the effect yoursquore going for)
There are two main scales that you should learn inside out ndash the major scale and the minor scale A generalisation yoursquore bound to have heard before is that the major scale sounds ldquohappyrdquo and the minor scale sounds ldquodarkrdquo Although this is not always the case it is mostly true ndash and therefore yoursquoll usually be focussing on the minor scale when producing Dubstep However just in case yoursquore writing happy-dubstep (if that exists) here is a quick overview of both scales and how they are made up
Major Scale
The major scale is really easy to create It is made by a single rule that is simple to put in to place
ldquoTone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
In case you donrsquot know what a Tone or Semi-Tone is here is a quick explanation
Picture a keyboard (or if you canrsquot see the image above) Say you go from C to C that would be a semi-tone The same thing goes for if you go from an E to an F ndash it is still a semi-tone because you
Page 35
have gone up one key
A tone is two semi-tones ndash for example from C to D is a tone and the same goes for from G to A
The scalersquos name is taken from the note that it starts on For example C major will start on the note of C Similarly A major will start on the note of A and this is the case with every single scale
Here is a quick list of a few major scales After having seen a few try working the rest out for yourself in order to understand how the major scale is formulated Ideally you should practice your scales on a piano or keyboard so that you can physically see how to make the scale It might sound boring but itrsquos a small price to pay for a much deeper understanding of your music
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Major C D E F G A B C
C Major C D E F G A B C
D Major D E F G A B C D
D Major D E F G A B C D
E Major E F G A B C D E
F Major F G A Bb C D E F
F Major F G A B C D E F
G Major G A B C D E F G
G Major G A B C D E F G
A Major A B C D E F G A
A Major A B C D E F G A
B major B C D E F G A B
Now by arranging the different notes of each of these scales in any order you please you can create a melody bassline or harmony with extreme ease Rearranging the notes in the scale will give you a flawlessly in-key result and it is then up to you to use the notes in the scale as you see fit for your tune
Minor Scale
As was the case with the Major Scale the Minor is made up from a set rule or formula By knowing this formula you can understand how the Minor is made and how to use it to itrsquos maximum effect
ldquoTone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
As is the case with the major scales you should practice your scales as much as possible to make sure that you know them all like the back of your hand Here are a few Minor Scales see if you can
Page 36
work out the rest
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Minor C D Eb F G Ab B C
D Minor D E F G A Bb C D
F Minor F G A B C D E F
G Minor G A Bb C D Eb F G
Similarly to the Major now that you know your Minor Scales you can quickly just take any note from the scale rearrange it with another few notes in the scale and there you have a fat melody or bassline ready to be played at maximum volume
Diminished Chords
Diminished Chords are really quite spooky and dark chords that are made up of four different notes all a minor third apart from each other That means that for example the Diminished Chord starting on C would be C Eb F A because to get from one note to the next you have to use ldquoTone Semi-Tonerdquo (known as a minor third)
Because of the mathematical nature of the Diminished chord there are only three ldquoclustersrdquo of notes which can then be rearranged like the Major and Minor Scales
Cluster 1 C Eb F A
Cluster 2 C E G Bb
Cluster 3 D F Ab B
Use these clusters and rearrange them as you please For example you could rearrange cluster 1 as Eb F A C etc
Generally speaking you canrsquot make a song based entirely on Diminished Chords due to the fact that each cluster only has 4 notes However a Diminished Chord is perfect for adding a hint of darkness to your tune and is brilliant when mixed with some Minor Scales
Chords
Chords are basically two or more notes played together They are made up from a specific scale ndash for example the C major chord is made up of notes in the C major scale
Usually chords will include the first third and fifth note of the scale as well as possibly using other notes to give them colour For example the basic chord of C major would be C E G Then you could add the seventh note to it (in this case it is B) Really it is up to the producerrsquos discretion how heshe goes about making a chord ndash just remember to stick to the scale you are using
Chords will more than likely sound like shit if you play them on a complicated or layered synth patch You want to be playing chords on sustained sounds such as strings or pads Chords will really fill out your sound if used properly You want your chords to be supporting the melody or bassline and more than likely want to add some reverb so that it doesnrsquot sound too sharp Make
Page 37
your chords blend in with the music and yoursquoll have mastered them
Chord Inversions
Quite simply chord inversions are when you rearrange the notes in a chord so that it sounds a bit different and suits your arrangement better
For example if you were in the key of C major you could have a drone of E playing underneath some strings playing the notes E G C E
Due to the fact that the notes are the same and have only been inverted the chord will still be in key with the rest of the music This is a great way to add a touch of variation to your music instead of using the same chord structure all the time
Arpeggios
Arpeggios are much easier to understand than they sound They are quite simply the first third and fifth note of the scale played as individual notes For example the arpeggio of C minor would be C Eb G C etc
A great example of an arpeggio is the bassline in Bengarsquos ldquoCrunked Uprdquo He goes from playing the F minor arpeggio backwards to playing the F minor arpeggio backwards In other words he is playing
C A F and then C Ab F
Experiment with a few Minor Arpeggios and a couple of Diminished Arpeggios and you canrsquot go wrong in writing a huge bassline
Suggested Reading
List of All Scales With Finger Charts Included
Well thatrsquos it folks Thatrsquos basically all the music theory you need to know to start off with As you grow more used to the various scales yoursquoll notice that certain notes sound good with each other whilst others donrsquot Irsquom not here to tell you how to write music Irsquom here to teach you the language
of music Itrsquos up to you to write the poetry
copy Bruno Crosier (klimaxx) 2008
45 Random Tips
Random tips amp best piece of advice thread
5 Resources
Page 38
51 Books amp Magazines
Hello again people
Does anyone know of more music production books magazines or authors we can add to these lists
Thanks
------------------------------------------------
Music Production Magazines Computer Music - httpwwwcomputermusiccouk Music Tech Magazine - httpwwwmusictechmagcouk Future Music - httpwwwfuturemusiccouk Sound on Sound - httpwwwsoundonsoundcom Remix Magazine - httpremixmagcom Mix Magazine - httpmixonlinecom Electronic Musician - httpemusiciancom EQ Magazine - httpwwweqmagcom Audio Technology - wwwaudiotechnologycomau Tape Op - httpwwwtapeopcom
------------------------------------------------
Music Books
Authors Curtis Roads httpmitpressmiteducatalogauthor aspaid=93 - The Computer Music Tutorial (Really really really good book) Paul White - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea ul20White - Basic Series + more Rick Snowman - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea k20Snoman - The Dance Music Manual Tools Toys and Techniques Bobby Owsinski - httpbooksgooglecoukbooksas_auth=Bobby+Owsinski - The MixingRecording amp Mastering Engineers Handbooks Michael Paul Stavrou - httpwwwmixingwithyourmindcom
Publishers Thomson Course Technology - httpcoursecengagecom (Click on the Music Technology tab) - Series published include Power Overdrive Ignite and CSI Series + many more Backbeat Books - httpwwwbackbeatbookscom ndash Power Tools Series + many more Wiley Publishing - httpwwwdummiescom (Enter music in their search bar) - For Dummies Series Penguin Books - httpuspenguingroupcom (Enter music in their search bar) - The Complete Idiots Guide Series + many more MIT Press - httpmitpressmitedu - Many books on music theory Focal Press - httpwwwfocalpresscom - (Enter music in their search bar)
------------------------------------------------
Online Music Book Stores (We need more links here Do you know of any that we can add)
httpwwwmixbookscom ndash Excellent source that sells only books about music
Page 39
httpwwwamazoncom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
httpwwwbarnesandnoblecom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
------------------------------------------------
52 Wikipedia
A good music lexicon wiki Search for your term in the search bar ---gt httpenaudiolexicorgwikiMain_Page
0-9
14rdquo Jack - httpenwikipediaorgwikiJack_plug 3rd Bridge - httpenwikipediaorgwiki3rd_Bridge
Zero Crossing - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_crossing Zero Crossing Rate - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_Crossing_Rate
53 Other recommended production forums
for Logic users this is the shit httpwwwlogicprohelpcom
Ive found both these forums to be full of knowledgeable producers amp musicians
httpwwwkvraudiocomforum
httpacapellaharmony-centralcomforumsindexphp
httpwwwgearslutzcomboard
httpwwwsoundonsoundcomforum
httpwwwmusicradarcomforum
httpwwwidmforumscom
httpwwwdance-industriescomphpBB2 8cffbb3b02
httpwwwsubvertcentralcomforumindexphp
httpwwwbreakbeatcouk
httpwwwtweakheadzcom
httpwwwabletoncompagesforum
Explains lots about the music industry ---gt httpwwwbemusocom
Page 47
Ok so a massive thanks to all the contributors there are literally too many to mention But Thanks to Futures Untold Johnny Beat Klimaxx Deadly Habit amp JunglistRendr Daft Cunt in perticular
Thanks to all the artists producers and general music geeks making this early revision of the production bible an essential read
There are links missing and will be included in version 21(Please help with the unlinked chapters by going here - httpwwwdubstepforumcomthe-dubstep-production-bible-updated-2009-06-03-t14797html and updating missing info as needed)
Compiled by Daft Cunt and Futures Untold PDF Compiled by Depone
Page 24
Massive or (one of my personal favorites for Reese) Cakewalk Rupture You can try it if you want but i dont think it will impress steppers that much we are bass-headed folk
314 Random Bass Tips
Plz add yours or others youve spotted on the forum
miss_molinari wrotebasically i have been experimenting with cutting (not sidechaining) a notch (band reject) in the bass starting at 60hz and ending just before 70 this is only for those bass lines which only hit on the kick (quite specific) also the bass is then high passed at about 220hz to pretty much 0db which is where the kick starts (ending the kick with a non-too-aggressive-cut at about 2khz) this essentially means that the kick and the bass do not share any frequencies above abot 200hz but also between 60 and 70 and with them always hitting at the same time this gets around the fact that sidechaining this type of sequencing would leave you with no or little bass
this has worked well so far but is useful mainly for sub basses ending at around 250hz would not be as good for full spectrum wubsanyone else got any tech tips regarding the bass and kick
futures_untold wroteI simply cut everything under 90Hz on my kicks and roll off slightly at 1KHz
Sub I cut under 40Hz and roll off at 200Hz
I always compress both seperately and keep my levels low in the mix to create plenty of head room later whilst adding sounds with higher frequency content
Anything above 150Hz is what I consider midrange Anything above 150Hz can be heard on mobile phone speakers We all know that theyre designed to play heavy bass lol Wink
miss_molinari wroteDaft Cunt wroteTo me it feels like cutting the kick above 80 hz makes it sound weak I guess it depends on the style I rather cut below 60 to 80 depending on the tune
yeah its all about context in a dry minimal setting im of the opinion you can make a kick punch right up to about 180-200hz but yeah depends on when and on what kind of punch (im usually talking a bass hit at about 200hz coupled with a knock hit anywhere up to about 1200hz) i imagine you true dubsteppers prefer a denser thump from 60 through to about 300hz
Daft Cunt wroteI began recently the band-reject thing on the sub Little details that make big difference
And do you people cut the bass where the snare peaks
my basses arent usually middy enough to need that but yeah a slight sidechain on the main snare and say midbasspadwothavyer is nice especially if the limelight is stolen by a deeper sidechain on the kick and midbasspadwothavyer can create a nice flow (especially when used with long decay reveb linked to the midbasspadwothavyer so that it sounds louder and longer the higher the frequency played - might
have to post some piccies of that one )
Shonky wroteWhat Ive been doing lately is bouncing down the kick track lowpassing one somewhere between 100-140 depending on the highest frequencies of the low sub and then sidechaining the sub to the low kick
Then take a copy of the kick track highpass between 300-1000 and this will give you the beater noise to make the kick cut through I then sidechain this to the more middly basses You can also send a small amount to a reverb bus which allows you to avoid mud on the lower frequencies whilst still giving you the space
Doing it this way seems to make sense to me cause the sidechains work on the corresponding kicks in the same frequency range so it doesnt cause loads of unnecessary compression where you dont need it
Page 25
boh wroteAlways make sure your kicks are in tune with the rest of the track ull hear it pitching up and down and make sure if ur layering that the transients dont conflict(good monitors make this easy) It all comes down to kick selection Whats the point in cutting a kick at 80hz with a fundemental freq of say 60hz Sure you get whats happening before it but u wont get the nice thump of the fundemental freq Choose other kicks that hit the freq u want (80hz say) instead of cutting them when theres no need to Unless you really really know what your doing getting technical like this complicates the situation Esp for people with little experience
sullyharmitage wrote50 hz hi pass seems a bit high to me maybe gd for kicky techno or house but for subby stuff it seems a bit muchdefo roll off past 30-35 (most well engineered systems will do this anyways so any content below this is definately getting wasted)if yr gonna go higher make sure its a soft curvei find levelling subs is the hardest part of a mix - cos more always sounds better i remember reading breakage saying yr subs shouldnt add more than 3db to yr mix thats seems like a good guide
btw sub in kick an bassline simultaeously is gonna cause clashes (n maybe disortion) id either decrease the attack on the bass or cut the sub from the kick
unklefesta wroteI rolloff EVERYTHING at 40hz except my bass
standard
wang wroteAlways do it
Dont forget youre ROLLING off the frequencies not cutting them off all together Just a couple of dB of bass down there is enough to get some girth without removing all your headroom
Also analyse and cut off the lows on everything even if it doesnt appear to have messy lows -Youd be surprised how much bass there is in some high hats
Jtransition wroteAll of your tracks are going to be different so dont restrict yourself to a certain techniquetry different things and listen to the results
Shonky wrotewang wroteAlso analyse and cut off the lows on everything even if it doesnt appear to have messy lows -Youd be surprised how much bass there is in some high hats
Yep this is very true also worth filtering out the inaudible highs on low sounds as well found some of my subs which Id low passed still showed frequency activity much higher than expected
Jtransition wroteStick a high pass filter on everything apart form the kick drum and bass line70 hertz is a good starting point move up or down to tasteAnd remember try to mix at low levels(Walls not vibrating)
Deadly Habit wroteRendr wroteBasslines in my experience should be mono due to the fact that humans cannot easily decoded the stereo positioning of low frequencys so panning basslines (excluding bass sounds with high pitch sounds at around 500Hz+) is not recommended not only are the low frequencys hard to position with the human ear the low frequency sound waves are absorbed by the human head at a much higher ratio than high pitch sounds which tend to be reflected Another thing to note is that club systems are
mono Basslines that pan only belong in Psytrance
sub range should be mono especially if going to be cut to vinylmidrange bass on the other hand you can pan and add stereo fx to your hearts content
Page 26
32 Re-sampling
SafeAfter a few months of experimenting with resampling not really getting anywhere in terms of sound quality i came up with a pretty simple way of getting on the right track Ive got so much help since getting on this forum in terms of production i thought id share this for those who like myself are looking into the elusive yet highly rewarding technique of resamplingAll the vsts i use on this (save for the synth itself) are freenative plugs im using FL but itll transfer onto every DAW pretty much the same Ill explain it for a bassline but it can be applied to any sound
Step 1Make yourself a nice bassline get it sounding dirty with whatever you can within the synth Im using Albino so i tend to play about with the saturation modesFXs until its sounding pretty good
Step 2Hook up to a mixer channel then send this channel to a second mixer channel (FL users just click on another channel towards the bottom of the strip) On the second channel that the synth is hooked to from the first add CMt bitcrusher and downsample 3-16x (thanks to all the production forum users who pointed this out to me when i posted a few months ago on dirtying up basslines) Then add a chorus Turn the LFOs off and set the depthdelayetc to whatever sounds best Also set the crossover pretty high so only the treblehigh mids are being affected Then add Camel Audio Camel Crusher Turn the compressor off and set the tubemech to taste Add a parametric EQ if needs be to boost the high freqs Experiment with the chain of these effects swapping them according to the sound The choruscameleq in different orders should alter the sound quite alot depending on where their placed
Step 3 Set the level of the second affected channel with the original depending on whatever suits Play about with adding extra effects to both channels The way the second channel behaves once an effect is added to the first is quite extreme in even light application of effects So its possible to create a whole array of different sounds just from say adding a flangerchorusetc to the first channel then listening to how much it affects the sound as a whole as it goes through both channels By now it should be sounding pretty girthy
Step 4Export the riffsample (i use edison on the master channel in FL but whatever method will do) Reload and place into a mixer channel Add another Camel Crusher for abit more grit EQ and compress Set up a reverbdelay send and resample again for extra depth
Obviously this technique can be applied a 2nd3rd4th time to fuck the sound up even more so Which is what ive moved onto doing now into the territory of splitting the sound into basslow midhigh midtreble sections for ultimate control over each part Something which i was attempting to do before coming up with the above method but being left with a pile of unlistenable mushy shite
Hope this is a help to some peeps I know theres no secret technique to resamping only a whole load of practice and using your ears but this method got me on the right track in terms of hearing the benefits of it and encouraging me to experiment more in depth and realise that the possiblities are endless Im hooked now i resample pretty much every sound in one way or another Kick and snares benefit hugley from it for mega face melting wide drum sounds aswell so its worth trying it on some nice drum hits
Keep up the good work folksPeaceDC_WT
33 Drums
Read before reading on I am in no way entitled to any of those opinions It is up to you to decide whether you would like to incorporate them in your workflow I have just collected them from all the threads in this forum and will try to keep everything updated
I will update as regularly as I find updates
Page 27
Misc tips and tricks bull Good drums are usually layered - example 3 snares sounding as onebull The hats are often panned or widenedbull Pick great sounding samples different ones for different parts of the sounds you want 1
for snap and bite 1 for body 1 for thump distort and MAYBE EQ each to make them sound the best that they can separately combine in a bus MAYBE compress them together maybe accent the front and shorten the sound with a transient modifier 10 minutes tops
bull Do as little as possible with great-sounding bits and your basic sounds will be slamming leaves you time to focus on the arrangement people dont go around thinking wow that tune has an amazing snare as long as its thumping and not masked by a bunch of other stuff itll keep the dance moving
bull Listen to other producers work As its playing imagine the 1 2 3 4 on the step sequencer running in time to what youre listening to Try to visualize where the producer put their hits Not to say you should copy peoples drum patterns but learn from them
bull Ive noticed a lot of tunes (more minimal stuff where you can distinctly hear whats seperately going on) seem to use two differently pitched hi-hats that alternate to sound shuffley if you know what I mean and a less dramatic snare used sparsely in between the main lazy kick and snare An easy trick if you havent worked it out (which to be honest you should have if youre at all serious about producing dubstep) is to stick a smaller snare or hat the 116th before the kick or snare so it steps if you get me For example Bengas Night does this for all four beats in the bar which is part of what makes it so danceable But dont get stuck in always having kick on 1 and snare on 3 some tracks work with a kick on every beat others with a couple big snares etc The trick (unless you want proper lazy spaced out tunes) is to make sure youre nodding your head on all four beats of the bar Play around with a hat on every quaver (ie 8 per bar on the beat) compared to just four but on the off beat as well as adding in the steppy ones every now and then Theres often no need to over-complicate things though one of the my favourite drum tracks is the incredibly simplistic V by Distance Its a rhythm that could easilly be played by one guy on a real kit yet its so banging - check the use of hats and lower velocity kicks in this to make it nice and bouncy Also I once had a four bar drum loop and accidentally moved the sequence one bar to the right for one section and it ended up nicely varying the drums in a way you wouldnt expect
bull Really tight delays can help claps and snaps sound natural 5-20ms etcbull Recycle or phatmatik is your break-chopping friendbull Basically Hatrixxs method involved chopping everything from the main hits into a sample
Say you had a 2-step funk beat like the Amen Youd start your selection from the start of the first kick and select everything up to the start of the first snare Cut paste theres your first slice Then take everything from the start of the first snare up to the start of the second kick - including all the little hats and ghost hits - cut paste second sample and so on Then just map the samples onto some keys and bash away Both of them are quick compared to chopping Recycled slices where you have to copy and drag loads of little notes (one every little fucking tiny hit in the break arranged chromatically up the keyboard) around the piano roll These methods let you just concentrate on the main hits which can be both good or bad You can get a solid beat down with just a handful of hits but youre limited to the patterns already in the original break For a beginner to breakbeat science like yourself Id say try these methods first but dont rule out the really anal methods like RecyclePhatmatikFruity Slicer Sometimes they are a necessary evil Of course some of the drumfunk guys especially those who post on Subvert Central swear by these methods or the next one There are those who prefer to chop up the raw audio rather than bothering with MIDI and samplers They literally just drop the break file into Cubase or Logic and start chopping with the scissors tool and copying and pasting I can see the benefits of this You can see the waveform as youre chopping and youre not as restriced to the quantize grid as you are with MIDI But it takes aaaaages to build a drum track this way and theres the risk of RSI from all that Ctrl+C Ctrl+V youll be doing Then of course theres trackers They really are tailor-made for chopping up loops amongst other things They give you Sample Offset meaning that when you trigger a sample you can set it to start from 256 evenly spaced points throughout the sample So by starting a sample a quarter of the way through youre triggering the first snare (obviously you can fine-tune it when the snare isnt perfectly on the beat) You can edit breaks in a tracker without ever having to cut up a waveform and you can do all sorts of other nifty things like reverse the sample retrigger it to make drum rolls and so on
If recycles having trouble switch the break to mono in your sample editor and then apply tiny fades between the drum hits (especially useful if there are lots of rides that play over the other hits to keep things separate) This should help recycle pick up the start points and with any luck should leave you with a cleaner break
Page 28
Snaresbull Tune the snares so they all hit around the same pitch bull Change the Amp Envelopes of each to bring the strongest parts from each separate sample
and build up your sound like that bull Compressing all together is a good idea but dont over do it bull EQ the master out for the snare as well so you wont have to fuck about when you use the
sample in the future bull Donrsquot just use snares fling some random sound effects in there Claps and rim shots also
work well when layered bull Make subtle changes to them and export a few snares from the same setup this helps
when you need a ghost hit or a reverse that sounds similar but not identicalbull Watch that frequencies dont build up and make the layered bit sound overly whatever
is building up Really easy to get too much 200hz or 500hz or even 12k if youve got samples that are all beefythicksmack-y
bull If its peaking run it through a Spectrum Analyzer and see where its peaking I guess its peaking in the tune rather than just the snare sample playing on its own
bull Sometimes snare samples have a very short peak that doesnt seem to make them sound any better and keeps you from getting them louder without cliping Reduce that part by a few dBs and youre sorted
bull Make sure you are using subtractive eq to pull out the frequencies that could be clashing with other sounds If your frequencies are clashing that can hide the snare and then you end up turning it up to compensate and there you are with your snare peakingThe key is making the frequencies sit right in the mix so that they dont clash and you can set them right and not have to turn them up
bull You could always try clipping the snare normalise it in a wave editor amplify it as much as you can before it sounds distorted then sample it out Then replace the snare with the clipped version it will almost always sound louder with more body at a lower volume I would still point out that although this can be used as a replacement to compression compression is a vital tool to learn how to use Also a lot of peeps will say this does bad things to the waveform and it does but unless you intend to listen to your tune to be heard at home on an amazing hifi then it doesnt really matter that much IMO
bull Hi-pass overdrive limit and cut away space from other sounds for itbull Layer with its self or a different snare Layer with sub add effect to one layer add effect
to both layers layer zoom right in drag one wave form back or forth very slightly to create new snare sound Pitch updown EQ Filter distort reverb delay reverse
bull Record yourself beat boxing your best snare sounds then layer with snare samplesbull A good handclap never goes a miss or use a nice drum synth to get a very differentdigital
soundbull Try reversing the snare sample then changing the envelope settings so it only hits on the
beat Layer that with the same sample this time not reversed Add a little delay to the the reversed snare Change the settings til it sounds how you like
bull Particularly snares I layer up a lot I look for one that has the qualities that I want when run through verb and then I look for something shorter with more mid punch to keep things physical After someone notied snares were weak in a tune Ive really made a point of ensuring that when the snares hit its physical as well as textural You need to feel them a bit - so I look for some snares that have that real punch when layering but usually keep the more textural snappy one as the focus last couple tunes I did the standard kick snare hats w odd percussion and then I took an amen chopped it processed it and layered it overtop for more aggression and step (goddess being a perfect example) By removing a layer and adding it you can create a sense of progression through the tune Make sure the bottom layer is sounding really good and then add the top so that youre not mixing them to be reliant on one another - instead you want synergy Make sure the EQ on the top and bottom make sense with each other
Kicksbull Building a kick in Ableton Lives Impulse machine Provides some essential information
about layering that can be used with any DAWbull Making fat kicks
remixmag wroteWhether creating Miami Bass music is your lifes fantasy or your greatest fear you probably crave the know-how to manifest those car-rattling trunk-full-of-funk kick drums In the arenas of hip-hop house techno downtempo and almost any other electronic genre molding fat kick drums is absolutely essential Like grandmas homemade apple pie the recipe for kick drums is partially a matter of taste However theres no substitute for quality ingredients And just like every pie has its staple ingredients every slamming kick drum requires some common elements Lets take a look at the
Page 29
shopping list for killer kick drumsTHE CRUST
Youll need a basic shell to begin creating a thick strong kick The classics always work if youre fortunate enough to own a real Roland TR-808 909 or other famous drum machine with a killer kick use it copiously If youre not one of those chosen few pay close attention to your original source For example if you use a sampler understand that not all ldquo808 Kickrdquo samples are the same some sound great and some just plain suck There are a lot of reasons for that including how many generations from the original the sample is the sampling rate and bit depth of the sampler how the kick was first sampled and so on Be as choosy as possible with your individual samples mdash dont use a mediocre sample just because it has 808 in the name and therefore is ldquosupposedrdquo to sound fat Seek out a better 808 sample or use something else that is simply bigger sounding Remember the time you spend finding sweet original sources wont be in vain especially if you reuse the resulting samples for multiple songsBORROW SOME SUGAR
An old saying goes ldquoGood art borrows great art stealsrdquo A nice way to start out with great raw kick material is to sample directly from the source If you dont own but have access to a 909 then sample it directly Or take one of your favorite producers tracks on vinyl or CD find a naked kick drum in there and sample it Be cautious with that approach for a couple of reasons Copyright issues around sampling even small bits have become a dangerously gray area and I would never personally advise using any source straight out of the can even from a royalty-free sample library While it may be an excellent start its unoriginal Customize whatever you bite Treat your samples as a sculptor would treat clay mold each one to create a trademark sound for yourself One effective way to customize a fat kick is to take a tip from the synth manufacturers If a sound is thin pile another (or a few more) on top When doing so its important to use different sounds layering two identical kicks will result in a louder kick but it wont change the basic tone Remember the sculptor approach here Even if you are using two good-sounding individual samples they may not instantly sound great together For example I find that when layering kicks while the thickness may be good sustain is often overkill The final result often benefits from a little doctoring on the tail of one (or both) of the samples and other hands-on sonic surgeryADD THE FILLING
Once a nice basic kick is achieved treating it with two of the mastering engineers favorite tools is often the next step Artfully applying a compressor (to just the kick) can go a long way toward creating a signature sound and a huge kick Compression is one of those ldquosecret spicesrdquo and how to apply it is a whole topic in itself One recommendation I will make however is to use a multiband compressor With one of those you can isolate compression on certain frequency ranges That is perfect if for example you want to push the sub of your kick without emphasizing the higher frequencies (which often affect the tone of the attack) or vice-versa EQ comes after compression in my signal chain By now the kick should already sound pretty fat I aim to shave unnecessary frequencies here rather than artificially boosting too much This is also where you can actualize trademark sounds while also fine-tuning them to work alongside other elements in specific tracks I often scoop out mids and highs especially frequencies above about 500 Hz Even though I like thick deep kicks unless Im going for a really dublike sound I often truncate the lowest frequencies (usually the sub-50 Hz frequencies) Even when you cant hear the difference when trimming frequencies doing so can really tighten up your kicksEVEN IT OUT
You may ask why when youre trying to fatten up a kick would you want to trim frequencies That is one of the keys to achieving great mixes both in the case of kick drums and in general You want to avoid too many overlapping frequencies The more sonic separation you have between elements the more focused the entire mix will sound That can be especially important for club music which often gets played on huge not necessarily audiophile-quality sound systems If you havent run into the following scenario already I assure you at some point you will Your bass line and kick drum are competing and it sounds like you have a weak kick You boost the kick but it still sounds muddy Take the bass out and suddenly the kick doesnt sound so bad In a scenario like that solo the two sounds listen carefully for where frequencies are overlapping and then try subtractive EQ on one element then the other and sometimes a bit on both By scooping out overlapping frequencies you will often find that both elements seem to magically come forward in the mix before even touching their respective volume levels
Hi hatsbull Realism
Ive been a professional touring and recording drummer for 25 years and just thought I might share a couple of really simple ways to use fruity loops or fruity studio to create more realistic drum patterns
For what its worth try this out with Fruity Loops
Page 30
Take your hi hat tracks (are any tracks for that matter including melodic synth bubbles)
Drop down the bar graph box that allows you to scroll between velocity (volume) pitch panning cutoff resonance and a thing called shift which allows you to use each of these categories to effect each individual note that youve programmed (note this can be accomplished in other ways in most of the good midi sequencing apps or softwarehardware drum machines)
Drummers no matter how good they are just arent perfect and we can use the fact that each of these drop down bar graphs can make veryvery small changes in a sound to do some subtle things to a rolling drum groove like 16th notes on a hi hat
Not all drummers but many tend to favor their strong hand in a single stroke (hand over hand) drum roll Consequently if you make all odd numbered hi hats be slightly louder than their even numbered hits it will sound more realistic Start by making velocity differences that are really clearly audible Then lower the velocity until you can barely feel the difference We are going to make very subtle changes like this on each of the parameters of velocity pitch cutoff resonance and importantly shift
I cant stress enough that you should make these changes be so subtle that you can hardly notice them
Just going on the fact that the right handed players start their rolls with the right hand and favor it ever so slightly (or grossly for effect as well) means that the stroke will be harder with the right hand than the left hand
When a percussion instrument is hit harder the difference between the transient (or hi pitched attack) of the sound and the body of the instrument (or the sound that comes after the attack) becomes greater In general on drums that means that a harder attack tensions the drum very imperceptably (sp) and it also means that there will be more treble in the sound Consequently the pitch goes up a little teensy bit and their is more attack to the sound (increased resonance and slightly higher cutoff frequency)
Consequently you can make the pitch of each right hand be just barely noticeably higher the resonance should be just one or two of those little teeny bars higher The cutoff should be just a few bars lower (allowing less high frequencies through) on the left handed or even numbered strokes
Typically if drums have time inaccuracies they tend to drag the left hand a litte bit I have to keep stressing that if you can hear the changes you make you arent being realistic You need to make the changes subtle enough that you just barely feel that they arent perfect You can consequently make each left hand note shifted one or two bars late
Tigure out how much you can tweak each parameter before it becomes obvious and then you can just randomly tweak each one up to that limit With a little bit of variance in each stroke from parameter to parameter you will create more of a percolating texture in your programming - this is a great technique to make synth bubbles (the kind used in techno and house) more interesting and less mechanical feeling
Now you can avoid the biggest mistake that non-drummers do when trying to write realistic programs turn the overall volume of the hihats until you CANT hear them and then slowly bring up the volume until you just begin to hear them
Professional producers have spent countless hours trying to figure out how to gate and mix hihats OUT of tracks The reason is two fold1) Human beings have such a radical peak in their hearing around the 1-2khz range (or the intelligibility range of human speech) that we can play the hihats at incredible low volumes and they are still audible You cant do that with a bass drumI tell my drum students that you cannot play a hi hat or a snare drum so quietly that a person sitting in a room with you cant hear it2) Hi Hats the snare of snare drums and cymbals all seriously MASK human vocal intellibility How many people have gone to see live shows where they can hear the singer is singing but cant for the life of them figure out what they are actually singing That is ususally because drummers (or mixers which is frequently the case) are not hip to thisimportant fact
So turn down your hi hat tracks (or any track with a strong mid rangeshort envelope attack) and you have much more room for other musical goodies in your mix When in doubt make your hi hats quieter than you think they should be Trust me theyll come through the mix even at a quiet volume
Swingbull Dont know if you can do this in your sequencer but in Logic you can create a groove
template from your drums and then apply that to your other instruments If youre using separate midi channels for snares kicks and hats take the 8 bar loop youre using glue it together and then take the groove from that and then mute that track When you click down the quantize list youll see the template there and you can apply it to your other tracks Also if you do want to change the groove you can just change the hits in the muted template and itll automatically change all other hits to the new changes
bull Think if youre clever and organized you can basically cut breaks up in recycle load them into the exs24 (extract sequence) and then do the same with them That way if there are breaks you like the feel of you can just apply that swing to anything If you make a folder called grooves in your logic folder they should load up each time so that youll have loads to choose from Havent done this myself yet but always helpful to have a choice of feels available
bull Some things sound better rigid and robotic with equal velocities Some things sound better rigid and robotic with differing velocities Some things sound better with swing Some things sound better with everything ever-so-slightly off Its down to what the track needs
bull Drum Break Swing ProgrammingNicolas Hall wwwbreakbeat-cafenet wroteI think most people who make anything funk breakbeat drum amp bass or hip-hop would agree that Swing is crucial to the effectiveness of a beat The other key factors in a programming sense are dynamic and accent So many people get wound up when their beats sound sterile or mechanical this is due to the fact that computers and sequencers lock to perfect BPM A computer on its own does not interpret rhythm the way a good drummer does There are however certain machines that have their own swing parameters like the Akai MPC range of sampling drum machines which are used extensively by hip hop producers
Swing is not the easiest thing in the world to analyze but as a general rule good drummers will play slightly late and thats why in all funky records you get that slight dip at the start of the bar take Superstition by Stevie Wonder or Billie Jean by Michael Jackson these are both very simple beats Superstition is of course live drums whilst Billie Jean was programmed but no less funky than Superstition I emphasize this point to demonstrate that a programmed beat can be every bit at groovy as a beat played on a drum kit
Expanding on the Billie Jean point Hip Hop beats are really very simple If you listen to the Neptunes they tend to create the swing in their beats by quantizing the kicks and snares and playing the hi hats in by hand this creates a very tight beat which is off set by a loose hi hat try it works but dont forget your accents - As a starting point just take the first snare of your beat and turn the velocity down then notice how your head starts nodding and your foot starts tapping a little more you are giving the beat feel Also remember that if you are using reverb the louder snare will push the reverb harder than the soft snare so your creating more ambience that way Then try your kick drums if your not sure which hits to adjust just pick apart a beat your feeling I remember me and friend picking apart a Gangstarr beat and were able to almost replicate it by adjusting the velocities of each hit (admittedly it took a while to get it right)
If youre a newbie then a common trick when learning to make good grooves is to create a template with an existing loop The idea is take a loop you like thats got a good feel to it and then place your own hits over the break then take the break out and see if your hits are sounding funky This can take a while and its crucial to think about the strength of each hit or the dynamic Each kick will not be the same strength nor will the snares or the hats pick the loop apart dissect it and youll soon see that there are certain consistencies in all good beats
If youre using live loops and like to layer them with drum sequences you should be thinking about time space and frequencies So if you have a fairly heavy loop then layering it with heavy kick drums is probably not gonna sound good Think about filling holes are their any frequencies that could be filled up Or is there space in the loop for extra hits Try working in layers just adding one hit at a time also filtering works well you could take some of the frequencies out of your loop as you drop your drum sequences in to make room for them I think one the masters of this technique is Liam Howlett of the Prodigy He runs breakbeats and gives them extra balls by laying a kick drum underneath to add extra intensity to certain passages in his set but hes careful not to overlap frequencies to much A good place to start if you using breakbeats is the Roland Tr-808 kick drum which is around the 50hz mark which is sub bass territory so it will sit underneath most breaks very well
If your hell bent on making killer beats and loops then perseverance is crucial keep at it it will come together listen to beats you like and pick them apart identify the subtleties that make it happen I know some producers get fed up when their beats sound to clean or they are trying to create a new breakbeat and then compare it to sample they took from vinyl and get down on there own beat Think about what a breakbeat really is think about its history what has happened to it to make it sound the way it does Im
Page 32
sure youve noticed how some breaks have a certain something like a magic dust you cant put your finger on Let me share what I know with you about that
Most breaks though not all are taken from recordings of live drums some of them are pretty old so you have the ambience of live drums and the room they were recorded in you have the fact that natural decay and reverb of each drum is likely to have bled into the other mics on the kit and that most engineers used overhead mics which pick up the whole kit with two mics Then consider that many of these breaks will have been recorded to analogue tape with saturation which will create extra warmth and harmonics The next step comes from old sampling technology like the SP-1200 and the Akai s-950 mpc -60 these samplers sampled at 12- bit (bear in mind that most computers now are at least 24-bit if not more) and that the samples themselves where taken from vinyl and on and on the process goes with each new reverb and eq adding more and more to the break In terms of giving your breaks that character there are a number of things you can try for example buying an old four track cassette machine to dump your beats onto then re-sample it if your using a sampler like the s-950 then try pushing the input meters a little harder than usual add reverbs and resample it each time you put your loop through a new channel you will be adding something to it Also distortion is fantastic for breaks if you have any amp plug ins then try them the Amplitude one is particularly good you dont need to go mad with it just used subtly it works great
To finish I would just like to say again stick with it keep trying keep listening to records if you like to read about technique then do so you can learn so much from other producers Remember the strength of your hits is important as is the way it swings good luck
UPDATE 08092008
ENHANCE SYNTHESIZED DRUM PARTS WITH FOUND SOUNDS
emusiciancom wroteLayering real-world sounds with synthesized drum parts puts a new spin on your drum tracks You probably already have usable sound effects on your hard drive because most commercial samplers have at least a modest collection in their factory library Beyond that youll find thousands of royalty-free sound effects online Soundsnapcom is one of my favorite sources and its free The recordings dont need to be pristine for layering over drums so dont overlook cheap sampling CDs and consider grabbing your own sounds with a portable recorderCollect and Save
Start by assembling a small Foley library of short percussive sounds divided into typical drum-sound categories kicks snares toms cymbals percussion and so on Youll generally want to layer drum sounds with Foley sounds that have a similar volume contour and frequency range If you layer a Foley sound that resembles a kick drum with the sound of your hi-hat for example youll quickly fill up all the space in your drum track
Industrial household military transportation and vocal sounds make excellent fodder but you will often want to extract a small slice such as the last shot in a volley of machine-gun fire (snare) or the first bounce of a plastic bottle on concrete (tom) A browsing tool like Audio Finder (icedaudiocom) is invaluable if you have a large sample library That lets you quickly audition clips make basic edits and drag-and-drop slices to your library
Sticks UpIf your synthesized drum part is step sequenced youll need to export its step sequences as MIDI files Many drum synths do that including Sonic Charge Tonic (sonicchargecom) Apple Logic UltraBeat (applecom) and Submersible DrumCore (submersiblemusiccom) All of those come with a large collection of patterns exportable as MIDI sequences Youll also need a sampler to play the Foley sounds drum-oriented samplers are handier for that but are by no means necessary
Start by loading a kit in the drum synth Export one of its sequenced patterns or create your own and place it on the sampler track For some of the drum synth sounds select compatible Foley sounds and map them to the same notes in the sampler that theyre mapped to in the drum synth Next solo the doubled voices one by one in both the drum synth and the sampler start the sequence playing and tweak the samplers voice parameters (filter level pan envelope and so on) to make the sounds work together (see Fig 1 and Web Clip 1) Dont tweak global parameters such as effects because that will affect all sounds played by the sampler
High HoopsOnce youve configured your Foley track you can do several things to add interest I frequently use a
Page 33
second sampler for short vocal sounds Ill have some notes trigger sounds in both samplers and others in only one Many samplers let you group sounds and assign notes and controllers to choose among them You can then sequence these notes and controllers or you can play them live to alter your Foley tracks
Try applying DSP effects to individual Foley sounds Multitap delays distortion phasing and granular effects all work well when used sparingly (see Web Clip 2) You can apply DSP effects inside your sampler or route the voices to a separate output for DSP processing in your DAW If your sampler doesnt offer either possibility spread the Foley parts over several sampler instances on different tracks
Sidechain compression or gating of the drum track with one or more of the Foley parts will highlight the Foley part as well as add variety to the drums With compression peaks in the sidechain signal will reduce the level of the drum track Use a high compression level say 201 and balance the sidechain-gain and the compression-threshold -attack and -release controls to get the ducking contour you want (see Web Clip 3) Gating has the opposite effect the drum track will be heard during peaks in the sidechain signal (see Web Clip 4) Here too the sidechain-gain and gate-threshold controls work in tandem to determine when the gate is opened Use envelope parameters (attack release and hold) to shape the gates contour
Keep in mind that once youve created a sampler instrument to complement your drum kit you can reuse it with other sequences You can also change one or more sounds in the sampler instrument without repeating the whole process
34 Sidechain Compression (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
4 Theory41 ndash Song Structure42 ndash Mixdown (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)43 ndash Mastering (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
44 Music Theory
The first thing to remember about music theory is that generally if it sounds right it probably is There are no rules in music and Music Theory is not about telling you how to write music Its about understanding the music
Broadly speaking it is fair to say that most music is essentially based upon two crucial factors scales and rhythm Scales make up melodies chords harmonies and basslines to name but a few whereas rhythm makes up the beat of the song In this part of the Production Bible you will learn the basics of Music Theory that will serve you not only in the production of Dubstep but for any of your future musical pursuits This information is intended to be easy to read and understand so I wonrsquot be mincing sentences But firstly please make sure you learn every single note on the keyboard by studying the image below Otherwise yoursquoll be completely lost here
Page 34
Scales Wersquoll begin with scales As I mentioned before scales are the building blocks of your song and without them your track will be atonal and completely unlistenable (probably not the effect yoursquore going for)
There are two main scales that you should learn inside out ndash the major scale and the minor scale A generalisation yoursquore bound to have heard before is that the major scale sounds ldquohappyrdquo and the minor scale sounds ldquodarkrdquo Although this is not always the case it is mostly true ndash and therefore yoursquoll usually be focussing on the minor scale when producing Dubstep However just in case yoursquore writing happy-dubstep (if that exists) here is a quick overview of both scales and how they are made up
Major Scale
The major scale is really easy to create It is made by a single rule that is simple to put in to place
ldquoTone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
In case you donrsquot know what a Tone or Semi-Tone is here is a quick explanation
Picture a keyboard (or if you canrsquot see the image above) Say you go from C to C that would be a semi-tone The same thing goes for if you go from an E to an F ndash it is still a semi-tone because you
Page 35
have gone up one key
A tone is two semi-tones ndash for example from C to D is a tone and the same goes for from G to A
The scalersquos name is taken from the note that it starts on For example C major will start on the note of C Similarly A major will start on the note of A and this is the case with every single scale
Here is a quick list of a few major scales After having seen a few try working the rest out for yourself in order to understand how the major scale is formulated Ideally you should practice your scales on a piano or keyboard so that you can physically see how to make the scale It might sound boring but itrsquos a small price to pay for a much deeper understanding of your music
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Major C D E F G A B C
C Major C D E F G A B C
D Major D E F G A B C D
D Major D E F G A B C D
E Major E F G A B C D E
F Major F G A Bb C D E F
F Major F G A B C D E F
G Major G A B C D E F G
G Major G A B C D E F G
A Major A B C D E F G A
A Major A B C D E F G A
B major B C D E F G A B
Now by arranging the different notes of each of these scales in any order you please you can create a melody bassline or harmony with extreme ease Rearranging the notes in the scale will give you a flawlessly in-key result and it is then up to you to use the notes in the scale as you see fit for your tune
Minor Scale
As was the case with the Major Scale the Minor is made up from a set rule or formula By knowing this formula you can understand how the Minor is made and how to use it to itrsquos maximum effect
ldquoTone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
As is the case with the major scales you should practice your scales as much as possible to make sure that you know them all like the back of your hand Here are a few Minor Scales see if you can
Page 36
work out the rest
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Minor C D Eb F G Ab B C
D Minor D E F G A Bb C D
F Minor F G A B C D E F
G Minor G A Bb C D Eb F G
Similarly to the Major now that you know your Minor Scales you can quickly just take any note from the scale rearrange it with another few notes in the scale and there you have a fat melody or bassline ready to be played at maximum volume
Diminished Chords
Diminished Chords are really quite spooky and dark chords that are made up of four different notes all a minor third apart from each other That means that for example the Diminished Chord starting on C would be C Eb F A because to get from one note to the next you have to use ldquoTone Semi-Tonerdquo (known as a minor third)
Because of the mathematical nature of the Diminished chord there are only three ldquoclustersrdquo of notes which can then be rearranged like the Major and Minor Scales
Cluster 1 C Eb F A
Cluster 2 C E G Bb
Cluster 3 D F Ab B
Use these clusters and rearrange them as you please For example you could rearrange cluster 1 as Eb F A C etc
Generally speaking you canrsquot make a song based entirely on Diminished Chords due to the fact that each cluster only has 4 notes However a Diminished Chord is perfect for adding a hint of darkness to your tune and is brilliant when mixed with some Minor Scales
Chords
Chords are basically two or more notes played together They are made up from a specific scale ndash for example the C major chord is made up of notes in the C major scale
Usually chords will include the first third and fifth note of the scale as well as possibly using other notes to give them colour For example the basic chord of C major would be C E G Then you could add the seventh note to it (in this case it is B) Really it is up to the producerrsquos discretion how heshe goes about making a chord ndash just remember to stick to the scale you are using
Chords will more than likely sound like shit if you play them on a complicated or layered synth patch You want to be playing chords on sustained sounds such as strings or pads Chords will really fill out your sound if used properly You want your chords to be supporting the melody or bassline and more than likely want to add some reverb so that it doesnrsquot sound too sharp Make
Page 37
your chords blend in with the music and yoursquoll have mastered them
Chord Inversions
Quite simply chord inversions are when you rearrange the notes in a chord so that it sounds a bit different and suits your arrangement better
For example if you were in the key of C major you could have a drone of E playing underneath some strings playing the notes E G C E
Due to the fact that the notes are the same and have only been inverted the chord will still be in key with the rest of the music This is a great way to add a touch of variation to your music instead of using the same chord structure all the time
Arpeggios
Arpeggios are much easier to understand than they sound They are quite simply the first third and fifth note of the scale played as individual notes For example the arpeggio of C minor would be C Eb G C etc
A great example of an arpeggio is the bassline in Bengarsquos ldquoCrunked Uprdquo He goes from playing the F minor arpeggio backwards to playing the F minor arpeggio backwards In other words he is playing
C A F and then C Ab F
Experiment with a few Minor Arpeggios and a couple of Diminished Arpeggios and you canrsquot go wrong in writing a huge bassline
Suggested Reading
List of All Scales With Finger Charts Included
Well thatrsquos it folks Thatrsquos basically all the music theory you need to know to start off with As you grow more used to the various scales yoursquoll notice that certain notes sound good with each other whilst others donrsquot Irsquom not here to tell you how to write music Irsquom here to teach you the language
of music Itrsquos up to you to write the poetry
copy Bruno Crosier (klimaxx) 2008
45 Random Tips
Random tips amp best piece of advice thread
5 Resources
Page 38
51 Books amp Magazines
Hello again people
Does anyone know of more music production books magazines or authors we can add to these lists
Thanks
------------------------------------------------
Music Production Magazines Computer Music - httpwwwcomputermusiccouk Music Tech Magazine - httpwwwmusictechmagcouk Future Music - httpwwwfuturemusiccouk Sound on Sound - httpwwwsoundonsoundcom Remix Magazine - httpremixmagcom Mix Magazine - httpmixonlinecom Electronic Musician - httpemusiciancom EQ Magazine - httpwwweqmagcom Audio Technology - wwwaudiotechnologycomau Tape Op - httpwwwtapeopcom
------------------------------------------------
Music Books
Authors Curtis Roads httpmitpressmiteducatalogauthor aspaid=93 - The Computer Music Tutorial (Really really really good book) Paul White - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea ul20White - Basic Series + more Rick Snowman - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea k20Snoman - The Dance Music Manual Tools Toys and Techniques Bobby Owsinski - httpbooksgooglecoukbooksas_auth=Bobby+Owsinski - The MixingRecording amp Mastering Engineers Handbooks Michael Paul Stavrou - httpwwwmixingwithyourmindcom
Publishers Thomson Course Technology - httpcoursecengagecom (Click on the Music Technology tab) - Series published include Power Overdrive Ignite and CSI Series + many more Backbeat Books - httpwwwbackbeatbookscom ndash Power Tools Series + many more Wiley Publishing - httpwwwdummiescom (Enter music in their search bar) - For Dummies Series Penguin Books - httpuspenguingroupcom (Enter music in their search bar) - The Complete Idiots Guide Series + many more MIT Press - httpmitpressmitedu - Many books on music theory Focal Press - httpwwwfocalpresscom - (Enter music in their search bar)
------------------------------------------------
Online Music Book Stores (We need more links here Do you know of any that we can add)
httpwwwmixbookscom ndash Excellent source that sells only books about music
Page 39
httpwwwamazoncom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
httpwwwbarnesandnoblecom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
------------------------------------------------
52 Wikipedia
A good music lexicon wiki Search for your term in the search bar ---gt httpenaudiolexicorgwikiMain_Page
0-9
14rdquo Jack - httpenwikipediaorgwikiJack_plug 3rd Bridge - httpenwikipediaorgwiki3rd_Bridge
Zero Crossing - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_crossing Zero Crossing Rate - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_Crossing_Rate
53 Other recommended production forums
for Logic users this is the shit httpwwwlogicprohelpcom
Ive found both these forums to be full of knowledgeable producers amp musicians
httpwwwkvraudiocomforum
httpacapellaharmony-centralcomforumsindexphp
httpwwwgearslutzcomboard
httpwwwsoundonsoundcomforum
httpwwwmusicradarcomforum
httpwwwidmforumscom
httpwwwdance-industriescomphpBB2 8cffbb3b02
httpwwwsubvertcentralcomforumindexphp
httpwwwbreakbeatcouk
httpwwwtweakheadzcom
httpwwwabletoncompagesforum
Explains lots about the music industry ---gt httpwwwbemusocom
Page 47
Ok so a massive thanks to all the contributors there are literally too many to mention But Thanks to Futures Untold Johnny Beat Klimaxx Deadly Habit amp JunglistRendr Daft Cunt in perticular
Thanks to all the artists producers and general music geeks making this early revision of the production bible an essential read
There are links missing and will be included in version 21(Please help with the unlinked chapters by going here - httpwwwdubstepforumcomthe-dubstep-production-bible-updated-2009-06-03-t14797html and updating missing info as needed)
Compiled by Daft Cunt and Futures Untold PDF Compiled by Depone
Page 25
boh wroteAlways make sure your kicks are in tune with the rest of the track ull hear it pitching up and down and make sure if ur layering that the transients dont conflict(good monitors make this easy) It all comes down to kick selection Whats the point in cutting a kick at 80hz with a fundemental freq of say 60hz Sure you get whats happening before it but u wont get the nice thump of the fundemental freq Choose other kicks that hit the freq u want (80hz say) instead of cutting them when theres no need to Unless you really really know what your doing getting technical like this complicates the situation Esp for people with little experience
sullyharmitage wrote50 hz hi pass seems a bit high to me maybe gd for kicky techno or house but for subby stuff it seems a bit muchdefo roll off past 30-35 (most well engineered systems will do this anyways so any content below this is definately getting wasted)if yr gonna go higher make sure its a soft curvei find levelling subs is the hardest part of a mix - cos more always sounds better i remember reading breakage saying yr subs shouldnt add more than 3db to yr mix thats seems like a good guide
btw sub in kick an bassline simultaeously is gonna cause clashes (n maybe disortion) id either decrease the attack on the bass or cut the sub from the kick
unklefesta wroteI rolloff EVERYTHING at 40hz except my bass
standard
wang wroteAlways do it
Dont forget youre ROLLING off the frequencies not cutting them off all together Just a couple of dB of bass down there is enough to get some girth without removing all your headroom
Also analyse and cut off the lows on everything even if it doesnt appear to have messy lows -Youd be surprised how much bass there is in some high hats
Jtransition wroteAll of your tracks are going to be different so dont restrict yourself to a certain techniquetry different things and listen to the results
Shonky wrotewang wroteAlso analyse and cut off the lows on everything even if it doesnt appear to have messy lows -Youd be surprised how much bass there is in some high hats
Yep this is very true also worth filtering out the inaudible highs on low sounds as well found some of my subs which Id low passed still showed frequency activity much higher than expected
Jtransition wroteStick a high pass filter on everything apart form the kick drum and bass line70 hertz is a good starting point move up or down to tasteAnd remember try to mix at low levels(Walls not vibrating)
Deadly Habit wroteRendr wroteBasslines in my experience should be mono due to the fact that humans cannot easily decoded the stereo positioning of low frequencys so panning basslines (excluding bass sounds with high pitch sounds at around 500Hz+) is not recommended not only are the low frequencys hard to position with the human ear the low frequency sound waves are absorbed by the human head at a much higher ratio than high pitch sounds which tend to be reflected Another thing to note is that club systems are
mono Basslines that pan only belong in Psytrance
sub range should be mono especially if going to be cut to vinylmidrange bass on the other hand you can pan and add stereo fx to your hearts content
Page 26
32 Re-sampling
SafeAfter a few months of experimenting with resampling not really getting anywhere in terms of sound quality i came up with a pretty simple way of getting on the right track Ive got so much help since getting on this forum in terms of production i thought id share this for those who like myself are looking into the elusive yet highly rewarding technique of resamplingAll the vsts i use on this (save for the synth itself) are freenative plugs im using FL but itll transfer onto every DAW pretty much the same Ill explain it for a bassline but it can be applied to any sound
Step 1Make yourself a nice bassline get it sounding dirty with whatever you can within the synth Im using Albino so i tend to play about with the saturation modesFXs until its sounding pretty good
Step 2Hook up to a mixer channel then send this channel to a second mixer channel (FL users just click on another channel towards the bottom of the strip) On the second channel that the synth is hooked to from the first add CMt bitcrusher and downsample 3-16x (thanks to all the production forum users who pointed this out to me when i posted a few months ago on dirtying up basslines) Then add a chorus Turn the LFOs off and set the depthdelayetc to whatever sounds best Also set the crossover pretty high so only the treblehigh mids are being affected Then add Camel Audio Camel Crusher Turn the compressor off and set the tubemech to taste Add a parametric EQ if needs be to boost the high freqs Experiment with the chain of these effects swapping them according to the sound The choruscameleq in different orders should alter the sound quite alot depending on where their placed
Step 3 Set the level of the second affected channel with the original depending on whatever suits Play about with adding extra effects to both channels The way the second channel behaves once an effect is added to the first is quite extreme in even light application of effects So its possible to create a whole array of different sounds just from say adding a flangerchorusetc to the first channel then listening to how much it affects the sound as a whole as it goes through both channels By now it should be sounding pretty girthy
Step 4Export the riffsample (i use edison on the master channel in FL but whatever method will do) Reload and place into a mixer channel Add another Camel Crusher for abit more grit EQ and compress Set up a reverbdelay send and resample again for extra depth
Obviously this technique can be applied a 2nd3rd4th time to fuck the sound up even more so Which is what ive moved onto doing now into the territory of splitting the sound into basslow midhigh midtreble sections for ultimate control over each part Something which i was attempting to do before coming up with the above method but being left with a pile of unlistenable mushy shite
Hope this is a help to some peeps I know theres no secret technique to resamping only a whole load of practice and using your ears but this method got me on the right track in terms of hearing the benefits of it and encouraging me to experiment more in depth and realise that the possiblities are endless Im hooked now i resample pretty much every sound in one way or another Kick and snares benefit hugley from it for mega face melting wide drum sounds aswell so its worth trying it on some nice drum hits
Keep up the good work folksPeaceDC_WT
33 Drums
Read before reading on I am in no way entitled to any of those opinions It is up to you to decide whether you would like to incorporate them in your workflow I have just collected them from all the threads in this forum and will try to keep everything updated
I will update as regularly as I find updates
Page 27
Misc tips and tricks bull Good drums are usually layered - example 3 snares sounding as onebull The hats are often panned or widenedbull Pick great sounding samples different ones for different parts of the sounds you want 1
for snap and bite 1 for body 1 for thump distort and MAYBE EQ each to make them sound the best that they can separately combine in a bus MAYBE compress them together maybe accent the front and shorten the sound with a transient modifier 10 minutes tops
bull Do as little as possible with great-sounding bits and your basic sounds will be slamming leaves you time to focus on the arrangement people dont go around thinking wow that tune has an amazing snare as long as its thumping and not masked by a bunch of other stuff itll keep the dance moving
bull Listen to other producers work As its playing imagine the 1 2 3 4 on the step sequencer running in time to what youre listening to Try to visualize where the producer put their hits Not to say you should copy peoples drum patterns but learn from them
bull Ive noticed a lot of tunes (more minimal stuff where you can distinctly hear whats seperately going on) seem to use two differently pitched hi-hats that alternate to sound shuffley if you know what I mean and a less dramatic snare used sparsely in between the main lazy kick and snare An easy trick if you havent worked it out (which to be honest you should have if youre at all serious about producing dubstep) is to stick a smaller snare or hat the 116th before the kick or snare so it steps if you get me For example Bengas Night does this for all four beats in the bar which is part of what makes it so danceable But dont get stuck in always having kick on 1 and snare on 3 some tracks work with a kick on every beat others with a couple big snares etc The trick (unless you want proper lazy spaced out tunes) is to make sure youre nodding your head on all four beats of the bar Play around with a hat on every quaver (ie 8 per bar on the beat) compared to just four but on the off beat as well as adding in the steppy ones every now and then Theres often no need to over-complicate things though one of the my favourite drum tracks is the incredibly simplistic V by Distance Its a rhythm that could easilly be played by one guy on a real kit yet its so banging - check the use of hats and lower velocity kicks in this to make it nice and bouncy Also I once had a four bar drum loop and accidentally moved the sequence one bar to the right for one section and it ended up nicely varying the drums in a way you wouldnt expect
bull Really tight delays can help claps and snaps sound natural 5-20ms etcbull Recycle or phatmatik is your break-chopping friendbull Basically Hatrixxs method involved chopping everything from the main hits into a sample
Say you had a 2-step funk beat like the Amen Youd start your selection from the start of the first kick and select everything up to the start of the first snare Cut paste theres your first slice Then take everything from the start of the first snare up to the start of the second kick - including all the little hats and ghost hits - cut paste second sample and so on Then just map the samples onto some keys and bash away Both of them are quick compared to chopping Recycled slices where you have to copy and drag loads of little notes (one every little fucking tiny hit in the break arranged chromatically up the keyboard) around the piano roll These methods let you just concentrate on the main hits which can be both good or bad You can get a solid beat down with just a handful of hits but youre limited to the patterns already in the original break For a beginner to breakbeat science like yourself Id say try these methods first but dont rule out the really anal methods like RecyclePhatmatikFruity Slicer Sometimes they are a necessary evil Of course some of the drumfunk guys especially those who post on Subvert Central swear by these methods or the next one There are those who prefer to chop up the raw audio rather than bothering with MIDI and samplers They literally just drop the break file into Cubase or Logic and start chopping with the scissors tool and copying and pasting I can see the benefits of this You can see the waveform as youre chopping and youre not as restriced to the quantize grid as you are with MIDI But it takes aaaaages to build a drum track this way and theres the risk of RSI from all that Ctrl+C Ctrl+V youll be doing Then of course theres trackers They really are tailor-made for chopping up loops amongst other things They give you Sample Offset meaning that when you trigger a sample you can set it to start from 256 evenly spaced points throughout the sample So by starting a sample a quarter of the way through youre triggering the first snare (obviously you can fine-tune it when the snare isnt perfectly on the beat) You can edit breaks in a tracker without ever having to cut up a waveform and you can do all sorts of other nifty things like reverse the sample retrigger it to make drum rolls and so on
If recycles having trouble switch the break to mono in your sample editor and then apply tiny fades between the drum hits (especially useful if there are lots of rides that play over the other hits to keep things separate) This should help recycle pick up the start points and with any luck should leave you with a cleaner break
Page 28
Snaresbull Tune the snares so they all hit around the same pitch bull Change the Amp Envelopes of each to bring the strongest parts from each separate sample
and build up your sound like that bull Compressing all together is a good idea but dont over do it bull EQ the master out for the snare as well so you wont have to fuck about when you use the
sample in the future bull Donrsquot just use snares fling some random sound effects in there Claps and rim shots also
work well when layered bull Make subtle changes to them and export a few snares from the same setup this helps
when you need a ghost hit or a reverse that sounds similar but not identicalbull Watch that frequencies dont build up and make the layered bit sound overly whatever
is building up Really easy to get too much 200hz or 500hz or even 12k if youve got samples that are all beefythicksmack-y
bull If its peaking run it through a Spectrum Analyzer and see where its peaking I guess its peaking in the tune rather than just the snare sample playing on its own
bull Sometimes snare samples have a very short peak that doesnt seem to make them sound any better and keeps you from getting them louder without cliping Reduce that part by a few dBs and youre sorted
bull Make sure you are using subtractive eq to pull out the frequencies that could be clashing with other sounds If your frequencies are clashing that can hide the snare and then you end up turning it up to compensate and there you are with your snare peakingThe key is making the frequencies sit right in the mix so that they dont clash and you can set them right and not have to turn them up
bull You could always try clipping the snare normalise it in a wave editor amplify it as much as you can before it sounds distorted then sample it out Then replace the snare with the clipped version it will almost always sound louder with more body at a lower volume I would still point out that although this can be used as a replacement to compression compression is a vital tool to learn how to use Also a lot of peeps will say this does bad things to the waveform and it does but unless you intend to listen to your tune to be heard at home on an amazing hifi then it doesnt really matter that much IMO
bull Hi-pass overdrive limit and cut away space from other sounds for itbull Layer with its self or a different snare Layer with sub add effect to one layer add effect
to both layers layer zoom right in drag one wave form back or forth very slightly to create new snare sound Pitch updown EQ Filter distort reverb delay reverse
bull Record yourself beat boxing your best snare sounds then layer with snare samplesbull A good handclap never goes a miss or use a nice drum synth to get a very differentdigital
soundbull Try reversing the snare sample then changing the envelope settings so it only hits on the
beat Layer that with the same sample this time not reversed Add a little delay to the the reversed snare Change the settings til it sounds how you like
bull Particularly snares I layer up a lot I look for one that has the qualities that I want when run through verb and then I look for something shorter with more mid punch to keep things physical After someone notied snares were weak in a tune Ive really made a point of ensuring that when the snares hit its physical as well as textural You need to feel them a bit - so I look for some snares that have that real punch when layering but usually keep the more textural snappy one as the focus last couple tunes I did the standard kick snare hats w odd percussion and then I took an amen chopped it processed it and layered it overtop for more aggression and step (goddess being a perfect example) By removing a layer and adding it you can create a sense of progression through the tune Make sure the bottom layer is sounding really good and then add the top so that youre not mixing them to be reliant on one another - instead you want synergy Make sure the EQ on the top and bottom make sense with each other
Kicksbull Building a kick in Ableton Lives Impulse machine Provides some essential information
about layering that can be used with any DAWbull Making fat kicks
remixmag wroteWhether creating Miami Bass music is your lifes fantasy or your greatest fear you probably crave the know-how to manifest those car-rattling trunk-full-of-funk kick drums In the arenas of hip-hop house techno downtempo and almost any other electronic genre molding fat kick drums is absolutely essential Like grandmas homemade apple pie the recipe for kick drums is partially a matter of taste However theres no substitute for quality ingredients And just like every pie has its staple ingredients every slamming kick drum requires some common elements Lets take a look at the
Page 29
shopping list for killer kick drumsTHE CRUST
Youll need a basic shell to begin creating a thick strong kick The classics always work if youre fortunate enough to own a real Roland TR-808 909 or other famous drum machine with a killer kick use it copiously If youre not one of those chosen few pay close attention to your original source For example if you use a sampler understand that not all ldquo808 Kickrdquo samples are the same some sound great and some just plain suck There are a lot of reasons for that including how many generations from the original the sample is the sampling rate and bit depth of the sampler how the kick was first sampled and so on Be as choosy as possible with your individual samples mdash dont use a mediocre sample just because it has 808 in the name and therefore is ldquosupposedrdquo to sound fat Seek out a better 808 sample or use something else that is simply bigger sounding Remember the time you spend finding sweet original sources wont be in vain especially if you reuse the resulting samples for multiple songsBORROW SOME SUGAR
An old saying goes ldquoGood art borrows great art stealsrdquo A nice way to start out with great raw kick material is to sample directly from the source If you dont own but have access to a 909 then sample it directly Or take one of your favorite producers tracks on vinyl or CD find a naked kick drum in there and sample it Be cautious with that approach for a couple of reasons Copyright issues around sampling even small bits have become a dangerously gray area and I would never personally advise using any source straight out of the can even from a royalty-free sample library While it may be an excellent start its unoriginal Customize whatever you bite Treat your samples as a sculptor would treat clay mold each one to create a trademark sound for yourself One effective way to customize a fat kick is to take a tip from the synth manufacturers If a sound is thin pile another (or a few more) on top When doing so its important to use different sounds layering two identical kicks will result in a louder kick but it wont change the basic tone Remember the sculptor approach here Even if you are using two good-sounding individual samples they may not instantly sound great together For example I find that when layering kicks while the thickness may be good sustain is often overkill The final result often benefits from a little doctoring on the tail of one (or both) of the samples and other hands-on sonic surgeryADD THE FILLING
Once a nice basic kick is achieved treating it with two of the mastering engineers favorite tools is often the next step Artfully applying a compressor (to just the kick) can go a long way toward creating a signature sound and a huge kick Compression is one of those ldquosecret spicesrdquo and how to apply it is a whole topic in itself One recommendation I will make however is to use a multiband compressor With one of those you can isolate compression on certain frequency ranges That is perfect if for example you want to push the sub of your kick without emphasizing the higher frequencies (which often affect the tone of the attack) or vice-versa EQ comes after compression in my signal chain By now the kick should already sound pretty fat I aim to shave unnecessary frequencies here rather than artificially boosting too much This is also where you can actualize trademark sounds while also fine-tuning them to work alongside other elements in specific tracks I often scoop out mids and highs especially frequencies above about 500 Hz Even though I like thick deep kicks unless Im going for a really dublike sound I often truncate the lowest frequencies (usually the sub-50 Hz frequencies) Even when you cant hear the difference when trimming frequencies doing so can really tighten up your kicksEVEN IT OUT
You may ask why when youre trying to fatten up a kick would you want to trim frequencies That is one of the keys to achieving great mixes both in the case of kick drums and in general You want to avoid too many overlapping frequencies The more sonic separation you have between elements the more focused the entire mix will sound That can be especially important for club music which often gets played on huge not necessarily audiophile-quality sound systems If you havent run into the following scenario already I assure you at some point you will Your bass line and kick drum are competing and it sounds like you have a weak kick You boost the kick but it still sounds muddy Take the bass out and suddenly the kick doesnt sound so bad In a scenario like that solo the two sounds listen carefully for where frequencies are overlapping and then try subtractive EQ on one element then the other and sometimes a bit on both By scooping out overlapping frequencies you will often find that both elements seem to magically come forward in the mix before even touching their respective volume levels
Hi hatsbull Realism
Ive been a professional touring and recording drummer for 25 years and just thought I might share a couple of really simple ways to use fruity loops or fruity studio to create more realistic drum patterns
For what its worth try this out with Fruity Loops
Page 30
Take your hi hat tracks (are any tracks for that matter including melodic synth bubbles)
Drop down the bar graph box that allows you to scroll between velocity (volume) pitch panning cutoff resonance and a thing called shift which allows you to use each of these categories to effect each individual note that youve programmed (note this can be accomplished in other ways in most of the good midi sequencing apps or softwarehardware drum machines)
Drummers no matter how good they are just arent perfect and we can use the fact that each of these drop down bar graphs can make veryvery small changes in a sound to do some subtle things to a rolling drum groove like 16th notes on a hi hat
Not all drummers but many tend to favor their strong hand in a single stroke (hand over hand) drum roll Consequently if you make all odd numbered hi hats be slightly louder than their even numbered hits it will sound more realistic Start by making velocity differences that are really clearly audible Then lower the velocity until you can barely feel the difference We are going to make very subtle changes like this on each of the parameters of velocity pitch cutoff resonance and importantly shift
I cant stress enough that you should make these changes be so subtle that you can hardly notice them
Just going on the fact that the right handed players start their rolls with the right hand and favor it ever so slightly (or grossly for effect as well) means that the stroke will be harder with the right hand than the left hand
When a percussion instrument is hit harder the difference between the transient (or hi pitched attack) of the sound and the body of the instrument (or the sound that comes after the attack) becomes greater In general on drums that means that a harder attack tensions the drum very imperceptably (sp) and it also means that there will be more treble in the sound Consequently the pitch goes up a little teensy bit and their is more attack to the sound (increased resonance and slightly higher cutoff frequency)
Consequently you can make the pitch of each right hand be just barely noticeably higher the resonance should be just one or two of those little teeny bars higher The cutoff should be just a few bars lower (allowing less high frequencies through) on the left handed or even numbered strokes
Typically if drums have time inaccuracies they tend to drag the left hand a litte bit I have to keep stressing that if you can hear the changes you make you arent being realistic You need to make the changes subtle enough that you just barely feel that they arent perfect You can consequently make each left hand note shifted one or two bars late
Tigure out how much you can tweak each parameter before it becomes obvious and then you can just randomly tweak each one up to that limit With a little bit of variance in each stroke from parameter to parameter you will create more of a percolating texture in your programming - this is a great technique to make synth bubbles (the kind used in techno and house) more interesting and less mechanical feeling
Now you can avoid the biggest mistake that non-drummers do when trying to write realistic programs turn the overall volume of the hihats until you CANT hear them and then slowly bring up the volume until you just begin to hear them
Professional producers have spent countless hours trying to figure out how to gate and mix hihats OUT of tracks The reason is two fold1) Human beings have such a radical peak in their hearing around the 1-2khz range (or the intelligibility range of human speech) that we can play the hihats at incredible low volumes and they are still audible You cant do that with a bass drumI tell my drum students that you cannot play a hi hat or a snare drum so quietly that a person sitting in a room with you cant hear it2) Hi Hats the snare of snare drums and cymbals all seriously MASK human vocal intellibility How many people have gone to see live shows where they can hear the singer is singing but cant for the life of them figure out what they are actually singing That is ususally because drummers (or mixers which is frequently the case) are not hip to thisimportant fact
So turn down your hi hat tracks (or any track with a strong mid rangeshort envelope attack) and you have much more room for other musical goodies in your mix When in doubt make your hi hats quieter than you think they should be Trust me theyll come through the mix even at a quiet volume
Swingbull Dont know if you can do this in your sequencer but in Logic you can create a groove
template from your drums and then apply that to your other instruments If youre using separate midi channels for snares kicks and hats take the 8 bar loop youre using glue it together and then take the groove from that and then mute that track When you click down the quantize list youll see the template there and you can apply it to your other tracks Also if you do want to change the groove you can just change the hits in the muted template and itll automatically change all other hits to the new changes
bull Think if youre clever and organized you can basically cut breaks up in recycle load them into the exs24 (extract sequence) and then do the same with them That way if there are breaks you like the feel of you can just apply that swing to anything If you make a folder called grooves in your logic folder they should load up each time so that youll have loads to choose from Havent done this myself yet but always helpful to have a choice of feels available
bull Some things sound better rigid and robotic with equal velocities Some things sound better rigid and robotic with differing velocities Some things sound better with swing Some things sound better with everything ever-so-slightly off Its down to what the track needs
bull Drum Break Swing ProgrammingNicolas Hall wwwbreakbeat-cafenet wroteI think most people who make anything funk breakbeat drum amp bass or hip-hop would agree that Swing is crucial to the effectiveness of a beat The other key factors in a programming sense are dynamic and accent So many people get wound up when their beats sound sterile or mechanical this is due to the fact that computers and sequencers lock to perfect BPM A computer on its own does not interpret rhythm the way a good drummer does There are however certain machines that have their own swing parameters like the Akai MPC range of sampling drum machines which are used extensively by hip hop producers
Swing is not the easiest thing in the world to analyze but as a general rule good drummers will play slightly late and thats why in all funky records you get that slight dip at the start of the bar take Superstition by Stevie Wonder or Billie Jean by Michael Jackson these are both very simple beats Superstition is of course live drums whilst Billie Jean was programmed but no less funky than Superstition I emphasize this point to demonstrate that a programmed beat can be every bit at groovy as a beat played on a drum kit
Expanding on the Billie Jean point Hip Hop beats are really very simple If you listen to the Neptunes they tend to create the swing in their beats by quantizing the kicks and snares and playing the hi hats in by hand this creates a very tight beat which is off set by a loose hi hat try it works but dont forget your accents - As a starting point just take the first snare of your beat and turn the velocity down then notice how your head starts nodding and your foot starts tapping a little more you are giving the beat feel Also remember that if you are using reverb the louder snare will push the reverb harder than the soft snare so your creating more ambience that way Then try your kick drums if your not sure which hits to adjust just pick apart a beat your feeling I remember me and friend picking apart a Gangstarr beat and were able to almost replicate it by adjusting the velocities of each hit (admittedly it took a while to get it right)
If youre a newbie then a common trick when learning to make good grooves is to create a template with an existing loop The idea is take a loop you like thats got a good feel to it and then place your own hits over the break then take the break out and see if your hits are sounding funky This can take a while and its crucial to think about the strength of each hit or the dynamic Each kick will not be the same strength nor will the snares or the hats pick the loop apart dissect it and youll soon see that there are certain consistencies in all good beats
If youre using live loops and like to layer them with drum sequences you should be thinking about time space and frequencies So if you have a fairly heavy loop then layering it with heavy kick drums is probably not gonna sound good Think about filling holes are their any frequencies that could be filled up Or is there space in the loop for extra hits Try working in layers just adding one hit at a time also filtering works well you could take some of the frequencies out of your loop as you drop your drum sequences in to make room for them I think one the masters of this technique is Liam Howlett of the Prodigy He runs breakbeats and gives them extra balls by laying a kick drum underneath to add extra intensity to certain passages in his set but hes careful not to overlap frequencies to much A good place to start if you using breakbeats is the Roland Tr-808 kick drum which is around the 50hz mark which is sub bass territory so it will sit underneath most breaks very well
If your hell bent on making killer beats and loops then perseverance is crucial keep at it it will come together listen to beats you like and pick them apart identify the subtleties that make it happen I know some producers get fed up when their beats sound to clean or they are trying to create a new breakbeat and then compare it to sample they took from vinyl and get down on there own beat Think about what a breakbeat really is think about its history what has happened to it to make it sound the way it does Im
Page 32
sure youve noticed how some breaks have a certain something like a magic dust you cant put your finger on Let me share what I know with you about that
Most breaks though not all are taken from recordings of live drums some of them are pretty old so you have the ambience of live drums and the room they were recorded in you have the fact that natural decay and reverb of each drum is likely to have bled into the other mics on the kit and that most engineers used overhead mics which pick up the whole kit with two mics Then consider that many of these breaks will have been recorded to analogue tape with saturation which will create extra warmth and harmonics The next step comes from old sampling technology like the SP-1200 and the Akai s-950 mpc -60 these samplers sampled at 12- bit (bear in mind that most computers now are at least 24-bit if not more) and that the samples themselves where taken from vinyl and on and on the process goes with each new reverb and eq adding more and more to the break In terms of giving your breaks that character there are a number of things you can try for example buying an old four track cassette machine to dump your beats onto then re-sample it if your using a sampler like the s-950 then try pushing the input meters a little harder than usual add reverbs and resample it each time you put your loop through a new channel you will be adding something to it Also distortion is fantastic for breaks if you have any amp plug ins then try them the Amplitude one is particularly good you dont need to go mad with it just used subtly it works great
To finish I would just like to say again stick with it keep trying keep listening to records if you like to read about technique then do so you can learn so much from other producers Remember the strength of your hits is important as is the way it swings good luck
UPDATE 08092008
ENHANCE SYNTHESIZED DRUM PARTS WITH FOUND SOUNDS
emusiciancom wroteLayering real-world sounds with synthesized drum parts puts a new spin on your drum tracks You probably already have usable sound effects on your hard drive because most commercial samplers have at least a modest collection in their factory library Beyond that youll find thousands of royalty-free sound effects online Soundsnapcom is one of my favorite sources and its free The recordings dont need to be pristine for layering over drums so dont overlook cheap sampling CDs and consider grabbing your own sounds with a portable recorderCollect and Save
Start by assembling a small Foley library of short percussive sounds divided into typical drum-sound categories kicks snares toms cymbals percussion and so on Youll generally want to layer drum sounds with Foley sounds that have a similar volume contour and frequency range If you layer a Foley sound that resembles a kick drum with the sound of your hi-hat for example youll quickly fill up all the space in your drum track
Industrial household military transportation and vocal sounds make excellent fodder but you will often want to extract a small slice such as the last shot in a volley of machine-gun fire (snare) or the first bounce of a plastic bottle on concrete (tom) A browsing tool like Audio Finder (icedaudiocom) is invaluable if you have a large sample library That lets you quickly audition clips make basic edits and drag-and-drop slices to your library
Sticks UpIf your synthesized drum part is step sequenced youll need to export its step sequences as MIDI files Many drum synths do that including Sonic Charge Tonic (sonicchargecom) Apple Logic UltraBeat (applecom) and Submersible DrumCore (submersiblemusiccom) All of those come with a large collection of patterns exportable as MIDI sequences Youll also need a sampler to play the Foley sounds drum-oriented samplers are handier for that but are by no means necessary
Start by loading a kit in the drum synth Export one of its sequenced patterns or create your own and place it on the sampler track For some of the drum synth sounds select compatible Foley sounds and map them to the same notes in the sampler that theyre mapped to in the drum synth Next solo the doubled voices one by one in both the drum synth and the sampler start the sequence playing and tweak the samplers voice parameters (filter level pan envelope and so on) to make the sounds work together (see Fig 1 and Web Clip 1) Dont tweak global parameters such as effects because that will affect all sounds played by the sampler
High HoopsOnce youve configured your Foley track you can do several things to add interest I frequently use a
Page 33
second sampler for short vocal sounds Ill have some notes trigger sounds in both samplers and others in only one Many samplers let you group sounds and assign notes and controllers to choose among them You can then sequence these notes and controllers or you can play them live to alter your Foley tracks
Try applying DSP effects to individual Foley sounds Multitap delays distortion phasing and granular effects all work well when used sparingly (see Web Clip 2) You can apply DSP effects inside your sampler or route the voices to a separate output for DSP processing in your DAW If your sampler doesnt offer either possibility spread the Foley parts over several sampler instances on different tracks
Sidechain compression or gating of the drum track with one or more of the Foley parts will highlight the Foley part as well as add variety to the drums With compression peaks in the sidechain signal will reduce the level of the drum track Use a high compression level say 201 and balance the sidechain-gain and the compression-threshold -attack and -release controls to get the ducking contour you want (see Web Clip 3) Gating has the opposite effect the drum track will be heard during peaks in the sidechain signal (see Web Clip 4) Here too the sidechain-gain and gate-threshold controls work in tandem to determine when the gate is opened Use envelope parameters (attack release and hold) to shape the gates contour
Keep in mind that once youve created a sampler instrument to complement your drum kit you can reuse it with other sequences You can also change one or more sounds in the sampler instrument without repeating the whole process
34 Sidechain Compression (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
4 Theory41 ndash Song Structure42 ndash Mixdown (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)43 ndash Mastering (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
44 Music Theory
The first thing to remember about music theory is that generally if it sounds right it probably is There are no rules in music and Music Theory is not about telling you how to write music Its about understanding the music
Broadly speaking it is fair to say that most music is essentially based upon two crucial factors scales and rhythm Scales make up melodies chords harmonies and basslines to name but a few whereas rhythm makes up the beat of the song In this part of the Production Bible you will learn the basics of Music Theory that will serve you not only in the production of Dubstep but for any of your future musical pursuits This information is intended to be easy to read and understand so I wonrsquot be mincing sentences But firstly please make sure you learn every single note on the keyboard by studying the image below Otherwise yoursquoll be completely lost here
Page 34
Scales Wersquoll begin with scales As I mentioned before scales are the building blocks of your song and without them your track will be atonal and completely unlistenable (probably not the effect yoursquore going for)
There are two main scales that you should learn inside out ndash the major scale and the minor scale A generalisation yoursquore bound to have heard before is that the major scale sounds ldquohappyrdquo and the minor scale sounds ldquodarkrdquo Although this is not always the case it is mostly true ndash and therefore yoursquoll usually be focussing on the minor scale when producing Dubstep However just in case yoursquore writing happy-dubstep (if that exists) here is a quick overview of both scales and how they are made up
Major Scale
The major scale is really easy to create It is made by a single rule that is simple to put in to place
ldquoTone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
In case you donrsquot know what a Tone or Semi-Tone is here is a quick explanation
Picture a keyboard (or if you canrsquot see the image above) Say you go from C to C that would be a semi-tone The same thing goes for if you go from an E to an F ndash it is still a semi-tone because you
Page 35
have gone up one key
A tone is two semi-tones ndash for example from C to D is a tone and the same goes for from G to A
The scalersquos name is taken from the note that it starts on For example C major will start on the note of C Similarly A major will start on the note of A and this is the case with every single scale
Here is a quick list of a few major scales After having seen a few try working the rest out for yourself in order to understand how the major scale is formulated Ideally you should practice your scales on a piano or keyboard so that you can physically see how to make the scale It might sound boring but itrsquos a small price to pay for a much deeper understanding of your music
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Major C D E F G A B C
C Major C D E F G A B C
D Major D E F G A B C D
D Major D E F G A B C D
E Major E F G A B C D E
F Major F G A Bb C D E F
F Major F G A B C D E F
G Major G A B C D E F G
G Major G A B C D E F G
A Major A B C D E F G A
A Major A B C D E F G A
B major B C D E F G A B
Now by arranging the different notes of each of these scales in any order you please you can create a melody bassline or harmony with extreme ease Rearranging the notes in the scale will give you a flawlessly in-key result and it is then up to you to use the notes in the scale as you see fit for your tune
Minor Scale
As was the case with the Major Scale the Minor is made up from a set rule or formula By knowing this formula you can understand how the Minor is made and how to use it to itrsquos maximum effect
ldquoTone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
As is the case with the major scales you should practice your scales as much as possible to make sure that you know them all like the back of your hand Here are a few Minor Scales see if you can
Page 36
work out the rest
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Minor C D Eb F G Ab B C
D Minor D E F G A Bb C D
F Minor F G A B C D E F
G Minor G A Bb C D Eb F G
Similarly to the Major now that you know your Minor Scales you can quickly just take any note from the scale rearrange it with another few notes in the scale and there you have a fat melody or bassline ready to be played at maximum volume
Diminished Chords
Diminished Chords are really quite spooky and dark chords that are made up of four different notes all a minor third apart from each other That means that for example the Diminished Chord starting on C would be C Eb F A because to get from one note to the next you have to use ldquoTone Semi-Tonerdquo (known as a minor third)
Because of the mathematical nature of the Diminished chord there are only three ldquoclustersrdquo of notes which can then be rearranged like the Major and Minor Scales
Cluster 1 C Eb F A
Cluster 2 C E G Bb
Cluster 3 D F Ab B
Use these clusters and rearrange them as you please For example you could rearrange cluster 1 as Eb F A C etc
Generally speaking you canrsquot make a song based entirely on Diminished Chords due to the fact that each cluster only has 4 notes However a Diminished Chord is perfect for adding a hint of darkness to your tune and is brilliant when mixed with some Minor Scales
Chords
Chords are basically two or more notes played together They are made up from a specific scale ndash for example the C major chord is made up of notes in the C major scale
Usually chords will include the first third and fifth note of the scale as well as possibly using other notes to give them colour For example the basic chord of C major would be C E G Then you could add the seventh note to it (in this case it is B) Really it is up to the producerrsquos discretion how heshe goes about making a chord ndash just remember to stick to the scale you are using
Chords will more than likely sound like shit if you play them on a complicated or layered synth patch You want to be playing chords on sustained sounds such as strings or pads Chords will really fill out your sound if used properly You want your chords to be supporting the melody or bassline and more than likely want to add some reverb so that it doesnrsquot sound too sharp Make
Page 37
your chords blend in with the music and yoursquoll have mastered them
Chord Inversions
Quite simply chord inversions are when you rearrange the notes in a chord so that it sounds a bit different and suits your arrangement better
For example if you were in the key of C major you could have a drone of E playing underneath some strings playing the notes E G C E
Due to the fact that the notes are the same and have only been inverted the chord will still be in key with the rest of the music This is a great way to add a touch of variation to your music instead of using the same chord structure all the time
Arpeggios
Arpeggios are much easier to understand than they sound They are quite simply the first third and fifth note of the scale played as individual notes For example the arpeggio of C minor would be C Eb G C etc
A great example of an arpeggio is the bassline in Bengarsquos ldquoCrunked Uprdquo He goes from playing the F minor arpeggio backwards to playing the F minor arpeggio backwards In other words he is playing
C A F and then C Ab F
Experiment with a few Minor Arpeggios and a couple of Diminished Arpeggios and you canrsquot go wrong in writing a huge bassline
Suggested Reading
List of All Scales With Finger Charts Included
Well thatrsquos it folks Thatrsquos basically all the music theory you need to know to start off with As you grow more used to the various scales yoursquoll notice that certain notes sound good with each other whilst others donrsquot Irsquom not here to tell you how to write music Irsquom here to teach you the language
of music Itrsquos up to you to write the poetry
copy Bruno Crosier (klimaxx) 2008
45 Random Tips
Random tips amp best piece of advice thread
5 Resources
Page 38
51 Books amp Magazines
Hello again people
Does anyone know of more music production books magazines or authors we can add to these lists
Thanks
------------------------------------------------
Music Production Magazines Computer Music - httpwwwcomputermusiccouk Music Tech Magazine - httpwwwmusictechmagcouk Future Music - httpwwwfuturemusiccouk Sound on Sound - httpwwwsoundonsoundcom Remix Magazine - httpremixmagcom Mix Magazine - httpmixonlinecom Electronic Musician - httpemusiciancom EQ Magazine - httpwwweqmagcom Audio Technology - wwwaudiotechnologycomau Tape Op - httpwwwtapeopcom
------------------------------------------------
Music Books
Authors Curtis Roads httpmitpressmiteducatalogauthor aspaid=93 - The Computer Music Tutorial (Really really really good book) Paul White - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea ul20White - Basic Series + more Rick Snowman - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea k20Snoman - The Dance Music Manual Tools Toys and Techniques Bobby Owsinski - httpbooksgooglecoukbooksas_auth=Bobby+Owsinski - The MixingRecording amp Mastering Engineers Handbooks Michael Paul Stavrou - httpwwwmixingwithyourmindcom
Publishers Thomson Course Technology - httpcoursecengagecom (Click on the Music Technology tab) - Series published include Power Overdrive Ignite and CSI Series + many more Backbeat Books - httpwwwbackbeatbookscom ndash Power Tools Series + many more Wiley Publishing - httpwwwdummiescom (Enter music in their search bar) - For Dummies Series Penguin Books - httpuspenguingroupcom (Enter music in their search bar) - The Complete Idiots Guide Series + many more MIT Press - httpmitpressmitedu - Many books on music theory Focal Press - httpwwwfocalpresscom - (Enter music in their search bar)
------------------------------------------------
Online Music Book Stores (We need more links here Do you know of any that we can add)
httpwwwmixbookscom ndash Excellent source that sells only books about music
Page 39
httpwwwamazoncom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
httpwwwbarnesandnoblecom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
------------------------------------------------
52 Wikipedia
A good music lexicon wiki Search for your term in the search bar ---gt httpenaudiolexicorgwikiMain_Page
0-9
14rdquo Jack - httpenwikipediaorgwikiJack_plug 3rd Bridge - httpenwikipediaorgwiki3rd_Bridge
Zero Crossing - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_crossing Zero Crossing Rate - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_Crossing_Rate
53 Other recommended production forums
for Logic users this is the shit httpwwwlogicprohelpcom
Ive found both these forums to be full of knowledgeable producers amp musicians
httpwwwkvraudiocomforum
httpacapellaharmony-centralcomforumsindexphp
httpwwwgearslutzcomboard
httpwwwsoundonsoundcomforum
httpwwwmusicradarcomforum
httpwwwidmforumscom
httpwwwdance-industriescomphpBB2 8cffbb3b02
httpwwwsubvertcentralcomforumindexphp
httpwwwbreakbeatcouk
httpwwwtweakheadzcom
httpwwwabletoncompagesforum
Explains lots about the music industry ---gt httpwwwbemusocom
Page 47
Ok so a massive thanks to all the contributors there are literally too many to mention But Thanks to Futures Untold Johnny Beat Klimaxx Deadly Habit amp JunglistRendr Daft Cunt in perticular
Thanks to all the artists producers and general music geeks making this early revision of the production bible an essential read
There are links missing and will be included in version 21(Please help with the unlinked chapters by going here - httpwwwdubstepforumcomthe-dubstep-production-bible-updated-2009-06-03-t14797html and updating missing info as needed)
Compiled by Daft Cunt and Futures Untold PDF Compiled by Depone
Page 26
32 Re-sampling
SafeAfter a few months of experimenting with resampling not really getting anywhere in terms of sound quality i came up with a pretty simple way of getting on the right track Ive got so much help since getting on this forum in terms of production i thought id share this for those who like myself are looking into the elusive yet highly rewarding technique of resamplingAll the vsts i use on this (save for the synth itself) are freenative plugs im using FL but itll transfer onto every DAW pretty much the same Ill explain it for a bassline but it can be applied to any sound
Step 1Make yourself a nice bassline get it sounding dirty with whatever you can within the synth Im using Albino so i tend to play about with the saturation modesFXs until its sounding pretty good
Step 2Hook up to a mixer channel then send this channel to a second mixer channel (FL users just click on another channel towards the bottom of the strip) On the second channel that the synth is hooked to from the first add CMt bitcrusher and downsample 3-16x (thanks to all the production forum users who pointed this out to me when i posted a few months ago on dirtying up basslines) Then add a chorus Turn the LFOs off and set the depthdelayetc to whatever sounds best Also set the crossover pretty high so only the treblehigh mids are being affected Then add Camel Audio Camel Crusher Turn the compressor off and set the tubemech to taste Add a parametric EQ if needs be to boost the high freqs Experiment with the chain of these effects swapping them according to the sound The choruscameleq in different orders should alter the sound quite alot depending on where their placed
Step 3 Set the level of the second affected channel with the original depending on whatever suits Play about with adding extra effects to both channels The way the second channel behaves once an effect is added to the first is quite extreme in even light application of effects So its possible to create a whole array of different sounds just from say adding a flangerchorusetc to the first channel then listening to how much it affects the sound as a whole as it goes through both channels By now it should be sounding pretty girthy
Step 4Export the riffsample (i use edison on the master channel in FL but whatever method will do) Reload and place into a mixer channel Add another Camel Crusher for abit more grit EQ and compress Set up a reverbdelay send and resample again for extra depth
Obviously this technique can be applied a 2nd3rd4th time to fuck the sound up even more so Which is what ive moved onto doing now into the territory of splitting the sound into basslow midhigh midtreble sections for ultimate control over each part Something which i was attempting to do before coming up with the above method but being left with a pile of unlistenable mushy shite
Hope this is a help to some peeps I know theres no secret technique to resamping only a whole load of practice and using your ears but this method got me on the right track in terms of hearing the benefits of it and encouraging me to experiment more in depth and realise that the possiblities are endless Im hooked now i resample pretty much every sound in one way or another Kick and snares benefit hugley from it for mega face melting wide drum sounds aswell so its worth trying it on some nice drum hits
Keep up the good work folksPeaceDC_WT
33 Drums
Read before reading on I am in no way entitled to any of those opinions It is up to you to decide whether you would like to incorporate them in your workflow I have just collected them from all the threads in this forum and will try to keep everything updated
I will update as regularly as I find updates
Page 27
Misc tips and tricks bull Good drums are usually layered - example 3 snares sounding as onebull The hats are often panned or widenedbull Pick great sounding samples different ones for different parts of the sounds you want 1
for snap and bite 1 for body 1 for thump distort and MAYBE EQ each to make them sound the best that they can separately combine in a bus MAYBE compress them together maybe accent the front and shorten the sound with a transient modifier 10 minutes tops
bull Do as little as possible with great-sounding bits and your basic sounds will be slamming leaves you time to focus on the arrangement people dont go around thinking wow that tune has an amazing snare as long as its thumping and not masked by a bunch of other stuff itll keep the dance moving
bull Listen to other producers work As its playing imagine the 1 2 3 4 on the step sequencer running in time to what youre listening to Try to visualize where the producer put their hits Not to say you should copy peoples drum patterns but learn from them
bull Ive noticed a lot of tunes (more minimal stuff where you can distinctly hear whats seperately going on) seem to use two differently pitched hi-hats that alternate to sound shuffley if you know what I mean and a less dramatic snare used sparsely in between the main lazy kick and snare An easy trick if you havent worked it out (which to be honest you should have if youre at all serious about producing dubstep) is to stick a smaller snare or hat the 116th before the kick or snare so it steps if you get me For example Bengas Night does this for all four beats in the bar which is part of what makes it so danceable But dont get stuck in always having kick on 1 and snare on 3 some tracks work with a kick on every beat others with a couple big snares etc The trick (unless you want proper lazy spaced out tunes) is to make sure youre nodding your head on all four beats of the bar Play around with a hat on every quaver (ie 8 per bar on the beat) compared to just four but on the off beat as well as adding in the steppy ones every now and then Theres often no need to over-complicate things though one of the my favourite drum tracks is the incredibly simplistic V by Distance Its a rhythm that could easilly be played by one guy on a real kit yet its so banging - check the use of hats and lower velocity kicks in this to make it nice and bouncy Also I once had a four bar drum loop and accidentally moved the sequence one bar to the right for one section and it ended up nicely varying the drums in a way you wouldnt expect
bull Really tight delays can help claps and snaps sound natural 5-20ms etcbull Recycle or phatmatik is your break-chopping friendbull Basically Hatrixxs method involved chopping everything from the main hits into a sample
Say you had a 2-step funk beat like the Amen Youd start your selection from the start of the first kick and select everything up to the start of the first snare Cut paste theres your first slice Then take everything from the start of the first snare up to the start of the second kick - including all the little hats and ghost hits - cut paste second sample and so on Then just map the samples onto some keys and bash away Both of them are quick compared to chopping Recycled slices where you have to copy and drag loads of little notes (one every little fucking tiny hit in the break arranged chromatically up the keyboard) around the piano roll These methods let you just concentrate on the main hits which can be both good or bad You can get a solid beat down with just a handful of hits but youre limited to the patterns already in the original break For a beginner to breakbeat science like yourself Id say try these methods first but dont rule out the really anal methods like RecyclePhatmatikFruity Slicer Sometimes they are a necessary evil Of course some of the drumfunk guys especially those who post on Subvert Central swear by these methods or the next one There are those who prefer to chop up the raw audio rather than bothering with MIDI and samplers They literally just drop the break file into Cubase or Logic and start chopping with the scissors tool and copying and pasting I can see the benefits of this You can see the waveform as youre chopping and youre not as restriced to the quantize grid as you are with MIDI But it takes aaaaages to build a drum track this way and theres the risk of RSI from all that Ctrl+C Ctrl+V youll be doing Then of course theres trackers They really are tailor-made for chopping up loops amongst other things They give you Sample Offset meaning that when you trigger a sample you can set it to start from 256 evenly spaced points throughout the sample So by starting a sample a quarter of the way through youre triggering the first snare (obviously you can fine-tune it when the snare isnt perfectly on the beat) You can edit breaks in a tracker without ever having to cut up a waveform and you can do all sorts of other nifty things like reverse the sample retrigger it to make drum rolls and so on
If recycles having trouble switch the break to mono in your sample editor and then apply tiny fades between the drum hits (especially useful if there are lots of rides that play over the other hits to keep things separate) This should help recycle pick up the start points and with any luck should leave you with a cleaner break
Page 28
Snaresbull Tune the snares so they all hit around the same pitch bull Change the Amp Envelopes of each to bring the strongest parts from each separate sample
and build up your sound like that bull Compressing all together is a good idea but dont over do it bull EQ the master out for the snare as well so you wont have to fuck about when you use the
sample in the future bull Donrsquot just use snares fling some random sound effects in there Claps and rim shots also
work well when layered bull Make subtle changes to them and export a few snares from the same setup this helps
when you need a ghost hit or a reverse that sounds similar but not identicalbull Watch that frequencies dont build up and make the layered bit sound overly whatever
is building up Really easy to get too much 200hz or 500hz or even 12k if youve got samples that are all beefythicksmack-y
bull If its peaking run it through a Spectrum Analyzer and see where its peaking I guess its peaking in the tune rather than just the snare sample playing on its own
bull Sometimes snare samples have a very short peak that doesnt seem to make them sound any better and keeps you from getting them louder without cliping Reduce that part by a few dBs and youre sorted
bull Make sure you are using subtractive eq to pull out the frequencies that could be clashing with other sounds If your frequencies are clashing that can hide the snare and then you end up turning it up to compensate and there you are with your snare peakingThe key is making the frequencies sit right in the mix so that they dont clash and you can set them right and not have to turn them up
bull You could always try clipping the snare normalise it in a wave editor amplify it as much as you can before it sounds distorted then sample it out Then replace the snare with the clipped version it will almost always sound louder with more body at a lower volume I would still point out that although this can be used as a replacement to compression compression is a vital tool to learn how to use Also a lot of peeps will say this does bad things to the waveform and it does but unless you intend to listen to your tune to be heard at home on an amazing hifi then it doesnt really matter that much IMO
bull Hi-pass overdrive limit and cut away space from other sounds for itbull Layer with its self or a different snare Layer with sub add effect to one layer add effect
to both layers layer zoom right in drag one wave form back or forth very slightly to create new snare sound Pitch updown EQ Filter distort reverb delay reverse
bull Record yourself beat boxing your best snare sounds then layer with snare samplesbull A good handclap never goes a miss or use a nice drum synth to get a very differentdigital
soundbull Try reversing the snare sample then changing the envelope settings so it only hits on the
beat Layer that with the same sample this time not reversed Add a little delay to the the reversed snare Change the settings til it sounds how you like
bull Particularly snares I layer up a lot I look for one that has the qualities that I want when run through verb and then I look for something shorter with more mid punch to keep things physical After someone notied snares were weak in a tune Ive really made a point of ensuring that when the snares hit its physical as well as textural You need to feel them a bit - so I look for some snares that have that real punch when layering but usually keep the more textural snappy one as the focus last couple tunes I did the standard kick snare hats w odd percussion and then I took an amen chopped it processed it and layered it overtop for more aggression and step (goddess being a perfect example) By removing a layer and adding it you can create a sense of progression through the tune Make sure the bottom layer is sounding really good and then add the top so that youre not mixing them to be reliant on one another - instead you want synergy Make sure the EQ on the top and bottom make sense with each other
Kicksbull Building a kick in Ableton Lives Impulse machine Provides some essential information
about layering that can be used with any DAWbull Making fat kicks
remixmag wroteWhether creating Miami Bass music is your lifes fantasy or your greatest fear you probably crave the know-how to manifest those car-rattling trunk-full-of-funk kick drums In the arenas of hip-hop house techno downtempo and almost any other electronic genre molding fat kick drums is absolutely essential Like grandmas homemade apple pie the recipe for kick drums is partially a matter of taste However theres no substitute for quality ingredients And just like every pie has its staple ingredients every slamming kick drum requires some common elements Lets take a look at the
Page 29
shopping list for killer kick drumsTHE CRUST
Youll need a basic shell to begin creating a thick strong kick The classics always work if youre fortunate enough to own a real Roland TR-808 909 or other famous drum machine with a killer kick use it copiously If youre not one of those chosen few pay close attention to your original source For example if you use a sampler understand that not all ldquo808 Kickrdquo samples are the same some sound great and some just plain suck There are a lot of reasons for that including how many generations from the original the sample is the sampling rate and bit depth of the sampler how the kick was first sampled and so on Be as choosy as possible with your individual samples mdash dont use a mediocre sample just because it has 808 in the name and therefore is ldquosupposedrdquo to sound fat Seek out a better 808 sample or use something else that is simply bigger sounding Remember the time you spend finding sweet original sources wont be in vain especially if you reuse the resulting samples for multiple songsBORROW SOME SUGAR
An old saying goes ldquoGood art borrows great art stealsrdquo A nice way to start out with great raw kick material is to sample directly from the source If you dont own but have access to a 909 then sample it directly Or take one of your favorite producers tracks on vinyl or CD find a naked kick drum in there and sample it Be cautious with that approach for a couple of reasons Copyright issues around sampling even small bits have become a dangerously gray area and I would never personally advise using any source straight out of the can even from a royalty-free sample library While it may be an excellent start its unoriginal Customize whatever you bite Treat your samples as a sculptor would treat clay mold each one to create a trademark sound for yourself One effective way to customize a fat kick is to take a tip from the synth manufacturers If a sound is thin pile another (or a few more) on top When doing so its important to use different sounds layering two identical kicks will result in a louder kick but it wont change the basic tone Remember the sculptor approach here Even if you are using two good-sounding individual samples they may not instantly sound great together For example I find that when layering kicks while the thickness may be good sustain is often overkill The final result often benefits from a little doctoring on the tail of one (or both) of the samples and other hands-on sonic surgeryADD THE FILLING
Once a nice basic kick is achieved treating it with two of the mastering engineers favorite tools is often the next step Artfully applying a compressor (to just the kick) can go a long way toward creating a signature sound and a huge kick Compression is one of those ldquosecret spicesrdquo and how to apply it is a whole topic in itself One recommendation I will make however is to use a multiband compressor With one of those you can isolate compression on certain frequency ranges That is perfect if for example you want to push the sub of your kick without emphasizing the higher frequencies (which often affect the tone of the attack) or vice-versa EQ comes after compression in my signal chain By now the kick should already sound pretty fat I aim to shave unnecessary frequencies here rather than artificially boosting too much This is also where you can actualize trademark sounds while also fine-tuning them to work alongside other elements in specific tracks I often scoop out mids and highs especially frequencies above about 500 Hz Even though I like thick deep kicks unless Im going for a really dublike sound I often truncate the lowest frequencies (usually the sub-50 Hz frequencies) Even when you cant hear the difference when trimming frequencies doing so can really tighten up your kicksEVEN IT OUT
You may ask why when youre trying to fatten up a kick would you want to trim frequencies That is one of the keys to achieving great mixes both in the case of kick drums and in general You want to avoid too many overlapping frequencies The more sonic separation you have between elements the more focused the entire mix will sound That can be especially important for club music which often gets played on huge not necessarily audiophile-quality sound systems If you havent run into the following scenario already I assure you at some point you will Your bass line and kick drum are competing and it sounds like you have a weak kick You boost the kick but it still sounds muddy Take the bass out and suddenly the kick doesnt sound so bad In a scenario like that solo the two sounds listen carefully for where frequencies are overlapping and then try subtractive EQ on one element then the other and sometimes a bit on both By scooping out overlapping frequencies you will often find that both elements seem to magically come forward in the mix before even touching their respective volume levels
Hi hatsbull Realism
Ive been a professional touring and recording drummer for 25 years and just thought I might share a couple of really simple ways to use fruity loops or fruity studio to create more realistic drum patterns
For what its worth try this out with Fruity Loops
Page 30
Take your hi hat tracks (are any tracks for that matter including melodic synth bubbles)
Drop down the bar graph box that allows you to scroll between velocity (volume) pitch panning cutoff resonance and a thing called shift which allows you to use each of these categories to effect each individual note that youve programmed (note this can be accomplished in other ways in most of the good midi sequencing apps or softwarehardware drum machines)
Drummers no matter how good they are just arent perfect and we can use the fact that each of these drop down bar graphs can make veryvery small changes in a sound to do some subtle things to a rolling drum groove like 16th notes on a hi hat
Not all drummers but many tend to favor their strong hand in a single stroke (hand over hand) drum roll Consequently if you make all odd numbered hi hats be slightly louder than their even numbered hits it will sound more realistic Start by making velocity differences that are really clearly audible Then lower the velocity until you can barely feel the difference We are going to make very subtle changes like this on each of the parameters of velocity pitch cutoff resonance and importantly shift
I cant stress enough that you should make these changes be so subtle that you can hardly notice them
Just going on the fact that the right handed players start their rolls with the right hand and favor it ever so slightly (or grossly for effect as well) means that the stroke will be harder with the right hand than the left hand
When a percussion instrument is hit harder the difference between the transient (or hi pitched attack) of the sound and the body of the instrument (or the sound that comes after the attack) becomes greater In general on drums that means that a harder attack tensions the drum very imperceptably (sp) and it also means that there will be more treble in the sound Consequently the pitch goes up a little teensy bit and their is more attack to the sound (increased resonance and slightly higher cutoff frequency)
Consequently you can make the pitch of each right hand be just barely noticeably higher the resonance should be just one or two of those little teeny bars higher The cutoff should be just a few bars lower (allowing less high frequencies through) on the left handed or even numbered strokes
Typically if drums have time inaccuracies they tend to drag the left hand a litte bit I have to keep stressing that if you can hear the changes you make you arent being realistic You need to make the changes subtle enough that you just barely feel that they arent perfect You can consequently make each left hand note shifted one or two bars late
Tigure out how much you can tweak each parameter before it becomes obvious and then you can just randomly tweak each one up to that limit With a little bit of variance in each stroke from parameter to parameter you will create more of a percolating texture in your programming - this is a great technique to make synth bubbles (the kind used in techno and house) more interesting and less mechanical feeling
Now you can avoid the biggest mistake that non-drummers do when trying to write realistic programs turn the overall volume of the hihats until you CANT hear them and then slowly bring up the volume until you just begin to hear them
Professional producers have spent countless hours trying to figure out how to gate and mix hihats OUT of tracks The reason is two fold1) Human beings have such a radical peak in their hearing around the 1-2khz range (or the intelligibility range of human speech) that we can play the hihats at incredible low volumes and they are still audible You cant do that with a bass drumI tell my drum students that you cannot play a hi hat or a snare drum so quietly that a person sitting in a room with you cant hear it2) Hi Hats the snare of snare drums and cymbals all seriously MASK human vocal intellibility How many people have gone to see live shows where they can hear the singer is singing but cant for the life of them figure out what they are actually singing That is ususally because drummers (or mixers which is frequently the case) are not hip to thisimportant fact
So turn down your hi hat tracks (or any track with a strong mid rangeshort envelope attack) and you have much more room for other musical goodies in your mix When in doubt make your hi hats quieter than you think they should be Trust me theyll come through the mix even at a quiet volume
Swingbull Dont know if you can do this in your sequencer but in Logic you can create a groove
template from your drums and then apply that to your other instruments If youre using separate midi channels for snares kicks and hats take the 8 bar loop youre using glue it together and then take the groove from that and then mute that track When you click down the quantize list youll see the template there and you can apply it to your other tracks Also if you do want to change the groove you can just change the hits in the muted template and itll automatically change all other hits to the new changes
bull Think if youre clever and organized you can basically cut breaks up in recycle load them into the exs24 (extract sequence) and then do the same with them That way if there are breaks you like the feel of you can just apply that swing to anything If you make a folder called grooves in your logic folder they should load up each time so that youll have loads to choose from Havent done this myself yet but always helpful to have a choice of feels available
bull Some things sound better rigid and robotic with equal velocities Some things sound better rigid and robotic with differing velocities Some things sound better with swing Some things sound better with everything ever-so-slightly off Its down to what the track needs
bull Drum Break Swing ProgrammingNicolas Hall wwwbreakbeat-cafenet wroteI think most people who make anything funk breakbeat drum amp bass or hip-hop would agree that Swing is crucial to the effectiveness of a beat The other key factors in a programming sense are dynamic and accent So many people get wound up when their beats sound sterile or mechanical this is due to the fact that computers and sequencers lock to perfect BPM A computer on its own does not interpret rhythm the way a good drummer does There are however certain machines that have their own swing parameters like the Akai MPC range of sampling drum machines which are used extensively by hip hop producers
Swing is not the easiest thing in the world to analyze but as a general rule good drummers will play slightly late and thats why in all funky records you get that slight dip at the start of the bar take Superstition by Stevie Wonder or Billie Jean by Michael Jackson these are both very simple beats Superstition is of course live drums whilst Billie Jean was programmed but no less funky than Superstition I emphasize this point to demonstrate that a programmed beat can be every bit at groovy as a beat played on a drum kit
Expanding on the Billie Jean point Hip Hop beats are really very simple If you listen to the Neptunes they tend to create the swing in their beats by quantizing the kicks and snares and playing the hi hats in by hand this creates a very tight beat which is off set by a loose hi hat try it works but dont forget your accents - As a starting point just take the first snare of your beat and turn the velocity down then notice how your head starts nodding and your foot starts tapping a little more you are giving the beat feel Also remember that if you are using reverb the louder snare will push the reverb harder than the soft snare so your creating more ambience that way Then try your kick drums if your not sure which hits to adjust just pick apart a beat your feeling I remember me and friend picking apart a Gangstarr beat and were able to almost replicate it by adjusting the velocities of each hit (admittedly it took a while to get it right)
If youre a newbie then a common trick when learning to make good grooves is to create a template with an existing loop The idea is take a loop you like thats got a good feel to it and then place your own hits over the break then take the break out and see if your hits are sounding funky This can take a while and its crucial to think about the strength of each hit or the dynamic Each kick will not be the same strength nor will the snares or the hats pick the loop apart dissect it and youll soon see that there are certain consistencies in all good beats
If youre using live loops and like to layer them with drum sequences you should be thinking about time space and frequencies So if you have a fairly heavy loop then layering it with heavy kick drums is probably not gonna sound good Think about filling holes are their any frequencies that could be filled up Or is there space in the loop for extra hits Try working in layers just adding one hit at a time also filtering works well you could take some of the frequencies out of your loop as you drop your drum sequences in to make room for them I think one the masters of this technique is Liam Howlett of the Prodigy He runs breakbeats and gives them extra balls by laying a kick drum underneath to add extra intensity to certain passages in his set but hes careful not to overlap frequencies to much A good place to start if you using breakbeats is the Roland Tr-808 kick drum which is around the 50hz mark which is sub bass territory so it will sit underneath most breaks very well
If your hell bent on making killer beats and loops then perseverance is crucial keep at it it will come together listen to beats you like and pick them apart identify the subtleties that make it happen I know some producers get fed up when their beats sound to clean or they are trying to create a new breakbeat and then compare it to sample they took from vinyl and get down on there own beat Think about what a breakbeat really is think about its history what has happened to it to make it sound the way it does Im
Page 32
sure youve noticed how some breaks have a certain something like a magic dust you cant put your finger on Let me share what I know with you about that
Most breaks though not all are taken from recordings of live drums some of them are pretty old so you have the ambience of live drums and the room they were recorded in you have the fact that natural decay and reverb of each drum is likely to have bled into the other mics on the kit and that most engineers used overhead mics which pick up the whole kit with two mics Then consider that many of these breaks will have been recorded to analogue tape with saturation which will create extra warmth and harmonics The next step comes from old sampling technology like the SP-1200 and the Akai s-950 mpc -60 these samplers sampled at 12- bit (bear in mind that most computers now are at least 24-bit if not more) and that the samples themselves where taken from vinyl and on and on the process goes with each new reverb and eq adding more and more to the break In terms of giving your breaks that character there are a number of things you can try for example buying an old four track cassette machine to dump your beats onto then re-sample it if your using a sampler like the s-950 then try pushing the input meters a little harder than usual add reverbs and resample it each time you put your loop through a new channel you will be adding something to it Also distortion is fantastic for breaks if you have any amp plug ins then try them the Amplitude one is particularly good you dont need to go mad with it just used subtly it works great
To finish I would just like to say again stick with it keep trying keep listening to records if you like to read about technique then do so you can learn so much from other producers Remember the strength of your hits is important as is the way it swings good luck
UPDATE 08092008
ENHANCE SYNTHESIZED DRUM PARTS WITH FOUND SOUNDS
emusiciancom wroteLayering real-world sounds with synthesized drum parts puts a new spin on your drum tracks You probably already have usable sound effects on your hard drive because most commercial samplers have at least a modest collection in their factory library Beyond that youll find thousands of royalty-free sound effects online Soundsnapcom is one of my favorite sources and its free The recordings dont need to be pristine for layering over drums so dont overlook cheap sampling CDs and consider grabbing your own sounds with a portable recorderCollect and Save
Start by assembling a small Foley library of short percussive sounds divided into typical drum-sound categories kicks snares toms cymbals percussion and so on Youll generally want to layer drum sounds with Foley sounds that have a similar volume contour and frequency range If you layer a Foley sound that resembles a kick drum with the sound of your hi-hat for example youll quickly fill up all the space in your drum track
Industrial household military transportation and vocal sounds make excellent fodder but you will often want to extract a small slice such as the last shot in a volley of machine-gun fire (snare) or the first bounce of a plastic bottle on concrete (tom) A browsing tool like Audio Finder (icedaudiocom) is invaluable if you have a large sample library That lets you quickly audition clips make basic edits and drag-and-drop slices to your library
Sticks UpIf your synthesized drum part is step sequenced youll need to export its step sequences as MIDI files Many drum synths do that including Sonic Charge Tonic (sonicchargecom) Apple Logic UltraBeat (applecom) and Submersible DrumCore (submersiblemusiccom) All of those come with a large collection of patterns exportable as MIDI sequences Youll also need a sampler to play the Foley sounds drum-oriented samplers are handier for that but are by no means necessary
Start by loading a kit in the drum synth Export one of its sequenced patterns or create your own and place it on the sampler track For some of the drum synth sounds select compatible Foley sounds and map them to the same notes in the sampler that theyre mapped to in the drum synth Next solo the doubled voices one by one in both the drum synth and the sampler start the sequence playing and tweak the samplers voice parameters (filter level pan envelope and so on) to make the sounds work together (see Fig 1 and Web Clip 1) Dont tweak global parameters such as effects because that will affect all sounds played by the sampler
High HoopsOnce youve configured your Foley track you can do several things to add interest I frequently use a
Page 33
second sampler for short vocal sounds Ill have some notes trigger sounds in both samplers and others in only one Many samplers let you group sounds and assign notes and controllers to choose among them You can then sequence these notes and controllers or you can play them live to alter your Foley tracks
Try applying DSP effects to individual Foley sounds Multitap delays distortion phasing and granular effects all work well when used sparingly (see Web Clip 2) You can apply DSP effects inside your sampler or route the voices to a separate output for DSP processing in your DAW If your sampler doesnt offer either possibility spread the Foley parts over several sampler instances on different tracks
Sidechain compression or gating of the drum track with one or more of the Foley parts will highlight the Foley part as well as add variety to the drums With compression peaks in the sidechain signal will reduce the level of the drum track Use a high compression level say 201 and balance the sidechain-gain and the compression-threshold -attack and -release controls to get the ducking contour you want (see Web Clip 3) Gating has the opposite effect the drum track will be heard during peaks in the sidechain signal (see Web Clip 4) Here too the sidechain-gain and gate-threshold controls work in tandem to determine when the gate is opened Use envelope parameters (attack release and hold) to shape the gates contour
Keep in mind that once youve created a sampler instrument to complement your drum kit you can reuse it with other sequences You can also change one or more sounds in the sampler instrument without repeating the whole process
34 Sidechain Compression (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
4 Theory41 ndash Song Structure42 ndash Mixdown (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)43 ndash Mastering (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
44 Music Theory
The first thing to remember about music theory is that generally if it sounds right it probably is There are no rules in music and Music Theory is not about telling you how to write music Its about understanding the music
Broadly speaking it is fair to say that most music is essentially based upon two crucial factors scales and rhythm Scales make up melodies chords harmonies and basslines to name but a few whereas rhythm makes up the beat of the song In this part of the Production Bible you will learn the basics of Music Theory that will serve you not only in the production of Dubstep but for any of your future musical pursuits This information is intended to be easy to read and understand so I wonrsquot be mincing sentences But firstly please make sure you learn every single note on the keyboard by studying the image below Otherwise yoursquoll be completely lost here
Page 34
Scales Wersquoll begin with scales As I mentioned before scales are the building blocks of your song and without them your track will be atonal and completely unlistenable (probably not the effect yoursquore going for)
There are two main scales that you should learn inside out ndash the major scale and the minor scale A generalisation yoursquore bound to have heard before is that the major scale sounds ldquohappyrdquo and the minor scale sounds ldquodarkrdquo Although this is not always the case it is mostly true ndash and therefore yoursquoll usually be focussing on the minor scale when producing Dubstep However just in case yoursquore writing happy-dubstep (if that exists) here is a quick overview of both scales and how they are made up
Major Scale
The major scale is really easy to create It is made by a single rule that is simple to put in to place
ldquoTone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
In case you donrsquot know what a Tone or Semi-Tone is here is a quick explanation
Picture a keyboard (or if you canrsquot see the image above) Say you go from C to C that would be a semi-tone The same thing goes for if you go from an E to an F ndash it is still a semi-tone because you
Page 35
have gone up one key
A tone is two semi-tones ndash for example from C to D is a tone and the same goes for from G to A
The scalersquos name is taken from the note that it starts on For example C major will start on the note of C Similarly A major will start on the note of A and this is the case with every single scale
Here is a quick list of a few major scales After having seen a few try working the rest out for yourself in order to understand how the major scale is formulated Ideally you should practice your scales on a piano or keyboard so that you can physically see how to make the scale It might sound boring but itrsquos a small price to pay for a much deeper understanding of your music
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Major C D E F G A B C
C Major C D E F G A B C
D Major D E F G A B C D
D Major D E F G A B C D
E Major E F G A B C D E
F Major F G A Bb C D E F
F Major F G A B C D E F
G Major G A B C D E F G
G Major G A B C D E F G
A Major A B C D E F G A
A Major A B C D E F G A
B major B C D E F G A B
Now by arranging the different notes of each of these scales in any order you please you can create a melody bassline or harmony with extreme ease Rearranging the notes in the scale will give you a flawlessly in-key result and it is then up to you to use the notes in the scale as you see fit for your tune
Minor Scale
As was the case with the Major Scale the Minor is made up from a set rule or formula By knowing this formula you can understand how the Minor is made and how to use it to itrsquos maximum effect
ldquoTone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
As is the case with the major scales you should practice your scales as much as possible to make sure that you know them all like the back of your hand Here are a few Minor Scales see if you can
Page 36
work out the rest
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Minor C D Eb F G Ab B C
D Minor D E F G A Bb C D
F Minor F G A B C D E F
G Minor G A Bb C D Eb F G
Similarly to the Major now that you know your Minor Scales you can quickly just take any note from the scale rearrange it with another few notes in the scale and there you have a fat melody or bassline ready to be played at maximum volume
Diminished Chords
Diminished Chords are really quite spooky and dark chords that are made up of four different notes all a minor third apart from each other That means that for example the Diminished Chord starting on C would be C Eb F A because to get from one note to the next you have to use ldquoTone Semi-Tonerdquo (known as a minor third)
Because of the mathematical nature of the Diminished chord there are only three ldquoclustersrdquo of notes which can then be rearranged like the Major and Minor Scales
Cluster 1 C Eb F A
Cluster 2 C E G Bb
Cluster 3 D F Ab B
Use these clusters and rearrange them as you please For example you could rearrange cluster 1 as Eb F A C etc
Generally speaking you canrsquot make a song based entirely on Diminished Chords due to the fact that each cluster only has 4 notes However a Diminished Chord is perfect for adding a hint of darkness to your tune and is brilliant when mixed with some Minor Scales
Chords
Chords are basically two or more notes played together They are made up from a specific scale ndash for example the C major chord is made up of notes in the C major scale
Usually chords will include the first third and fifth note of the scale as well as possibly using other notes to give them colour For example the basic chord of C major would be C E G Then you could add the seventh note to it (in this case it is B) Really it is up to the producerrsquos discretion how heshe goes about making a chord ndash just remember to stick to the scale you are using
Chords will more than likely sound like shit if you play them on a complicated or layered synth patch You want to be playing chords on sustained sounds such as strings or pads Chords will really fill out your sound if used properly You want your chords to be supporting the melody or bassline and more than likely want to add some reverb so that it doesnrsquot sound too sharp Make
Page 37
your chords blend in with the music and yoursquoll have mastered them
Chord Inversions
Quite simply chord inversions are when you rearrange the notes in a chord so that it sounds a bit different and suits your arrangement better
For example if you were in the key of C major you could have a drone of E playing underneath some strings playing the notes E G C E
Due to the fact that the notes are the same and have only been inverted the chord will still be in key with the rest of the music This is a great way to add a touch of variation to your music instead of using the same chord structure all the time
Arpeggios
Arpeggios are much easier to understand than they sound They are quite simply the first third and fifth note of the scale played as individual notes For example the arpeggio of C minor would be C Eb G C etc
A great example of an arpeggio is the bassline in Bengarsquos ldquoCrunked Uprdquo He goes from playing the F minor arpeggio backwards to playing the F minor arpeggio backwards In other words he is playing
C A F and then C Ab F
Experiment with a few Minor Arpeggios and a couple of Diminished Arpeggios and you canrsquot go wrong in writing a huge bassline
Suggested Reading
List of All Scales With Finger Charts Included
Well thatrsquos it folks Thatrsquos basically all the music theory you need to know to start off with As you grow more used to the various scales yoursquoll notice that certain notes sound good with each other whilst others donrsquot Irsquom not here to tell you how to write music Irsquom here to teach you the language
of music Itrsquos up to you to write the poetry
copy Bruno Crosier (klimaxx) 2008
45 Random Tips
Random tips amp best piece of advice thread
5 Resources
Page 38
51 Books amp Magazines
Hello again people
Does anyone know of more music production books magazines or authors we can add to these lists
Thanks
------------------------------------------------
Music Production Magazines Computer Music - httpwwwcomputermusiccouk Music Tech Magazine - httpwwwmusictechmagcouk Future Music - httpwwwfuturemusiccouk Sound on Sound - httpwwwsoundonsoundcom Remix Magazine - httpremixmagcom Mix Magazine - httpmixonlinecom Electronic Musician - httpemusiciancom EQ Magazine - httpwwweqmagcom Audio Technology - wwwaudiotechnologycomau Tape Op - httpwwwtapeopcom
------------------------------------------------
Music Books
Authors Curtis Roads httpmitpressmiteducatalogauthor aspaid=93 - The Computer Music Tutorial (Really really really good book) Paul White - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea ul20White - Basic Series + more Rick Snowman - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea k20Snoman - The Dance Music Manual Tools Toys and Techniques Bobby Owsinski - httpbooksgooglecoukbooksas_auth=Bobby+Owsinski - The MixingRecording amp Mastering Engineers Handbooks Michael Paul Stavrou - httpwwwmixingwithyourmindcom
Publishers Thomson Course Technology - httpcoursecengagecom (Click on the Music Technology tab) - Series published include Power Overdrive Ignite and CSI Series + many more Backbeat Books - httpwwwbackbeatbookscom ndash Power Tools Series + many more Wiley Publishing - httpwwwdummiescom (Enter music in their search bar) - For Dummies Series Penguin Books - httpuspenguingroupcom (Enter music in their search bar) - The Complete Idiots Guide Series + many more MIT Press - httpmitpressmitedu - Many books on music theory Focal Press - httpwwwfocalpresscom - (Enter music in their search bar)
------------------------------------------------
Online Music Book Stores (We need more links here Do you know of any that we can add)
httpwwwmixbookscom ndash Excellent source that sells only books about music
Page 39
httpwwwamazoncom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
httpwwwbarnesandnoblecom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
------------------------------------------------
52 Wikipedia
A good music lexicon wiki Search for your term in the search bar ---gt httpenaudiolexicorgwikiMain_Page
0-9
14rdquo Jack - httpenwikipediaorgwikiJack_plug 3rd Bridge - httpenwikipediaorgwiki3rd_Bridge
Zero Crossing - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_crossing Zero Crossing Rate - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_Crossing_Rate
53 Other recommended production forums
for Logic users this is the shit httpwwwlogicprohelpcom
Ive found both these forums to be full of knowledgeable producers amp musicians
httpwwwkvraudiocomforum
httpacapellaharmony-centralcomforumsindexphp
httpwwwgearslutzcomboard
httpwwwsoundonsoundcomforum
httpwwwmusicradarcomforum
httpwwwidmforumscom
httpwwwdance-industriescomphpBB2 8cffbb3b02
httpwwwsubvertcentralcomforumindexphp
httpwwwbreakbeatcouk
httpwwwtweakheadzcom
httpwwwabletoncompagesforum
Explains lots about the music industry ---gt httpwwwbemusocom
Page 47
Ok so a massive thanks to all the contributors there are literally too many to mention But Thanks to Futures Untold Johnny Beat Klimaxx Deadly Habit amp JunglistRendr Daft Cunt in perticular
Thanks to all the artists producers and general music geeks making this early revision of the production bible an essential read
There are links missing and will be included in version 21(Please help with the unlinked chapters by going here - httpwwwdubstepforumcomthe-dubstep-production-bible-updated-2009-06-03-t14797html and updating missing info as needed)
Compiled by Daft Cunt and Futures Untold PDF Compiled by Depone
Page 27
Misc tips and tricks bull Good drums are usually layered - example 3 snares sounding as onebull The hats are often panned or widenedbull Pick great sounding samples different ones for different parts of the sounds you want 1
for snap and bite 1 for body 1 for thump distort and MAYBE EQ each to make them sound the best that they can separately combine in a bus MAYBE compress them together maybe accent the front and shorten the sound with a transient modifier 10 minutes tops
bull Do as little as possible with great-sounding bits and your basic sounds will be slamming leaves you time to focus on the arrangement people dont go around thinking wow that tune has an amazing snare as long as its thumping and not masked by a bunch of other stuff itll keep the dance moving
bull Listen to other producers work As its playing imagine the 1 2 3 4 on the step sequencer running in time to what youre listening to Try to visualize where the producer put their hits Not to say you should copy peoples drum patterns but learn from them
bull Ive noticed a lot of tunes (more minimal stuff where you can distinctly hear whats seperately going on) seem to use two differently pitched hi-hats that alternate to sound shuffley if you know what I mean and a less dramatic snare used sparsely in between the main lazy kick and snare An easy trick if you havent worked it out (which to be honest you should have if youre at all serious about producing dubstep) is to stick a smaller snare or hat the 116th before the kick or snare so it steps if you get me For example Bengas Night does this for all four beats in the bar which is part of what makes it so danceable But dont get stuck in always having kick on 1 and snare on 3 some tracks work with a kick on every beat others with a couple big snares etc The trick (unless you want proper lazy spaced out tunes) is to make sure youre nodding your head on all four beats of the bar Play around with a hat on every quaver (ie 8 per bar on the beat) compared to just four but on the off beat as well as adding in the steppy ones every now and then Theres often no need to over-complicate things though one of the my favourite drum tracks is the incredibly simplistic V by Distance Its a rhythm that could easilly be played by one guy on a real kit yet its so banging - check the use of hats and lower velocity kicks in this to make it nice and bouncy Also I once had a four bar drum loop and accidentally moved the sequence one bar to the right for one section and it ended up nicely varying the drums in a way you wouldnt expect
bull Really tight delays can help claps and snaps sound natural 5-20ms etcbull Recycle or phatmatik is your break-chopping friendbull Basically Hatrixxs method involved chopping everything from the main hits into a sample
Say you had a 2-step funk beat like the Amen Youd start your selection from the start of the first kick and select everything up to the start of the first snare Cut paste theres your first slice Then take everything from the start of the first snare up to the start of the second kick - including all the little hats and ghost hits - cut paste second sample and so on Then just map the samples onto some keys and bash away Both of them are quick compared to chopping Recycled slices where you have to copy and drag loads of little notes (one every little fucking tiny hit in the break arranged chromatically up the keyboard) around the piano roll These methods let you just concentrate on the main hits which can be both good or bad You can get a solid beat down with just a handful of hits but youre limited to the patterns already in the original break For a beginner to breakbeat science like yourself Id say try these methods first but dont rule out the really anal methods like RecyclePhatmatikFruity Slicer Sometimes they are a necessary evil Of course some of the drumfunk guys especially those who post on Subvert Central swear by these methods or the next one There are those who prefer to chop up the raw audio rather than bothering with MIDI and samplers They literally just drop the break file into Cubase or Logic and start chopping with the scissors tool and copying and pasting I can see the benefits of this You can see the waveform as youre chopping and youre not as restriced to the quantize grid as you are with MIDI But it takes aaaaages to build a drum track this way and theres the risk of RSI from all that Ctrl+C Ctrl+V youll be doing Then of course theres trackers They really are tailor-made for chopping up loops amongst other things They give you Sample Offset meaning that when you trigger a sample you can set it to start from 256 evenly spaced points throughout the sample So by starting a sample a quarter of the way through youre triggering the first snare (obviously you can fine-tune it when the snare isnt perfectly on the beat) You can edit breaks in a tracker without ever having to cut up a waveform and you can do all sorts of other nifty things like reverse the sample retrigger it to make drum rolls and so on
If recycles having trouble switch the break to mono in your sample editor and then apply tiny fades between the drum hits (especially useful if there are lots of rides that play over the other hits to keep things separate) This should help recycle pick up the start points and with any luck should leave you with a cleaner break
Page 28
Snaresbull Tune the snares so they all hit around the same pitch bull Change the Amp Envelopes of each to bring the strongest parts from each separate sample
and build up your sound like that bull Compressing all together is a good idea but dont over do it bull EQ the master out for the snare as well so you wont have to fuck about when you use the
sample in the future bull Donrsquot just use snares fling some random sound effects in there Claps and rim shots also
work well when layered bull Make subtle changes to them and export a few snares from the same setup this helps
when you need a ghost hit or a reverse that sounds similar but not identicalbull Watch that frequencies dont build up and make the layered bit sound overly whatever
is building up Really easy to get too much 200hz or 500hz or even 12k if youve got samples that are all beefythicksmack-y
bull If its peaking run it through a Spectrum Analyzer and see where its peaking I guess its peaking in the tune rather than just the snare sample playing on its own
bull Sometimes snare samples have a very short peak that doesnt seem to make them sound any better and keeps you from getting them louder without cliping Reduce that part by a few dBs and youre sorted
bull Make sure you are using subtractive eq to pull out the frequencies that could be clashing with other sounds If your frequencies are clashing that can hide the snare and then you end up turning it up to compensate and there you are with your snare peakingThe key is making the frequencies sit right in the mix so that they dont clash and you can set them right and not have to turn them up
bull You could always try clipping the snare normalise it in a wave editor amplify it as much as you can before it sounds distorted then sample it out Then replace the snare with the clipped version it will almost always sound louder with more body at a lower volume I would still point out that although this can be used as a replacement to compression compression is a vital tool to learn how to use Also a lot of peeps will say this does bad things to the waveform and it does but unless you intend to listen to your tune to be heard at home on an amazing hifi then it doesnt really matter that much IMO
bull Hi-pass overdrive limit and cut away space from other sounds for itbull Layer with its self or a different snare Layer with sub add effect to one layer add effect
to both layers layer zoom right in drag one wave form back or forth very slightly to create new snare sound Pitch updown EQ Filter distort reverb delay reverse
bull Record yourself beat boxing your best snare sounds then layer with snare samplesbull A good handclap never goes a miss or use a nice drum synth to get a very differentdigital
soundbull Try reversing the snare sample then changing the envelope settings so it only hits on the
beat Layer that with the same sample this time not reversed Add a little delay to the the reversed snare Change the settings til it sounds how you like
bull Particularly snares I layer up a lot I look for one that has the qualities that I want when run through verb and then I look for something shorter with more mid punch to keep things physical After someone notied snares were weak in a tune Ive really made a point of ensuring that when the snares hit its physical as well as textural You need to feel them a bit - so I look for some snares that have that real punch when layering but usually keep the more textural snappy one as the focus last couple tunes I did the standard kick snare hats w odd percussion and then I took an amen chopped it processed it and layered it overtop for more aggression and step (goddess being a perfect example) By removing a layer and adding it you can create a sense of progression through the tune Make sure the bottom layer is sounding really good and then add the top so that youre not mixing them to be reliant on one another - instead you want synergy Make sure the EQ on the top and bottom make sense with each other
Kicksbull Building a kick in Ableton Lives Impulse machine Provides some essential information
about layering that can be used with any DAWbull Making fat kicks
remixmag wroteWhether creating Miami Bass music is your lifes fantasy or your greatest fear you probably crave the know-how to manifest those car-rattling trunk-full-of-funk kick drums In the arenas of hip-hop house techno downtempo and almost any other electronic genre molding fat kick drums is absolutely essential Like grandmas homemade apple pie the recipe for kick drums is partially a matter of taste However theres no substitute for quality ingredients And just like every pie has its staple ingredients every slamming kick drum requires some common elements Lets take a look at the
Page 29
shopping list for killer kick drumsTHE CRUST
Youll need a basic shell to begin creating a thick strong kick The classics always work if youre fortunate enough to own a real Roland TR-808 909 or other famous drum machine with a killer kick use it copiously If youre not one of those chosen few pay close attention to your original source For example if you use a sampler understand that not all ldquo808 Kickrdquo samples are the same some sound great and some just plain suck There are a lot of reasons for that including how many generations from the original the sample is the sampling rate and bit depth of the sampler how the kick was first sampled and so on Be as choosy as possible with your individual samples mdash dont use a mediocre sample just because it has 808 in the name and therefore is ldquosupposedrdquo to sound fat Seek out a better 808 sample or use something else that is simply bigger sounding Remember the time you spend finding sweet original sources wont be in vain especially if you reuse the resulting samples for multiple songsBORROW SOME SUGAR
An old saying goes ldquoGood art borrows great art stealsrdquo A nice way to start out with great raw kick material is to sample directly from the source If you dont own but have access to a 909 then sample it directly Or take one of your favorite producers tracks on vinyl or CD find a naked kick drum in there and sample it Be cautious with that approach for a couple of reasons Copyright issues around sampling even small bits have become a dangerously gray area and I would never personally advise using any source straight out of the can even from a royalty-free sample library While it may be an excellent start its unoriginal Customize whatever you bite Treat your samples as a sculptor would treat clay mold each one to create a trademark sound for yourself One effective way to customize a fat kick is to take a tip from the synth manufacturers If a sound is thin pile another (or a few more) on top When doing so its important to use different sounds layering two identical kicks will result in a louder kick but it wont change the basic tone Remember the sculptor approach here Even if you are using two good-sounding individual samples they may not instantly sound great together For example I find that when layering kicks while the thickness may be good sustain is often overkill The final result often benefits from a little doctoring on the tail of one (or both) of the samples and other hands-on sonic surgeryADD THE FILLING
Once a nice basic kick is achieved treating it with two of the mastering engineers favorite tools is often the next step Artfully applying a compressor (to just the kick) can go a long way toward creating a signature sound and a huge kick Compression is one of those ldquosecret spicesrdquo and how to apply it is a whole topic in itself One recommendation I will make however is to use a multiband compressor With one of those you can isolate compression on certain frequency ranges That is perfect if for example you want to push the sub of your kick without emphasizing the higher frequencies (which often affect the tone of the attack) or vice-versa EQ comes after compression in my signal chain By now the kick should already sound pretty fat I aim to shave unnecessary frequencies here rather than artificially boosting too much This is also where you can actualize trademark sounds while also fine-tuning them to work alongside other elements in specific tracks I often scoop out mids and highs especially frequencies above about 500 Hz Even though I like thick deep kicks unless Im going for a really dublike sound I often truncate the lowest frequencies (usually the sub-50 Hz frequencies) Even when you cant hear the difference when trimming frequencies doing so can really tighten up your kicksEVEN IT OUT
You may ask why when youre trying to fatten up a kick would you want to trim frequencies That is one of the keys to achieving great mixes both in the case of kick drums and in general You want to avoid too many overlapping frequencies The more sonic separation you have between elements the more focused the entire mix will sound That can be especially important for club music which often gets played on huge not necessarily audiophile-quality sound systems If you havent run into the following scenario already I assure you at some point you will Your bass line and kick drum are competing and it sounds like you have a weak kick You boost the kick but it still sounds muddy Take the bass out and suddenly the kick doesnt sound so bad In a scenario like that solo the two sounds listen carefully for where frequencies are overlapping and then try subtractive EQ on one element then the other and sometimes a bit on both By scooping out overlapping frequencies you will often find that both elements seem to magically come forward in the mix before even touching their respective volume levels
Hi hatsbull Realism
Ive been a professional touring and recording drummer for 25 years and just thought I might share a couple of really simple ways to use fruity loops or fruity studio to create more realistic drum patterns
For what its worth try this out with Fruity Loops
Page 30
Take your hi hat tracks (are any tracks for that matter including melodic synth bubbles)
Drop down the bar graph box that allows you to scroll between velocity (volume) pitch panning cutoff resonance and a thing called shift which allows you to use each of these categories to effect each individual note that youve programmed (note this can be accomplished in other ways in most of the good midi sequencing apps or softwarehardware drum machines)
Drummers no matter how good they are just arent perfect and we can use the fact that each of these drop down bar graphs can make veryvery small changes in a sound to do some subtle things to a rolling drum groove like 16th notes on a hi hat
Not all drummers but many tend to favor their strong hand in a single stroke (hand over hand) drum roll Consequently if you make all odd numbered hi hats be slightly louder than their even numbered hits it will sound more realistic Start by making velocity differences that are really clearly audible Then lower the velocity until you can barely feel the difference We are going to make very subtle changes like this on each of the parameters of velocity pitch cutoff resonance and importantly shift
I cant stress enough that you should make these changes be so subtle that you can hardly notice them
Just going on the fact that the right handed players start their rolls with the right hand and favor it ever so slightly (or grossly for effect as well) means that the stroke will be harder with the right hand than the left hand
When a percussion instrument is hit harder the difference between the transient (or hi pitched attack) of the sound and the body of the instrument (or the sound that comes after the attack) becomes greater In general on drums that means that a harder attack tensions the drum very imperceptably (sp) and it also means that there will be more treble in the sound Consequently the pitch goes up a little teensy bit and their is more attack to the sound (increased resonance and slightly higher cutoff frequency)
Consequently you can make the pitch of each right hand be just barely noticeably higher the resonance should be just one or two of those little teeny bars higher The cutoff should be just a few bars lower (allowing less high frequencies through) on the left handed or even numbered strokes
Typically if drums have time inaccuracies they tend to drag the left hand a litte bit I have to keep stressing that if you can hear the changes you make you arent being realistic You need to make the changes subtle enough that you just barely feel that they arent perfect You can consequently make each left hand note shifted one or two bars late
Tigure out how much you can tweak each parameter before it becomes obvious and then you can just randomly tweak each one up to that limit With a little bit of variance in each stroke from parameter to parameter you will create more of a percolating texture in your programming - this is a great technique to make synth bubbles (the kind used in techno and house) more interesting and less mechanical feeling
Now you can avoid the biggest mistake that non-drummers do when trying to write realistic programs turn the overall volume of the hihats until you CANT hear them and then slowly bring up the volume until you just begin to hear them
Professional producers have spent countless hours trying to figure out how to gate and mix hihats OUT of tracks The reason is two fold1) Human beings have such a radical peak in their hearing around the 1-2khz range (or the intelligibility range of human speech) that we can play the hihats at incredible low volumes and they are still audible You cant do that with a bass drumI tell my drum students that you cannot play a hi hat or a snare drum so quietly that a person sitting in a room with you cant hear it2) Hi Hats the snare of snare drums and cymbals all seriously MASK human vocal intellibility How many people have gone to see live shows where they can hear the singer is singing but cant for the life of them figure out what they are actually singing That is ususally because drummers (or mixers which is frequently the case) are not hip to thisimportant fact
So turn down your hi hat tracks (or any track with a strong mid rangeshort envelope attack) and you have much more room for other musical goodies in your mix When in doubt make your hi hats quieter than you think they should be Trust me theyll come through the mix even at a quiet volume
Swingbull Dont know if you can do this in your sequencer but in Logic you can create a groove
template from your drums and then apply that to your other instruments If youre using separate midi channels for snares kicks and hats take the 8 bar loop youre using glue it together and then take the groove from that and then mute that track When you click down the quantize list youll see the template there and you can apply it to your other tracks Also if you do want to change the groove you can just change the hits in the muted template and itll automatically change all other hits to the new changes
bull Think if youre clever and organized you can basically cut breaks up in recycle load them into the exs24 (extract sequence) and then do the same with them That way if there are breaks you like the feel of you can just apply that swing to anything If you make a folder called grooves in your logic folder they should load up each time so that youll have loads to choose from Havent done this myself yet but always helpful to have a choice of feels available
bull Some things sound better rigid and robotic with equal velocities Some things sound better rigid and robotic with differing velocities Some things sound better with swing Some things sound better with everything ever-so-slightly off Its down to what the track needs
bull Drum Break Swing ProgrammingNicolas Hall wwwbreakbeat-cafenet wroteI think most people who make anything funk breakbeat drum amp bass or hip-hop would agree that Swing is crucial to the effectiveness of a beat The other key factors in a programming sense are dynamic and accent So many people get wound up when their beats sound sterile or mechanical this is due to the fact that computers and sequencers lock to perfect BPM A computer on its own does not interpret rhythm the way a good drummer does There are however certain machines that have their own swing parameters like the Akai MPC range of sampling drum machines which are used extensively by hip hop producers
Swing is not the easiest thing in the world to analyze but as a general rule good drummers will play slightly late and thats why in all funky records you get that slight dip at the start of the bar take Superstition by Stevie Wonder or Billie Jean by Michael Jackson these are both very simple beats Superstition is of course live drums whilst Billie Jean was programmed but no less funky than Superstition I emphasize this point to demonstrate that a programmed beat can be every bit at groovy as a beat played on a drum kit
Expanding on the Billie Jean point Hip Hop beats are really very simple If you listen to the Neptunes they tend to create the swing in their beats by quantizing the kicks and snares and playing the hi hats in by hand this creates a very tight beat which is off set by a loose hi hat try it works but dont forget your accents - As a starting point just take the first snare of your beat and turn the velocity down then notice how your head starts nodding and your foot starts tapping a little more you are giving the beat feel Also remember that if you are using reverb the louder snare will push the reverb harder than the soft snare so your creating more ambience that way Then try your kick drums if your not sure which hits to adjust just pick apart a beat your feeling I remember me and friend picking apart a Gangstarr beat and were able to almost replicate it by adjusting the velocities of each hit (admittedly it took a while to get it right)
If youre a newbie then a common trick when learning to make good grooves is to create a template with an existing loop The idea is take a loop you like thats got a good feel to it and then place your own hits over the break then take the break out and see if your hits are sounding funky This can take a while and its crucial to think about the strength of each hit or the dynamic Each kick will not be the same strength nor will the snares or the hats pick the loop apart dissect it and youll soon see that there are certain consistencies in all good beats
If youre using live loops and like to layer them with drum sequences you should be thinking about time space and frequencies So if you have a fairly heavy loop then layering it with heavy kick drums is probably not gonna sound good Think about filling holes are their any frequencies that could be filled up Or is there space in the loop for extra hits Try working in layers just adding one hit at a time also filtering works well you could take some of the frequencies out of your loop as you drop your drum sequences in to make room for them I think one the masters of this technique is Liam Howlett of the Prodigy He runs breakbeats and gives them extra balls by laying a kick drum underneath to add extra intensity to certain passages in his set but hes careful not to overlap frequencies to much A good place to start if you using breakbeats is the Roland Tr-808 kick drum which is around the 50hz mark which is sub bass territory so it will sit underneath most breaks very well
If your hell bent on making killer beats and loops then perseverance is crucial keep at it it will come together listen to beats you like and pick them apart identify the subtleties that make it happen I know some producers get fed up when their beats sound to clean or they are trying to create a new breakbeat and then compare it to sample they took from vinyl and get down on there own beat Think about what a breakbeat really is think about its history what has happened to it to make it sound the way it does Im
Page 32
sure youve noticed how some breaks have a certain something like a magic dust you cant put your finger on Let me share what I know with you about that
Most breaks though not all are taken from recordings of live drums some of them are pretty old so you have the ambience of live drums and the room they were recorded in you have the fact that natural decay and reverb of each drum is likely to have bled into the other mics on the kit and that most engineers used overhead mics which pick up the whole kit with two mics Then consider that many of these breaks will have been recorded to analogue tape with saturation which will create extra warmth and harmonics The next step comes from old sampling technology like the SP-1200 and the Akai s-950 mpc -60 these samplers sampled at 12- bit (bear in mind that most computers now are at least 24-bit if not more) and that the samples themselves where taken from vinyl and on and on the process goes with each new reverb and eq adding more and more to the break In terms of giving your breaks that character there are a number of things you can try for example buying an old four track cassette machine to dump your beats onto then re-sample it if your using a sampler like the s-950 then try pushing the input meters a little harder than usual add reverbs and resample it each time you put your loop through a new channel you will be adding something to it Also distortion is fantastic for breaks if you have any amp plug ins then try them the Amplitude one is particularly good you dont need to go mad with it just used subtly it works great
To finish I would just like to say again stick with it keep trying keep listening to records if you like to read about technique then do so you can learn so much from other producers Remember the strength of your hits is important as is the way it swings good luck
UPDATE 08092008
ENHANCE SYNTHESIZED DRUM PARTS WITH FOUND SOUNDS
emusiciancom wroteLayering real-world sounds with synthesized drum parts puts a new spin on your drum tracks You probably already have usable sound effects on your hard drive because most commercial samplers have at least a modest collection in their factory library Beyond that youll find thousands of royalty-free sound effects online Soundsnapcom is one of my favorite sources and its free The recordings dont need to be pristine for layering over drums so dont overlook cheap sampling CDs and consider grabbing your own sounds with a portable recorderCollect and Save
Start by assembling a small Foley library of short percussive sounds divided into typical drum-sound categories kicks snares toms cymbals percussion and so on Youll generally want to layer drum sounds with Foley sounds that have a similar volume contour and frequency range If you layer a Foley sound that resembles a kick drum with the sound of your hi-hat for example youll quickly fill up all the space in your drum track
Industrial household military transportation and vocal sounds make excellent fodder but you will often want to extract a small slice such as the last shot in a volley of machine-gun fire (snare) or the first bounce of a plastic bottle on concrete (tom) A browsing tool like Audio Finder (icedaudiocom) is invaluable if you have a large sample library That lets you quickly audition clips make basic edits and drag-and-drop slices to your library
Sticks UpIf your synthesized drum part is step sequenced youll need to export its step sequences as MIDI files Many drum synths do that including Sonic Charge Tonic (sonicchargecom) Apple Logic UltraBeat (applecom) and Submersible DrumCore (submersiblemusiccom) All of those come with a large collection of patterns exportable as MIDI sequences Youll also need a sampler to play the Foley sounds drum-oriented samplers are handier for that but are by no means necessary
Start by loading a kit in the drum synth Export one of its sequenced patterns or create your own and place it on the sampler track For some of the drum synth sounds select compatible Foley sounds and map them to the same notes in the sampler that theyre mapped to in the drum synth Next solo the doubled voices one by one in both the drum synth and the sampler start the sequence playing and tweak the samplers voice parameters (filter level pan envelope and so on) to make the sounds work together (see Fig 1 and Web Clip 1) Dont tweak global parameters such as effects because that will affect all sounds played by the sampler
High HoopsOnce youve configured your Foley track you can do several things to add interest I frequently use a
Page 33
second sampler for short vocal sounds Ill have some notes trigger sounds in both samplers and others in only one Many samplers let you group sounds and assign notes and controllers to choose among them You can then sequence these notes and controllers or you can play them live to alter your Foley tracks
Try applying DSP effects to individual Foley sounds Multitap delays distortion phasing and granular effects all work well when used sparingly (see Web Clip 2) You can apply DSP effects inside your sampler or route the voices to a separate output for DSP processing in your DAW If your sampler doesnt offer either possibility spread the Foley parts over several sampler instances on different tracks
Sidechain compression or gating of the drum track with one or more of the Foley parts will highlight the Foley part as well as add variety to the drums With compression peaks in the sidechain signal will reduce the level of the drum track Use a high compression level say 201 and balance the sidechain-gain and the compression-threshold -attack and -release controls to get the ducking contour you want (see Web Clip 3) Gating has the opposite effect the drum track will be heard during peaks in the sidechain signal (see Web Clip 4) Here too the sidechain-gain and gate-threshold controls work in tandem to determine when the gate is opened Use envelope parameters (attack release and hold) to shape the gates contour
Keep in mind that once youve created a sampler instrument to complement your drum kit you can reuse it with other sequences You can also change one or more sounds in the sampler instrument without repeating the whole process
34 Sidechain Compression (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
4 Theory41 ndash Song Structure42 ndash Mixdown (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)43 ndash Mastering (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
44 Music Theory
The first thing to remember about music theory is that generally if it sounds right it probably is There are no rules in music and Music Theory is not about telling you how to write music Its about understanding the music
Broadly speaking it is fair to say that most music is essentially based upon two crucial factors scales and rhythm Scales make up melodies chords harmonies and basslines to name but a few whereas rhythm makes up the beat of the song In this part of the Production Bible you will learn the basics of Music Theory that will serve you not only in the production of Dubstep but for any of your future musical pursuits This information is intended to be easy to read and understand so I wonrsquot be mincing sentences But firstly please make sure you learn every single note on the keyboard by studying the image below Otherwise yoursquoll be completely lost here
Page 34
Scales Wersquoll begin with scales As I mentioned before scales are the building blocks of your song and without them your track will be atonal and completely unlistenable (probably not the effect yoursquore going for)
There are two main scales that you should learn inside out ndash the major scale and the minor scale A generalisation yoursquore bound to have heard before is that the major scale sounds ldquohappyrdquo and the minor scale sounds ldquodarkrdquo Although this is not always the case it is mostly true ndash and therefore yoursquoll usually be focussing on the minor scale when producing Dubstep However just in case yoursquore writing happy-dubstep (if that exists) here is a quick overview of both scales and how they are made up
Major Scale
The major scale is really easy to create It is made by a single rule that is simple to put in to place
ldquoTone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
In case you donrsquot know what a Tone or Semi-Tone is here is a quick explanation
Picture a keyboard (or if you canrsquot see the image above) Say you go from C to C that would be a semi-tone The same thing goes for if you go from an E to an F ndash it is still a semi-tone because you
Page 35
have gone up one key
A tone is two semi-tones ndash for example from C to D is a tone and the same goes for from G to A
The scalersquos name is taken from the note that it starts on For example C major will start on the note of C Similarly A major will start on the note of A and this is the case with every single scale
Here is a quick list of a few major scales After having seen a few try working the rest out for yourself in order to understand how the major scale is formulated Ideally you should practice your scales on a piano or keyboard so that you can physically see how to make the scale It might sound boring but itrsquos a small price to pay for a much deeper understanding of your music
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Major C D E F G A B C
C Major C D E F G A B C
D Major D E F G A B C D
D Major D E F G A B C D
E Major E F G A B C D E
F Major F G A Bb C D E F
F Major F G A B C D E F
G Major G A B C D E F G
G Major G A B C D E F G
A Major A B C D E F G A
A Major A B C D E F G A
B major B C D E F G A B
Now by arranging the different notes of each of these scales in any order you please you can create a melody bassline or harmony with extreme ease Rearranging the notes in the scale will give you a flawlessly in-key result and it is then up to you to use the notes in the scale as you see fit for your tune
Minor Scale
As was the case with the Major Scale the Minor is made up from a set rule or formula By knowing this formula you can understand how the Minor is made and how to use it to itrsquos maximum effect
ldquoTone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
As is the case with the major scales you should practice your scales as much as possible to make sure that you know them all like the back of your hand Here are a few Minor Scales see if you can
Page 36
work out the rest
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Minor C D Eb F G Ab B C
D Minor D E F G A Bb C D
F Minor F G A B C D E F
G Minor G A Bb C D Eb F G
Similarly to the Major now that you know your Minor Scales you can quickly just take any note from the scale rearrange it with another few notes in the scale and there you have a fat melody or bassline ready to be played at maximum volume
Diminished Chords
Diminished Chords are really quite spooky and dark chords that are made up of four different notes all a minor third apart from each other That means that for example the Diminished Chord starting on C would be C Eb F A because to get from one note to the next you have to use ldquoTone Semi-Tonerdquo (known as a minor third)
Because of the mathematical nature of the Diminished chord there are only three ldquoclustersrdquo of notes which can then be rearranged like the Major and Minor Scales
Cluster 1 C Eb F A
Cluster 2 C E G Bb
Cluster 3 D F Ab B
Use these clusters and rearrange them as you please For example you could rearrange cluster 1 as Eb F A C etc
Generally speaking you canrsquot make a song based entirely on Diminished Chords due to the fact that each cluster only has 4 notes However a Diminished Chord is perfect for adding a hint of darkness to your tune and is brilliant when mixed with some Minor Scales
Chords
Chords are basically two or more notes played together They are made up from a specific scale ndash for example the C major chord is made up of notes in the C major scale
Usually chords will include the first third and fifth note of the scale as well as possibly using other notes to give them colour For example the basic chord of C major would be C E G Then you could add the seventh note to it (in this case it is B) Really it is up to the producerrsquos discretion how heshe goes about making a chord ndash just remember to stick to the scale you are using
Chords will more than likely sound like shit if you play them on a complicated or layered synth patch You want to be playing chords on sustained sounds such as strings or pads Chords will really fill out your sound if used properly You want your chords to be supporting the melody or bassline and more than likely want to add some reverb so that it doesnrsquot sound too sharp Make
Page 37
your chords blend in with the music and yoursquoll have mastered them
Chord Inversions
Quite simply chord inversions are when you rearrange the notes in a chord so that it sounds a bit different and suits your arrangement better
For example if you were in the key of C major you could have a drone of E playing underneath some strings playing the notes E G C E
Due to the fact that the notes are the same and have only been inverted the chord will still be in key with the rest of the music This is a great way to add a touch of variation to your music instead of using the same chord structure all the time
Arpeggios
Arpeggios are much easier to understand than they sound They are quite simply the first third and fifth note of the scale played as individual notes For example the arpeggio of C minor would be C Eb G C etc
A great example of an arpeggio is the bassline in Bengarsquos ldquoCrunked Uprdquo He goes from playing the F minor arpeggio backwards to playing the F minor arpeggio backwards In other words he is playing
C A F and then C Ab F
Experiment with a few Minor Arpeggios and a couple of Diminished Arpeggios and you canrsquot go wrong in writing a huge bassline
Suggested Reading
List of All Scales With Finger Charts Included
Well thatrsquos it folks Thatrsquos basically all the music theory you need to know to start off with As you grow more used to the various scales yoursquoll notice that certain notes sound good with each other whilst others donrsquot Irsquom not here to tell you how to write music Irsquom here to teach you the language
of music Itrsquos up to you to write the poetry
copy Bruno Crosier (klimaxx) 2008
45 Random Tips
Random tips amp best piece of advice thread
5 Resources
Page 38
51 Books amp Magazines
Hello again people
Does anyone know of more music production books magazines or authors we can add to these lists
Thanks
------------------------------------------------
Music Production Magazines Computer Music - httpwwwcomputermusiccouk Music Tech Magazine - httpwwwmusictechmagcouk Future Music - httpwwwfuturemusiccouk Sound on Sound - httpwwwsoundonsoundcom Remix Magazine - httpremixmagcom Mix Magazine - httpmixonlinecom Electronic Musician - httpemusiciancom EQ Magazine - httpwwweqmagcom Audio Technology - wwwaudiotechnologycomau Tape Op - httpwwwtapeopcom
------------------------------------------------
Music Books
Authors Curtis Roads httpmitpressmiteducatalogauthor aspaid=93 - The Computer Music Tutorial (Really really really good book) Paul White - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea ul20White - Basic Series + more Rick Snowman - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea k20Snoman - The Dance Music Manual Tools Toys and Techniques Bobby Owsinski - httpbooksgooglecoukbooksas_auth=Bobby+Owsinski - The MixingRecording amp Mastering Engineers Handbooks Michael Paul Stavrou - httpwwwmixingwithyourmindcom
Publishers Thomson Course Technology - httpcoursecengagecom (Click on the Music Technology tab) - Series published include Power Overdrive Ignite and CSI Series + many more Backbeat Books - httpwwwbackbeatbookscom ndash Power Tools Series + many more Wiley Publishing - httpwwwdummiescom (Enter music in their search bar) - For Dummies Series Penguin Books - httpuspenguingroupcom (Enter music in their search bar) - The Complete Idiots Guide Series + many more MIT Press - httpmitpressmitedu - Many books on music theory Focal Press - httpwwwfocalpresscom - (Enter music in their search bar)
------------------------------------------------
Online Music Book Stores (We need more links here Do you know of any that we can add)
httpwwwmixbookscom ndash Excellent source that sells only books about music
Page 39
httpwwwamazoncom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
httpwwwbarnesandnoblecom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
------------------------------------------------
52 Wikipedia
A good music lexicon wiki Search for your term in the search bar ---gt httpenaudiolexicorgwikiMain_Page
0-9
14rdquo Jack - httpenwikipediaorgwikiJack_plug 3rd Bridge - httpenwikipediaorgwiki3rd_Bridge
Zero Crossing - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_crossing Zero Crossing Rate - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_Crossing_Rate
53 Other recommended production forums
for Logic users this is the shit httpwwwlogicprohelpcom
Ive found both these forums to be full of knowledgeable producers amp musicians
httpwwwkvraudiocomforum
httpacapellaharmony-centralcomforumsindexphp
httpwwwgearslutzcomboard
httpwwwsoundonsoundcomforum
httpwwwmusicradarcomforum
httpwwwidmforumscom
httpwwwdance-industriescomphpBB2 8cffbb3b02
httpwwwsubvertcentralcomforumindexphp
httpwwwbreakbeatcouk
httpwwwtweakheadzcom
httpwwwabletoncompagesforum
Explains lots about the music industry ---gt httpwwwbemusocom
Page 47
Ok so a massive thanks to all the contributors there are literally too many to mention But Thanks to Futures Untold Johnny Beat Klimaxx Deadly Habit amp JunglistRendr Daft Cunt in perticular
Thanks to all the artists producers and general music geeks making this early revision of the production bible an essential read
There are links missing and will be included in version 21(Please help with the unlinked chapters by going here - httpwwwdubstepforumcomthe-dubstep-production-bible-updated-2009-06-03-t14797html and updating missing info as needed)
Compiled by Daft Cunt and Futures Untold PDF Compiled by Depone
Page 28
Snaresbull Tune the snares so they all hit around the same pitch bull Change the Amp Envelopes of each to bring the strongest parts from each separate sample
and build up your sound like that bull Compressing all together is a good idea but dont over do it bull EQ the master out for the snare as well so you wont have to fuck about when you use the
sample in the future bull Donrsquot just use snares fling some random sound effects in there Claps and rim shots also
work well when layered bull Make subtle changes to them and export a few snares from the same setup this helps
when you need a ghost hit or a reverse that sounds similar but not identicalbull Watch that frequencies dont build up and make the layered bit sound overly whatever
is building up Really easy to get too much 200hz or 500hz or even 12k if youve got samples that are all beefythicksmack-y
bull If its peaking run it through a Spectrum Analyzer and see where its peaking I guess its peaking in the tune rather than just the snare sample playing on its own
bull Sometimes snare samples have a very short peak that doesnt seem to make them sound any better and keeps you from getting them louder without cliping Reduce that part by a few dBs and youre sorted
bull Make sure you are using subtractive eq to pull out the frequencies that could be clashing with other sounds If your frequencies are clashing that can hide the snare and then you end up turning it up to compensate and there you are with your snare peakingThe key is making the frequencies sit right in the mix so that they dont clash and you can set them right and not have to turn them up
bull You could always try clipping the snare normalise it in a wave editor amplify it as much as you can before it sounds distorted then sample it out Then replace the snare with the clipped version it will almost always sound louder with more body at a lower volume I would still point out that although this can be used as a replacement to compression compression is a vital tool to learn how to use Also a lot of peeps will say this does bad things to the waveform and it does but unless you intend to listen to your tune to be heard at home on an amazing hifi then it doesnt really matter that much IMO
bull Hi-pass overdrive limit and cut away space from other sounds for itbull Layer with its self or a different snare Layer with sub add effect to one layer add effect
to both layers layer zoom right in drag one wave form back or forth very slightly to create new snare sound Pitch updown EQ Filter distort reverb delay reverse
bull Record yourself beat boxing your best snare sounds then layer with snare samplesbull A good handclap never goes a miss or use a nice drum synth to get a very differentdigital
soundbull Try reversing the snare sample then changing the envelope settings so it only hits on the
beat Layer that with the same sample this time not reversed Add a little delay to the the reversed snare Change the settings til it sounds how you like
bull Particularly snares I layer up a lot I look for one that has the qualities that I want when run through verb and then I look for something shorter with more mid punch to keep things physical After someone notied snares were weak in a tune Ive really made a point of ensuring that when the snares hit its physical as well as textural You need to feel them a bit - so I look for some snares that have that real punch when layering but usually keep the more textural snappy one as the focus last couple tunes I did the standard kick snare hats w odd percussion and then I took an amen chopped it processed it and layered it overtop for more aggression and step (goddess being a perfect example) By removing a layer and adding it you can create a sense of progression through the tune Make sure the bottom layer is sounding really good and then add the top so that youre not mixing them to be reliant on one another - instead you want synergy Make sure the EQ on the top and bottom make sense with each other
Kicksbull Building a kick in Ableton Lives Impulse machine Provides some essential information
about layering that can be used with any DAWbull Making fat kicks
remixmag wroteWhether creating Miami Bass music is your lifes fantasy or your greatest fear you probably crave the know-how to manifest those car-rattling trunk-full-of-funk kick drums In the arenas of hip-hop house techno downtempo and almost any other electronic genre molding fat kick drums is absolutely essential Like grandmas homemade apple pie the recipe for kick drums is partially a matter of taste However theres no substitute for quality ingredients And just like every pie has its staple ingredients every slamming kick drum requires some common elements Lets take a look at the
Page 29
shopping list for killer kick drumsTHE CRUST
Youll need a basic shell to begin creating a thick strong kick The classics always work if youre fortunate enough to own a real Roland TR-808 909 or other famous drum machine with a killer kick use it copiously If youre not one of those chosen few pay close attention to your original source For example if you use a sampler understand that not all ldquo808 Kickrdquo samples are the same some sound great and some just plain suck There are a lot of reasons for that including how many generations from the original the sample is the sampling rate and bit depth of the sampler how the kick was first sampled and so on Be as choosy as possible with your individual samples mdash dont use a mediocre sample just because it has 808 in the name and therefore is ldquosupposedrdquo to sound fat Seek out a better 808 sample or use something else that is simply bigger sounding Remember the time you spend finding sweet original sources wont be in vain especially if you reuse the resulting samples for multiple songsBORROW SOME SUGAR
An old saying goes ldquoGood art borrows great art stealsrdquo A nice way to start out with great raw kick material is to sample directly from the source If you dont own but have access to a 909 then sample it directly Or take one of your favorite producers tracks on vinyl or CD find a naked kick drum in there and sample it Be cautious with that approach for a couple of reasons Copyright issues around sampling even small bits have become a dangerously gray area and I would never personally advise using any source straight out of the can even from a royalty-free sample library While it may be an excellent start its unoriginal Customize whatever you bite Treat your samples as a sculptor would treat clay mold each one to create a trademark sound for yourself One effective way to customize a fat kick is to take a tip from the synth manufacturers If a sound is thin pile another (or a few more) on top When doing so its important to use different sounds layering two identical kicks will result in a louder kick but it wont change the basic tone Remember the sculptor approach here Even if you are using two good-sounding individual samples they may not instantly sound great together For example I find that when layering kicks while the thickness may be good sustain is often overkill The final result often benefits from a little doctoring on the tail of one (or both) of the samples and other hands-on sonic surgeryADD THE FILLING
Once a nice basic kick is achieved treating it with two of the mastering engineers favorite tools is often the next step Artfully applying a compressor (to just the kick) can go a long way toward creating a signature sound and a huge kick Compression is one of those ldquosecret spicesrdquo and how to apply it is a whole topic in itself One recommendation I will make however is to use a multiband compressor With one of those you can isolate compression on certain frequency ranges That is perfect if for example you want to push the sub of your kick without emphasizing the higher frequencies (which often affect the tone of the attack) or vice-versa EQ comes after compression in my signal chain By now the kick should already sound pretty fat I aim to shave unnecessary frequencies here rather than artificially boosting too much This is also where you can actualize trademark sounds while also fine-tuning them to work alongside other elements in specific tracks I often scoop out mids and highs especially frequencies above about 500 Hz Even though I like thick deep kicks unless Im going for a really dublike sound I often truncate the lowest frequencies (usually the sub-50 Hz frequencies) Even when you cant hear the difference when trimming frequencies doing so can really tighten up your kicksEVEN IT OUT
You may ask why when youre trying to fatten up a kick would you want to trim frequencies That is one of the keys to achieving great mixes both in the case of kick drums and in general You want to avoid too many overlapping frequencies The more sonic separation you have between elements the more focused the entire mix will sound That can be especially important for club music which often gets played on huge not necessarily audiophile-quality sound systems If you havent run into the following scenario already I assure you at some point you will Your bass line and kick drum are competing and it sounds like you have a weak kick You boost the kick but it still sounds muddy Take the bass out and suddenly the kick doesnt sound so bad In a scenario like that solo the two sounds listen carefully for where frequencies are overlapping and then try subtractive EQ on one element then the other and sometimes a bit on both By scooping out overlapping frequencies you will often find that both elements seem to magically come forward in the mix before even touching their respective volume levels
Hi hatsbull Realism
Ive been a professional touring and recording drummer for 25 years and just thought I might share a couple of really simple ways to use fruity loops or fruity studio to create more realistic drum patterns
For what its worth try this out with Fruity Loops
Page 30
Take your hi hat tracks (are any tracks for that matter including melodic synth bubbles)
Drop down the bar graph box that allows you to scroll between velocity (volume) pitch panning cutoff resonance and a thing called shift which allows you to use each of these categories to effect each individual note that youve programmed (note this can be accomplished in other ways in most of the good midi sequencing apps or softwarehardware drum machines)
Drummers no matter how good they are just arent perfect and we can use the fact that each of these drop down bar graphs can make veryvery small changes in a sound to do some subtle things to a rolling drum groove like 16th notes on a hi hat
Not all drummers but many tend to favor their strong hand in a single stroke (hand over hand) drum roll Consequently if you make all odd numbered hi hats be slightly louder than their even numbered hits it will sound more realistic Start by making velocity differences that are really clearly audible Then lower the velocity until you can barely feel the difference We are going to make very subtle changes like this on each of the parameters of velocity pitch cutoff resonance and importantly shift
I cant stress enough that you should make these changes be so subtle that you can hardly notice them
Just going on the fact that the right handed players start their rolls with the right hand and favor it ever so slightly (or grossly for effect as well) means that the stroke will be harder with the right hand than the left hand
When a percussion instrument is hit harder the difference between the transient (or hi pitched attack) of the sound and the body of the instrument (or the sound that comes after the attack) becomes greater In general on drums that means that a harder attack tensions the drum very imperceptably (sp) and it also means that there will be more treble in the sound Consequently the pitch goes up a little teensy bit and their is more attack to the sound (increased resonance and slightly higher cutoff frequency)
Consequently you can make the pitch of each right hand be just barely noticeably higher the resonance should be just one or two of those little teeny bars higher The cutoff should be just a few bars lower (allowing less high frequencies through) on the left handed or even numbered strokes
Typically if drums have time inaccuracies they tend to drag the left hand a litte bit I have to keep stressing that if you can hear the changes you make you arent being realistic You need to make the changes subtle enough that you just barely feel that they arent perfect You can consequently make each left hand note shifted one or two bars late
Tigure out how much you can tweak each parameter before it becomes obvious and then you can just randomly tweak each one up to that limit With a little bit of variance in each stroke from parameter to parameter you will create more of a percolating texture in your programming - this is a great technique to make synth bubbles (the kind used in techno and house) more interesting and less mechanical feeling
Now you can avoid the biggest mistake that non-drummers do when trying to write realistic programs turn the overall volume of the hihats until you CANT hear them and then slowly bring up the volume until you just begin to hear them
Professional producers have spent countless hours trying to figure out how to gate and mix hihats OUT of tracks The reason is two fold1) Human beings have such a radical peak in their hearing around the 1-2khz range (or the intelligibility range of human speech) that we can play the hihats at incredible low volumes and they are still audible You cant do that with a bass drumI tell my drum students that you cannot play a hi hat or a snare drum so quietly that a person sitting in a room with you cant hear it2) Hi Hats the snare of snare drums and cymbals all seriously MASK human vocal intellibility How many people have gone to see live shows where they can hear the singer is singing but cant for the life of them figure out what they are actually singing That is ususally because drummers (or mixers which is frequently the case) are not hip to thisimportant fact
So turn down your hi hat tracks (or any track with a strong mid rangeshort envelope attack) and you have much more room for other musical goodies in your mix When in doubt make your hi hats quieter than you think they should be Trust me theyll come through the mix even at a quiet volume
Swingbull Dont know if you can do this in your sequencer but in Logic you can create a groove
template from your drums and then apply that to your other instruments If youre using separate midi channels for snares kicks and hats take the 8 bar loop youre using glue it together and then take the groove from that and then mute that track When you click down the quantize list youll see the template there and you can apply it to your other tracks Also if you do want to change the groove you can just change the hits in the muted template and itll automatically change all other hits to the new changes
bull Think if youre clever and organized you can basically cut breaks up in recycle load them into the exs24 (extract sequence) and then do the same with them That way if there are breaks you like the feel of you can just apply that swing to anything If you make a folder called grooves in your logic folder they should load up each time so that youll have loads to choose from Havent done this myself yet but always helpful to have a choice of feels available
bull Some things sound better rigid and robotic with equal velocities Some things sound better rigid and robotic with differing velocities Some things sound better with swing Some things sound better with everything ever-so-slightly off Its down to what the track needs
bull Drum Break Swing ProgrammingNicolas Hall wwwbreakbeat-cafenet wroteI think most people who make anything funk breakbeat drum amp bass or hip-hop would agree that Swing is crucial to the effectiveness of a beat The other key factors in a programming sense are dynamic and accent So many people get wound up when their beats sound sterile or mechanical this is due to the fact that computers and sequencers lock to perfect BPM A computer on its own does not interpret rhythm the way a good drummer does There are however certain machines that have their own swing parameters like the Akai MPC range of sampling drum machines which are used extensively by hip hop producers
Swing is not the easiest thing in the world to analyze but as a general rule good drummers will play slightly late and thats why in all funky records you get that slight dip at the start of the bar take Superstition by Stevie Wonder or Billie Jean by Michael Jackson these are both very simple beats Superstition is of course live drums whilst Billie Jean was programmed but no less funky than Superstition I emphasize this point to demonstrate that a programmed beat can be every bit at groovy as a beat played on a drum kit
Expanding on the Billie Jean point Hip Hop beats are really very simple If you listen to the Neptunes they tend to create the swing in their beats by quantizing the kicks and snares and playing the hi hats in by hand this creates a very tight beat which is off set by a loose hi hat try it works but dont forget your accents - As a starting point just take the first snare of your beat and turn the velocity down then notice how your head starts nodding and your foot starts tapping a little more you are giving the beat feel Also remember that if you are using reverb the louder snare will push the reverb harder than the soft snare so your creating more ambience that way Then try your kick drums if your not sure which hits to adjust just pick apart a beat your feeling I remember me and friend picking apart a Gangstarr beat and were able to almost replicate it by adjusting the velocities of each hit (admittedly it took a while to get it right)
If youre a newbie then a common trick when learning to make good grooves is to create a template with an existing loop The idea is take a loop you like thats got a good feel to it and then place your own hits over the break then take the break out and see if your hits are sounding funky This can take a while and its crucial to think about the strength of each hit or the dynamic Each kick will not be the same strength nor will the snares or the hats pick the loop apart dissect it and youll soon see that there are certain consistencies in all good beats
If youre using live loops and like to layer them with drum sequences you should be thinking about time space and frequencies So if you have a fairly heavy loop then layering it with heavy kick drums is probably not gonna sound good Think about filling holes are their any frequencies that could be filled up Or is there space in the loop for extra hits Try working in layers just adding one hit at a time also filtering works well you could take some of the frequencies out of your loop as you drop your drum sequences in to make room for them I think one the masters of this technique is Liam Howlett of the Prodigy He runs breakbeats and gives them extra balls by laying a kick drum underneath to add extra intensity to certain passages in his set but hes careful not to overlap frequencies to much A good place to start if you using breakbeats is the Roland Tr-808 kick drum which is around the 50hz mark which is sub bass territory so it will sit underneath most breaks very well
If your hell bent on making killer beats and loops then perseverance is crucial keep at it it will come together listen to beats you like and pick them apart identify the subtleties that make it happen I know some producers get fed up when their beats sound to clean or they are trying to create a new breakbeat and then compare it to sample they took from vinyl and get down on there own beat Think about what a breakbeat really is think about its history what has happened to it to make it sound the way it does Im
Page 32
sure youve noticed how some breaks have a certain something like a magic dust you cant put your finger on Let me share what I know with you about that
Most breaks though not all are taken from recordings of live drums some of them are pretty old so you have the ambience of live drums and the room they were recorded in you have the fact that natural decay and reverb of each drum is likely to have bled into the other mics on the kit and that most engineers used overhead mics which pick up the whole kit with two mics Then consider that many of these breaks will have been recorded to analogue tape with saturation which will create extra warmth and harmonics The next step comes from old sampling technology like the SP-1200 and the Akai s-950 mpc -60 these samplers sampled at 12- bit (bear in mind that most computers now are at least 24-bit if not more) and that the samples themselves where taken from vinyl and on and on the process goes with each new reverb and eq adding more and more to the break In terms of giving your breaks that character there are a number of things you can try for example buying an old four track cassette machine to dump your beats onto then re-sample it if your using a sampler like the s-950 then try pushing the input meters a little harder than usual add reverbs and resample it each time you put your loop through a new channel you will be adding something to it Also distortion is fantastic for breaks if you have any amp plug ins then try them the Amplitude one is particularly good you dont need to go mad with it just used subtly it works great
To finish I would just like to say again stick with it keep trying keep listening to records if you like to read about technique then do so you can learn so much from other producers Remember the strength of your hits is important as is the way it swings good luck
UPDATE 08092008
ENHANCE SYNTHESIZED DRUM PARTS WITH FOUND SOUNDS
emusiciancom wroteLayering real-world sounds with synthesized drum parts puts a new spin on your drum tracks You probably already have usable sound effects on your hard drive because most commercial samplers have at least a modest collection in their factory library Beyond that youll find thousands of royalty-free sound effects online Soundsnapcom is one of my favorite sources and its free The recordings dont need to be pristine for layering over drums so dont overlook cheap sampling CDs and consider grabbing your own sounds with a portable recorderCollect and Save
Start by assembling a small Foley library of short percussive sounds divided into typical drum-sound categories kicks snares toms cymbals percussion and so on Youll generally want to layer drum sounds with Foley sounds that have a similar volume contour and frequency range If you layer a Foley sound that resembles a kick drum with the sound of your hi-hat for example youll quickly fill up all the space in your drum track
Industrial household military transportation and vocal sounds make excellent fodder but you will often want to extract a small slice such as the last shot in a volley of machine-gun fire (snare) or the first bounce of a plastic bottle on concrete (tom) A browsing tool like Audio Finder (icedaudiocom) is invaluable if you have a large sample library That lets you quickly audition clips make basic edits and drag-and-drop slices to your library
Sticks UpIf your synthesized drum part is step sequenced youll need to export its step sequences as MIDI files Many drum synths do that including Sonic Charge Tonic (sonicchargecom) Apple Logic UltraBeat (applecom) and Submersible DrumCore (submersiblemusiccom) All of those come with a large collection of patterns exportable as MIDI sequences Youll also need a sampler to play the Foley sounds drum-oriented samplers are handier for that but are by no means necessary
Start by loading a kit in the drum synth Export one of its sequenced patterns or create your own and place it on the sampler track For some of the drum synth sounds select compatible Foley sounds and map them to the same notes in the sampler that theyre mapped to in the drum synth Next solo the doubled voices one by one in both the drum synth and the sampler start the sequence playing and tweak the samplers voice parameters (filter level pan envelope and so on) to make the sounds work together (see Fig 1 and Web Clip 1) Dont tweak global parameters such as effects because that will affect all sounds played by the sampler
High HoopsOnce youve configured your Foley track you can do several things to add interest I frequently use a
Page 33
second sampler for short vocal sounds Ill have some notes trigger sounds in both samplers and others in only one Many samplers let you group sounds and assign notes and controllers to choose among them You can then sequence these notes and controllers or you can play them live to alter your Foley tracks
Try applying DSP effects to individual Foley sounds Multitap delays distortion phasing and granular effects all work well when used sparingly (see Web Clip 2) You can apply DSP effects inside your sampler or route the voices to a separate output for DSP processing in your DAW If your sampler doesnt offer either possibility spread the Foley parts over several sampler instances on different tracks
Sidechain compression or gating of the drum track with one or more of the Foley parts will highlight the Foley part as well as add variety to the drums With compression peaks in the sidechain signal will reduce the level of the drum track Use a high compression level say 201 and balance the sidechain-gain and the compression-threshold -attack and -release controls to get the ducking contour you want (see Web Clip 3) Gating has the opposite effect the drum track will be heard during peaks in the sidechain signal (see Web Clip 4) Here too the sidechain-gain and gate-threshold controls work in tandem to determine when the gate is opened Use envelope parameters (attack release and hold) to shape the gates contour
Keep in mind that once youve created a sampler instrument to complement your drum kit you can reuse it with other sequences You can also change one or more sounds in the sampler instrument without repeating the whole process
34 Sidechain Compression (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
4 Theory41 ndash Song Structure42 ndash Mixdown (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)43 ndash Mastering (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
44 Music Theory
The first thing to remember about music theory is that generally if it sounds right it probably is There are no rules in music and Music Theory is not about telling you how to write music Its about understanding the music
Broadly speaking it is fair to say that most music is essentially based upon two crucial factors scales and rhythm Scales make up melodies chords harmonies and basslines to name but a few whereas rhythm makes up the beat of the song In this part of the Production Bible you will learn the basics of Music Theory that will serve you not only in the production of Dubstep but for any of your future musical pursuits This information is intended to be easy to read and understand so I wonrsquot be mincing sentences But firstly please make sure you learn every single note on the keyboard by studying the image below Otherwise yoursquoll be completely lost here
Page 34
Scales Wersquoll begin with scales As I mentioned before scales are the building blocks of your song and without them your track will be atonal and completely unlistenable (probably not the effect yoursquore going for)
There are two main scales that you should learn inside out ndash the major scale and the minor scale A generalisation yoursquore bound to have heard before is that the major scale sounds ldquohappyrdquo and the minor scale sounds ldquodarkrdquo Although this is not always the case it is mostly true ndash and therefore yoursquoll usually be focussing on the minor scale when producing Dubstep However just in case yoursquore writing happy-dubstep (if that exists) here is a quick overview of both scales and how they are made up
Major Scale
The major scale is really easy to create It is made by a single rule that is simple to put in to place
ldquoTone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
In case you donrsquot know what a Tone or Semi-Tone is here is a quick explanation
Picture a keyboard (or if you canrsquot see the image above) Say you go from C to C that would be a semi-tone The same thing goes for if you go from an E to an F ndash it is still a semi-tone because you
Page 35
have gone up one key
A tone is two semi-tones ndash for example from C to D is a tone and the same goes for from G to A
The scalersquos name is taken from the note that it starts on For example C major will start on the note of C Similarly A major will start on the note of A and this is the case with every single scale
Here is a quick list of a few major scales After having seen a few try working the rest out for yourself in order to understand how the major scale is formulated Ideally you should practice your scales on a piano or keyboard so that you can physically see how to make the scale It might sound boring but itrsquos a small price to pay for a much deeper understanding of your music
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Major C D E F G A B C
C Major C D E F G A B C
D Major D E F G A B C D
D Major D E F G A B C D
E Major E F G A B C D E
F Major F G A Bb C D E F
F Major F G A B C D E F
G Major G A B C D E F G
G Major G A B C D E F G
A Major A B C D E F G A
A Major A B C D E F G A
B major B C D E F G A B
Now by arranging the different notes of each of these scales in any order you please you can create a melody bassline or harmony with extreme ease Rearranging the notes in the scale will give you a flawlessly in-key result and it is then up to you to use the notes in the scale as you see fit for your tune
Minor Scale
As was the case with the Major Scale the Minor is made up from a set rule or formula By knowing this formula you can understand how the Minor is made and how to use it to itrsquos maximum effect
ldquoTone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
As is the case with the major scales you should practice your scales as much as possible to make sure that you know them all like the back of your hand Here are a few Minor Scales see if you can
Page 36
work out the rest
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Minor C D Eb F G Ab B C
D Minor D E F G A Bb C D
F Minor F G A B C D E F
G Minor G A Bb C D Eb F G
Similarly to the Major now that you know your Minor Scales you can quickly just take any note from the scale rearrange it with another few notes in the scale and there you have a fat melody or bassline ready to be played at maximum volume
Diminished Chords
Diminished Chords are really quite spooky and dark chords that are made up of four different notes all a minor third apart from each other That means that for example the Diminished Chord starting on C would be C Eb F A because to get from one note to the next you have to use ldquoTone Semi-Tonerdquo (known as a minor third)
Because of the mathematical nature of the Diminished chord there are only three ldquoclustersrdquo of notes which can then be rearranged like the Major and Minor Scales
Cluster 1 C Eb F A
Cluster 2 C E G Bb
Cluster 3 D F Ab B
Use these clusters and rearrange them as you please For example you could rearrange cluster 1 as Eb F A C etc
Generally speaking you canrsquot make a song based entirely on Diminished Chords due to the fact that each cluster only has 4 notes However a Diminished Chord is perfect for adding a hint of darkness to your tune and is brilliant when mixed with some Minor Scales
Chords
Chords are basically two or more notes played together They are made up from a specific scale ndash for example the C major chord is made up of notes in the C major scale
Usually chords will include the first third and fifth note of the scale as well as possibly using other notes to give them colour For example the basic chord of C major would be C E G Then you could add the seventh note to it (in this case it is B) Really it is up to the producerrsquos discretion how heshe goes about making a chord ndash just remember to stick to the scale you are using
Chords will more than likely sound like shit if you play them on a complicated or layered synth patch You want to be playing chords on sustained sounds such as strings or pads Chords will really fill out your sound if used properly You want your chords to be supporting the melody or bassline and more than likely want to add some reverb so that it doesnrsquot sound too sharp Make
Page 37
your chords blend in with the music and yoursquoll have mastered them
Chord Inversions
Quite simply chord inversions are when you rearrange the notes in a chord so that it sounds a bit different and suits your arrangement better
For example if you were in the key of C major you could have a drone of E playing underneath some strings playing the notes E G C E
Due to the fact that the notes are the same and have only been inverted the chord will still be in key with the rest of the music This is a great way to add a touch of variation to your music instead of using the same chord structure all the time
Arpeggios
Arpeggios are much easier to understand than they sound They are quite simply the first third and fifth note of the scale played as individual notes For example the arpeggio of C minor would be C Eb G C etc
A great example of an arpeggio is the bassline in Bengarsquos ldquoCrunked Uprdquo He goes from playing the F minor arpeggio backwards to playing the F minor arpeggio backwards In other words he is playing
C A F and then C Ab F
Experiment with a few Minor Arpeggios and a couple of Diminished Arpeggios and you canrsquot go wrong in writing a huge bassline
Suggested Reading
List of All Scales With Finger Charts Included
Well thatrsquos it folks Thatrsquos basically all the music theory you need to know to start off with As you grow more used to the various scales yoursquoll notice that certain notes sound good with each other whilst others donrsquot Irsquom not here to tell you how to write music Irsquom here to teach you the language
of music Itrsquos up to you to write the poetry
copy Bruno Crosier (klimaxx) 2008
45 Random Tips
Random tips amp best piece of advice thread
5 Resources
Page 38
51 Books amp Magazines
Hello again people
Does anyone know of more music production books magazines or authors we can add to these lists
Thanks
------------------------------------------------
Music Production Magazines Computer Music - httpwwwcomputermusiccouk Music Tech Magazine - httpwwwmusictechmagcouk Future Music - httpwwwfuturemusiccouk Sound on Sound - httpwwwsoundonsoundcom Remix Magazine - httpremixmagcom Mix Magazine - httpmixonlinecom Electronic Musician - httpemusiciancom EQ Magazine - httpwwweqmagcom Audio Technology - wwwaudiotechnologycomau Tape Op - httpwwwtapeopcom
------------------------------------------------
Music Books
Authors Curtis Roads httpmitpressmiteducatalogauthor aspaid=93 - The Computer Music Tutorial (Really really really good book) Paul White - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea ul20White - Basic Series + more Rick Snowman - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea k20Snoman - The Dance Music Manual Tools Toys and Techniques Bobby Owsinski - httpbooksgooglecoukbooksas_auth=Bobby+Owsinski - The MixingRecording amp Mastering Engineers Handbooks Michael Paul Stavrou - httpwwwmixingwithyourmindcom
Publishers Thomson Course Technology - httpcoursecengagecom (Click on the Music Technology tab) - Series published include Power Overdrive Ignite and CSI Series + many more Backbeat Books - httpwwwbackbeatbookscom ndash Power Tools Series + many more Wiley Publishing - httpwwwdummiescom (Enter music in their search bar) - For Dummies Series Penguin Books - httpuspenguingroupcom (Enter music in their search bar) - The Complete Idiots Guide Series + many more MIT Press - httpmitpressmitedu - Many books on music theory Focal Press - httpwwwfocalpresscom - (Enter music in their search bar)
------------------------------------------------
Online Music Book Stores (We need more links here Do you know of any that we can add)
httpwwwmixbookscom ndash Excellent source that sells only books about music
Page 39
httpwwwamazoncom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
httpwwwbarnesandnoblecom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
------------------------------------------------
52 Wikipedia
A good music lexicon wiki Search for your term in the search bar ---gt httpenaudiolexicorgwikiMain_Page
0-9
14rdquo Jack - httpenwikipediaorgwikiJack_plug 3rd Bridge - httpenwikipediaorgwiki3rd_Bridge
Zero Crossing - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_crossing Zero Crossing Rate - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_Crossing_Rate
53 Other recommended production forums
for Logic users this is the shit httpwwwlogicprohelpcom
Ive found both these forums to be full of knowledgeable producers amp musicians
httpwwwkvraudiocomforum
httpacapellaharmony-centralcomforumsindexphp
httpwwwgearslutzcomboard
httpwwwsoundonsoundcomforum
httpwwwmusicradarcomforum
httpwwwidmforumscom
httpwwwdance-industriescomphpBB2 8cffbb3b02
httpwwwsubvertcentralcomforumindexphp
httpwwwbreakbeatcouk
httpwwwtweakheadzcom
httpwwwabletoncompagesforum
Explains lots about the music industry ---gt httpwwwbemusocom
Page 47
Ok so a massive thanks to all the contributors there are literally too many to mention But Thanks to Futures Untold Johnny Beat Klimaxx Deadly Habit amp JunglistRendr Daft Cunt in perticular
Thanks to all the artists producers and general music geeks making this early revision of the production bible an essential read
There are links missing and will be included in version 21(Please help with the unlinked chapters by going here - httpwwwdubstepforumcomthe-dubstep-production-bible-updated-2009-06-03-t14797html and updating missing info as needed)
Compiled by Daft Cunt and Futures Untold PDF Compiled by Depone
Page 29
shopping list for killer kick drumsTHE CRUST
Youll need a basic shell to begin creating a thick strong kick The classics always work if youre fortunate enough to own a real Roland TR-808 909 or other famous drum machine with a killer kick use it copiously If youre not one of those chosen few pay close attention to your original source For example if you use a sampler understand that not all ldquo808 Kickrdquo samples are the same some sound great and some just plain suck There are a lot of reasons for that including how many generations from the original the sample is the sampling rate and bit depth of the sampler how the kick was first sampled and so on Be as choosy as possible with your individual samples mdash dont use a mediocre sample just because it has 808 in the name and therefore is ldquosupposedrdquo to sound fat Seek out a better 808 sample or use something else that is simply bigger sounding Remember the time you spend finding sweet original sources wont be in vain especially if you reuse the resulting samples for multiple songsBORROW SOME SUGAR
An old saying goes ldquoGood art borrows great art stealsrdquo A nice way to start out with great raw kick material is to sample directly from the source If you dont own but have access to a 909 then sample it directly Or take one of your favorite producers tracks on vinyl or CD find a naked kick drum in there and sample it Be cautious with that approach for a couple of reasons Copyright issues around sampling even small bits have become a dangerously gray area and I would never personally advise using any source straight out of the can even from a royalty-free sample library While it may be an excellent start its unoriginal Customize whatever you bite Treat your samples as a sculptor would treat clay mold each one to create a trademark sound for yourself One effective way to customize a fat kick is to take a tip from the synth manufacturers If a sound is thin pile another (or a few more) on top When doing so its important to use different sounds layering two identical kicks will result in a louder kick but it wont change the basic tone Remember the sculptor approach here Even if you are using two good-sounding individual samples they may not instantly sound great together For example I find that when layering kicks while the thickness may be good sustain is often overkill The final result often benefits from a little doctoring on the tail of one (or both) of the samples and other hands-on sonic surgeryADD THE FILLING
Once a nice basic kick is achieved treating it with two of the mastering engineers favorite tools is often the next step Artfully applying a compressor (to just the kick) can go a long way toward creating a signature sound and a huge kick Compression is one of those ldquosecret spicesrdquo and how to apply it is a whole topic in itself One recommendation I will make however is to use a multiband compressor With one of those you can isolate compression on certain frequency ranges That is perfect if for example you want to push the sub of your kick without emphasizing the higher frequencies (which often affect the tone of the attack) or vice-versa EQ comes after compression in my signal chain By now the kick should already sound pretty fat I aim to shave unnecessary frequencies here rather than artificially boosting too much This is also where you can actualize trademark sounds while also fine-tuning them to work alongside other elements in specific tracks I often scoop out mids and highs especially frequencies above about 500 Hz Even though I like thick deep kicks unless Im going for a really dublike sound I often truncate the lowest frequencies (usually the sub-50 Hz frequencies) Even when you cant hear the difference when trimming frequencies doing so can really tighten up your kicksEVEN IT OUT
You may ask why when youre trying to fatten up a kick would you want to trim frequencies That is one of the keys to achieving great mixes both in the case of kick drums and in general You want to avoid too many overlapping frequencies The more sonic separation you have between elements the more focused the entire mix will sound That can be especially important for club music which often gets played on huge not necessarily audiophile-quality sound systems If you havent run into the following scenario already I assure you at some point you will Your bass line and kick drum are competing and it sounds like you have a weak kick You boost the kick but it still sounds muddy Take the bass out and suddenly the kick doesnt sound so bad In a scenario like that solo the two sounds listen carefully for where frequencies are overlapping and then try subtractive EQ on one element then the other and sometimes a bit on both By scooping out overlapping frequencies you will often find that both elements seem to magically come forward in the mix before even touching their respective volume levels
Hi hatsbull Realism
Ive been a professional touring and recording drummer for 25 years and just thought I might share a couple of really simple ways to use fruity loops or fruity studio to create more realistic drum patterns
For what its worth try this out with Fruity Loops
Page 30
Take your hi hat tracks (are any tracks for that matter including melodic synth bubbles)
Drop down the bar graph box that allows you to scroll between velocity (volume) pitch panning cutoff resonance and a thing called shift which allows you to use each of these categories to effect each individual note that youve programmed (note this can be accomplished in other ways in most of the good midi sequencing apps or softwarehardware drum machines)
Drummers no matter how good they are just arent perfect and we can use the fact that each of these drop down bar graphs can make veryvery small changes in a sound to do some subtle things to a rolling drum groove like 16th notes on a hi hat
Not all drummers but many tend to favor their strong hand in a single stroke (hand over hand) drum roll Consequently if you make all odd numbered hi hats be slightly louder than their even numbered hits it will sound more realistic Start by making velocity differences that are really clearly audible Then lower the velocity until you can barely feel the difference We are going to make very subtle changes like this on each of the parameters of velocity pitch cutoff resonance and importantly shift
I cant stress enough that you should make these changes be so subtle that you can hardly notice them
Just going on the fact that the right handed players start their rolls with the right hand and favor it ever so slightly (or grossly for effect as well) means that the stroke will be harder with the right hand than the left hand
When a percussion instrument is hit harder the difference between the transient (or hi pitched attack) of the sound and the body of the instrument (or the sound that comes after the attack) becomes greater In general on drums that means that a harder attack tensions the drum very imperceptably (sp) and it also means that there will be more treble in the sound Consequently the pitch goes up a little teensy bit and their is more attack to the sound (increased resonance and slightly higher cutoff frequency)
Consequently you can make the pitch of each right hand be just barely noticeably higher the resonance should be just one or two of those little teeny bars higher The cutoff should be just a few bars lower (allowing less high frequencies through) on the left handed or even numbered strokes
Typically if drums have time inaccuracies they tend to drag the left hand a litte bit I have to keep stressing that if you can hear the changes you make you arent being realistic You need to make the changes subtle enough that you just barely feel that they arent perfect You can consequently make each left hand note shifted one or two bars late
Tigure out how much you can tweak each parameter before it becomes obvious and then you can just randomly tweak each one up to that limit With a little bit of variance in each stroke from parameter to parameter you will create more of a percolating texture in your programming - this is a great technique to make synth bubbles (the kind used in techno and house) more interesting and less mechanical feeling
Now you can avoid the biggest mistake that non-drummers do when trying to write realistic programs turn the overall volume of the hihats until you CANT hear them and then slowly bring up the volume until you just begin to hear them
Professional producers have spent countless hours trying to figure out how to gate and mix hihats OUT of tracks The reason is two fold1) Human beings have such a radical peak in their hearing around the 1-2khz range (or the intelligibility range of human speech) that we can play the hihats at incredible low volumes and they are still audible You cant do that with a bass drumI tell my drum students that you cannot play a hi hat or a snare drum so quietly that a person sitting in a room with you cant hear it2) Hi Hats the snare of snare drums and cymbals all seriously MASK human vocal intellibility How many people have gone to see live shows where they can hear the singer is singing but cant for the life of them figure out what they are actually singing That is ususally because drummers (or mixers which is frequently the case) are not hip to thisimportant fact
So turn down your hi hat tracks (or any track with a strong mid rangeshort envelope attack) and you have much more room for other musical goodies in your mix When in doubt make your hi hats quieter than you think they should be Trust me theyll come through the mix even at a quiet volume
Swingbull Dont know if you can do this in your sequencer but in Logic you can create a groove
template from your drums and then apply that to your other instruments If youre using separate midi channels for snares kicks and hats take the 8 bar loop youre using glue it together and then take the groove from that and then mute that track When you click down the quantize list youll see the template there and you can apply it to your other tracks Also if you do want to change the groove you can just change the hits in the muted template and itll automatically change all other hits to the new changes
bull Think if youre clever and organized you can basically cut breaks up in recycle load them into the exs24 (extract sequence) and then do the same with them That way if there are breaks you like the feel of you can just apply that swing to anything If you make a folder called grooves in your logic folder they should load up each time so that youll have loads to choose from Havent done this myself yet but always helpful to have a choice of feels available
bull Some things sound better rigid and robotic with equal velocities Some things sound better rigid and robotic with differing velocities Some things sound better with swing Some things sound better with everything ever-so-slightly off Its down to what the track needs
bull Drum Break Swing ProgrammingNicolas Hall wwwbreakbeat-cafenet wroteI think most people who make anything funk breakbeat drum amp bass or hip-hop would agree that Swing is crucial to the effectiveness of a beat The other key factors in a programming sense are dynamic and accent So many people get wound up when their beats sound sterile or mechanical this is due to the fact that computers and sequencers lock to perfect BPM A computer on its own does not interpret rhythm the way a good drummer does There are however certain machines that have their own swing parameters like the Akai MPC range of sampling drum machines which are used extensively by hip hop producers
Swing is not the easiest thing in the world to analyze but as a general rule good drummers will play slightly late and thats why in all funky records you get that slight dip at the start of the bar take Superstition by Stevie Wonder or Billie Jean by Michael Jackson these are both very simple beats Superstition is of course live drums whilst Billie Jean was programmed but no less funky than Superstition I emphasize this point to demonstrate that a programmed beat can be every bit at groovy as a beat played on a drum kit
Expanding on the Billie Jean point Hip Hop beats are really very simple If you listen to the Neptunes they tend to create the swing in their beats by quantizing the kicks and snares and playing the hi hats in by hand this creates a very tight beat which is off set by a loose hi hat try it works but dont forget your accents - As a starting point just take the first snare of your beat and turn the velocity down then notice how your head starts nodding and your foot starts tapping a little more you are giving the beat feel Also remember that if you are using reverb the louder snare will push the reverb harder than the soft snare so your creating more ambience that way Then try your kick drums if your not sure which hits to adjust just pick apart a beat your feeling I remember me and friend picking apart a Gangstarr beat and were able to almost replicate it by adjusting the velocities of each hit (admittedly it took a while to get it right)
If youre a newbie then a common trick when learning to make good grooves is to create a template with an existing loop The idea is take a loop you like thats got a good feel to it and then place your own hits over the break then take the break out and see if your hits are sounding funky This can take a while and its crucial to think about the strength of each hit or the dynamic Each kick will not be the same strength nor will the snares or the hats pick the loop apart dissect it and youll soon see that there are certain consistencies in all good beats
If youre using live loops and like to layer them with drum sequences you should be thinking about time space and frequencies So if you have a fairly heavy loop then layering it with heavy kick drums is probably not gonna sound good Think about filling holes are their any frequencies that could be filled up Or is there space in the loop for extra hits Try working in layers just adding one hit at a time also filtering works well you could take some of the frequencies out of your loop as you drop your drum sequences in to make room for them I think one the masters of this technique is Liam Howlett of the Prodigy He runs breakbeats and gives them extra balls by laying a kick drum underneath to add extra intensity to certain passages in his set but hes careful not to overlap frequencies to much A good place to start if you using breakbeats is the Roland Tr-808 kick drum which is around the 50hz mark which is sub bass territory so it will sit underneath most breaks very well
If your hell bent on making killer beats and loops then perseverance is crucial keep at it it will come together listen to beats you like and pick them apart identify the subtleties that make it happen I know some producers get fed up when their beats sound to clean or they are trying to create a new breakbeat and then compare it to sample they took from vinyl and get down on there own beat Think about what a breakbeat really is think about its history what has happened to it to make it sound the way it does Im
Page 32
sure youve noticed how some breaks have a certain something like a magic dust you cant put your finger on Let me share what I know with you about that
Most breaks though not all are taken from recordings of live drums some of them are pretty old so you have the ambience of live drums and the room they were recorded in you have the fact that natural decay and reverb of each drum is likely to have bled into the other mics on the kit and that most engineers used overhead mics which pick up the whole kit with two mics Then consider that many of these breaks will have been recorded to analogue tape with saturation which will create extra warmth and harmonics The next step comes from old sampling technology like the SP-1200 and the Akai s-950 mpc -60 these samplers sampled at 12- bit (bear in mind that most computers now are at least 24-bit if not more) and that the samples themselves where taken from vinyl and on and on the process goes with each new reverb and eq adding more and more to the break In terms of giving your breaks that character there are a number of things you can try for example buying an old four track cassette machine to dump your beats onto then re-sample it if your using a sampler like the s-950 then try pushing the input meters a little harder than usual add reverbs and resample it each time you put your loop through a new channel you will be adding something to it Also distortion is fantastic for breaks if you have any amp plug ins then try them the Amplitude one is particularly good you dont need to go mad with it just used subtly it works great
To finish I would just like to say again stick with it keep trying keep listening to records if you like to read about technique then do so you can learn so much from other producers Remember the strength of your hits is important as is the way it swings good luck
UPDATE 08092008
ENHANCE SYNTHESIZED DRUM PARTS WITH FOUND SOUNDS
emusiciancom wroteLayering real-world sounds with synthesized drum parts puts a new spin on your drum tracks You probably already have usable sound effects on your hard drive because most commercial samplers have at least a modest collection in their factory library Beyond that youll find thousands of royalty-free sound effects online Soundsnapcom is one of my favorite sources and its free The recordings dont need to be pristine for layering over drums so dont overlook cheap sampling CDs and consider grabbing your own sounds with a portable recorderCollect and Save
Start by assembling a small Foley library of short percussive sounds divided into typical drum-sound categories kicks snares toms cymbals percussion and so on Youll generally want to layer drum sounds with Foley sounds that have a similar volume contour and frequency range If you layer a Foley sound that resembles a kick drum with the sound of your hi-hat for example youll quickly fill up all the space in your drum track
Industrial household military transportation and vocal sounds make excellent fodder but you will often want to extract a small slice such as the last shot in a volley of machine-gun fire (snare) or the first bounce of a plastic bottle on concrete (tom) A browsing tool like Audio Finder (icedaudiocom) is invaluable if you have a large sample library That lets you quickly audition clips make basic edits and drag-and-drop slices to your library
Sticks UpIf your synthesized drum part is step sequenced youll need to export its step sequences as MIDI files Many drum synths do that including Sonic Charge Tonic (sonicchargecom) Apple Logic UltraBeat (applecom) and Submersible DrumCore (submersiblemusiccom) All of those come with a large collection of patterns exportable as MIDI sequences Youll also need a sampler to play the Foley sounds drum-oriented samplers are handier for that but are by no means necessary
Start by loading a kit in the drum synth Export one of its sequenced patterns or create your own and place it on the sampler track For some of the drum synth sounds select compatible Foley sounds and map them to the same notes in the sampler that theyre mapped to in the drum synth Next solo the doubled voices one by one in both the drum synth and the sampler start the sequence playing and tweak the samplers voice parameters (filter level pan envelope and so on) to make the sounds work together (see Fig 1 and Web Clip 1) Dont tweak global parameters such as effects because that will affect all sounds played by the sampler
High HoopsOnce youve configured your Foley track you can do several things to add interest I frequently use a
Page 33
second sampler for short vocal sounds Ill have some notes trigger sounds in both samplers and others in only one Many samplers let you group sounds and assign notes and controllers to choose among them You can then sequence these notes and controllers or you can play them live to alter your Foley tracks
Try applying DSP effects to individual Foley sounds Multitap delays distortion phasing and granular effects all work well when used sparingly (see Web Clip 2) You can apply DSP effects inside your sampler or route the voices to a separate output for DSP processing in your DAW If your sampler doesnt offer either possibility spread the Foley parts over several sampler instances on different tracks
Sidechain compression or gating of the drum track with one or more of the Foley parts will highlight the Foley part as well as add variety to the drums With compression peaks in the sidechain signal will reduce the level of the drum track Use a high compression level say 201 and balance the sidechain-gain and the compression-threshold -attack and -release controls to get the ducking contour you want (see Web Clip 3) Gating has the opposite effect the drum track will be heard during peaks in the sidechain signal (see Web Clip 4) Here too the sidechain-gain and gate-threshold controls work in tandem to determine when the gate is opened Use envelope parameters (attack release and hold) to shape the gates contour
Keep in mind that once youve created a sampler instrument to complement your drum kit you can reuse it with other sequences You can also change one or more sounds in the sampler instrument without repeating the whole process
34 Sidechain Compression (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
4 Theory41 ndash Song Structure42 ndash Mixdown (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)43 ndash Mastering (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
44 Music Theory
The first thing to remember about music theory is that generally if it sounds right it probably is There are no rules in music and Music Theory is not about telling you how to write music Its about understanding the music
Broadly speaking it is fair to say that most music is essentially based upon two crucial factors scales and rhythm Scales make up melodies chords harmonies and basslines to name but a few whereas rhythm makes up the beat of the song In this part of the Production Bible you will learn the basics of Music Theory that will serve you not only in the production of Dubstep but for any of your future musical pursuits This information is intended to be easy to read and understand so I wonrsquot be mincing sentences But firstly please make sure you learn every single note on the keyboard by studying the image below Otherwise yoursquoll be completely lost here
Page 34
Scales Wersquoll begin with scales As I mentioned before scales are the building blocks of your song and without them your track will be atonal and completely unlistenable (probably not the effect yoursquore going for)
There are two main scales that you should learn inside out ndash the major scale and the minor scale A generalisation yoursquore bound to have heard before is that the major scale sounds ldquohappyrdquo and the minor scale sounds ldquodarkrdquo Although this is not always the case it is mostly true ndash and therefore yoursquoll usually be focussing on the minor scale when producing Dubstep However just in case yoursquore writing happy-dubstep (if that exists) here is a quick overview of both scales and how they are made up
Major Scale
The major scale is really easy to create It is made by a single rule that is simple to put in to place
ldquoTone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
In case you donrsquot know what a Tone or Semi-Tone is here is a quick explanation
Picture a keyboard (or if you canrsquot see the image above) Say you go from C to C that would be a semi-tone The same thing goes for if you go from an E to an F ndash it is still a semi-tone because you
Page 35
have gone up one key
A tone is two semi-tones ndash for example from C to D is a tone and the same goes for from G to A
The scalersquos name is taken from the note that it starts on For example C major will start on the note of C Similarly A major will start on the note of A and this is the case with every single scale
Here is a quick list of a few major scales After having seen a few try working the rest out for yourself in order to understand how the major scale is formulated Ideally you should practice your scales on a piano or keyboard so that you can physically see how to make the scale It might sound boring but itrsquos a small price to pay for a much deeper understanding of your music
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Major C D E F G A B C
C Major C D E F G A B C
D Major D E F G A B C D
D Major D E F G A B C D
E Major E F G A B C D E
F Major F G A Bb C D E F
F Major F G A B C D E F
G Major G A B C D E F G
G Major G A B C D E F G
A Major A B C D E F G A
A Major A B C D E F G A
B major B C D E F G A B
Now by arranging the different notes of each of these scales in any order you please you can create a melody bassline or harmony with extreme ease Rearranging the notes in the scale will give you a flawlessly in-key result and it is then up to you to use the notes in the scale as you see fit for your tune
Minor Scale
As was the case with the Major Scale the Minor is made up from a set rule or formula By knowing this formula you can understand how the Minor is made and how to use it to itrsquos maximum effect
ldquoTone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
As is the case with the major scales you should practice your scales as much as possible to make sure that you know them all like the back of your hand Here are a few Minor Scales see if you can
Page 36
work out the rest
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Minor C D Eb F G Ab B C
D Minor D E F G A Bb C D
F Minor F G A B C D E F
G Minor G A Bb C D Eb F G
Similarly to the Major now that you know your Minor Scales you can quickly just take any note from the scale rearrange it with another few notes in the scale and there you have a fat melody or bassline ready to be played at maximum volume
Diminished Chords
Diminished Chords are really quite spooky and dark chords that are made up of four different notes all a minor third apart from each other That means that for example the Diminished Chord starting on C would be C Eb F A because to get from one note to the next you have to use ldquoTone Semi-Tonerdquo (known as a minor third)
Because of the mathematical nature of the Diminished chord there are only three ldquoclustersrdquo of notes which can then be rearranged like the Major and Minor Scales
Cluster 1 C Eb F A
Cluster 2 C E G Bb
Cluster 3 D F Ab B
Use these clusters and rearrange them as you please For example you could rearrange cluster 1 as Eb F A C etc
Generally speaking you canrsquot make a song based entirely on Diminished Chords due to the fact that each cluster only has 4 notes However a Diminished Chord is perfect for adding a hint of darkness to your tune and is brilliant when mixed with some Minor Scales
Chords
Chords are basically two or more notes played together They are made up from a specific scale ndash for example the C major chord is made up of notes in the C major scale
Usually chords will include the first third and fifth note of the scale as well as possibly using other notes to give them colour For example the basic chord of C major would be C E G Then you could add the seventh note to it (in this case it is B) Really it is up to the producerrsquos discretion how heshe goes about making a chord ndash just remember to stick to the scale you are using
Chords will more than likely sound like shit if you play them on a complicated or layered synth patch You want to be playing chords on sustained sounds such as strings or pads Chords will really fill out your sound if used properly You want your chords to be supporting the melody or bassline and more than likely want to add some reverb so that it doesnrsquot sound too sharp Make
Page 37
your chords blend in with the music and yoursquoll have mastered them
Chord Inversions
Quite simply chord inversions are when you rearrange the notes in a chord so that it sounds a bit different and suits your arrangement better
For example if you were in the key of C major you could have a drone of E playing underneath some strings playing the notes E G C E
Due to the fact that the notes are the same and have only been inverted the chord will still be in key with the rest of the music This is a great way to add a touch of variation to your music instead of using the same chord structure all the time
Arpeggios
Arpeggios are much easier to understand than they sound They are quite simply the first third and fifth note of the scale played as individual notes For example the arpeggio of C minor would be C Eb G C etc
A great example of an arpeggio is the bassline in Bengarsquos ldquoCrunked Uprdquo He goes from playing the F minor arpeggio backwards to playing the F minor arpeggio backwards In other words he is playing
C A F and then C Ab F
Experiment with a few Minor Arpeggios and a couple of Diminished Arpeggios and you canrsquot go wrong in writing a huge bassline
Suggested Reading
List of All Scales With Finger Charts Included
Well thatrsquos it folks Thatrsquos basically all the music theory you need to know to start off with As you grow more used to the various scales yoursquoll notice that certain notes sound good with each other whilst others donrsquot Irsquom not here to tell you how to write music Irsquom here to teach you the language
of music Itrsquos up to you to write the poetry
copy Bruno Crosier (klimaxx) 2008
45 Random Tips
Random tips amp best piece of advice thread
5 Resources
Page 38
51 Books amp Magazines
Hello again people
Does anyone know of more music production books magazines or authors we can add to these lists
Thanks
------------------------------------------------
Music Production Magazines Computer Music - httpwwwcomputermusiccouk Music Tech Magazine - httpwwwmusictechmagcouk Future Music - httpwwwfuturemusiccouk Sound on Sound - httpwwwsoundonsoundcom Remix Magazine - httpremixmagcom Mix Magazine - httpmixonlinecom Electronic Musician - httpemusiciancom EQ Magazine - httpwwweqmagcom Audio Technology - wwwaudiotechnologycomau Tape Op - httpwwwtapeopcom
------------------------------------------------
Music Books
Authors Curtis Roads httpmitpressmiteducatalogauthor aspaid=93 - The Computer Music Tutorial (Really really really good book) Paul White - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea ul20White - Basic Series + more Rick Snowman - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea k20Snoman - The Dance Music Manual Tools Toys and Techniques Bobby Owsinski - httpbooksgooglecoukbooksas_auth=Bobby+Owsinski - The MixingRecording amp Mastering Engineers Handbooks Michael Paul Stavrou - httpwwwmixingwithyourmindcom
Publishers Thomson Course Technology - httpcoursecengagecom (Click on the Music Technology tab) - Series published include Power Overdrive Ignite and CSI Series + many more Backbeat Books - httpwwwbackbeatbookscom ndash Power Tools Series + many more Wiley Publishing - httpwwwdummiescom (Enter music in their search bar) - For Dummies Series Penguin Books - httpuspenguingroupcom (Enter music in their search bar) - The Complete Idiots Guide Series + many more MIT Press - httpmitpressmitedu - Many books on music theory Focal Press - httpwwwfocalpresscom - (Enter music in their search bar)
------------------------------------------------
Online Music Book Stores (We need more links here Do you know of any that we can add)
httpwwwmixbookscom ndash Excellent source that sells only books about music
Page 39
httpwwwamazoncom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
httpwwwbarnesandnoblecom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
------------------------------------------------
52 Wikipedia
A good music lexicon wiki Search for your term in the search bar ---gt httpenaudiolexicorgwikiMain_Page
0-9
14rdquo Jack - httpenwikipediaorgwikiJack_plug 3rd Bridge - httpenwikipediaorgwiki3rd_Bridge
Zero Crossing - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_crossing Zero Crossing Rate - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_Crossing_Rate
53 Other recommended production forums
for Logic users this is the shit httpwwwlogicprohelpcom
Ive found both these forums to be full of knowledgeable producers amp musicians
httpwwwkvraudiocomforum
httpacapellaharmony-centralcomforumsindexphp
httpwwwgearslutzcomboard
httpwwwsoundonsoundcomforum
httpwwwmusicradarcomforum
httpwwwidmforumscom
httpwwwdance-industriescomphpBB2 8cffbb3b02
httpwwwsubvertcentralcomforumindexphp
httpwwwbreakbeatcouk
httpwwwtweakheadzcom
httpwwwabletoncompagesforum
Explains lots about the music industry ---gt httpwwwbemusocom
Page 47
Ok so a massive thanks to all the contributors there are literally too many to mention But Thanks to Futures Untold Johnny Beat Klimaxx Deadly Habit amp JunglistRendr Daft Cunt in perticular
Thanks to all the artists producers and general music geeks making this early revision of the production bible an essential read
There are links missing and will be included in version 21(Please help with the unlinked chapters by going here - httpwwwdubstepforumcomthe-dubstep-production-bible-updated-2009-06-03-t14797html and updating missing info as needed)
Compiled by Daft Cunt and Futures Untold PDF Compiled by Depone
Page 30
Take your hi hat tracks (are any tracks for that matter including melodic synth bubbles)
Drop down the bar graph box that allows you to scroll between velocity (volume) pitch panning cutoff resonance and a thing called shift which allows you to use each of these categories to effect each individual note that youve programmed (note this can be accomplished in other ways in most of the good midi sequencing apps or softwarehardware drum machines)
Drummers no matter how good they are just arent perfect and we can use the fact that each of these drop down bar graphs can make veryvery small changes in a sound to do some subtle things to a rolling drum groove like 16th notes on a hi hat
Not all drummers but many tend to favor their strong hand in a single stroke (hand over hand) drum roll Consequently if you make all odd numbered hi hats be slightly louder than their even numbered hits it will sound more realistic Start by making velocity differences that are really clearly audible Then lower the velocity until you can barely feel the difference We are going to make very subtle changes like this on each of the parameters of velocity pitch cutoff resonance and importantly shift
I cant stress enough that you should make these changes be so subtle that you can hardly notice them
Just going on the fact that the right handed players start their rolls with the right hand and favor it ever so slightly (or grossly for effect as well) means that the stroke will be harder with the right hand than the left hand
When a percussion instrument is hit harder the difference between the transient (or hi pitched attack) of the sound and the body of the instrument (or the sound that comes after the attack) becomes greater In general on drums that means that a harder attack tensions the drum very imperceptably (sp) and it also means that there will be more treble in the sound Consequently the pitch goes up a little teensy bit and their is more attack to the sound (increased resonance and slightly higher cutoff frequency)
Consequently you can make the pitch of each right hand be just barely noticeably higher the resonance should be just one or two of those little teeny bars higher The cutoff should be just a few bars lower (allowing less high frequencies through) on the left handed or even numbered strokes
Typically if drums have time inaccuracies they tend to drag the left hand a litte bit I have to keep stressing that if you can hear the changes you make you arent being realistic You need to make the changes subtle enough that you just barely feel that they arent perfect You can consequently make each left hand note shifted one or two bars late
Tigure out how much you can tweak each parameter before it becomes obvious and then you can just randomly tweak each one up to that limit With a little bit of variance in each stroke from parameter to parameter you will create more of a percolating texture in your programming - this is a great technique to make synth bubbles (the kind used in techno and house) more interesting and less mechanical feeling
Now you can avoid the biggest mistake that non-drummers do when trying to write realistic programs turn the overall volume of the hihats until you CANT hear them and then slowly bring up the volume until you just begin to hear them
Professional producers have spent countless hours trying to figure out how to gate and mix hihats OUT of tracks The reason is two fold1) Human beings have such a radical peak in their hearing around the 1-2khz range (or the intelligibility range of human speech) that we can play the hihats at incredible low volumes and they are still audible You cant do that with a bass drumI tell my drum students that you cannot play a hi hat or a snare drum so quietly that a person sitting in a room with you cant hear it2) Hi Hats the snare of snare drums and cymbals all seriously MASK human vocal intellibility How many people have gone to see live shows where they can hear the singer is singing but cant for the life of them figure out what they are actually singing That is ususally because drummers (or mixers which is frequently the case) are not hip to thisimportant fact
So turn down your hi hat tracks (or any track with a strong mid rangeshort envelope attack) and you have much more room for other musical goodies in your mix When in doubt make your hi hats quieter than you think they should be Trust me theyll come through the mix even at a quiet volume
Swingbull Dont know if you can do this in your sequencer but in Logic you can create a groove
template from your drums and then apply that to your other instruments If youre using separate midi channels for snares kicks and hats take the 8 bar loop youre using glue it together and then take the groove from that and then mute that track When you click down the quantize list youll see the template there and you can apply it to your other tracks Also if you do want to change the groove you can just change the hits in the muted template and itll automatically change all other hits to the new changes
bull Think if youre clever and organized you can basically cut breaks up in recycle load them into the exs24 (extract sequence) and then do the same with them That way if there are breaks you like the feel of you can just apply that swing to anything If you make a folder called grooves in your logic folder they should load up each time so that youll have loads to choose from Havent done this myself yet but always helpful to have a choice of feels available
bull Some things sound better rigid and robotic with equal velocities Some things sound better rigid and robotic with differing velocities Some things sound better with swing Some things sound better with everything ever-so-slightly off Its down to what the track needs
bull Drum Break Swing ProgrammingNicolas Hall wwwbreakbeat-cafenet wroteI think most people who make anything funk breakbeat drum amp bass or hip-hop would agree that Swing is crucial to the effectiveness of a beat The other key factors in a programming sense are dynamic and accent So many people get wound up when their beats sound sterile or mechanical this is due to the fact that computers and sequencers lock to perfect BPM A computer on its own does not interpret rhythm the way a good drummer does There are however certain machines that have their own swing parameters like the Akai MPC range of sampling drum machines which are used extensively by hip hop producers
Swing is not the easiest thing in the world to analyze but as a general rule good drummers will play slightly late and thats why in all funky records you get that slight dip at the start of the bar take Superstition by Stevie Wonder or Billie Jean by Michael Jackson these are both very simple beats Superstition is of course live drums whilst Billie Jean was programmed but no less funky than Superstition I emphasize this point to demonstrate that a programmed beat can be every bit at groovy as a beat played on a drum kit
Expanding on the Billie Jean point Hip Hop beats are really very simple If you listen to the Neptunes they tend to create the swing in their beats by quantizing the kicks and snares and playing the hi hats in by hand this creates a very tight beat which is off set by a loose hi hat try it works but dont forget your accents - As a starting point just take the first snare of your beat and turn the velocity down then notice how your head starts nodding and your foot starts tapping a little more you are giving the beat feel Also remember that if you are using reverb the louder snare will push the reverb harder than the soft snare so your creating more ambience that way Then try your kick drums if your not sure which hits to adjust just pick apart a beat your feeling I remember me and friend picking apart a Gangstarr beat and were able to almost replicate it by adjusting the velocities of each hit (admittedly it took a while to get it right)
If youre a newbie then a common trick when learning to make good grooves is to create a template with an existing loop The idea is take a loop you like thats got a good feel to it and then place your own hits over the break then take the break out and see if your hits are sounding funky This can take a while and its crucial to think about the strength of each hit or the dynamic Each kick will not be the same strength nor will the snares or the hats pick the loop apart dissect it and youll soon see that there are certain consistencies in all good beats
If youre using live loops and like to layer them with drum sequences you should be thinking about time space and frequencies So if you have a fairly heavy loop then layering it with heavy kick drums is probably not gonna sound good Think about filling holes are their any frequencies that could be filled up Or is there space in the loop for extra hits Try working in layers just adding one hit at a time also filtering works well you could take some of the frequencies out of your loop as you drop your drum sequences in to make room for them I think one the masters of this technique is Liam Howlett of the Prodigy He runs breakbeats and gives them extra balls by laying a kick drum underneath to add extra intensity to certain passages in his set but hes careful not to overlap frequencies to much A good place to start if you using breakbeats is the Roland Tr-808 kick drum which is around the 50hz mark which is sub bass territory so it will sit underneath most breaks very well
If your hell bent on making killer beats and loops then perseverance is crucial keep at it it will come together listen to beats you like and pick them apart identify the subtleties that make it happen I know some producers get fed up when their beats sound to clean or they are trying to create a new breakbeat and then compare it to sample they took from vinyl and get down on there own beat Think about what a breakbeat really is think about its history what has happened to it to make it sound the way it does Im
Page 32
sure youve noticed how some breaks have a certain something like a magic dust you cant put your finger on Let me share what I know with you about that
Most breaks though not all are taken from recordings of live drums some of them are pretty old so you have the ambience of live drums and the room they were recorded in you have the fact that natural decay and reverb of each drum is likely to have bled into the other mics on the kit and that most engineers used overhead mics which pick up the whole kit with two mics Then consider that many of these breaks will have been recorded to analogue tape with saturation which will create extra warmth and harmonics The next step comes from old sampling technology like the SP-1200 and the Akai s-950 mpc -60 these samplers sampled at 12- bit (bear in mind that most computers now are at least 24-bit if not more) and that the samples themselves where taken from vinyl and on and on the process goes with each new reverb and eq adding more and more to the break In terms of giving your breaks that character there are a number of things you can try for example buying an old four track cassette machine to dump your beats onto then re-sample it if your using a sampler like the s-950 then try pushing the input meters a little harder than usual add reverbs and resample it each time you put your loop through a new channel you will be adding something to it Also distortion is fantastic for breaks if you have any amp plug ins then try them the Amplitude one is particularly good you dont need to go mad with it just used subtly it works great
To finish I would just like to say again stick with it keep trying keep listening to records if you like to read about technique then do so you can learn so much from other producers Remember the strength of your hits is important as is the way it swings good luck
UPDATE 08092008
ENHANCE SYNTHESIZED DRUM PARTS WITH FOUND SOUNDS
emusiciancom wroteLayering real-world sounds with synthesized drum parts puts a new spin on your drum tracks You probably already have usable sound effects on your hard drive because most commercial samplers have at least a modest collection in their factory library Beyond that youll find thousands of royalty-free sound effects online Soundsnapcom is one of my favorite sources and its free The recordings dont need to be pristine for layering over drums so dont overlook cheap sampling CDs and consider grabbing your own sounds with a portable recorderCollect and Save
Start by assembling a small Foley library of short percussive sounds divided into typical drum-sound categories kicks snares toms cymbals percussion and so on Youll generally want to layer drum sounds with Foley sounds that have a similar volume contour and frequency range If you layer a Foley sound that resembles a kick drum with the sound of your hi-hat for example youll quickly fill up all the space in your drum track
Industrial household military transportation and vocal sounds make excellent fodder but you will often want to extract a small slice such as the last shot in a volley of machine-gun fire (snare) or the first bounce of a plastic bottle on concrete (tom) A browsing tool like Audio Finder (icedaudiocom) is invaluable if you have a large sample library That lets you quickly audition clips make basic edits and drag-and-drop slices to your library
Sticks UpIf your synthesized drum part is step sequenced youll need to export its step sequences as MIDI files Many drum synths do that including Sonic Charge Tonic (sonicchargecom) Apple Logic UltraBeat (applecom) and Submersible DrumCore (submersiblemusiccom) All of those come with a large collection of patterns exportable as MIDI sequences Youll also need a sampler to play the Foley sounds drum-oriented samplers are handier for that but are by no means necessary
Start by loading a kit in the drum synth Export one of its sequenced patterns or create your own and place it on the sampler track For some of the drum synth sounds select compatible Foley sounds and map them to the same notes in the sampler that theyre mapped to in the drum synth Next solo the doubled voices one by one in both the drum synth and the sampler start the sequence playing and tweak the samplers voice parameters (filter level pan envelope and so on) to make the sounds work together (see Fig 1 and Web Clip 1) Dont tweak global parameters such as effects because that will affect all sounds played by the sampler
High HoopsOnce youve configured your Foley track you can do several things to add interest I frequently use a
Page 33
second sampler for short vocal sounds Ill have some notes trigger sounds in both samplers and others in only one Many samplers let you group sounds and assign notes and controllers to choose among them You can then sequence these notes and controllers or you can play them live to alter your Foley tracks
Try applying DSP effects to individual Foley sounds Multitap delays distortion phasing and granular effects all work well when used sparingly (see Web Clip 2) You can apply DSP effects inside your sampler or route the voices to a separate output for DSP processing in your DAW If your sampler doesnt offer either possibility spread the Foley parts over several sampler instances on different tracks
Sidechain compression or gating of the drum track with one or more of the Foley parts will highlight the Foley part as well as add variety to the drums With compression peaks in the sidechain signal will reduce the level of the drum track Use a high compression level say 201 and balance the sidechain-gain and the compression-threshold -attack and -release controls to get the ducking contour you want (see Web Clip 3) Gating has the opposite effect the drum track will be heard during peaks in the sidechain signal (see Web Clip 4) Here too the sidechain-gain and gate-threshold controls work in tandem to determine when the gate is opened Use envelope parameters (attack release and hold) to shape the gates contour
Keep in mind that once youve created a sampler instrument to complement your drum kit you can reuse it with other sequences You can also change one or more sounds in the sampler instrument without repeating the whole process
34 Sidechain Compression (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
4 Theory41 ndash Song Structure42 ndash Mixdown (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)43 ndash Mastering (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
44 Music Theory
The first thing to remember about music theory is that generally if it sounds right it probably is There are no rules in music and Music Theory is not about telling you how to write music Its about understanding the music
Broadly speaking it is fair to say that most music is essentially based upon two crucial factors scales and rhythm Scales make up melodies chords harmonies and basslines to name but a few whereas rhythm makes up the beat of the song In this part of the Production Bible you will learn the basics of Music Theory that will serve you not only in the production of Dubstep but for any of your future musical pursuits This information is intended to be easy to read and understand so I wonrsquot be mincing sentences But firstly please make sure you learn every single note on the keyboard by studying the image below Otherwise yoursquoll be completely lost here
Page 34
Scales Wersquoll begin with scales As I mentioned before scales are the building blocks of your song and without them your track will be atonal and completely unlistenable (probably not the effect yoursquore going for)
There are two main scales that you should learn inside out ndash the major scale and the minor scale A generalisation yoursquore bound to have heard before is that the major scale sounds ldquohappyrdquo and the minor scale sounds ldquodarkrdquo Although this is not always the case it is mostly true ndash and therefore yoursquoll usually be focussing on the minor scale when producing Dubstep However just in case yoursquore writing happy-dubstep (if that exists) here is a quick overview of both scales and how they are made up
Major Scale
The major scale is really easy to create It is made by a single rule that is simple to put in to place
ldquoTone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
In case you donrsquot know what a Tone or Semi-Tone is here is a quick explanation
Picture a keyboard (or if you canrsquot see the image above) Say you go from C to C that would be a semi-tone The same thing goes for if you go from an E to an F ndash it is still a semi-tone because you
Page 35
have gone up one key
A tone is two semi-tones ndash for example from C to D is a tone and the same goes for from G to A
The scalersquos name is taken from the note that it starts on For example C major will start on the note of C Similarly A major will start on the note of A and this is the case with every single scale
Here is a quick list of a few major scales After having seen a few try working the rest out for yourself in order to understand how the major scale is formulated Ideally you should practice your scales on a piano or keyboard so that you can physically see how to make the scale It might sound boring but itrsquos a small price to pay for a much deeper understanding of your music
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Major C D E F G A B C
C Major C D E F G A B C
D Major D E F G A B C D
D Major D E F G A B C D
E Major E F G A B C D E
F Major F G A Bb C D E F
F Major F G A B C D E F
G Major G A B C D E F G
G Major G A B C D E F G
A Major A B C D E F G A
A Major A B C D E F G A
B major B C D E F G A B
Now by arranging the different notes of each of these scales in any order you please you can create a melody bassline or harmony with extreme ease Rearranging the notes in the scale will give you a flawlessly in-key result and it is then up to you to use the notes in the scale as you see fit for your tune
Minor Scale
As was the case with the Major Scale the Minor is made up from a set rule or formula By knowing this formula you can understand how the Minor is made and how to use it to itrsquos maximum effect
ldquoTone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
As is the case with the major scales you should practice your scales as much as possible to make sure that you know them all like the back of your hand Here are a few Minor Scales see if you can
Page 36
work out the rest
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Minor C D Eb F G Ab B C
D Minor D E F G A Bb C D
F Minor F G A B C D E F
G Minor G A Bb C D Eb F G
Similarly to the Major now that you know your Minor Scales you can quickly just take any note from the scale rearrange it with another few notes in the scale and there you have a fat melody or bassline ready to be played at maximum volume
Diminished Chords
Diminished Chords are really quite spooky and dark chords that are made up of four different notes all a minor third apart from each other That means that for example the Diminished Chord starting on C would be C Eb F A because to get from one note to the next you have to use ldquoTone Semi-Tonerdquo (known as a minor third)
Because of the mathematical nature of the Diminished chord there are only three ldquoclustersrdquo of notes which can then be rearranged like the Major and Minor Scales
Cluster 1 C Eb F A
Cluster 2 C E G Bb
Cluster 3 D F Ab B
Use these clusters and rearrange them as you please For example you could rearrange cluster 1 as Eb F A C etc
Generally speaking you canrsquot make a song based entirely on Diminished Chords due to the fact that each cluster only has 4 notes However a Diminished Chord is perfect for adding a hint of darkness to your tune and is brilliant when mixed with some Minor Scales
Chords
Chords are basically two or more notes played together They are made up from a specific scale ndash for example the C major chord is made up of notes in the C major scale
Usually chords will include the first third and fifth note of the scale as well as possibly using other notes to give them colour For example the basic chord of C major would be C E G Then you could add the seventh note to it (in this case it is B) Really it is up to the producerrsquos discretion how heshe goes about making a chord ndash just remember to stick to the scale you are using
Chords will more than likely sound like shit if you play them on a complicated or layered synth patch You want to be playing chords on sustained sounds such as strings or pads Chords will really fill out your sound if used properly You want your chords to be supporting the melody or bassline and more than likely want to add some reverb so that it doesnrsquot sound too sharp Make
Page 37
your chords blend in with the music and yoursquoll have mastered them
Chord Inversions
Quite simply chord inversions are when you rearrange the notes in a chord so that it sounds a bit different and suits your arrangement better
For example if you were in the key of C major you could have a drone of E playing underneath some strings playing the notes E G C E
Due to the fact that the notes are the same and have only been inverted the chord will still be in key with the rest of the music This is a great way to add a touch of variation to your music instead of using the same chord structure all the time
Arpeggios
Arpeggios are much easier to understand than they sound They are quite simply the first third and fifth note of the scale played as individual notes For example the arpeggio of C minor would be C Eb G C etc
A great example of an arpeggio is the bassline in Bengarsquos ldquoCrunked Uprdquo He goes from playing the F minor arpeggio backwards to playing the F minor arpeggio backwards In other words he is playing
C A F and then C Ab F
Experiment with a few Minor Arpeggios and a couple of Diminished Arpeggios and you canrsquot go wrong in writing a huge bassline
Suggested Reading
List of All Scales With Finger Charts Included
Well thatrsquos it folks Thatrsquos basically all the music theory you need to know to start off with As you grow more used to the various scales yoursquoll notice that certain notes sound good with each other whilst others donrsquot Irsquom not here to tell you how to write music Irsquom here to teach you the language
of music Itrsquos up to you to write the poetry
copy Bruno Crosier (klimaxx) 2008
45 Random Tips
Random tips amp best piece of advice thread
5 Resources
Page 38
51 Books amp Magazines
Hello again people
Does anyone know of more music production books magazines or authors we can add to these lists
Thanks
------------------------------------------------
Music Production Magazines Computer Music - httpwwwcomputermusiccouk Music Tech Magazine - httpwwwmusictechmagcouk Future Music - httpwwwfuturemusiccouk Sound on Sound - httpwwwsoundonsoundcom Remix Magazine - httpremixmagcom Mix Magazine - httpmixonlinecom Electronic Musician - httpemusiciancom EQ Magazine - httpwwweqmagcom Audio Technology - wwwaudiotechnologycomau Tape Op - httpwwwtapeopcom
------------------------------------------------
Music Books
Authors Curtis Roads httpmitpressmiteducatalogauthor aspaid=93 - The Computer Music Tutorial (Really really really good book) Paul White - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea ul20White - Basic Series + more Rick Snowman - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea k20Snoman - The Dance Music Manual Tools Toys and Techniques Bobby Owsinski - httpbooksgooglecoukbooksas_auth=Bobby+Owsinski - The MixingRecording amp Mastering Engineers Handbooks Michael Paul Stavrou - httpwwwmixingwithyourmindcom
Publishers Thomson Course Technology - httpcoursecengagecom (Click on the Music Technology tab) - Series published include Power Overdrive Ignite and CSI Series + many more Backbeat Books - httpwwwbackbeatbookscom ndash Power Tools Series + many more Wiley Publishing - httpwwwdummiescom (Enter music in their search bar) - For Dummies Series Penguin Books - httpuspenguingroupcom (Enter music in their search bar) - The Complete Idiots Guide Series + many more MIT Press - httpmitpressmitedu - Many books on music theory Focal Press - httpwwwfocalpresscom - (Enter music in their search bar)
------------------------------------------------
Online Music Book Stores (We need more links here Do you know of any that we can add)
httpwwwmixbookscom ndash Excellent source that sells only books about music
Page 39
httpwwwamazoncom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
httpwwwbarnesandnoblecom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
------------------------------------------------
52 Wikipedia
A good music lexicon wiki Search for your term in the search bar ---gt httpenaudiolexicorgwikiMain_Page
0-9
14rdquo Jack - httpenwikipediaorgwikiJack_plug 3rd Bridge - httpenwikipediaorgwiki3rd_Bridge
Zero Crossing - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_crossing Zero Crossing Rate - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_Crossing_Rate
53 Other recommended production forums
for Logic users this is the shit httpwwwlogicprohelpcom
Ive found both these forums to be full of knowledgeable producers amp musicians
httpwwwkvraudiocomforum
httpacapellaharmony-centralcomforumsindexphp
httpwwwgearslutzcomboard
httpwwwsoundonsoundcomforum
httpwwwmusicradarcomforum
httpwwwidmforumscom
httpwwwdance-industriescomphpBB2 8cffbb3b02
httpwwwsubvertcentralcomforumindexphp
httpwwwbreakbeatcouk
httpwwwtweakheadzcom
httpwwwabletoncompagesforum
Explains lots about the music industry ---gt httpwwwbemusocom
Page 47
Ok so a massive thanks to all the contributors there are literally too many to mention But Thanks to Futures Untold Johnny Beat Klimaxx Deadly Habit amp JunglistRendr Daft Cunt in perticular
Thanks to all the artists producers and general music geeks making this early revision of the production bible an essential read
There are links missing and will be included in version 21(Please help with the unlinked chapters by going here - httpwwwdubstepforumcomthe-dubstep-production-bible-updated-2009-06-03-t14797html and updating missing info as needed)
Compiled by Daft Cunt and Futures Untold PDF Compiled by Depone
Page 31
Swingbull Dont know if you can do this in your sequencer but in Logic you can create a groove
template from your drums and then apply that to your other instruments If youre using separate midi channels for snares kicks and hats take the 8 bar loop youre using glue it together and then take the groove from that and then mute that track When you click down the quantize list youll see the template there and you can apply it to your other tracks Also if you do want to change the groove you can just change the hits in the muted template and itll automatically change all other hits to the new changes
bull Think if youre clever and organized you can basically cut breaks up in recycle load them into the exs24 (extract sequence) and then do the same with them That way if there are breaks you like the feel of you can just apply that swing to anything If you make a folder called grooves in your logic folder they should load up each time so that youll have loads to choose from Havent done this myself yet but always helpful to have a choice of feels available
bull Some things sound better rigid and robotic with equal velocities Some things sound better rigid and robotic with differing velocities Some things sound better with swing Some things sound better with everything ever-so-slightly off Its down to what the track needs
bull Drum Break Swing ProgrammingNicolas Hall wwwbreakbeat-cafenet wroteI think most people who make anything funk breakbeat drum amp bass or hip-hop would agree that Swing is crucial to the effectiveness of a beat The other key factors in a programming sense are dynamic and accent So many people get wound up when their beats sound sterile or mechanical this is due to the fact that computers and sequencers lock to perfect BPM A computer on its own does not interpret rhythm the way a good drummer does There are however certain machines that have their own swing parameters like the Akai MPC range of sampling drum machines which are used extensively by hip hop producers
Swing is not the easiest thing in the world to analyze but as a general rule good drummers will play slightly late and thats why in all funky records you get that slight dip at the start of the bar take Superstition by Stevie Wonder or Billie Jean by Michael Jackson these are both very simple beats Superstition is of course live drums whilst Billie Jean was programmed but no less funky than Superstition I emphasize this point to demonstrate that a programmed beat can be every bit at groovy as a beat played on a drum kit
Expanding on the Billie Jean point Hip Hop beats are really very simple If you listen to the Neptunes they tend to create the swing in their beats by quantizing the kicks and snares and playing the hi hats in by hand this creates a very tight beat which is off set by a loose hi hat try it works but dont forget your accents - As a starting point just take the first snare of your beat and turn the velocity down then notice how your head starts nodding and your foot starts tapping a little more you are giving the beat feel Also remember that if you are using reverb the louder snare will push the reverb harder than the soft snare so your creating more ambience that way Then try your kick drums if your not sure which hits to adjust just pick apart a beat your feeling I remember me and friend picking apart a Gangstarr beat and were able to almost replicate it by adjusting the velocities of each hit (admittedly it took a while to get it right)
If youre a newbie then a common trick when learning to make good grooves is to create a template with an existing loop The idea is take a loop you like thats got a good feel to it and then place your own hits over the break then take the break out and see if your hits are sounding funky This can take a while and its crucial to think about the strength of each hit or the dynamic Each kick will not be the same strength nor will the snares or the hats pick the loop apart dissect it and youll soon see that there are certain consistencies in all good beats
If youre using live loops and like to layer them with drum sequences you should be thinking about time space and frequencies So if you have a fairly heavy loop then layering it with heavy kick drums is probably not gonna sound good Think about filling holes are their any frequencies that could be filled up Or is there space in the loop for extra hits Try working in layers just adding one hit at a time also filtering works well you could take some of the frequencies out of your loop as you drop your drum sequences in to make room for them I think one the masters of this technique is Liam Howlett of the Prodigy He runs breakbeats and gives them extra balls by laying a kick drum underneath to add extra intensity to certain passages in his set but hes careful not to overlap frequencies to much A good place to start if you using breakbeats is the Roland Tr-808 kick drum which is around the 50hz mark which is sub bass territory so it will sit underneath most breaks very well
If your hell bent on making killer beats and loops then perseverance is crucial keep at it it will come together listen to beats you like and pick them apart identify the subtleties that make it happen I know some producers get fed up when their beats sound to clean or they are trying to create a new breakbeat and then compare it to sample they took from vinyl and get down on there own beat Think about what a breakbeat really is think about its history what has happened to it to make it sound the way it does Im
Page 32
sure youve noticed how some breaks have a certain something like a magic dust you cant put your finger on Let me share what I know with you about that
Most breaks though not all are taken from recordings of live drums some of them are pretty old so you have the ambience of live drums and the room they were recorded in you have the fact that natural decay and reverb of each drum is likely to have bled into the other mics on the kit and that most engineers used overhead mics which pick up the whole kit with two mics Then consider that many of these breaks will have been recorded to analogue tape with saturation which will create extra warmth and harmonics The next step comes from old sampling technology like the SP-1200 and the Akai s-950 mpc -60 these samplers sampled at 12- bit (bear in mind that most computers now are at least 24-bit if not more) and that the samples themselves where taken from vinyl and on and on the process goes with each new reverb and eq adding more and more to the break In terms of giving your breaks that character there are a number of things you can try for example buying an old four track cassette machine to dump your beats onto then re-sample it if your using a sampler like the s-950 then try pushing the input meters a little harder than usual add reverbs and resample it each time you put your loop through a new channel you will be adding something to it Also distortion is fantastic for breaks if you have any amp plug ins then try them the Amplitude one is particularly good you dont need to go mad with it just used subtly it works great
To finish I would just like to say again stick with it keep trying keep listening to records if you like to read about technique then do so you can learn so much from other producers Remember the strength of your hits is important as is the way it swings good luck
UPDATE 08092008
ENHANCE SYNTHESIZED DRUM PARTS WITH FOUND SOUNDS
emusiciancom wroteLayering real-world sounds with synthesized drum parts puts a new spin on your drum tracks You probably already have usable sound effects on your hard drive because most commercial samplers have at least a modest collection in their factory library Beyond that youll find thousands of royalty-free sound effects online Soundsnapcom is one of my favorite sources and its free The recordings dont need to be pristine for layering over drums so dont overlook cheap sampling CDs and consider grabbing your own sounds with a portable recorderCollect and Save
Start by assembling a small Foley library of short percussive sounds divided into typical drum-sound categories kicks snares toms cymbals percussion and so on Youll generally want to layer drum sounds with Foley sounds that have a similar volume contour and frequency range If you layer a Foley sound that resembles a kick drum with the sound of your hi-hat for example youll quickly fill up all the space in your drum track
Industrial household military transportation and vocal sounds make excellent fodder but you will often want to extract a small slice such as the last shot in a volley of machine-gun fire (snare) or the first bounce of a plastic bottle on concrete (tom) A browsing tool like Audio Finder (icedaudiocom) is invaluable if you have a large sample library That lets you quickly audition clips make basic edits and drag-and-drop slices to your library
Sticks UpIf your synthesized drum part is step sequenced youll need to export its step sequences as MIDI files Many drum synths do that including Sonic Charge Tonic (sonicchargecom) Apple Logic UltraBeat (applecom) and Submersible DrumCore (submersiblemusiccom) All of those come with a large collection of patterns exportable as MIDI sequences Youll also need a sampler to play the Foley sounds drum-oriented samplers are handier for that but are by no means necessary
Start by loading a kit in the drum synth Export one of its sequenced patterns or create your own and place it on the sampler track For some of the drum synth sounds select compatible Foley sounds and map them to the same notes in the sampler that theyre mapped to in the drum synth Next solo the doubled voices one by one in both the drum synth and the sampler start the sequence playing and tweak the samplers voice parameters (filter level pan envelope and so on) to make the sounds work together (see Fig 1 and Web Clip 1) Dont tweak global parameters such as effects because that will affect all sounds played by the sampler
High HoopsOnce youve configured your Foley track you can do several things to add interest I frequently use a
Page 33
second sampler for short vocal sounds Ill have some notes trigger sounds in both samplers and others in only one Many samplers let you group sounds and assign notes and controllers to choose among them You can then sequence these notes and controllers or you can play them live to alter your Foley tracks
Try applying DSP effects to individual Foley sounds Multitap delays distortion phasing and granular effects all work well when used sparingly (see Web Clip 2) You can apply DSP effects inside your sampler or route the voices to a separate output for DSP processing in your DAW If your sampler doesnt offer either possibility spread the Foley parts over several sampler instances on different tracks
Sidechain compression or gating of the drum track with one or more of the Foley parts will highlight the Foley part as well as add variety to the drums With compression peaks in the sidechain signal will reduce the level of the drum track Use a high compression level say 201 and balance the sidechain-gain and the compression-threshold -attack and -release controls to get the ducking contour you want (see Web Clip 3) Gating has the opposite effect the drum track will be heard during peaks in the sidechain signal (see Web Clip 4) Here too the sidechain-gain and gate-threshold controls work in tandem to determine when the gate is opened Use envelope parameters (attack release and hold) to shape the gates contour
Keep in mind that once youve created a sampler instrument to complement your drum kit you can reuse it with other sequences You can also change one or more sounds in the sampler instrument without repeating the whole process
34 Sidechain Compression (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
4 Theory41 ndash Song Structure42 ndash Mixdown (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)43 ndash Mastering (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
44 Music Theory
The first thing to remember about music theory is that generally if it sounds right it probably is There are no rules in music and Music Theory is not about telling you how to write music Its about understanding the music
Broadly speaking it is fair to say that most music is essentially based upon two crucial factors scales and rhythm Scales make up melodies chords harmonies and basslines to name but a few whereas rhythm makes up the beat of the song In this part of the Production Bible you will learn the basics of Music Theory that will serve you not only in the production of Dubstep but for any of your future musical pursuits This information is intended to be easy to read and understand so I wonrsquot be mincing sentences But firstly please make sure you learn every single note on the keyboard by studying the image below Otherwise yoursquoll be completely lost here
Page 34
Scales Wersquoll begin with scales As I mentioned before scales are the building blocks of your song and without them your track will be atonal and completely unlistenable (probably not the effect yoursquore going for)
There are two main scales that you should learn inside out ndash the major scale and the minor scale A generalisation yoursquore bound to have heard before is that the major scale sounds ldquohappyrdquo and the minor scale sounds ldquodarkrdquo Although this is not always the case it is mostly true ndash and therefore yoursquoll usually be focussing on the minor scale when producing Dubstep However just in case yoursquore writing happy-dubstep (if that exists) here is a quick overview of both scales and how they are made up
Major Scale
The major scale is really easy to create It is made by a single rule that is simple to put in to place
ldquoTone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
In case you donrsquot know what a Tone or Semi-Tone is here is a quick explanation
Picture a keyboard (or if you canrsquot see the image above) Say you go from C to C that would be a semi-tone The same thing goes for if you go from an E to an F ndash it is still a semi-tone because you
Page 35
have gone up one key
A tone is two semi-tones ndash for example from C to D is a tone and the same goes for from G to A
The scalersquos name is taken from the note that it starts on For example C major will start on the note of C Similarly A major will start on the note of A and this is the case with every single scale
Here is a quick list of a few major scales After having seen a few try working the rest out for yourself in order to understand how the major scale is formulated Ideally you should practice your scales on a piano or keyboard so that you can physically see how to make the scale It might sound boring but itrsquos a small price to pay for a much deeper understanding of your music
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Major C D E F G A B C
C Major C D E F G A B C
D Major D E F G A B C D
D Major D E F G A B C D
E Major E F G A B C D E
F Major F G A Bb C D E F
F Major F G A B C D E F
G Major G A B C D E F G
G Major G A B C D E F G
A Major A B C D E F G A
A Major A B C D E F G A
B major B C D E F G A B
Now by arranging the different notes of each of these scales in any order you please you can create a melody bassline or harmony with extreme ease Rearranging the notes in the scale will give you a flawlessly in-key result and it is then up to you to use the notes in the scale as you see fit for your tune
Minor Scale
As was the case with the Major Scale the Minor is made up from a set rule or formula By knowing this formula you can understand how the Minor is made and how to use it to itrsquos maximum effect
ldquoTone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
As is the case with the major scales you should practice your scales as much as possible to make sure that you know them all like the back of your hand Here are a few Minor Scales see if you can
Page 36
work out the rest
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Minor C D Eb F G Ab B C
D Minor D E F G A Bb C D
F Minor F G A B C D E F
G Minor G A Bb C D Eb F G
Similarly to the Major now that you know your Minor Scales you can quickly just take any note from the scale rearrange it with another few notes in the scale and there you have a fat melody or bassline ready to be played at maximum volume
Diminished Chords
Diminished Chords are really quite spooky and dark chords that are made up of four different notes all a minor third apart from each other That means that for example the Diminished Chord starting on C would be C Eb F A because to get from one note to the next you have to use ldquoTone Semi-Tonerdquo (known as a minor third)
Because of the mathematical nature of the Diminished chord there are only three ldquoclustersrdquo of notes which can then be rearranged like the Major and Minor Scales
Cluster 1 C Eb F A
Cluster 2 C E G Bb
Cluster 3 D F Ab B
Use these clusters and rearrange them as you please For example you could rearrange cluster 1 as Eb F A C etc
Generally speaking you canrsquot make a song based entirely on Diminished Chords due to the fact that each cluster only has 4 notes However a Diminished Chord is perfect for adding a hint of darkness to your tune and is brilliant when mixed with some Minor Scales
Chords
Chords are basically two or more notes played together They are made up from a specific scale ndash for example the C major chord is made up of notes in the C major scale
Usually chords will include the first third and fifth note of the scale as well as possibly using other notes to give them colour For example the basic chord of C major would be C E G Then you could add the seventh note to it (in this case it is B) Really it is up to the producerrsquos discretion how heshe goes about making a chord ndash just remember to stick to the scale you are using
Chords will more than likely sound like shit if you play them on a complicated or layered synth patch You want to be playing chords on sustained sounds such as strings or pads Chords will really fill out your sound if used properly You want your chords to be supporting the melody or bassline and more than likely want to add some reverb so that it doesnrsquot sound too sharp Make
Page 37
your chords blend in with the music and yoursquoll have mastered them
Chord Inversions
Quite simply chord inversions are when you rearrange the notes in a chord so that it sounds a bit different and suits your arrangement better
For example if you were in the key of C major you could have a drone of E playing underneath some strings playing the notes E G C E
Due to the fact that the notes are the same and have only been inverted the chord will still be in key with the rest of the music This is a great way to add a touch of variation to your music instead of using the same chord structure all the time
Arpeggios
Arpeggios are much easier to understand than they sound They are quite simply the first third and fifth note of the scale played as individual notes For example the arpeggio of C minor would be C Eb G C etc
A great example of an arpeggio is the bassline in Bengarsquos ldquoCrunked Uprdquo He goes from playing the F minor arpeggio backwards to playing the F minor arpeggio backwards In other words he is playing
C A F and then C Ab F
Experiment with a few Minor Arpeggios and a couple of Diminished Arpeggios and you canrsquot go wrong in writing a huge bassline
Suggested Reading
List of All Scales With Finger Charts Included
Well thatrsquos it folks Thatrsquos basically all the music theory you need to know to start off with As you grow more used to the various scales yoursquoll notice that certain notes sound good with each other whilst others donrsquot Irsquom not here to tell you how to write music Irsquom here to teach you the language
of music Itrsquos up to you to write the poetry
copy Bruno Crosier (klimaxx) 2008
45 Random Tips
Random tips amp best piece of advice thread
5 Resources
Page 38
51 Books amp Magazines
Hello again people
Does anyone know of more music production books magazines or authors we can add to these lists
Thanks
------------------------------------------------
Music Production Magazines Computer Music - httpwwwcomputermusiccouk Music Tech Magazine - httpwwwmusictechmagcouk Future Music - httpwwwfuturemusiccouk Sound on Sound - httpwwwsoundonsoundcom Remix Magazine - httpremixmagcom Mix Magazine - httpmixonlinecom Electronic Musician - httpemusiciancom EQ Magazine - httpwwweqmagcom Audio Technology - wwwaudiotechnologycomau Tape Op - httpwwwtapeopcom
------------------------------------------------
Music Books
Authors Curtis Roads httpmitpressmiteducatalogauthor aspaid=93 - The Computer Music Tutorial (Really really really good book) Paul White - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea ul20White - Basic Series + more Rick Snowman - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea k20Snoman - The Dance Music Manual Tools Toys and Techniques Bobby Owsinski - httpbooksgooglecoukbooksas_auth=Bobby+Owsinski - The MixingRecording amp Mastering Engineers Handbooks Michael Paul Stavrou - httpwwwmixingwithyourmindcom
Publishers Thomson Course Technology - httpcoursecengagecom (Click on the Music Technology tab) - Series published include Power Overdrive Ignite and CSI Series + many more Backbeat Books - httpwwwbackbeatbookscom ndash Power Tools Series + many more Wiley Publishing - httpwwwdummiescom (Enter music in their search bar) - For Dummies Series Penguin Books - httpuspenguingroupcom (Enter music in their search bar) - The Complete Idiots Guide Series + many more MIT Press - httpmitpressmitedu - Many books on music theory Focal Press - httpwwwfocalpresscom - (Enter music in their search bar)
------------------------------------------------
Online Music Book Stores (We need more links here Do you know of any that we can add)
httpwwwmixbookscom ndash Excellent source that sells only books about music
Page 39
httpwwwamazoncom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
httpwwwbarnesandnoblecom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
------------------------------------------------
52 Wikipedia
A good music lexicon wiki Search for your term in the search bar ---gt httpenaudiolexicorgwikiMain_Page
0-9
14rdquo Jack - httpenwikipediaorgwikiJack_plug 3rd Bridge - httpenwikipediaorgwiki3rd_Bridge
Zero Crossing - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_crossing Zero Crossing Rate - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_Crossing_Rate
53 Other recommended production forums
for Logic users this is the shit httpwwwlogicprohelpcom
Ive found both these forums to be full of knowledgeable producers amp musicians
httpwwwkvraudiocomforum
httpacapellaharmony-centralcomforumsindexphp
httpwwwgearslutzcomboard
httpwwwsoundonsoundcomforum
httpwwwmusicradarcomforum
httpwwwidmforumscom
httpwwwdance-industriescomphpBB2 8cffbb3b02
httpwwwsubvertcentralcomforumindexphp
httpwwwbreakbeatcouk
httpwwwtweakheadzcom
httpwwwabletoncompagesforum
Explains lots about the music industry ---gt httpwwwbemusocom
Page 47
Ok so a massive thanks to all the contributors there are literally too many to mention But Thanks to Futures Untold Johnny Beat Klimaxx Deadly Habit amp JunglistRendr Daft Cunt in perticular
Thanks to all the artists producers and general music geeks making this early revision of the production bible an essential read
There are links missing and will be included in version 21(Please help with the unlinked chapters by going here - httpwwwdubstepforumcomthe-dubstep-production-bible-updated-2009-06-03-t14797html and updating missing info as needed)
Compiled by Daft Cunt and Futures Untold PDF Compiled by Depone
Page 32
sure youve noticed how some breaks have a certain something like a magic dust you cant put your finger on Let me share what I know with you about that
Most breaks though not all are taken from recordings of live drums some of them are pretty old so you have the ambience of live drums and the room they were recorded in you have the fact that natural decay and reverb of each drum is likely to have bled into the other mics on the kit and that most engineers used overhead mics which pick up the whole kit with two mics Then consider that many of these breaks will have been recorded to analogue tape with saturation which will create extra warmth and harmonics The next step comes from old sampling technology like the SP-1200 and the Akai s-950 mpc -60 these samplers sampled at 12- bit (bear in mind that most computers now are at least 24-bit if not more) and that the samples themselves where taken from vinyl and on and on the process goes with each new reverb and eq adding more and more to the break In terms of giving your breaks that character there are a number of things you can try for example buying an old four track cassette machine to dump your beats onto then re-sample it if your using a sampler like the s-950 then try pushing the input meters a little harder than usual add reverbs and resample it each time you put your loop through a new channel you will be adding something to it Also distortion is fantastic for breaks if you have any amp plug ins then try them the Amplitude one is particularly good you dont need to go mad with it just used subtly it works great
To finish I would just like to say again stick with it keep trying keep listening to records if you like to read about technique then do so you can learn so much from other producers Remember the strength of your hits is important as is the way it swings good luck
UPDATE 08092008
ENHANCE SYNTHESIZED DRUM PARTS WITH FOUND SOUNDS
emusiciancom wroteLayering real-world sounds with synthesized drum parts puts a new spin on your drum tracks You probably already have usable sound effects on your hard drive because most commercial samplers have at least a modest collection in their factory library Beyond that youll find thousands of royalty-free sound effects online Soundsnapcom is one of my favorite sources and its free The recordings dont need to be pristine for layering over drums so dont overlook cheap sampling CDs and consider grabbing your own sounds with a portable recorderCollect and Save
Start by assembling a small Foley library of short percussive sounds divided into typical drum-sound categories kicks snares toms cymbals percussion and so on Youll generally want to layer drum sounds with Foley sounds that have a similar volume contour and frequency range If you layer a Foley sound that resembles a kick drum with the sound of your hi-hat for example youll quickly fill up all the space in your drum track
Industrial household military transportation and vocal sounds make excellent fodder but you will often want to extract a small slice such as the last shot in a volley of machine-gun fire (snare) or the first bounce of a plastic bottle on concrete (tom) A browsing tool like Audio Finder (icedaudiocom) is invaluable if you have a large sample library That lets you quickly audition clips make basic edits and drag-and-drop slices to your library
Sticks UpIf your synthesized drum part is step sequenced youll need to export its step sequences as MIDI files Many drum synths do that including Sonic Charge Tonic (sonicchargecom) Apple Logic UltraBeat (applecom) and Submersible DrumCore (submersiblemusiccom) All of those come with a large collection of patterns exportable as MIDI sequences Youll also need a sampler to play the Foley sounds drum-oriented samplers are handier for that but are by no means necessary
Start by loading a kit in the drum synth Export one of its sequenced patterns or create your own and place it on the sampler track For some of the drum synth sounds select compatible Foley sounds and map them to the same notes in the sampler that theyre mapped to in the drum synth Next solo the doubled voices one by one in both the drum synth and the sampler start the sequence playing and tweak the samplers voice parameters (filter level pan envelope and so on) to make the sounds work together (see Fig 1 and Web Clip 1) Dont tweak global parameters such as effects because that will affect all sounds played by the sampler
High HoopsOnce youve configured your Foley track you can do several things to add interest I frequently use a
Page 33
second sampler for short vocal sounds Ill have some notes trigger sounds in both samplers and others in only one Many samplers let you group sounds and assign notes and controllers to choose among them You can then sequence these notes and controllers or you can play them live to alter your Foley tracks
Try applying DSP effects to individual Foley sounds Multitap delays distortion phasing and granular effects all work well when used sparingly (see Web Clip 2) You can apply DSP effects inside your sampler or route the voices to a separate output for DSP processing in your DAW If your sampler doesnt offer either possibility spread the Foley parts over several sampler instances on different tracks
Sidechain compression or gating of the drum track with one or more of the Foley parts will highlight the Foley part as well as add variety to the drums With compression peaks in the sidechain signal will reduce the level of the drum track Use a high compression level say 201 and balance the sidechain-gain and the compression-threshold -attack and -release controls to get the ducking contour you want (see Web Clip 3) Gating has the opposite effect the drum track will be heard during peaks in the sidechain signal (see Web Clip 4) Here too the sidechain-gain and gate-threshold controls work in tandem to determine when the gate is opened Use envelope parameters (attack release and hold) to shape the gates contour
Keep in mind that once youve created a sampler instrument to complement your drum kit you can reuse it with other sequences You can also change one or more sounds in the sampler instrument without repeating the whole process
34 Sidechain Compression (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
4 Theory41 ndash Song Structure42 ndash Mixdown (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)43 ndash Mastering (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
44 Music Theory
The first thing to remember about music theory is that generally if it sounds right it probably is There are no rules in music and Music Theory is not about telling you how to write music Its about understanding the music
Broadly speaking it is fair to say that most music is essentially based upon two crucial factors scales and rhythm Scales make up melodies chords harmonies and basslines to name but a few whereas rhythm makes up the beat of the song In this part of the Production Bible you will learn the basics of Music Theory that will serve you not only in the production of Dubstep but for any of your future musical pursuits This information is intended to be easy to read and understand so I wonrsquot be mincing sentences But firstly please make sure you learn every single note on the keyboard by studying the image below Otherwise yoursquoll be completely lost here
Page 34
Scales Wersquoll begin with scales As I mentioned before scales are the building blocks of your song and without them your track will be atonal and completely unlistenable (probably not the effect yoursquore going for)
There are two main scales that you should learn inside out ndash the major scale and the minor scale A generalisation yoursquore bound to have heard before is that the major scale sounds ldquohappyrdquo and the minor scale sounds ldquodarkrdquo Although this is not always the case it is mostly true ndash and therefore yoursquoll usually be focussing on the minor scale when producing Dubstep However just in case yoursquore writing happy-dubstep (if that exists) here is a quick overview of both scales and how they are made up
Major Scale
The major scale is really easy to create It is made by a single rule that is simple to put in to place
ldquoTone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
In case you donrsquot know what a Tone or Semi-Tone is here is a quick explanation
Picture a keyboard (or if you canrsquot see the image above) Say you go from C to C that would be a semi-tone The same thing goes for if you go from an E to an F ndash it is still a semi-tone because you
Page 35
have gone up one key
A tone is two semi-tones ndash for example from C to D is a tone and the same goes for from G to A
The scalersquos name is taken from the note that it starts on For example C major will start on the note of C Similarly A major will start on the note of A and this is the case with every single scale
Here is a quick list of a few major scales After having seen a few try working the rest out for yourself in order to understand how the major scale is formulated Ideally you should practice your scales on a piano or keyboard so that you can physically see how to make the scale It might sound boring but itrsquos a small price to pay for a much deeper understanding of your music
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Major C D E F G A B C
C Major C D E F G A B C
D Major D E F G A B C D
D Major D E F G A B C D
E Major E F G A B C D E
F Major F G A Bb C D E F
F Major F G A B C D E F
G Major G A B C D E F G
G Major G A B C D E F G
A Major A B C D E F G A
A Major A B C D E F G A
B major B C D E F G A B
Now by arranging the different notes of each of these scales in any order you please you can create a melody bassline or harmony with extreme ease Rearranging the notes in the scale will give you a flawlessly in-key result and it is then up to you to use the notes in the scale as you see fit for your tune
Minor Scale
As was the case with the Major Scale the Minor is made up from a set rule or formula By knowing this formula you can understand how the Minor is made and how to use it to itrsquos maximum effect
ldquoTone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
As is the case with the major scales you should practice your scales as much as possible to make sure that you know them all like the back of your hand Here are a few Minor Scales see if you can
Page 36
work out the rest
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Minor C D Eb F G Ab B C
D Minor D E F G A Bb C D
F Minor F G A B C D E F
G Minor G A Bb C D Eb F G
Similarly to the Major now that you know your Minor Scales you can quickly just take any note from the scale rearrange it with another few notes in the scale and there you have a fat melody or bassline ready to be played at maximum volume
Diminished Chords
Diminished Chords are really quite spooky and dark chords that are made up of four different notes all a minor third apart from each other That means that for example the Diminished Chord starting on C would be C Eb F A because to get from one note to the next you have to use ldquoTone Semi-Tonerdquo (known as a minor third)
Because of the mathematical nature of the Diminished chord there are only three ldquoclustersrdquo of notes which can then be rearranged like the Major and Minor Scales
Cluster 1 C Eb F A
Cluster 2 C E G Bb
Cluster 3 D F Ab B
Use these clusters and rearrange them as you please For example you could rearrange cluster 1 as Eb F A C etc
Generally speaking you canrsquot make a song based entirely on Diminished Chords due to the fact that each cluster only has 4 notes However a Diminished Chord is perfect for adding a hint of darkness to your tune and is brilliant when mixed with some Minor Scales
Chords
Chords are basically two or more notes played together They are made up from a specific scale ndash for example the C major chord is made up of notes in the C major scale
Usually chords will include the first third and fifth note of the scale as well as possibly using other notes to give them colour For example the basic chord of C major would be C E G Then you could add the seventh note to it (in this case it is B) Really it is up to the producerrsquos discretion how heshe goes about making a chord ndash just remember to stick to the scale you are using
Chords will more than likely sound like shit if you play them on a complicated or layered synth patch You want to be playing chords on sustained sounds such as strings or pads Chords will really fill out your sound if used properly You want your chords to be supporting the melody or bassline and more than likely want to add some reverb so that it doesnrsquot sound too sharp Make
Page 37
your chords blend in with the music and yoursquoll have mastered them
Chord Inversions
Quite simply chord inversions are when you rearrange the notes in a chord so that it sounds a bit different and suits your arrangement better
For example if you were in the key of C major you could have a drone of E playing underneath some strings playing the notes E G C E
Due to the fact that the notes are the same and have only been inverted the chord will still be in key with the rest of the music This is a great way to add a touch of variation to your music instead of using the same chord structure all the time
Arpeggios
Arpeggios are much easier to understand than they sound They are quite simply the first third and fifth note of the scale played as individual notes For example the arpeggio of C minor would be C Eb G C etc
A great example of an arpeggio is the bassline in Bengarsquos ldquoCrunked Uprdquo He goes from playing the F minor arpeggio backwards to playing the F minor arpeggio backwards In other words he is playing
C A F and then C Ab F
Experiment with a few Minor Arpeggios and a couple of Diminished Arpeggios and you canrsquot go wrong in writing a huge bassline
Suggested Reading
List of All Scales With Finger Charts Included
Well thatrsquos it folks Thatrsquos basically all the music theory you need to know to start off with As you grow more used to the various scales yoursquoll notice that certain notes sound good with each other whilst others donrsquot Irsquom not here to tell you how to write music Irsquom here to teach you the language
of music Itrsquos up to you to write the poetry
copy Bruno Crosier (klimaxx) 2008
45 Random Tips
Random tips amp best piece of advice thread
5 Resources
Page 38
51 Books amp Magazines
Hello again people
Does anyone know of more music production books magazines or authors we can add to these lists
Thanks
------------------------------------------------
Music Production Magazines Computer Music - httpwwwcomputermusiccouk Music Tech Magazine - httpwwwmusictechmagcouk Future Music - httpwwwfuturemusiccouk Sound on Sound - httpwwwsoundonsoundcom Remix Magazine - httpremixmagcom Mix Magazine - httpmixonlinecom Electronic Musician - httpemusiciancom EQ Magazine - httpwwweqmagcom Audio Technology - wwwaudiotechnologycomau Tape Op - httpwwwtapeopcom
------------------------------------------------
Music Books
Authors Curtis Roads httpmitpressmiteducatalogauthor aspaid=93 - The Computer Music Tutorial (Really really really good book) Paul White - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea ul20White - Basic Series + more Rick Snowman - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea k20Snoman - The Dance Music Manual Tools Toys and Techniques Bobby Owsinski - httpbooksgooglecoukbooksas_auth=Bobby+Owsinski - The MixingRecording amp Mastering Engineers Handbooks Michael Paul Stavrou - httpwwwmixingwithyourmindcom
Publishers Thomson Course Technology - httpcoursecengagecom (Click on the Music Technology tab) - Series published include Power Overdrive Ignite and CSI Series + many more Backbeat Books - httpwwwbackbeatbookscom ndash Power Tools Series + many more Wiley Publishing - httpwwwdummiescom (Enter music in their search bar) - For Dummies Series Penguin Books - httpuspenguingroupcom (Enter music in their search bar) - The Complete Idiots Guide Series + many more MIT Press - httpmitpressmitedu - Many books on music theory Focal Press - httpwwwfocalpresscom - (Enter music in their search bar)
------------------------------------------------
Online Music Book Stores (We need more links here Do you know of any that we can add)
httpwwwmixbookscom ndash Excellent source that sells only books about music
Page 39
httpwwwamazoncom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
httpwwwbarnesandnoblecom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
------------------------------------------------
52 Wikipedia
A good music lexicon wiki Search for your term in the search bar ---gt httpenaudiolexicorgwikiMain_Page
0-9
14rdquo Jack - httpenwikipediaorgwikiJack_plug 3rd Bridge - httpenwikipediaorgwiki3rd_Bridge
Zero Crossing - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_crossing Zero Crossing Rate - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_Crossing_Rate
53 Other recommended production forums
for Logic users this is the shit httpwwwlogicprohelpcom
Ive found both these forums to be full of knowledgeable producers amp musicians
httpwwwkvraudiocomforum
httpacapellaharmony-centralcomforumsindexphp
httpwwwgearslutzcomboard
httpwwwsoundonsoundcomforum
httpwwwmusicradarcomforum
httpwwwidmforumscom
httpwwwdance-industriescomphpBB2 8cffbb3b02
httpwwwsubvertcentralcomforumindexphp
httpwwwbreakbeatcouk
httpwwwtweakheadzcom
httpwwwabletoncompagesforum
Explains lots about the music industry ---gt httpwwwbemusocom
Page 47
Ok so a massive thanks to all the contributors there are literally too many to mention But Thanks to Futures Untold Johnny Beat Klimaxx Deadly Habit amp JunglistRendr Daft Cunt in perticular
Thanks to all the artists producers and general music geeks making this early revision of the production bible an essential read
There are links missing and will be included in version 21(Please help with the unlinked chapters by going here - httpwwwdubstepforumcomthe-dubstep-production-bible-updated-2009-06-03-t14797html and updating missing info as needed)
Compiled by Daft Cunt and Futures Untold PDF Compiled by Depone
Page 33
second sampler for short vocal sounds Ill have some notes trigger sounds in both samplers and others in only one Many samplers let you group sounds and assign notes and controllers to choose among them You can then sequence these notes and controllers or you can play them live to alter your Foley tracks
Try applying DSP effects to individual Foley sounds Multitap delays distortion phasing and granular effects all work well when used sparingly (see Web Clip 2) You can apply DSP effects inside your sampler or route the voices to a separate output for DSP processing in your DAW If your sampler doesnt offer either possibility spread the Foley parts over several sampler instances on different tracks
Sidechain compression or gating of the drum track with one or more of the Foley parts will highlight the Foley part as well as add variety to the drums With compression peaks in the sidechain signal will reduce the level of the drum track Use a high compression level say 201 and balance the sidechain-gain and the compression-threshold -attack and -release controls to get the ducking contour you want (see Web Clip 3) Gating has the opposite effect the drum track will be heard during peaks in the sidechain signal (see Web Clip 4) Here too the sidechain-gain and gate-threshold controls work in tandem to determine when the gate is opened Use envelope parameters (attack release and hold) to shape the gates contour
Keep in mind that once youve created a sampler instrument to complement your drum kit you can reuse it with other sequences You can also change one or more sounds in the sampler instrument without repeating the whole process
34 Sidechain Compression (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
4 Theory41 ndash Song Structure42 ndash Mixdown (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)43 ndash Mastering (Coming Later In Production Bible v21)
44 Music Theory
The first thing to remember about music theory is that generally if it sounds right it probably is There are no rules in music and Music Theory is not about telling you how to write music Its about understanding the music
Broadly speaking it is fair to say that most music is essentially based upon two crucial factors scales and rhythm Scales make up melodies chords harmonies and basslines to name but a few whereas rhythm makes up the beat of the song In this part of the Production Bible you will learn the basics of Music Theory that will serve you not only in the production of Dubstep but for any of your future musical pursuits This information is intended to be easy to read and understand so I wonrsquot be mincing sentences But firstly please make sure you learn every single note on the keyboard by studying the image below Otherwise yoursquoll be completely lost here
Page 34
Scales Wersquoll begin with scales As I mentioned before scales are the building blocks of your song and without them your track will be atonal and completely unlistenable (probably not the effect yoursquore going for)
There are two main scales that you should learn inside out ndash the major scale and the minor scale A generalisation yoursquore bound to have heard before is that the major scale sounds ldquohappyrdquo and the minor scale sounds ldquodarkrdquo Although this is not always the case it is mostly true ndash and therefore yoursquoll usually be focussing on the minor scale when producing Dubstep However just in case yoursquore writing happy-dubstep (if that exists) here is a quick overview of both scales and how they are made up
Major Scale
The major scale is really easy to create It is made by a single rule that is simple to put in to place
ldquoTone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
In case you donrsquot know what a Tone or Semi-Tone is here is a quick explanation
Picture a keyboard (or if you canrsquot see the image above) Say you go from C to C that would be a semi-tone The same thing goes for if you go from an E to an F ndash it is still a semi-tone because you
Page 35
have gone up one key
A tone is two semi-tones ndash for example from C to D is a tone and the same goes for from G to A
The scalersquos name is taken from the note that it starts on For example C major will start on the note of C Similarly A major will start on the note of A and this is the case with every single scale
Here is a quick list of a few major scales After having seen a few try working the rest out for yourself in order to understand how the major scale is formulated Ideally you should practice your scales on a piano or keyboard so that you can physically see how to make the scale It might sound boring but itrsquos a small price to pay for a much deeper understanding of your music
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Major C D E F G A B C
C Major C D E F G A B C
D Major D E F G A B C D
D Major D E F G A B C D
E Major E F G A B C D E
F Major F G A Bb C D E F
F Major F G A B C D E F
G Major G A B C D E F G
G Major G A B C D E F G
A Major A B C D E F G A
A Major A B C D E F G A
B major B C D E F G A B
Now by arranging the different notes of each of these scales in any order you please you can create a melody bassline or harmony with extreme ease Rearranging the notes in the scale will give you a flawlessly in-key result and it is then up to you to use the notes in the scale as you see fit for your tune
Minor Scale
As was the case with the Major Scale the Minor is made up from a set rule or formula By knowing this formula you can understand how the Minor is made and how to use it to itrsquos maximum effect
ldquoTone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
As is the case with the major scales you should practice your scales as much as possible to make sure that you know them all like the back of your hand Here are a few Minor Scales see if you can
Page 36
work out the rest
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Minor C D Eb F G Ab B C
D Minor D E F G A Bb C D
F Minor F G A B C D E F
G Minor G A Bb C D Eb F G
Similarly to the Major now that you know your Minor Scales you can quickly just take any note from the scale rearrange it with another few notes in the scale and there you have a fat melody or bassline ready to be played at maximum volume
Diminished Chords
Diminished Chords are really quite spooky and dark chords that are made up of four different notes all a minor third apart from each other That means that for example the Diminished Chord starting on C would be C Eb F A because to get from one note to the next you have to use ldquoTone Semi-Tonerdquo (known as a minor third)
Because of the mathematical nature of the Diminished chord there are only three ldquoclustersrdquo of notes which can then be rearranged like the Major and Minor Scales
Cluster 1 C Eb F A
Cluster 2 C E G Bb
Cluster 3 D F Ab B
Use these clusters and rearrange them as you please For example you could rearrange cluster 1 as Eb F A C etc
Generally speaking you canrsquot make a song based entirely on Diminished Chords due to the fact that each cluster only has 4 notes However a Diminished Chord is perfect for adding a hint of darkness to your tune and is brilliant when mixed with some Minor Scales
Chords
Chords are basically two or more notes played together They are made up from a specific scale ndash for example the C major chord is made up of notes in the C major scale
Usually chords will include the first third and fifth note of the scale as well as possibly using other notes to give them colour For example the basic chord of C major would be C E G Then you could add the seventh note to it (in this case it is B) Really it is up to the producerrsquos discretion how heshe goes about making a chord ndash just remember to stick to the scale you are using
Chords will more than likely sound like shit if you play them on a complicated or layered synth patch You want to be playing chords on sustained sounds such as strings or pads Chords will really fill out your sound if used properly You want your chords to be supporting the melody or bassline and more than likely want to add some reverb so that it doesnrsquot sound too sharp Make
Page 37
your chords blend in with the music and yoursquoll have mastered them
Chord Inversions
Quite simply chord inversions are when you rearrange the notes in a chord so that it sounds a bit different and suits your arrangement better
For example if you were in the key of C major you could have a drone of E playing underneath some strings playing the notes E G C E
Due to the fact that the notes are the same and have only been inverted the chord will still be in key with the rest of the music This is a great way to add a touch of variation to your music instead of using the same chord structure all the time
Arpeggios
Arpeggios are much easier to understand than they sound They are quite simply the first third and fifth note of the scale played as individual notes For example the arpeggio of C minor would be C Eb G C etc
A great example of an arpeggio is the bassline in Bengarsquos ldquoCrunked Uprdquo He goes from playing the F minor arpeggio backwards to playing the F minor arpeggio backwards In other words he is playing
C A F and then C Ab F
Experiment with a few Minor Arpeggios and a couple of Diminished Arpeggios and you canrsquot go wrong in writing a huge bassline
Suggested Reading
List of All Scales With Finger Charts Included
Well thatrsquos it folks Thatrsquos basically all the music theory you need to know to start off with As you grow more used to the various scales yoursquoll notice that certain notes sound good with each other whilst others donrsquot Irsquom not here to tell you how to write music Irsquom here to teach you the language
of music Itrsquos up to you to write the poetry
copy Bruno Crosier (klimaxx) 2008
45 Random Tips
Random tips amp best piece of advice thread
5 Resources
Page 38
51 Books amp Magazines
Hello again people
Does anyone know of more music production books magazines or authors we can add to these lists
Thanks
------------------------------------------------
Music Production Magazines Computer Music - httpwwwcomputermusiccouk Music Tech Magazine - httpwwwmusictechmagcouk Future Music - httpwwwfuturemusiccouk Sound on Sound - httpwwwsoundonsoundcom Remix Magazine - httpremixmagcom Mix Magazine - httpmixonlinecom Electronic Musician - httpemusiciancom EQ Magazine - httpwwweqmagcom Audio Technology - wwwaudiotechnologycomau Tape Op - httpwwwtapeopcom
------------------------------------------------
Music Books
Authors Curtis Roads httpmitpressmiteducatalogauthor aspaid=93 - The Computer Music Tutorial (Really really really good book) Paul White - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea ul20White - Basic Series + more Rick Snowman - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea k20Snoman - The Dance Music Manual Tools Toys and Techniques Bobby Owsinski - httpbooksgooglecoukbooksas_auth=Bobby+Owsinski - The MixingRecording amp Mastering Engineers Handbooks Michael Paul Stavrou - httpwwwmixingwithyourmindcom
Publishers Thomson Course Technology - httpcoursecengagecom (Click on the Music Technology tab) - Series published include Power Overdrive Ignite and CSI Series + many more Backbeat Books - httpwwwbackbeatbookscom ndash Power Tools Series + many more Wiley Publishing - httpwwwdummiescom (Enter music in their search bar) - For Dummies Series Penguin Books - httpuspenguingroupcom (Enter music in their search bar) - The Complete Idiots Guide Series + many more MIT Press - httpmitpressmitedu - Many books on music theory Focal Press - httpwwwfocalpresscom - (Enter music in their search bar)
------------------------------------------------
Online Music Book Stores (We need more links here Do you know of any that we can add)
httpwwwmixbookscom ndash Excellent source that sells only books about music
Page 39
httpwwwamazoncom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
httpwwwbarnesandnoblecom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
------------------------------------------------
52 Wikipedia
A good music lexicon wiki Search for your term in the search bar ---gt httpenaudiolexicorgwikiMain_Page
0-9
14rdquo Jack - httpenwikipediaorgwikiJack_plug 3rd Bridge - httpenwikipediaorgwiki3rd_Bridge
Zero Crossing - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_crossing Zero Crossing Rate - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_Crossing_Rate
53 Other recommended production forums
for Logic users this is the shit httpwwwlogicprohelpcom
Ive found both these forums to be full of knowledgeable producers amp musicians
httpwwwkvraudiocomforum
httpacapellaharmony-centralcomforumsindexphp
httpwwwgearslutzcomboard
httpwwwsoundonsoundcomforum
httpwwwmusicradarcomforum
httpwwwidmforumscom
httpwwwdance-industriescomphpBB2 8cffbb3b02
httpwwwsubvertcentralcomforumindexphp
httpwwwbreakbeatcouk
httpwwwtweakheadzcom
httpwwwabletoncompagesforum
Explains lots about the music industry ---gt httpwwwbemusocom
Page 47
Ok so a massive thanks to all the contributors there are literally too many to mention But Thanks to Futures Untold Johnny Beat Klimaxx Deadly Habit amp JunglistRendr Daft Cunt in perticular
Thanks to all the artists producers and general music geeks making this early revision of the production bible an essential read
There are links missing and will be included in version 21(Please help with the unlinked chapters by going here - httpwwwdubstepforumcomthe-dubstep-production-bible-updated-2009-06-03-t14797html and updating missing info as needed)
Compiled by Daft Cunt and Futures Untold PDF Compiled by Depone
Page 34
Scales Wersquoll begin with scales As I mentioned before scales are the building blocks of your song and without them your track will be atonal and completely unlistenable (probably not the effect yoursquore going for)
There are two main scales that you should learn inside out ndash the major scale and the minor scale A generalisation yoursquore bound to have heard before is that the major scale sounds ldquohappyrdquo and the minor scale sounds ldquodarkrdquo Although this is not always the case it is mostly true ndash and therefore yoursquoll usually be focussing on the minor scale when producing Dubstep However just in case yoursquore writing happy-dubstep (if that exists) here is a quick overview of both scales and how they are made up
Major Scale
The major scale is really easy to create It is made by a single rule that is simple to put in to place
ldquoTone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
In case you donrsquot know what a Tone or Semi-Tone is here is a quick explanation
Picture a keyboard (or if you canrsquot see the image above) Say you go from C to C that would be a semi-tone The same thing goes for if you go from an E to an F ndash it is still a semi-tone because you
Page 35
have gone up one key
A tone is two semi-tones ndash for example from C to D is a tone and the same goes for from G to A
The scalersquos name is taken from the note that it starts on For example C major will start on the note of C Similarly A major will start on the note of A and this is the case with every single scale
Here is a quick list of a few major scales After having seen a few try working the rest out for yourself in order to understand how the major scale is formulated Ideally you should practice your scales on a piano or keyboard so that you can physically see how to make the scale It might sound boring but itrsquos a small price to pay for a much deeper understanding of your music
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Major C D E F G A B C
C Major C D E F G A B C
D Major D E F G A B C D
D Major D E F G A B C D
E Major E F G A B C D E
F Major F G A Bb C D E F
F Major F G A B C D E F
G Major G A B C D E F G
G Major G A B C D E F G
A Major A B C D E F G A
A Major A B C D E F G A
B major B C D E F G A B
Now by arranging the different notes of each of these scales in any order you please you can create a melody bassline or harmony with extreme ease Rearranging the notes in the scale will give you a flawlessly in-key result and it is then up to you to use the notes in the scale as you see fit for your tune
Minor Scale
As was the case with the Major Scale the Minor is made up from a set rule or formula By knowing this formula you can understand how the Minor is made and how to use it to itrsquos maximum effect
ldquoTone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
As is the case with the major scales you should practice your scales as much as possible to make sure that you know them all like the back of your hand Here are a few Minor Scales see if you can
Page 36
work out the rest
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Minor C D Eb F G Ab B C
D Minor D E F G A Bb C D
F Minor F G A B C D E F
G Minor G A Bb C D Eb F G
Similarly to the Major now that you know your Minor Scales you can quickly just take any note from the scale rearrange it with another few notes in the scale and there you have a fat melody or bassline ready to be played at maximum volume
Diminished Chords
Diminished Chords are really quite spooky and dark chords that are made up of four different notes all a minor third apart from each other That means that for example the Diminished Chord starting on C would be C Eb F A because to get from one note to the next you have to use ldquoTone Semi-Tonerdquo (known as a minor third)
Because of the mathematical nature of the Diminished chord there are only three ldquoclustersrdquo of notes which can then be rearranged like the Major and Minor Scales
Cluster 1 C Eb F A
Cluster 2 C E G Bb
Cluster 3 D F Ab B
Use these clusters and rearrange them as you please For example you could rearrange cluster 1 as Eb F A C etc
Generally speaking you canrsquot make a song based entirely on Diminished Chords due to the fact that each cluster only has 4 notes However a Diminished Chord is perfect for adding a hint of darkness to your tune and is brilliant when mixed with some Minor Scales
Chords
Chords are basically two or more notes played together They are made up from a specific scale ndash for example the C major chord is made up of notes in the C major scale
Usually chords will include the first third and fifth note of the scale as well as possibly using other notes to give them colour For example the basic chord of C major would be C E G Then you could add the seventh note to it (in this case it is B) Really it is up to the producerrsquos discretion how heshe goes about making a chord ndash just remember to stick to the scale you are using
Chords will more than likely sound like shit if you play them on a complicated or layered synth patch You want to be playing chords on sustained sounds such as strings or pads Chords will really fill out your sound if used properly You want your chords to be supporting the melody or bassline and more than likely want to add some reverb so that it doesnrsquot sound too sharp Make
Page 37
your chords blend in with the music and yoursquoll have mastered them
Chord Inversions
Quite simply chord inversions are when you rearrange the notes in a chord so that it sounds a bit different and suits your arrangement better
For example if you were in the key of C major you could have a drone of E playing underneath some strings playing the notes E G C E
Due to the fact that the notes are the same and have only been inverted the chord will still be in key with the rest of the music This is a great way to add a touch of variation to your music instead of using the same chord structure all the time
Arpeggios
Arpeggios are much easier to understand than they sound They are quite simply the first third and fifth note of the scale played as individual notes For example the arpeggio of C minor would be C Eb G C etc
A great example of an arpeggio is the bassline in Bengarsquos ldquoCrunked Uprdquo He goes from playing the F minor arpeggio backwards to playing the F minor arpeggio backwards In other words he is playing
C A F and then C Ab F
Experiment with a few Minor Arpeggios and a couple of Diminished Arpeggios and you canrsquot go wrong in writing a huge bassline
Suggested Reading
List of All Scales With Finger Charts Included
Well thatrsquos it folks Thatrsquos basically all the music theory you need to know to start off with As you grow more used to the various scales yoursquoll notice that certain notes sound good with each other whilst others donrsquot Irsquom not here to tell you how to write music Irsquom here to teach you the language
of music Itrsquos up to you to write the poetry
copy Bruno Crosier (klimaxx) 2008
45 Random Tips
Random tips amp best piece of advice thread
5 Resources
Page 38
51 Books amp Magazines
Hello again people
Does anyone know of more music production books magazines or authors we can add to these lists
Thanks
------------------------------------------------
Music Production Magazines Computer Music - httpwwwcomputermusiccouk Music Tech Magazine - httpwwwmusictechmagcouk Future Music - httpwwwfuturemusiccouk Sound on Sound - httpwwwsoundonsoundcom Remix Magazine - httpremixmagcom Mix Magazine - httpmixonlinecom Electronic Musician - httpemusiciancom EQ Magazine - httpwwweqmagcom Audio Technology - wwwaudiotechnologycomau Tape Op - httpwwwtapeopcom
------------------------------------------------
Music Books
Authors Curtis Roads httpmitpressmiteducatalogauthor aspaid=93 - The Computer Music Tutorial (Really really really good book) Paul White - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea ul20White - Basic Series + more Rick Snowman - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea k20Snoman - The Dance Music Manual Tools Toys and Techniques Bobby Owsinski - httpbooksgooglecoukbooksas_auth=Bobby+Owsinski - The MixingRecording amp Mastering Engineers Handbooks Michael Paul Stavrou - httpwwwmixingwithyourmindcom
Publishers Thomson Course Technology - httpcoursecengagecom (Click on the Music Technology tab) - Series published include Power Overdrive Ignite and CSI Series + many more Backbeat Books - httpwwwbackbeatbookscom ndash Power Tools Series + many more Wiley Publishing - httpwwwdummiescom (Enter music in their search bar) - For Dummies Series Penguin Books - httpuspenguingroupcom (Enter music in their search bar) - The Complete Idiots Guide Series + many more MIT Press - httpmitpressmitedu - Many books on music theory Focal Press - httpwwwfocalpresscom - (Enter music in their search bar)
------------------------------------------------
Online Music Book Stores (We need more links here Do you know of any that we can add)
httpwwwmixbookscom ndash Excellent source that sells only books about music
Page 39
httpwwwamazoncom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
httpwwwbarnesandnoblecom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
------------------------------------------------
52 Wikipedia
A good music lexicon wiki Search for your term in the search bar ---gt httpenaudiolexicorgwikiMain_Page
0-9
14rdquo Jack - httpenwikipediaorgwikiJack_plug 3rd Bridge - httpenwikipediaorgwiki3rd_Bridge
Zero Crossing - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_crossing Zero Crossing Rate - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_Crossing_Rate
53 Other recommended production forums
for Logic users this is the shit httpwwwlogicprohelpcom
Ive found both these forums to be full of knowledgeable producers amp musicians
httpwwwkvraudiocomforum
httpacapellaharmony-centralcomforumsindexphp
httpwwwgearslutzcomboard
httpwwwsoundonsoundcomforum
httpwwwmusicradarcomforum
httpwwwidmforumscom
httpwwwdance-industriescomphpBB2 8cffbb3b02
httpwwwsubvertcentralcomforumindexphp
httpwwwbreakbeatcouk
httpwwwtweakheadzcom
httpwwwabletoncompagesforum
Explains lots about the music industry ---gt httpwwwbemusocom
Page 47
Ok so a massive thanks to all the contributors there are literally too many to mention But Thanks to Futures Untold Johnny Beat Klimaxx Deadly Habit amp JunglistRendr Daft Cunt in perticular
Thanks to all the artists producers and general music geeks making this early revision of the production bible an essential read
There are links missing and will be included in version 21(Please help with the unlinked chapters by going here - httpwwwdubstepforumcomthe-dubstep-production-bible-updated-2009-06-03-t14797html and updating missing info as needed)
Compiled by Daft Cunt and Futures Untold PDF Compiled by Depone
Page 35
have gone up one key
A tone is two semi-tones ndash for example from C to D is a tone and the same goes for from G to A
The scalersquos name is taken from the note that it starts on For example C major will start on the note of C Similarly A major will start on the note of A and this is the case with every single scale
Here is a quick list of a few major scales After having seen a few try working the rest out for yourself in order to understand how the major scale is formulated Ideally you should practice your scales on a piano or keyboard so that you can physically see how to make the scale It might sound boring but itrsquos a small price to pay for a much deeper understanding of your music
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Major C D E F G A B C
C Major C D E F G A B C
D Major D E F G A B C D
D Major D E F G A B C D
E Major E F G A B C D E
F Major F G A Bb C D E F
F Major F G A B C D E F
G Major G A B C D E F G
G Major G A B C D E F G
A Major A B C D E F G A
A Major A B C D E F G A
B major B C D E F G A B
Now by arranging the different notes of each of these scales in any order you please you can create a melody bassline or harmony with extreme ease Rearranging the notes in the scale will give you a flawlessly in-key result and it is then up to you to use the notes in the scale as you see fit for your tune
Minor Scale
As was the case with the Major Scale the Minor is made up from a set rule or formula By knowing this formula you can understand how the Minor is made and how to use it to itrsquos maximum effect
ldquoTone Semi-Tone Tone Tone Semi-Tone Tone Semi-Tonerdquo
As is the case with the major scales you should practice your scales as much as possible to make sure that you know them all like the back of your hand Here are a few Minor Scales see if you can
Page 36
work out the rest
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Minor C D Eb F G Ab B C
D Minor D E F G A Bb C D
F Minor F G A B C D E F
G Minor G A Bb C D Eb F G
Similarly to the Major now that you know your Minor Scales you can quickly just take any note from the scale rearrange it with another few notes in the scale and there you have a fat melody or bassline ready to be played at maximum volume
Diminished Chords
Diminished Chords are really quite spooky and dark chords that are made up of four different notes all a minor third apart from each other That means that for example the Diminished Chord starting on C would be C Eb F A because to get from one note to the next you have to use ldquoTone Semi-Tonerdquo (known as a minor third)
Because of the mathematical nature of the Diminished chord there are only three ldquoclustersrdquo of notes which can then be rearranged like the Major and Minor Scales
Cluster 1 C Eb F A
Cluster 2 C E G Bb
Cluster 3 D F Ab B
Use these clusters and rearrange them as you please For example you could rearrange cluster 1 as Eb F A C etc
Generally speaking you canrsquot make a song based entirely on Diminished Chords due to the fact that each cluster only has 4 notes However a Diminished Chord is perfect for adding a hint of darkness to your tune and is brilliant when mixed with some Minor Scales
Chords
Chords are basically two or more notes played together They are made up from a specific scale ndash for example the C major chord is made up of notes in the C major scale
Usually chords will include the first third and fifth note of the scale as well as possibly using other notes to give them colour For example the basic chord of C major would be C E G Then you could add the seventh note to it (in this case it is B) Really it is up to the producerrsquos discretion how heshe goes about making a chord ndash just remember to stick to the scale you are using
Chords will more than likely sound like shit if you play them on a complicated or layered synth patch You want to be playing chords on sustained sounds such as strings or pads Chords will really fill out your sound if used properly You want your chords to be supporting the melody or bassline and more than likely want to add some reverb so that it doesnrsquot sound too sharp Make
Page 37
your chords blend in with the music and yoursquoll have mastered them
Chord Inversions
Quite simply chord inversions are when you rearrange the notes in a chord so that it sounds a bit different and suits your arrangement better
For example if you were in the key of C major you could have a drone of E playing underneath some strings playing the notes E G C E
Due to the fact that the notes are the same and have only been inverted the chord will still be in key with the rest of the music This is a great way to add a touch of variation to your music instead of using the same chord structure all the time
Arpeggios
Arpeggios are much easier to understand than they sound They are quite simply the first third and fifth note of the scale played as individual notes For example the arpeggio of C minor would be C Eb G C etc
A great example of an arpeggio is the bassline in Bengarsquos ldquoCrunked Uprdquo He goes from playing the F minor arpeggio backwards to playing the F minor arpeggio backwards In other words he is playing
C A F and then C Ab F
Experiment with a few Minor Arpeggios and a couple of Diminished Arpeggios and you canrsquot go wrong in writing a huge bassline
Suggested Reading
List of All Scales With Finger Charts Included
Well thatrsquos it folks Thatrsquos basically all the music theory you need to know to start off with As you grow more used to the various scales yoursquoll notice that certain notes sound good with each other whilst others donrsquot Irsquom not here to tell you how to write music Irsquom here to teach you the language
of music Itrsquos up to you to write the poetry
copy Bruno Crosier (klimaxx) 2008
45 Random Tips
Random tips amp best piece of advice thread
5 Resources
Page 38
51 Books amp Magazines
Hello again people
Does anyone know of more music production books magazines or authors we can add to these lists
Thanks
------------------------------------------------
Music Production Magazines Computer Music - httpwwwcomputermusiccouk Music Tech Magazine - httpwwwmusictechmagcouk Future Music - httpwwwfuturemusiccouk Sound on Sound - httpwwwsoundonsoundcom Remix Magazine - httpremixmagcom Mix Magazine - httpmixonlinecom Electronic Musician - httpemusiciancom EQ Magazine - httpwwweqmagcom Audio Technology - wwwaudiotechnologycomau Tape Op - httpwwwtapeopcom
------------------------------------------------
Music Books
Authors Curtis Roads httpmitpressmiteducatalogauthor aspaid=93 - The Computer Music Tutorial (Really really really good book) Paul White - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea ul20White - Basic Series + more Rick Snowman - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea k20Snoman - The Dance Music Manual Tools Toys and Techniques Bobby Owsinski - httpbooksgooglecoukbooksas_auth=Bobby+Owsinski - The MixingRecording amp Mastering Engineers Handbooks Michael Paul Stavrou - httpwwwmixingwithyourmindcom
Publishers Thomson Course Technology - httpcoursecengagecom (Click on the Music Technology tab) - Series published include Power Overdrive Ignite and CSI Series + many more Backbeat Books - httpwwwbackbeatbookscom ndash Power Tools Series + many more Wiley Publishing - httpwwwdummiescom (Enter music in their search bar) - For Dummies Series Penguin Books - httpuspenguingroupcom (Enter music in their search bar) - The Complete Idiots Guide Series + many more MIT Press - httpmitpressmitedu - Many books on music theory Focal Press - httpwwwfocalpresscom - (Enter music in their search bar)
------------------------------------------------
Online Music Book Stores (We need more links here Do you know of any that we can add)
httpwwwmixbookscom ndash Excellent source that sells only books about music
Page 39
httpwwwamazoncom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
httpwwwbarnesandnoblecom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
------------------------------------------------
52 Wikipedia
A good music lexicon wiki Search for your term in the search bar ---gt httpenaudiolexicorgwikiMain_Page
0-9
14rdquo Jack - httpenwikipediaorgwikiJack_plug 3rd Bridge - httpenwikipediaorgwiki3rd_Bridge
Zero Crossing - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_crossing Zero Crossing Rate - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_Crossing_Rate
53 Other recommended production forums
for Logic users this is the shit httpwwwlogicprohelpcom
Ive found both these forums to be full of knowledgeable producers amp musicians
httpwwwkvraudiocomforum
httpacapellaharmony-centralcomforumsindexphp
httpwwwgearslutzcomboard
httpwwwsoundonsoundcomforum
httpwwwmusicradarcomforum
httpwwwidmforumscom
httpwwwdance-industriescomphpBB2 8cffbb3b02
httpwwwsubvertcentralcomforumindexphp
httpwwwbreakbeatcouk
httpwwwtweakheadzcom
httpwwwabletoncompagesforum
Explains lots about the music industry ---gt httpwwwbemusocom
Page 47
Ok so a massive thanks to all the contributors there are literally too many to mention But Thanks to Futures Untold Johnny Beat Klimaxx Deadly Habit amp JunglistRendr Daft Cunt in perticular
Thanks to all the artists producers and general music geeks making this early revision of the production bible an essential read
There are links missing and will be included in version 21(Please help with the unlinked chapters by going here - httpwwwdubstepforumcomthe-dubstep-production-bible-updated-2009-06-03-t14797html and updating missing info as needed)
Compiled by Daft Cunt and Futures Untold PDF Compiled by Depone
Page 36
work out the rest
Note- E is the same note as F and B is the same note as C- If something has a it means it is sharpened twice (raised two semitones)
C Minor C D Eb F G Ab B C
D Minor D E F G A Bb C D
F Minor F G A B C D E F
G Minor G A Bb C D Eb F G
Similarly to the Major now that you know your Minor Scales you can quickly just take any note from the scale rearrange it with another few notes in the scale and there you have a fat melody or bassline ready to be played at maximum volume
Diminished Chords
Diminished Chords are really quite spooky and dark chords that are made up of four different notes all a minor third apart from each other That means that for example the Diminished Chord starting on C would be C Eb F A because to get from one note to the next you have to use ldquoTone Semi-Tonerdquo (known as a minor third)
Because of the mathematical nature of the Diminished chord there are only three ldquoclustersrdquo of notes which can then be rearranged like the Major and Minor Scales
Cluster 1 C Eb F A
Cluster 2 C E G Bb
Cluster 3 D F Ab B
Use these clusters and rearrange them as you please For example you could rearrange cluster 1 as Eb F A C etc
Generally speaking you canrsquot make a song based entirely on Diminished Chords due to the fact that each cluster only has 4 notes However a Diminished Chord is perfect for adding a hint of darkness to your tune and is brilliant when mixed with some Minor Scales
Chords
Chords are basically two or more notes played together They are made up from a specific scale ndash for example the C major chord is made up of notes in the C major scale
Usually chords will include the first third and fifth note of the scale as well as possibly using other notes to give them colour For example the basic chord of C major would be C E G Then you could add the seventh note to it (in this case it is B) Really it is up to the producerrsquos discretion how heshe goes about making a chord ndash just remember to stick to the scale you are using
Chords will more than likely sound like shit if you play them on a complicated or layered synth patch You want to be playing chords on sustained sounds such as strings or pads Chords will really fill out your sound if used properly You want your chords to be supporting the melody or bassline and more than likely want to add some reverb so that it doesnrsquot sound too sharp Make
Page 37
your chords blend in with the music and yoursquoll have mastered them
Chord Inversions
Quite simply chord inversions are when you rearrange the notes in a chord so that it sounds a bit different and suits your arrangement better
For example if you were in the key of C major you could have a drone of E playing underneath some strings playing the notes E G C E
Due to the fact that the notes are the same and have only been inverted the chord will still be in key with the rest of the music This is a great way to add a touch of variation to your music instead of using the same chord structure all the time
Arpeggios
Arpeggios are much easier to understand than they sound They are quite simply the first third and fifth note of the scale played as individual notes For example the arpeggio of C minor would be C Eb G C etc
A great example of an arpeggio is the bassline in Bengarsquos ldquoCrunked Uprdquo He goes from playing the F minor arpeggio backwards to playing the F minor arpeggio backwards In other words he is playing
C A F and then C Ab F
Experiment with a few Minor Arpeggios and a couple of Diminished Arpeggios and you canrsquot go wrong in writing a huge bassline
Suggested Reading
List of All Scales With Finger Charts Included
Well thatrsquos it folks Thatrsquos basically all the music theory you need to know to start off with As you grow more used to the various scales yoursquoll notice that certain notes sound good with each other whilst others donrsquot Irsquom not here to tell you how to write music Irsquom here to teach you the language
of music Itrsquos up to you to write the poetry
copy Bruno Crosier (klimaxx) 2008
45 Random Tips
Random tips amp best piece of advice thread
5 Resources
Page 38
51 Books amp Magazines
Hello again people
Does anyone know of more music production books magazines or authors we can add to these lists
Thanks
------------------------------------------------
Music Production Magazines Computer Music - httpwwwcomputermusiccouk Music Tech Magazine - httpwwwmusictechmagcouk Future Music - httpwwwfuturemusiccouk Sound on Sound - httpwwwsoundonsoundcom Remix Magazine - httpremixmagcom Mix Magazine - httpmixonlinecom Electronic Musician - httpemusiciancom EQ Magazine - httpwwweqmagcom Audio Technology - wwwaudiotechnologycomau Tape Op - httpwwwtapeopcom
------------------------------------------------
Music Books
Authors Curtis Roads httpmitpressmiteducatalogauthor aspaid=93 - The Computer Music Tutorial (Really really really good book) Paul White - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea ul20White - Basic Series + more Rick Snowman - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea k20Snoman - The Dance Music Manual Tools Toys and Techniques Bobby Owsinski - httpbooksgooglecoukbooksas_auth=Bobby+Owsinski - The MixingRecording amp Mastering Engineers Handbooks Michael Paul Stavrou - httpwwwmixingwithyourmindcom
Publishers Thomson Course Technology - httpcoursecengagecom (Click on the Music Technology tab) - Series published include Power Overdrive Ignite and CSI Series + many more Backbeat Books - httpwwwbackbeatbookscom ndash Power Tools Series + many more Wiley Publishing - httpwwwdummiescom (Enter music in their search bar) - For Dummies Series Penguin Books - httpuspenguingroupcom (Enter music in their search bar) - The Complete Idiots Guide Series + many more MIT Press - httpmitpressmitedu - Many books on music theory Focal Press - httpwwwfocalpresscom - (Enter music in their search bar)
------------------------------------------------
Online Music Book Stores (We need more links here Do you know of any that we can add)
httpwwwmixbookscom ndash Excellent source that sells only books about music
Page 39
httpwwwamazoncom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
httpwwwbarnesandnoblecom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
------------------------------------------------
52 Wikipedia
A good music lexicon wiki Search for your term in the search bar ---gt httpenaudiolexicorgwikiMain_Page
0-9
14rdquo Jack - httpenwikipediaorgwikiJack_plug 3rd Bridge - httpenwikipediaorgwiki3rd_Bridge
Zero Crossing - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_crossing Zero Crossing Rate - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_Crossing_Rate
53 Other recommended production forums
for Logic users this is the shit httpwwwlogicprohelpcom
Ive found both these forums to be full of knowledgeable producers amp musicians
httpwwwkvraudiocomforum
httpacapellaharmony-centralcomforumsindexphp
httpwwwgearslutzcomboard
httpwwwsoundonsoundcomforum
httpwwwmusicradarcomforum
httpwwwidmforumscom
httpwwwdance-industriescomphpBB2 8cffbb3b02
httpwwwsubvertcentralcomforumindexphp
httpwwwbreakbeatcouk
httpwwwtweakheadzcom
httpwwwabletoncompagesforum
Explains lots about the music industry ---gt httpwwwbemusocom
Page 47
Ok so a massive thanks to all the contributors there are literally too many to mention But Thanks to Futures Untold Johnny Beat Klimaxx Deadly Habit amp JunglistRendr Daft Cunt in perticular
Thanks to all the artists producers and general music geeks making this early revision of the production bible an essential read
There are links missing and will be included in version 21(Please help with the unlinked chapters by going here - httpwwwdubstepforumcomthe-dubstep-production-bible-updated-2009-06-03-t14797html and updating missing info as needed)
Compiled by Daft Cunt and Futures Untold PDF Compiled by Depone
Page 37
your chords blend in with the music and yoursquoll have mastered them
Chord Inversions
Quite simply chord inversions are when you rearrange the notes in a chord so that it sounds a bit different and suits your arrangement better
For example if you were in the key of C major you could have a drone of E playing underneath some strings playing the notes E G C E
Due to the fact that the notes are the same and have only been inverted the chord will still be in key with the rest of the music This is a great way to add a touch of variation to your music instead of using the same chord structure all the time
Arpeggios
Arpeggios are much easier to understand than they sound They are quite simply the first third and fifth note of the scale played as individual notes For example the arpeggio of C minor would be C Eb G C etc
A great example of an arpeggio is the bassline in Bengarsquos ldquoCrunked Uprdquo He goes from playing the F minor arpeggio backwards to playing the F minor arpeggio backwards In other words he is playing
C A F and then C Ab F
Experiment with a few Minor Arpeggios and a couple of Diminished Arpeggios and you canrsquot go wrong in writing a huge bassline
Suggested Reading
List of All Scales With Finger Charts Included
Well thatrsquos it folks Thatrsquos basically all the music theory you need to know to start off with As you grow more used to the various scales yoursquoll notice that certain notes sound good with each other whilst others donrsquot Irsquom not here to tell you how to write music Irsquom here to teach you the language
of music Itrsquos up to you to write the poetry
copy Bruno Crosier (klimaxx) 2008
45 Random Tips
Random tips amp best piece of advice thread
5 Resources
Page 38
51 Books amp Magazines
Hello again people
Does anyone know of more music production books magazines or authors we can add to these lists
Thanks
------------------------------------------------
Music Production Magazines Computer Music - httpwwwcomputermusiccouk Music Tech Magazine - httpwwwmusictechmagcouk Future Music - httpwwwfuturemusiccouk Sound on Sound - httpwwwsoundonsoundcom Remix Magazine - httpremixmagcom Mix Magazine - httpmixonlinecom Electronic Musician - httpemusiciancom EQ Magazine - httpwwweqmagcom Audio Technology - wwwaudiotechnologycomau Tape Op - httpwwwtapeopcom
------------------------------------------------
Music Books
Authors Curtis Roads httpmitpressmiteducatalogauthor aspaid=93 - The Computer Music Tutorial (Really really really good book) Paul White - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea ul20White - Basic Series + more Rick Snowman - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea k20Snoman - The Dance Music Manual Tools Toys and Techniques Bobby Owsinski - httpbooksgooglecoukbooksas_auth=Bobby+Owsinski - The MixingRecording amp Mastering Engineers Handbooks Michael Paul Stavrou - httpwwwmixingwithyourmindcom
Publishers Thomson Course Technology - httpcoursecengagecom (Click on the Music Technology tab) - Series published include Power Overdrive Ignite and CSI Series + many more Backbeat Books - httpwwwbackbeatbookscom ndash Power Tools Series + many more Wiley Publishing - httpwwwdummiescom (Enter music in their search bar) - For Dummies Series Penguin Books - httpuspenguingroupcom (Enter music in their search bar) - The Complete Idiots Guide Series + many more MIT Press - httpmitpressmitedu - Many books on music theory Focal Press - httpwwwfocalpresscom - (Enter music in their search bar)
------------------------------------------------
Online Music Book Stores (We need more links here Do you know of any that we can add)
httpwwwmixbookscom ndash Excellent source that sells only books about music
Page 39
httpwwwamazoncom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
httpwwwbarnesandnoblecom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
------------------------------------------------
52 Wikipedia
A good music lexicon wiki Search for your term in the search bar ---gt httpenaudiolexicorgwikiMain_Page
0-9
14rdquo Jack - httpenwikipediaorgwikiJack_plug 3rd Bridge - httpenwikipediaorgwiki3rd_Bridge
Zero Crossing - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_crossing Zero Crossing Rate - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_Crossing_Rate
53 Other recommended production forums
for Logic users this is the shit httpwwwlogicprohelpcom
Ive found both these forums to be full of knowledgeable producers amp musicians
httpwwwkvraudiocomforum
httpacapellaharmony-centralcomforumsindexphp
httpwwwgearslutzcomboard
httpwwwsoundonsoundcomforum
httpwwwmusicradarcomforum
httpwwwidmforumscom
httpwwwdance-industriescomphpBB2 8cffbb3b02
httpwwwsubvertcentralcomforumindexphp
httpwwwbreakbeatcouk
httpwwwtweakheadzcom
httpwwwabletoncompagesforum
Explains lots about the music industry ---gt httpwwwbemusocom
Page 47
Ok so a massive thanks to all the contributors there are literally too many to mention But Thanks to Futures Untold Johnny Beat Klimaxx Deadly Habit amp JunglistRendr Daft Cunt in perticular
Thanks to all the artists producers and general music geeks making this early revision of the production bible an essential read
There are links missing and will be included in version 21(Please help with the unlinked chapters by going here - httpwwwdubstepforumcomthe-dubstep-production-bible-updated-2009-06-03-t14797html and updating missing info as needed)
Compiled by Daft Cunt and Futures Untold PDF Compiled by Depone
Page 38
51 Books amp Magazines
Hello again people
Does anyone know of more music production books magazines or authors we can add to these lists
Thanks
------------------------------------------------
Music Production Magazines Computer Music - httpwwwcomputermusiccouk Music Tech Magazine - httpwwwmusictechmagcouk Future Music - httpwwwfuturemusiccouk Sound on Sound - httpwwwsoundonsoundcom Remix Magazine - httpremixmagcom Mix Magazine - httpmixonlinecom Electronic Musician - httpemusiciancom EQ Magazine - httpwwweqmagcom Audio Technology - wwwaudiotechnologycomau Tape Op - httpwwwtapeopcom
------------------------------------------------
Music Books
Authors Curtis Roads httpmitpressmiteducatalogauthor aspaid=93 - The Computer Music Tutorial (Really really really good book) Paul White - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea ul20White - Basic Series + more Rick Snowman - httpwwwamazoncoukexecobidossea k20Snoman - The Dance Music Manual Tools Toys and Techniques Bobby Owsinski - httpbooksgooglecoukbooksas_auth=Bobby+Owsinski - The MixingRecording amp Mastering Engineers Handbooks Michael Paul Stavrou - httpwwwmixingwithyourmindcom
Publishers Thomson Course Technology - httpcoursecengagecom (Click on the Music Technology tab) - Series published include Power Overdrive Ignite and CSI Series + many more Backbeat Books - httpwwwbackbeatbookscom ndash Power Tools Series + many more Wiley Publishing - httpwwwdummiescom (Enter music in their search bar) - For Dummies Series Penguin Books - httpuspenguingroupcom (Enter music in their search bar) - The Complete Idiots Guide Series + many more MIT Press - httpmitpressmitedu - Many books on music theory Focal Press - httpwwwfocalpresscom - (Enter music in their search bar)
------------------------------------------------
Online Music Book Stores (We need more links here Do you know of any that we can add)
httpwwwmixbookscom ndash Excellent source that sells only books about music
Page 39
httpwwwamazoncom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
httpwwwbarnesandnoblecom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
------------------------------------------------
52 Wikipedia
A good music lexicon wiki Search for your term in the search bar ---gt httpenaudiolexicorgwikiMain_Page
0-9
14rdquo Jack - httpenwikipediaorgwikiJack_plug 3rd Bridge - httpenwikipediaorgwiki3rd_Bridge
Zero Crossing - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_crossing Zero Crossing Rate - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_Crossing_Rate
53 Other recommended production forums
for Logic users this is the shit httpwwwlogicprohelpcom
Ive found both these forums to be full of knowledgeable producers amp musicians
httpwwwkvraudiocomforum
httpacapellaharmony-centralcomforumsindexphp
httpwwwgearslutzcomboard
httpwwwsoundonsoundcomforum
httpwwwmusicradarcomforum
httpwwwidmforumscom
httpwwwdance-industriescomphpBB2 8cffbb3b02
httpwwwsubvertcentralcomforumindexphp
httpwwwbreakbeatcouk
httpwwwtweakheadzcom
httpwwwabletoncompagesforum
Explains lots about the music industry ---gt httpwwwbemusocom
Page 47
Ok so a massive thanks to all the contributors there are literally too many to mention But Thanks to Futures Untold Johnny Beat Klimaxx Deadly Habit amp JunglistRendr Daft Cunt in perticular
Thanks to all the artists producers and general music geeks making this early revision of the production bible an essential read
There are links missing and will be included in version 21(Please help with the unlinked chapters by going here - httpwwwdubstepforumcomthe-dubstep-production-bible-updated-2009-06-03-t14797html and updating missing info as needed)
Compiled by Daft Cunt and Futures Untold PDF Compiled by Depone
Page 39
httpwwwamazoncom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
httpwwwbarnesandnoblecom - Search for Music Audio Recording etc
------------------------------------------------
52 Wikipedia
A good music lexicon wiki Search for your term in the search bar ---gt httpenaudiolexicorgwikiMain_Page
0-9
14rdquo Jack - httpenwikipediaorgwikiJack_plug 3rd Bridge - httpenwikipediaorgwiki3rd_Bridge
Zero Crossing - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_crossing Zero Crossing Rate - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_Crossing_Rate
53 Other recommended production forums
for Logic users this is the shit httpwwwlogicprohelpcom
Ive found both these forums to be full of knowledgeable producers amp musicians
httpwwwkvraudiocomforum
httpacapellaharmony-centralcomforumsindexphp
httpwwwgearslutzcomboard
httpwwwsoundonsoundcomforum
httpwwwmusicradarcomforum
httpwwwidmforumscom
httpwwwdance-industriescomphpBB2 8cffbb3b02
httpwwwsubvertcentralcomforumindexphp
httpwwwbreakbeatcouk
httpwwwtweakheadzcom
httpwwwabletoncompagesforum
Explains lots about the music industry ---gt httpwwwbemusocom
Page 47
Ok so a massive thanks to all the contributors there are literally too many to mention But Thanks to Futures Untold Johnny Beat Klimaxx Deadly Habit amp JunglistRendr Daft Cunt in perticular
Thanks to all the artists producers and general music geeks making this early revision of the production bible an essential read
There are links missing and will be included in version 21(Please help with the unlinked chapters by going here - httpwwwdubstepforumcomthe-dubstep-production-bible-updated-2009-06-03-t14797html and updating missing info as needed)
Compiled by Daft Cunt and Futures Untold PDF Compiled by Depone
Zero Crossing - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_crossing Zero Crossing Rate - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_Crossing_Rate
53 Other recommended production forums
for Logic users this is the shit httpwwwlogicprohelpcom
Ive found both these forums to be full of knowledgeable producers amp musicians
httpwwwkvraudiocomforum
httpacapellaharmony-centralcomforumsindexphp
httpwwwgearslutzcomboard
httpwwwsoundonsoundcomforum
httpwwwmusicradarcomforum
httpwwwidmforumscom
httpwwwdance-industriescomphpBB2 8cffbb3b02
httpwwwsubvertcentralcomforumindexphp
httpwwwbreakbeatcouk
httpwwwtweakheadzcom
httpwwwabletoncompagesforum
Explains lots about the music industry ---gt httpwwwbemusocom
Page 47
Ok so a massive thanks to all the contributors there are literally too many to mention But Thanks to Futures Untold Johnny Beat Klimaxx Deadly Habit amp JunglistRendr Daft Cunt in perticular
Thanks to all the artists producers and general music geeks making this early revision of the production bible an essential read
There are links missing and will be included in version 21(Please help with the unlinked chapters by going here - httpwwwdubstepforumcomthe-dubstep-production-bible-updated-2009-06-03-t14797html and updating missing info as needed)
Compiled by Daft Cunt and Futures Untold PDF Compiled by Depone
Zero Crossing - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_crossing Zero Crossing Rate - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_Crossing_Rate
53 Other recommended production forums
for Logic users this is the shit httpwwwlogicprohelpcom
Ive found both these forums to be full of knowledgeable producers amp musicians
httpwwwkvraudiocomforum
httpacapellaharmony-centralcomforumsindexphp
httpwwwgearslutzcomboard
httpwwwsoundonsoundcomforum
httpwwwmusicradarcomforum
httpwwwidmforumscom
httpwwwdance-industriescomphpBB2 8cffbb3b02
httpwwwsubvertcentralcomforumindexphp
httpwwwbreakbeatcouk
httpwwwtweakheadzcom
httpwwwabletoncompagesforum
Explains lots about the music industry ---gt httpwwwbemusocom
Page 47
Ok so a massive thanks to all the contributors there are literally too many to mention But Thanks to Futures Untold Johnny Beat Klimaxx Deadly Habit amp JunglistRendr Daft Cunt in perticular
Thanks to all the artists producers and general music geeks making this early revision of the production bible an essential read
There are links missing and will be included in version 21(Please help with the unlinked chapters by going here - httpwwwdubstepforumcomthe-dubstep-production-bible-updated-2009-06-03-t14797html and updating missing info as needed)
Compiled by Daft Cunt and Futures Untold PDF Compiled by Depone
Page 42
Harmonic Series - httpenwikipediaorgwikiHarmonic_s 28music29 Hearing - httpenwikipediaorgwikiHearing_28sense29 Heavy Metal - httpenwikipediaorgwikiHeavy_metal Headphones - httpenwikipediaorgwikiHeadphone Hertz (Hz) - httpenwikipediaorgwikiHertz Heterodyne - httpenwikipediaorgwikiHeterodyne Hip Hop - httpenwikipediaorgwikiHip_hop_music HD Radio - httpenwikipediaorgwikiHD_Radio Home Recording - httpenwikipediaorgwikiHome_recording Hoover Bass - httpenwikipediaorgwikiHoover_sound Horn (Instrument) - httpenwikipediaorgwikiHorn_28instrument29 Horn Speaker - httpenwikipediaorgwikiHorn_speaker House - httpenwikipediaorgwikiHouse_music Human Voice - httpenwikipediaorgwikiHuman_Voice Humming - httpenwikipediaorgwikiHumming Hydraulophone - httpenwikipediaorgwikiHydraulophone
Zero Crossing - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_crossing Zero Crossing Rate - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_Crossing_Rate
53 Other recommended production forums
for Logic users this is the shit httpwwwlogicprohelpcom
Ive found both these forums to be full of knowledgeable producers amp musicians
httpwwwkvraudiocomforum
httpacapellaharmony-centralcomforumsindexphp
httpwwwgearslutzcomboard
httpwwwsoundonsoundcomforum
httpwwwmusicradarcomforum
httpwwwidmforumscom
httpwwwdance-industriescomphpBB2 8cffbb3b02
httpwwwsubvertcentralcomforumindexphp
httpwwwbreakbeatcouk
httpwwwtweakheadzcom
httpwwwabletoncompagesforum
Explains lots about the music industry ---gt httpwwwbemusocom
Page 47
Ok so a massive thanks to all the contributors there are literally too many to mention But Thanks to Futures Untold Johnny Beat Klimaxx Deadly Habit amp JunglistRendr Daft Cunt in perticular
Thanks to all the artists producers and general music geeks making this early revision of the production bible an essential read
There are links missing and will be included in version 21(Please help with the unlinked chapters by going here - httpwwwdubstepforumcomthe-dubstep-production-bible-updated-2009-06-03-t14797html and updating missing info as needed)
Compiled by Daft Cunt and Futures Untold PDF Compiled by Depone
Page 43
Modular Synthesizer - httpenwikipediaorgwikiModular_synthesizer Mono - httpenwikipediaorgwikiMonaural Moog Synthesizer - httpenwikipediaorgwikiMoog_synthesizer Mozart - httpenwikipediaorgwikiWolfgang_Amadeus_Mozart Mozart Effect - httpenwikipediaorgwikiMozart_effect MP3 - httpenwikipediaorgwikiMP3 Multiphonic - httpenwikipediaorgwikiMultiphonic Music - httpenwikipediaorgwikiMusic Musical Acoustics - httpenwikipediaorgwikiPhysics_of_music Musical Genre - httpenwikipediaorgwikiMusical_genre Musical Instrument - httpenwikipediaorgwikiMusical_instrument Musical Mode - httpenwikipediaorgwikiMusical_mode Musical Note - httpenwikipediaorgwikiNote Musical Ranges (Frequencies of different Instruments amp Vocal Ranges) - httpenwikipediaorgwikiRange_28music29 Musical Scale - httpenwikipediaorgwikiScale_28music29 Musical Tuning - httpenwikipediaorgwikiMusical_tuning Music Cognition - httpenwikipediaorgwikiMusic_cognition Music Meter - httpenwikipediaorgwikiMeter_28music29 Music Sequencer - httpenwikipediaorgwikiMusic_sequencer Music Technology - httpenwikipediaorgwikiMusic_technology Music Theory - httpenwikipediaorgwikiMusic_theory Musique Concrete - httpenwikipediaorgwikiMusique_concrC3A8te
Zero Crossing - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_crossing Zero Crossing Rate - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_Crossing_Rate
53 Other recommended production forums
for Logic users this is the shit httpwwwlogicprohelpcom
Ive found both these forums to be full of knowledgeable producers amp musicians
httpwwwkvraudiocomforum
httpacapellaharmony-centralcomforumsindexphp
httpwwwgearslutzcomboard
httpwwwsoundonsoundcomforum
httpwwwmusicradarcomforum
httpwwwidmforumscom
httpwwwdance-industriescomphpBB2 8cffbb3b02
httpwwwsubvertcentralcomforumindexphp
httpwwwbreakbeatcouk
httpwwwtweakheadzcom
httpwwwabletoncompagesforum
Explains lots about the music industry ---gt httpwwwbemusocom
Page 47
Ok so a massive thanks to all the contributors there are literally too many to mention But Thanks to Futures Untold Johnny Beat Klimaxx Deadly Habit amp JunglistRendr Daft Cunt in perticular
Thanks to all the artists producers and general music geeks making this early revision of the production bible an essential read
There are links missing and will be included in version 21(Please help with the unlinked chapters by going here - httpwwwdubstepforumcomthe-dubstep-production-bible-updated-2009-06-03-t14797html and updating missing info as needed)
Compiled by Daft Cunt and Futures Untold PDF Compiled by Depone
Page 44
Polyphony - httpenwikipediaorgwikiPolyphony Polyrhythm - httpenwikipediaorgwikiPolyrhythm Popular Music - httpenwikipediaorgwikiPopular_music Potentiometer - httpenwikipediaorgwikiPotentiometer Power Attenuator - httpenwikipediaorgwikiPower_atte 8guitar29 Progressive Rock - httpenwikipediaorgwikiProgressive_rock Propellerhead Reason - httpenwikipediaorgwikiReason_28software29 Pro Tools - httpenwikipediaorgwikiPro_Tools Pseudo-octave - httpenwikipediaorgwikiStretched_octave Psychoacoustics - httpenwikipediaorgwikiPsychoacoustics Pulse Code Modulation (PCM) - httpenwikipediaorgwikiPCM Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) - httpenwikipediaorgwikiPulse_width_modulation Pure Tone - httpenwikipediaorgwikiPure_tone P-wave - httpenwikipediaorgwikiP-wave
Zero Crossing - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_crossing Zero Crossing Rate - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_Crossing_Rate
53 Other recommended production forums
for Logic users this is the shit httpwwwlogicprohelpcom
Ive found both these forums to be full of knowledgeable producers amp musicians
httpwwwkvraudiocomforum
httpacapellaharmony-centralcomforumsindexphp
httpwwwgearslutzcomboard
httpwwwsoundonsoundcomforum
httpwwwmusicradarcomforum
httpwwwidmforumscom
httpwwwdance-industriescomphpBB2 8cffbb3b02
httpwwwsubvertcentralcomforumindexphp
httpwwwbreakbeatcouk
httpwwwtweakheadzcom
httpwwwabletoncompagesforum
Explains lots about the music industry ---gt httpwwwbemusocom
Page 47
Ok so a massive thanks to all the contributors there are literally too many to mention But Thanks to Futures Untold Johnny Beat Klimaxx Deadly Habit amp JunglistRendr Daft Cunt in perticular
Thanks to all the artists producers and general music geeks making this early revision of the production bible an essential read
There are links missing and will be included in version 21(Please help with the unlinked chapters by going here - httpwwwdubstepforumcomthe-dubstep-production-bible-updated-2009-06-03-t14797html and updating missing info as needed)
Compiled by Daft Cunt and Futures Untold PDF Compiled by Depone
Zero Crossing - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_crossing Zero Crossing Rate - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_Crossing_Rate
53 Other recommended production forums
for Logic users this is the shit httpwwwlogicprohelpcom
Ive found both these forums to be full of knowledgeable producers amp musicians
httpwwwkvraudiocomforum
httpacapellaharmony-centralcomforumsindexphp
httpwwwgearslutzcomboard
httpwwwsoundonsoundcomforum
httpwwwmusicradarcomforum
httpwwwidmforumscom
httpwwwdance-industriescomphpBB2 8cffbb3b02
httpwwwsubvertcentralcomforumindexphp
httpwwwbreakbeatcouk
httpwwwtweakheadzcom
httpwwwabletoncompagesforum
Explains lots about the music industry ---gt httpwwwbemusocom
Page 47
Ok so a massive thanks to all the contributors there are literally too many to mention But Thanks to Futures Untold Johnny Beat Klimaxx Deadly Habit amp JunglistRendr Daft Cunt in perticular
Thanks to all the artists producers and general music geeks making this early revision of the production bible an essential read
There are links missing and will be included in version 21(Please help with the unlinked chapters by going here - httpwwwdubstepforumcomthe-dubstep-production-bible-updated-2009-06-03-t14797html and updating missing info as needed)
Compiled by Daft Cunt and Futures Untold PDF Compiled by Depone
Page 46
W
Wah-Wah - httpenwikipediaorgwikiWah-wah Wah-Wah Pedal - httpenwikipediaorgwikiWah-wah_pedal Wall of Sound - httpenwikipediaorgwikiWall_of_Sound Warped Linear Predictive Coding - httpenwikipediaorgwikiWarped_Lin ive_Coding Water Organ - httpenwikipediaorgwikiWater_organ Watt - httpenwikipediaorgwikiWatt Wav (File) - httpenwikipediaorgwikiWav Wave - httpenwikipediaorgwikiWave Wavecycle - httpenwikipediaorgwikiCycle_28music29 Waveform - httpenwikipediaorgwikiWaveform Wavetable Synthesis - httpenwikipediaorgwikiWavetable_synthesis White Noise - httpenwikipediaorgwikiWhite_noise Wideband - httpenwikipediaorgwikiWideband Wind Instruments - httpenwikipediaorgwikiWind_instruments Windows Media Audio (WMA) - httpenwikipediaorgwikiWindows_Media_Audio
Zero Crossing - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_crossing Zero Crossing Rate - httpenwikipediaorgwikiZero_Crossing_Rate
53 Other recommended production forums
for Logic users this is the shit httpwwwlogicprohelpcom
Ive found both these forums to be full of knowledgeable producers amp musicians
httpwwwkvraudiocomforum
httpacapellaharmony-centralcomforumsindexphp
httpwwwgearslutzcomboard
httpwwwsoundonsoundcomforum
httpwwwmusicradarcomforum
httpwwwidmforumscom
httpwwwdance-industriescomphpBB2 8cffbb3b02
httpwwwsubvertcentralcomforumindexphp
httpwwwbreakbeatcouk
httpwwwtweakheadzcom
httpwwwabletoncompagesforum
Explains lots about the music industry ---gt httpwwwbemusocom
Page 47
Ok so a massive thanks to all the contributors there are literally too many to mention But Thanks to Futures Untold Johnny Beat Klimaxx Deadly Habit amp JunglistRendr Daft Cunt in perticular
Thanks to all the artists producers and general music geeks making this early revision of the production bible an essential read
There are links missing and will be included in version 21(Please help with the unlinked chapters by going here - httpwwwdubstepforumcomthe-dubstep-production-bible-updated-2009-06-03-t14797html and updating missing info as needed)
Compiled by Daft Cunt and Futures Untold PDF Compiled by Depone
Page 47
Ok so a massive thanks to all the contributors there are literally too many to mention But Thanks to Futures Untold Johnny Beat Klimaxx Deadly Habit amp JunglistRendr Daft Cunt in perticular
Thanks to all the artists producers and general music geeks making this early revision of the production bible an essential read
There are links missing and will be included in version 21(Please help with the unlinked chapters by going here - httpwwwdubstepforumcomthe-dubstep-production-bible-updated-2009-06-03-t14797html and updating missing info as needed)
Compiled by Daft Cunt and Futures Untold PDF Compiled by Depone
