ASK US ANYTHING [NO SUBJECT IS STUPID / ALL QUESTIONS WELCOMED]

[Barfunkel]

Another stupid question:

I've watched many sidechain tutorials. Many of them suggest that you don't use an actual kick drum sound for the sidechain input, but rather a short and snappy sound like a rimshot or a closed hihat, playing the kickdrum pattern. Is there a technical reason it's better? I haven't heard an explanation yet, just several tutorials that tell you to do so.

I believe one of the reasons for using a separate sound to your actual kick drum is that if you alter your kick (volume, eq, decay etc.) it will alter the side chain response and keeping them separate allows greater flexibility in that you can still pump pump even when your kick isn't playing.

I didn't mean that. I of course have a separate sidechain channel as it's the easiest way and less hassle, using the actual audible kick drum is problematic when it's silent in a breakdown etc the sidechain doesn't pump anymore. The question was about the specific sound used to trigger the sidechain compressor. Many suggest to use eg. a rimshot for that instead of a kick.

[orchard]

lol ok, fair enough. Maybe the thread is for stupid answers as well

[Lost to the Void]

Any tips on making the huge wide sub bass element that is present in modern techno?

I've had some success with keeping the kick well away from it and turning it up, but can't seem to get it as huge and wide as stuff I hear in recent mixes.

There is no such thing as huge wide sub bass.
Sub bass is basically mono as the wavelength is longer than the distance between your ears, so locality becomes an issue.
I generally don't hear any wide bass in modern techno, certainly not on vinyl.
You might need to clarify what you mean a little.

[Lost to the Void]

Another stupid question:

I've watched many sidechain tutorials. Many of them suggest that you don't use an actual kick drum sound for the sidechain input, but rather a short and snappy sound like a rimshot or a closed hihat, playing the kickdrum pattern. Is there a technical reason it's better? I haven't heard an explanation yet, just several tutorials that tell you to do so.

I do this quite a lot
Quite often the quality of the thing you are sidechaining to doesn't have the quality you are looking for.
For example, in a tune I might have a lock with a long decay. A big booming 808 or something.
And if I sidechain to it, it just leaves the sidechain sound ducked out nearly all the time.
So one of the things I could do is apply sidechain EQ, which changes how the compressor reacts to the side chain.
In this case if I want a shorter and snappier action, I would EQ out some of the low end of the sidechain input so that the length of action of the sidechain effect is shorter (as a kick sine sweep sweeps down, most of the longer end of the kick decay will be in an incrementally lower frequency, so a low cut/high pass will stop the sidechain from reacting to so much of the kick). This won't always be exactly as you want it to be. But usually it does the job.

OR

I could make a ghost kick that is a kick with a short decay, zero the volume on it, and sidechain to that instead, and then I can sculpt that kicks envelope to my desire to get the sidechain motion dialed in exactly as I want it.

It also means there are moments when I might drop the main kick out but don't want the sidechain effect to stop. So with a ghost kick I can have the sidechain in dependant of the actual main kick.

[Lost to the Void]

Another stupid question:

I've watched many sidechain tutorials. Many of them suggest that you don't use an actual kick drum sound for the sidechain input, but rather a short and snappy sound like a rimshot or a closed hihat, playing the kickdrum pattern. Is there a technical reason it's better? I haven't heard an explanation yet, just several tutorials that tell you to do so.

I believe one of the reasons for using a separate sound to your actual kick drum is that if you alter your kick (volume, eq, decay etc.) it will alter the side chain response and keeping them separate allows greater flexibility in that you can still pump pump even when your kick isn't playing.

I didn't mean that. I of course have a separate sidechain channel as it's the easiest way and less hassle, using the actual audible kick drum is problematic when it's silent in a breakdown etc the sidechain doesn't pump anymore. The question was about the specific sound used to trigger the sidechain compressor. Many suggest to use eg. a rimshot for that instead of a kick.

Same reason

You can use any sound, it all depends on what kind of envelope you want.

I often use sculpted white noise as a sidechain as I can make it any shape I want in the time domain.

[Barfunkel]

Thanks! It's sometimes annoying to watch tutorials where they do stuff but don't really explain why.

[TheDarkInstall]

Any tips on making the huge wide sub bass element that is present in modern techno?

I've had some success with keeping the kick well away from it and turning it up, but can't seem to get it as huge and wide as stuff I hear in recent mixes.

There is no such thing as huge wide sub bass.
Sub bass is basically mono as the wavelength is longer than the distance between your ears, so locality becomes an issue.
I generally don't hear any wide bass in modern techno, certainly not on vinyl.
You might need to clarify what you mean a little.

OK, in that case, I mean that in modern techno, there is a large cavernous sub-bass / that envelopes the whole low end, which is very powerful; it gives the impression of being wide, due to it's massive presence. I was wondering if anyone had any tips on what goes to creating this; the mixes I listen to all have this in nowadays.

[Lost to the Void]

Any tips on making the huge wide sub bass element that is present in modern techno?

I've had some success with keeping the kick well away from it and turning it up, but can't seem to get it as huge and wide as stuff I hear in recent mixes.

There is no such thing as huge wide sub bass.
Sub bass is basically mono as the wavelength is longer than the distance between your ears, so locality becomes an issue.
I generally don't hear any wide bass in modern techno, certainly not on vinyl.
You might need to clarify what you mean a little.

OK, in that case, I mean that in modern techno, there is a large cavernous sub-bass / that envelopes the whole low end, which is very powerful; it gives the impression of being wide, due to it's massive presence. I was wondering if anyone had any tips on what goes to creating this; the mixes I listen to all have this in nowadays.

This has been a common thread here for a few years now, and this question has been asked many many times, and we have covered the process repeatedly.
Use the search function, there are various explanations.

Search for

THAT techno bassline
Techno sub
Techno rumble
Techno bass

[gedda]

Been looking to make the switch to Bitwig because max for live just feels a bit more convoluted than it needs to be if a thing like Bitwig exists. How flexible is it? To what extent is it flexible? Can I take a sound source from one of my VSTS, combine it with a Soundtoys filter freak, and have that Filter trigger with along with a bigwig envelope? Most important part is can I do this in a customizable, singular UI? This is possible with live but there's a bit of menu diving and moving your head around places. I basically do not want to go through the menus of the VSTS themselves and I just want to make my own synth using vstsss, all within my own self-made ui. Is it possible?

[Barfunkel]

There is no such thing as huge wide sub bass.
Sub bass is basically mono as the wavelength is longer than the distance between your ears, so locality becomes an issue.
I generally don't hear any wide bass in modern techno, certainly not on vinyl.
You might need to clarify what you mean a little.

OK, in that case, I mean that in modern techno, there is a large cavernous sub-bass / that envelopes the whole low end, which is very powerful; it gives the impression of being wide, due to it's massive presence. I was wondering if anyone had any tips on what goes to creating this; the mixes I listen to all have this in nowadays.

This has been a common thread here for a few years now, and this question has been asked many many times, and we have covered the process repeatedly.
Use the search function, there are various explanations.

Search for

THAT techno bassline
Techno sub
Techno rumble
Techno bass

Or they should just watch this:

youtu.be/oUbACkekJZ8

I think the best techno rumble tutorial on youtube I've seen. It's divided into 3 levels, so it's not overwhelming, Underdog is a good tutor and he explains these things as well, doesn't just do stuff that you're supposed to blindly follow.


His other videos are good too, from what I've seen. The hihat ones for example, where he does really simple, subtle things that add up, there's lots of A/B'ing and explanations and stuff. The kind of stuff most amateur producers already KINDA know, but not really on a deep level.

[Aureliano]

I've mentioned this a few times, but dynamic consistency is a key thing.

You produce consistently to a similar RMS range (appropriate to genre) at a consistent preset listening level.

There are many benefits to this. Mixing to the same RMS and monitoring always at the same level at that RMS gives you a level playing field for monitoring. Keep working to that standard and your ears have less variables. Mix details become much more apparent and easy to deal with.
This is how mastering engineers work and it's how producers should work (the good ones do).
Your mix decisions will be better informed and faster.
(So buy an SPL meter, produce your techno to an RMS to peak standard... To me -12db RMS at -1 MAX safe peak is perfect for techno.... Set your monitors to a comfortable working level at that production RMS. Take an SPL reading. Note it down and where your monitor/amp volume is set. And then Always work to that. Check your SPL meter occasionally to see you are working to consistent SPL...).

It will change your production game. Consistent monitoring at a consistent level is like production Black Magick that only initiated acolytes of the Temple of Audio usually get given the secrets to.

This post and the others you've made on loudness and metering have been really helpful, but now I'm struggling to get my head around how to integrate this consistently. My head is melting a bit trying to figure it out, hopefully it's not as complicated as I'm making it out to be.

I bought an SPL Meter but it never worked, instead I've used two different models of iPhone and every free app I could find that would do Slow and C-weighted measurements and then averaged between them all. Not perfect I know, but just tried to get a ballpark reading for now. I measured a pink noise signal from Room EQ Wizard set at -20dbfs, to read 76db-ish on my phone(s).

My questions are a bit scattered.

Am I right in thinking any metering should come after Sonarworks on a DAW Mixbus? Disabling Sonarworks adds a massive gain increase, which would affect monitoring. It seems like you can't disable Safe Headroom because Sonarworks starts clipping if you try to match the level with/without.

Spotify is so much quieter than my DAW at max volume. I want to listen to music at a consistent volume, so I can switch between listening, producing and mixing without touching monitor level. What's the easiest way to do that? Is Spotify simply quieter because everything is normalised to -14LUFS?

I've dropped a load of random FLACs from different genres into my DAW and looked at the meters with Izotope Insight. The levels are all over the place. Some huge pop tracks have a True Peak of 1. I just read Bob Katz's chapters on Loudness and Metering so now I'm confused why so much music is peaking above 0. What am I meant to be shooting for if I was to master music? Do I disregard what I'm seeing and just go by the book (i.e Bob Katz)?

Izotope Insight has Loudness standards. Should I stick to a loudness standard like EBU R128 or is it always genre-dependent? If it's genre-dependent, do I grab a reference track and match the Momentary, Short Term and Integrated loudness levels and use that as a 'standard'?

Apologies for the disconnected questions. Calibrated monitoring doesn't seem as simple as just finding a level at setting it, when there's different loudness standards and different applications being used. But maybe I'm just being dense.

[Lost to the Void]

My questions are a bit scattered.

Am I right in thinking any metering should come after Sonarworks on a DAW Mixbus? Disabling Sonarworks adds a massive gain increase, which would affect monitoring. It seems like you can't disable Safe Headroom because Sonarworks starts clipping if you try to match the level with/without.

Spotify is so much quieter than my DAW at max volume. I want to listen to music at a consistent volume, so I can switch between listening, producing and mixing without touching monitor level. What's the easiest way to do that? Is Spotify simply quieter because everything is normalised to -14LUFS?

I've dropped a load of random FLACs from different genres into my DAW and looked at the meters with Izotope Insight. The levels are all over the place. Some huge pop tracks have a True Peak of 1. I just read Bob Katz's chapters on Loudness and Metering so now I'm confused why so much music is peaking above 0. What am I meant to be shooting for if I was to master music? Do I disregard what I'm seeing and just go by the book (i.e Bob Katz)?

Izotope Insight has Loudness standards. Should I stick to a loudness standard like EBU R128 or is it always genre-dependent? If it's genre-dependent, do I grab a reference track and match the Momentary, Short Term and Integrated loudness levels and use that as a 'standard'?

Apologies for the disconnected questions. Calibrated monitoring doesn't seem as simple as just finding a level at setting it, when there's different loudness standards and different applications being used. But maybe I'm just being dense.

There is a lot to unpack here. I`m not going to go into the mastering side of things, that`s a whole thing in itself. The quote of mine you have above is in a production context.

So firstly, if you use Sonarworks then any reference metering should be with Sonarworks ON, either as plugin or wraparound.
And your SPL readings also with Sonarworks ON. It would make no sense to do otherwise.

Spotify is so much quieter than my DAW at max volume. I want to listen to music at a consistent volume, so I can switch between listening, producing and mixing without touching monitor level. What's the easiest way to do that? Is Spotify simply quieter because everything is normalised to -14LUFS?

Ok, so spotify is autogained to -14lufs. However it`s worth noting that when dealing with albums they autogain the ENTIRE album, to -14LUFS integrated. This preserves the level differences between tracks, as in an album you may want one track to be softer and more gentle than another which you may want to be high impact. Spotify preserves this. So listening level on spotify is a little more complicated than "everything at -14.

I have 3 metering levels saved on my monitor controller. 1 is for the -14 standard., one is for vinyl mastering (to my own standard for vinyl), and the final is my Hot mastering mastering level.

However, in the production room, my calibration is set for my production standard of -12RMS -2 peak at I think 78 dbspl. It doesn`t really matter those numbers are in production. What matters is that you produce to a consistent level, and listen to that level at a consistent monitoring level. Anything brought in to that environment such as a reference track, should be turned down to that loudness.

It`s not much use referencing your produced tracks against studio masters though, not really.

I've dropped a load of random FLACs from different genres into my DAW and looked at the meters with Izotope Insight. The levels are all over the place. Some huge pop tracks have a True Peak of 1. I just read Bob Katz's chapters on Loudness and Metering so now I'm confused why so much music is peaking above 0. What am I meant to be shooting for if I was to master music? Do I disregard what I'm seeing and just go by the book (i.e Bob Katz)?

Well, firstly, no two Trupeak meters are the same, not all are actually correct. I have no idea about Izotope, but I don`t use any of their stuff in the mastering room. I always do my best to be Trupeak compliant, if I see other commercial tracks where the Trupeak is fucked, well, the joke is on them.
Lots and lots of music is not Trupeak compliant. But lots and lots of music is still crushed to absolute shit. Especially in pop land, and commercial hip hop land. Live with whatever you decide to live with. I prefer to stick to the standards as they make sense in a scientific/audio context.

Izotope Insight has Loudness standards. Should I stick to a loudness standard like EBU R128 or is it always genre-dependent? If it's genre-dependent, do I grab a reference track and match the Momentary, Short Term and Integrated loudness levels and use that as a 'standard'?

I can`t really help much on that, I don`t use Izotope in mastering.
If we are talking mastering specifically then the material is always my priority.
I will master the music to whatever I think benefits the music most taking account for the clients desires too.
I`m always aware of gain correction standards of spotify, youtube etc, and the consequences of that, but I never let it get in the way of the music.
In general I`ll use -14 LUFS as a general standard/guide, if the master ends up louder, or quieter, my main concern is does it suit the music.
One day I can be blasting a Nilz style vinyl master to -8RMS to be cut hot at +3 or +6v, the next I am doing some widely dynamic experimental music for an audio artist to played at the tate modern with a final DR of 18db. (I`m mixing my terminology here, but I work with all of these things, generally RMS for vinyl, LUFS for digital).

This is all not really too relevant to what I was talking about when it comes to consistent monitoring.

[Barfunkel]

I've had this weird asymmetric waveform problem occasionally for quite a while now. I know it's normal for brass instruments and such, but I can have it on the kick too, which is weird. I finally decided to find the cause, using an oscilloscope and clicking plugins on and off until the culprit is found. I found out that the Klanghelm MJUC compressor either does it or emphasizes it greatly.

Here's 2 pictures,

This is without MJUC. Looks like a normal kick.



And this is with MJUC, doing about 1dB gain reduction on the drum bus:



Looks like the transient is really asymmetric after MJUC.

Questions:

1) Is this a real problem? Ie. when it's mastered, wouldn't it make the meters, comps and limiters behave badly since the loud asymmetic transient might trigger them the wrong way?

2) I did my research and apparently this can be fixed by some phase realignment plugins. I tried it and it actually works once you find the right sweet spot for the alignment, makes the asymmetric transient go away completely. But, would messing with the kick phase cause other problems instead then?

[dubdub]

I've had this weird asymmetric waveform problem occasionally for quite a while now.

Is it a problem? Can you even hear it? A raw 909 kick has an asymmetrical transient and it's been on a billion records...

If there's too much transient energy, just clip it. Easy and a pretty standard procedure. Don't think it matters if it's symmetrical, asymmetrical or how it's being caused...

I feel like good mixing practice is knowing what your mixbus meters/compressors/saturation should look and sound like. If it's fine, it's fine. Worrying about potential unknown mastering problems just seems inhibiting - thats their job, and dealing with stray transients is pretty routine.

I don't think phase alignment is any different from EQ - it depends on the context of the mix. It's not inherently problematic. Unless you are dealing with multi-miced type stuff etc. you aren't getting "objective" problems (comb filtering) from phase relationships. There's usually multiple sweetspots for e.g. your kick-bass relationship, just depends on what you are going for! Adjusting phase can emphasize or pull back transients, but if thats good or bad totally depends on where you want your mixes' transient energy to be!

[Lost to the Void]

I've had this weird asymmetric waveform problem occasionally for quite a while now. I know it's normal for brass instruments and such, but I can have it on the kick too, which is weird. I finally decided to find the cause, using an oscilloscope and clicking plugins on and off until the culprit is found. I found out that the Klanghelm MJUC compressor either does it or emphasizes it greatly.

Here's 2 pictures,

This is without MJUC. Looks like a normal kick.



And this is with MJUC, doing about 1dB gain reduction on the drum bus:



Looks like the transient is really asymmetric after MJUC.

Questions:

1) Is this a real problem? Ie. when it's mastered, wouldn't it make the meters, comps and limiters behave badly since the loud asymmetic transient might trigger them the wrong way?

2) I did my research and apparently this can be fixed by some phase realignment plugins. I tried it and it actually works once you find the right sweet spot for the alignment, makes the asymmetric transient go away completely. But, would messing with the kick phase cause other problems instead then?

Not an issue. Certainly not a problem for a mastering engineer. Most compressors won't even see that initial transient anyway, and in stereo link it wouldn't matter.
Anyway, just not an issue.

[Barfunkel]

Good to know, thanks! I was worried it's a big problem, eating headroom and causing all kinds of mayhem with processing later in the chain.

[ndrf]

Ok. So just looked up transient shapers on the forum and didn't find that much with the search function.

One thing I like to do is to use the trans-x (waves) transient shaper to dial in the punch of my kicks, with a duration of 60-90ms and a release on the transient shaper that fits the dynamics of the kick. That signal is feed into a limiter with a release time setting that is set to avoid audible artifacts. I maybe do the this 3-6 times in serial to make the kicks standout. There is more to my chain, but this is what makes my kicks and mixes reach commercial definition, loudness level and clarity.

Anyone else doing such things or have other ways of doing stuff like this?

[Lost to the Void]

Ok. So just looked up transient shapers on the forum and didn't find that much with the search function.

One thing I like to do is to use the trans-x (waves) transient shaper to dial in the punch of my kicks, with a duration of 60-90ms and a release on the transient shaper that fits the dynamics of the kick. That signal is feed into a limiter with a release time setting that is set to avoid audible artifacts. I maybe do the this 3-6 times in serial to make the kicks standout. There is more to my chain, but this is what makes my kicks and mixes reach commercial definition, loudness level and clarity.

Anyone else doing such things or have other ways of doing stuff like this?

That sounds super convoluted and overly processed way of doing what can be done with one compressor.

[ndrf]

Ok. So just looked up transient shapers on the forum and didn't find that much with the search function.

One thing I like to do is to use the trans-x (waves) transient shaper to dial in the punch of my kicks, with a duration of 60-90ms and a release on the transient shaper that fits the dynamics of the kick. That signal is feed into a limiter with a release time setting that is set to avoid audible artifacts. I maybe do the this 3-6 times in serial to make the kicks standout. There is more to my chain, but this is what makes my kicks and mixes reach commercial definition, loudness level and clarity.

Anyone else doing such things or have other ways of doing stuff like this?

That sounds super convoluted and overly processed way of doing what can be done with one compressor.

Thought so. Figured out that I needed more low-end material in my source material, which reduced the need for crazy amounts of processing. Thanks for the reality check .

Tried a lot of compressors (Ableton stuck, glue, waves SSL, TDR Kotelnikov, Limiter no.6 etc.), but I can not get the results im after transient wise as with the trans-x -> limiter trick.

[Lost to the Void]

Ok. So just looked up transient shapers on the forum and didn't find that much with the search function.

One thing I like to do is to use the trans-x (waves) transient shaper to dial in the punch of my kicks, with a duration of 60-90ms and a release on the transient shaper that fits the dynamics of the kick. That signal is feed into a limiter with a release time setting that is set to avoid audible artifacts. I maybe do the this 3-6 times in serial to make the kicks standout. There is more to my chain, but this is what makes my kicks and mixes reach commercial definition, loudness level and clarity.

Anyone else doing such things or have other ways of doing stuff like this?

That sounds super convoluted and overly processed way of doing what can be done with one compressor.

Thought so. Figured out that I needed more low-end material in my source material, which reduced the need for crazy amounts of processing. Thanks for the reality check .

Tried a lot of compressors (Ableton stuck, glue, waves SSL, TDR Kotelnikov, Limiter no.6 etc.), but I can not get the results im after transient wise as with the trans-x -> limiter trick.

That`s not the compressors fault, without trying to be spiky, that`s a skillset problem.
Your average 909 kick has plenty of transient, a simple stock compressor can enhance this to almost ridiculous levels. If you are multiply going from transient shaper to limiter, you are adding distortion and harmonics, not transient, as all you are doing with your method is adding and removing transients over and over again.