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

[Críoch]

This is a safe zone.

Doesn't matter whether it's youthful inexperience, tye deterioration of grey matter , or somewhere in-between..

Please feel free to ask anything (production related , ideally) without fear of judgement or deportation to moral Coventry.

Might be a handy place for all to ask a quick Q

Go!

[kronk]

i dont know what a tracker mortgage is...

[Macca]

Yes! Amount of times I typed a post then went nah fuck it, it's stupid.

Ive got one that I couldn't find an answer to really, when doing the typical rumble reverb, should I be EQing either the sub of the kick or rumble out? Or is it okay to have the kick sub and just balance the rumbles sub frequencys in (side chain, maybe a little dip in sub area)

[Críoch]

i dont know what a tracker mortgage is...

Its a massive bank loan covered in chocolate chips.

[Críoch]

Yes! Amount of times I typed a post then went nah fuck it, it's stupid.

Ive got one that I couldn't find an answer to really, when doing the typical rumble reverb, should I be EQing either the sub of the kick or rumble out? Or is it okay to have the kick sub and just balance the rumbles sub frequencys in (side chain, maybe a little dip in sub area)

I usually do a bit of a sidechain kinda thing on the rumble.. balance it off.. Gel them together with Comp/Sat or Limiter and EQ them together. If I think it needs it, I might take or add some EQ to either. Live tweaking.

[henry1]

i dont know what a tracker mortgage is...

Its a massive bank loan covered in chocolate chips.

When transformed into whats called a Derivative, then its the same formula plus an economic meltdown.

[Amøbe]

Can someone on a pretty basic level explain to me how that the vocoder works, if it it not supposed to be robotty? I know people can get some wonderful lush stuff out of that, but I can't understand where to start with it!


For instance I know that some have used it with great results on drums.

[Críoch]

Well if it's the Ableton one..

Noise setting is where it's at.

You can tune the noise type with theye XY. Hissy to crackly. I find that less bands sound better for drums -if a bit of white noise is what you are looking for. There is a precise +retro mode. I like retro +usually like 4 band to begin with. You can adjust the level of each band depending on what you need. Less bass.. less mids. Less tops.

Balance the wet/dry. The release knob is good to keep short & lengthen for variations.. bursts / transitions.

I think the noise is also good to put on a boring bassline or synth part.

Something I like to do occasionally..

Slow Attack & v.short release; no noise can be heard. If you lengthen the release with a bit of sidechain comp, it can almost have a reverse sucking effect if the spaces in the pattern are right. Interesting stuff particularly on a boring rhythmic part, be it bass, p€rc or whatever

The depth & formant dials add a different flavour. It's best to tune these by ear & see what works best. There's no rule that says you can't use a 2nd vocoder in series to add some crispy noise when the first one is doing some lower, tonal stuff.

The gate can be good for gating

BW tends to give stuff an underwater phased tonal sound. I don't like it. Might be good in a longer FX chain for resonator type stuff - maybe Dub techno.

Other non vocoder uses: pads.

You can put it on the different wave types (pitch it to +5 , +7, +12 + 17 + 19 etc..) & fuck about with the frequency range / unvoiced dial % / sensitivity amount. Eventually (still don't fully understand how I do it), you will be able to play a bit of a melody & the vocoder will spazz out, unable to cope with the incoming pitches in a timely fashion. You can get cool warped pitching effects. Kinda sci-fi & random. Maybe even Autechre or AFX like. Can add a nice bit of something extra on a basic pad.. especially when the wet/dry on vocoder is low (balance the attack & release - long attack / release works well) & there's some delay & reverb happening.

Experiment.

[speen]

That's an awesome post! I'm gonna take a deep dive into vocoder territory soon

[2latuile]

Ive got one that I couldn't find an answer to really, when doing the typical rumble reverb, should I be EQing either the sub of the kick or rumble out? Or is it okay to have the kick sub and just balance the rumbles sub frequencys in (side chain, maybe a little dip in sub area)

Mostly a matter of instrumentation I'd say - as long as the rumble is only between kicks they don't fight each other for low-end space... And if they still do then it might be more about shortening the decays. But I'm really not an expert here (still fighting to get anything working as I wish in this area) so I should probably just shut the fuxk up xD

[Amøbe]

Well if it's the Ableton one..

Noise setting is where it's at.

You can tune the noise type with theye XY. Hissy to crackly. I find that less bands sound better for drums -if a bit of white noise is what you are looking for. There is a precise +retro mode. I like retro +usually like 4 band to begin with. You can adjust the level of each band depending on what you need. Less bass.. less mids. Less tops.

Balance the wet/dry. The release knob is good to keep short & lengthen for variations.. bursts / transitions.

I think the noise is also good to put on a boring bassline or synth part.

Something I like to do occasionally..

Slow Attack & v.short release; no noise can be heard. If you lengthen the release with a bit of sidechain comp, it can almost have a reverse sucking effect if the spaces in the pattern are right. Interesting stuff particularly on a boring rhythmic part, be it bass, p€rc or whatever

The depth & formant dials add a different flavour. It's best to tune these by ear & see what works best. There's no rule that says you can't use a 2nd vocoder in series to add some crispy noise when the first one is doing some lower, tonal stuff.

The gate can be good for gating

BW tends to give stuff an underwater phased tonal sound. I don't like it. Might be good in a longer FX chain for resonator type stuff - maybe Dub techno.

Other non vocoder uses: pads.

You can put it on the different wave types (pitch it to +5 , +7, +12 + 17 + 19 etc..) & fuck about with the frequency range / unvoiced dial % / sensitivity amount. Eventually (still don't fully understand how I do it), you will be able to play a bit of a melody & the vocoder will spazz out, unable to cope with the incoming pitches in a timely fashion. You can get cool warped pitching effects. Kinda sci-fi & random. Maybe even Autechre or AFX like. Can add a nice bit of something extra on a basic pad.. especially when the wet/dry on vocoder is low (balance the attack & release - long attack / release works well) & there's some delay & reverb happening.

Experiment.

Damn that's some quality answer! Cheers mate

[Lost to the Void]

Yes! Amount of times I typed a post then went nah fuck it, it's stupid.

Ive got one that I couldn't find an answer to really, when doing the typical rumble reverb, should I be EQing either the sub of the kick or rumble out? Or is it okay to have the kick sub and just balance the rumbles sub frequencys in (side chain, maybe a little dip in sub area)

That`s not a stupid question at all.
It also doesn`t have a simple answer.
Well, I mean it does, that answer would be, whatever works in that context.

Sometimes the two will sit together nicely without need of cutting them around each other.
For example, of the rumble and the kick are grouped together/go to the same buss, and on that buss you have compression. If you mix these elements into the compressor nicely, and tune the compressor the right way, they will fit together nicely. The way to exacerbate this is to tune the sidechain EQ on the compressor input so that it isn`t responding to the rumble but it is responding to the kick (as the kick will have presence in the low mids and mids). So you will created a natural bit of ducking that is less obvious than just ducking the sub separately.

That`s just one example. You could also sidechain the sub separately to the kick.

And you could also EQ a whole out of the sub where the main fundamental of the kick is (and/or EQ the kick to remove the main fundamental of the sub).

You could also use saturation on the kick to create higher order harmonics, allow you to EQ out some of the lows without it sounding like you are EQing out some of the lows, leaving room for the sub (where you also Eq out some of the upper regions).

Many paths to this destination.

The best one
is the one that works.

[Lost to the Void]

Can someone on a pretty basic level explain to me how that the vocoder works, if it it not supposed to be robotty? I know people can get some wonderful lush stuff out of that, but I can't understand where to start with it!


For instance I know that some have used it with great results on drums.

At it`s simple level, the vocoder is a sort of gate with 2 inputs and one output

(additional nerd info, the vocoder was originally developed during war time as a way of encrypting voice communication with the vocoder at one end, encrypting the voice, and the voder at the other decrypting)

Into the input you have the modulator (the thing that modulates the....) and the carrier (the sound being modulated).

What it does, is it listens to the modulator, splits it into a number of bands and then essentially creates an envelope follower on each of those bands that responds to frequency via a band pass filter. So these many filters then modulate the carrier, but they modulate frequency and amplification, so they act as a filter gate. ie the sound is gated out until a signal from the modulator opens the gate, and then once that gate is open, the modulator also applies a filter to the sound coming through, the cutoff of which depends on the underlying frequencies of the modulator signal.

Imagine you are placing, let`s say 12, bandpass filters over your synth, each one opening and closing independently and operating in their own restricted bandwidth.


Creatively you can do all sorts of interesting stuff. Run in a polysynth chord progression as your carrier, then a breakbeat as your operator.
All of a sudden you have a wonderfully rhythmic filtering going on in your chord progression.

[Jesse]

What approach do you guys use for master bus compression with non 4 to the floor tracks? So far have only found luck using MK1 on MJUC but want to understand it a bit more to dial it in manually using other compressors like DC8C3 that are a bit more hands on.

[Kane]

What does GAS stand for?

[Críoch]

Gear Acquisition Syndrome

[Kane]

Of course. Ta.

[Zebda]

Hi,
I'm trying to improve my vocabulary and put keywords on sound in order to be able to google search for it (more track with the same feel sound or even tutorial).
How would you describe the synth sound like this one (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1bLVheFEms) appearing around 2:22 and showing several time over the break part ?
thx

[Críoch]

Nice sound that

Look up how to make a synth bass. It sounds moogy. Matador has lots of HW synths like that. Might even be a sh101. Not sure.. just had a quick listen on the phone.

There's probably some pwm / unison // detuning going on.

Check out some of the sounds in this vid. Whatever you make, don't make it too bright.. don't have a lot of envelope on the filter.

Vid from Synthmania on YT. Vintage synth Bass Sound.

youtu.be/CMHelMkdy0Q

[between stars]

When (or if) you move from writing & arranging to mixing, do you bounce your tracks and mix the bounces, or just mix the tracks without bouncing?