Tips from the subsekt / Fxpansion Competion [NOW CLOSED]
Re: Fxpansion Competition_Win DCAM SYNTH SQUAD or TREMOR
My tip is: Work fast!!
At first glance this may sound a bit weird but it definitly works.
The rule is: Finish the arrangement of your track in one day - so you're forced to make fast and consequent decisions. As a result you will have a tune that reflects all the feelings and emotions you had when you started producing it.
Don't you sometimes have the feeling when you work on a project for a week or longer that it has lost the "magic"??
The reason is that you had lots of different impressions that affected your sound during that time.
Once you've finished the arrangement with all the necessary elements you have time to care for the mixdown because this is the non-creative part of the whole process.
Try it.
You will be surprised how this will increase your workflow.
Cheers,
Alex
At first glance this may sound a bit weird but it definitly works.
The rule is: Finish the arrangement of your track in one day - so you're forced to make fast and consequent decisions. As a result you will have a tune that reflects all the feelings and emotions you had when you started producing it.
Don't you sometimes have the feeling when you work on a project for a week or longer that it has lost the "magic"??
The reason is that you had lots of different impressions that affected your sound during that time.
Once you've finished the arrangement with all the necessary elements you have time to care for the mixdown because this is the non-creative part of the whole process.
Try it.
You will be surprised how this will increase your workflow.Cheers,
Alex
Re: Fxpansion Competition_Win DCAM SYNTH SQUAD or TREMOR
My tip is: Organize!
Now that seems quite simple, kinda obvious, and not worth a ride on the tube. However, "Path of the Warrior!" Trust me on that.
Music is defined many ways; as having four parts, Rhythm, Tempo, Harmony, and Melody. As the great and universal form of communication. And among many of music's definitions you shall find, "notes, organized in time." And it is that organization which is the key to modern tracks. The organizations shows up in your arrangement, in the layers of your beat and soundscape, and definitely in the skill with which your make sure your projects come out well.
If you design your own sounds, or use samples and create instruments, be sure to give them proper names. Kick, Snare, Hi-hat, Gated Lead, Sub Bass, TB303, Sexy Babe Vocal... Etc. Make sure that these names correspond to the names of your tracks. For example, you should never have, "track 1, track 2, track 3, track 4, track 5, track 6, etc, etc. You are going to get confused! You will get very confused, when you reach the point in your producing when you have just begun a song, and you have about 20 tracks. As you get good at producing, this will happen very quickly.. Trust me!
When everything inside your project file is organized, it is very easy to: See where you have been. See where you are going. See where you are right now.
This organization carries directly over to arrangement of your tracks. By giving each part a proper name, and thus using that name in the corresponding song map. "Intro, Break 1, Main Verse, Super Chorus, Outro," all correspond with, ":-| + + ) + )) + + 
," which is a pretty standard song map for a club tune, and written out that is pretty much like, "blah, getting happy, more happy, happiest, let down, blah."
This organization than carries over to the files held inside your computer, and all the folders where you should be keeping neat and organized versions of your productions. Including the multiple saves per project, your renders, renders you have sent to labels, releases that have made it to your website, things you have had your buddies dj at your warehouse party.
When you become organized like this, you will always know where you are in your song, and you will hardly ever need to put a project on the back burner, for failure to understand what exactly you have been doing at any given moment. That is not to say, that all your tracks will magically be great. 90%, or more, of all artists work is total fail. Only a very small amount of what you produce, is really going to be club worthy.. um, if you are lucky! And, if you are good!
But as music goes, so does production. Productions are an exercise in organization.
Cheers
Now that seems quite simple, kinda obvious, and not worth a ride on the tube. However, "Path of the Warrior!" Trust me on that.
Music is defined many ways; as having four parts, Rhythm, Tempo, Harmony, and Melody. As the great and universal form of communication. And among many of music's definitions you shall find, "notes, organized in time." And it is that organization which is the key to modern tracks. The organizations shows up in your arrangement, in the layers of your beat and soundscape, and definitely in the skill with which your make sure your projects come out well.
If you design your own sounds, or use samples and create instruments, be sure to give them proper names. Kick, Snare, Hi-hat, Gated Lead, Sub Bass, TB303, Sexy Babe Vocal... Etc. Make sure that these names correspond to the names of your tracks. For example, you should never have, "track 1, track 2, track 3, track 4, track 5, track 6, etc, etc. You are going to get confused! You will get very confused, when you reach the point in your producing when you have just begun a song, and you have about 20 tracks. As you get good at producing, this will happen very quickly.. Trust me!
When everything inside your project file is organized, it is very easy to: See where you have been. See where you are going. See where you are right now.
This organization carries directly over to arrangement of your tracks. By giving each part a proper name, and thus using that name in the corresponding song map. "Intro, Break 1, Main Verse, Super Chorus, Outro," all correspond with, ":-| +
+ ) + )) + + ," which is a pretty standard song map for a club tune, and written out that is pretty much like, "blah, getting happy, more happy, happiest, let down, blah."This organization than carries over to the files held inside your computer, and all the folders where you should be keeping neat and organized versions of your productions. Including the multiple saves per project, your renders, renders you have sent to labels, releases that have made it to your website, things you have had your buddies dj at your warehouse party.
When you become organized like this, you will always know where you are in your song, and you will hardly ever need to put a project on the back burner, for failure to understand what exactly you have been doing at any given moment. That is not to say, that all your tracks will magically be great. 90%, or more, of all artists work is total fail. Only a very small amount of what you produce, is really going to be club worthy.. um, if you are lucky! And, if you are good!
But as music goes, so does production. Productions are an exercise in organization.
Cheers
Re: Fxpansion Competition_Win DCAM SYNTH SQUAD or TREMOR
Hey, here are my tips:
1) Try keeping mixing and composing as separate as possible. This will keep you from EQ:ing a hihat for 2 hours when you should be making a tune. Also, your ears will be very fatigued after a long time of making music, try doing the mixing with fresh ears, on another day even, if possible. Electronic musicians especially mix alot on the fly, but better sonic results and especially timesaving can be achieved by not doing it as much.
2) When you make a breakdown to a track that's meant to be played at a club, always put something or any sample in there that clicks or hisses to the 4/4 beat a bit like a metronome, something smooth that blends nicely, but is hearable, it's good to keep the crowds concentration in rhythm with the track, unless you of course want to confuse them on purpose.
3) Reversing things. Make transitions to things using reversed delays or reverbs. If you want a surprising element that blasts in quite suddenly to fit better with the track, this is one of the best sounding and easiest ways to achieve this. Example: If it's a vocal, take the first word, bounce it through a 100% wet reverb and reverse the file. Then put the reversed file in front of the first word and cut to taste. Or reversing a dry sound works also, especially in tight arrangements. Reverse crashes, reverse bassdrums, reverse anything to underline that somethings about to happen.
4) Try this. When starting a track, set your bpm to double of what it's supposed to be. Now audition samples that change according to bpm. Alot of stuff gets quite exciting at double speed, also less artifacts from the processing than for example at half speed. Also making a track like this can yield positive unexpected results when working with a 1/32 grid (instead of 16) + your synths LFO's and arps etc will be double tempo etc...when tired of this and happy with the results, just bounce the stuff and go back to normal.
5) Kill your darlings! Learn to delete! This is hard, but try to remember the sentence "Kill your darlings!". Often people fall in love with what they've created. Let unbiased people audition your creations and really LISTEN to what people have to say, alot of times they're right and they listen to the stuff differently than you. Very often tracks are too long, but the ones who made them don't realize that. Dj friendly beginnings and endings are good, but there aren't alot of 10-13 minute tracks that justify their lenghts. For radio, keep it between 2-4min, for clubs & dj's around 4-7min, depending on your style of music. Nowadays dj sets can be very short too, you wouldn't want somebody not to play your track as their last banger just because it's too long. Don't think of all your tracks as "building progressive sonic voyages through time"
Having too much going on at the same time is another thing people tend to do. Just mute things, and see how it sounds, even if it's the lead melody you just worked your ass off for hours to achieve, if it sounds nicer without it, delete it, "kill your darling". Try letting things breathe a bit too. Learn to make one sound BIG instead of making 5 sounds a mediocre mess.
-K
1) Try keeping mixing and composing as separate as possible. This will keep you from EQ:ing a hihat for 2 hours when you should be making a tune. Also, your ears will be very fatigued after a long time of making music, try doing the mixing with fresh ears, on another day even, if possible. Electronic musicians especially mix alot on the fly, but better sonic results and especially timesaving can be achieved by not doing it as much.
2) When you make a breakdown to a track that's meant to be played at a club, always put something or any sample in there that clicks or hisses to the 4/4 beat a bit like a metronome, something smooth that blends nicely, but is hearable, it's good to keep the crowds concentration in rhythm with the track, unless you of course want to confuse them on purpose.
3) Reversing things. Make transitions to things using reversed delays or reverbs. If you want a surprising element that blasts in quite suddenly to fit better with the track, this is one of the best sounding and easiest ways to achieve this. Example: If it's a vocal, take the first word, bounce it through a 100% wet reverb and reverse the file. Then put the reversed file in front of the first word and cut to taste. Or reversing a dry sound works also, especially in tight arrangements. Reverse crashes, reverse bassdrums, reverse anything to underline that somethings about to happen.
4) Try this. When starting a track, set your bpm to double of what it's supposed to be. Now audition samples that change according to bpm. Alot of stuff gets quite exciting at double speed, also less artifacts from the processing than for example at half speed. Also making a track like this can yield positive unexpected results when working with a 1/32 grid (instead of 16) + your synths LFO's and arps etc will be double tempo etc...when tired of this and happy with the results, just bounce the stuff and go back to normal.
5) Kill your darlings! Learn to delete! This is hard, but try to remember the sentence "Kill your darlings!". Often people fall in love with what they've created. Let unbiased people audition your creations and really LISTEN to what people have to say, alot of times they're right and they listen to the stuff differently than you. Very often tracks are too long, but the ones who made them don't realize that. Dj friendly beginnings and endings are good, but there aren't alot of 10-13 minute tracks that justify their lenghts. For radio, keep it between 2-4min, for clubs & dj's around 4-7min, depending on your style of music. Nowadays dj sets can be very short too, you wouldn't want somebody not to play your track as their last banger just because it's too long. Don't think of all your tracks as "building progressive sonic voyages through time"
Having too much going on at the same time is another thing people tend to do. Just mute things, and see how it sounds, even if it's the lead melody you just worked your ass off for hours to achieve, if it sounds nicer without it, delete it, "kill your darling". Try letting things breathe a bit too. Learn to make one sound BIG instead of making 5 sounds a mediocre mess.
-K
Re: Fxpansion Competition_Win DCAM SYNTH SQUAD or TREMOR
I've been thinking back and forth about which one of the things i learned in 20 years of producing Techno i'd like to share. And it's the overall approach of
thinking simple, keeping it simple and building upon simplicity.
While this may sound a bit ridiculous at first there are many everyday tasks in music production that benefit from applying this way of thinking. After all it always boils down to a simple question:
What is the easiest and most direct route to achieve a goal?
For example
"How do i make a sound like XYZ ?"
I claim that most of the sounds you can't figure out at first are actually very simple to reproduce. I.e. if you wonder how to make Dubtechno chords too many people think about the complexity of effect chains, certain reverbs or delays and stuff like that. By sticking to the simplicity rule you first need to look at the gear that was most likely used when the sound emerged first. Since it came up during the age of expensive analog gear it's likely that the guys in Berlin didn't have a too huge arsenal at hands. The most often overlooked fact about Dubtechno chords is: they're actual chords around the minor scale, played on low octaves. Not much of magic there. But according to the numerous threads on boards many will start with layering tons of effects and look for some kind of sound that might somehow work.
Another usecase is adding width to a mix.
Many who are looking for a bigger stereo field will start throwing in tons of pseudo-acoustic effects, delays and whatnot in their chains, making their sound blurry and hard to maintain in the mix. Less is more: use the darn pan position to make room in your mix. This is the most simple thing to do without introducing phase correlation or overcrowding your mix with tons of effects. A little pan to the right or left will make individual instruments pop up instantly.
See, Techno and the likes evolved around rather simple maschines and setups. Once you start thinking alongside these terms and limits you'll be able to find rather simple solutions for problems you thought to require lots of gear.
Over and out.
thinking simple, keeping it simple and building upon simplicity.
While this may sound a bit ridiculous at first there are many everyday tasks in music production that benefit from applying this way of thinking. After all it always boils down to a simple question:
What is the easiest and most direct route to achieve a goal?
For example
"How do i make a sound like XYZ ?"
I claim that most of the sounds you can't figure out at first are actually very simple to reproduce. I.e. if you wonder how to make Dubtechno chords too many people think about the complexity of effect chains, certain reverbs or delays and stuff like that. By sticking to the simplicity rule you first need to look at the gear that was most likely used when the sound emerged first. Since it came up during the age of expensive analog gear it's likely that the guys in Berlin didn't have a too huge arsenal at hands. The most often overlooked fact about Dubtechno chords is: they're actual chords around the minor scale, played on low octaves. Not much of magic there. But according to the numerous threads on boards many will start with layering tons of effects and look for some kind of sound that might somehow work.
Another usecase is adding width to a mix.
Many who are looking for a bigger stereo field will start throwing in tons of pseudo-acoustic effects, delays and whatnot in their chains, making their sound blurry and hard to maintain in the mix. Less is more: use the darn pan position to make room in your mix. This is the most simple thing to do without introducing phase correlation or overcrowding your mix with tons of effects. A little pan to the right or left will make individual instruments pop up instantly.
See, Techno and the likes evolved around rather simple maschines and setups. Once you start thinking alongside these terms and limits you'll be able to find rather simple solutions for problems you thought to require lots of gear.
Over and out.
-
kuba_rubacha
- Alf Garnett
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Re: Post your tips in here Guys : )
join subsekt
Re: Fxpansion Competition_Win DCAM SYNTH SQUAD or TREMOR
Hey guys,
Being a forum designed and built for us techno heads I thought this might be the most relevant thing I have to offer.
For me, what separates techno from your house, tech-house and other siblings, is the ability to keep true to the essential elements of the four-to-the-floor structure. So with this in mind my tip is as follows:
-DO NOT be scared to delete a track/channel in your mix, no matter how many minutes, hours or days it has taken you to reach that stage.
Adding extra percussion, noise, fx or synths is not always the solution. It could be, that by taking away that one element of the track you have given the rest of the mix the freedom to smack out of your speakers like any PROPER techno should.
.........(if you are really attached to that element, save it, and build a track round it)
Being a forum designed and built for us techno heads I thought this might be the most relevant thing I have to offer.
For me, what separates techno from your house, tech-house and other siblings, is the ability to keep true to the essential elements of the four-to-the-floor structure. So with this in mind my tip is as follows:
-DO NOT be scared to delete a track/channel in your mix, no matter how many minutes, hours or days it has taken you to reach that stage.
Adding extra percussion, noise, fx or synths is not always the solution. It could be, that by taking away that one element of the track you have given the rest of the mix the freedom to smack out of your speakers like any PROPER techno should.
.........(if you are really attached to that element, save it, and build a track round it)
Re: Fxpansion Competition_Win DCAM SYNTH SQUAD or TREMOR
To make great music you will first need to make bad music.
Practice the computer like you practice a guitar.
There is soul in computer music.
Practice the computer like you practice a guitar.
There is soul in computer music.
Re: Fxpansion Competition_Win DCAM SYNTH SQUAD or TREMOR
Ok..first excuse me for my bad english
my best tip is good old less is more...
this is daddy of all tips for me..i learned this the hard way..
use what you have..use with love and passion, and results will come
my best tip is good old less is more...
this is daddy of all tips for me..i learned this the hard way..
use what you have..use with love and passion, and results will come
-
OliverKucera
- Interact. Don't Spam.
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Mon May 07, 2012 9:49 pm
Re: Fxpansion Competition_Win DCAM SYNTH SQUAD or TREMOR
Hey there people
I guess my production tip would be:
Try to find out wich style of music youre most comfortable with and experiment with different sounds and vsts.
If youre using samples try to be creative and dont just use them as they are. Chop them up, pitch, reverse, stretch, etc. Basically fool around wit the sounds. When you have akl the sounds sorted make sure they have proper names, so u can work easier and save yourself a headache trying to find ''that one sound''. Also dont be scared to make mistakes when recording or making your arrangement, those dont exist, some of the coolest sounds i got where by accident
(Tip: Maybe think of investing in a fieldrecorder, reallife sounds are always unique and in my opinion makes your music even more personal)
If youre using fx plugins, play around with the presets and tweak them untill youre happy with it. Keep your channel levels low this will be handy when you mix your track down as you get room to adjust the overall sound. These days almost all trax released are digital so when youre ready and want to master use a program like Wavelab, personally i like to use the Izotope plugin or The Waves Bundle, when mastering my trax, it gives u a variety of options to work with. Also avoid making your mastered track to loud (if the wave looks like a solid block, go back and re do it) it will just sound terrible and eqing it when you play it on a party will be not having any effect. For the rest i think its important to have fun making your tracks and just really discover your own sound...
I guess my production tip would be:
Try to find out wich style of music youre most comfortable with and experiment with different sounds and vsts.
If youre using samples try to be creative and dont just use them as they are. Chop them up, pitch, reverse, stretch, etc. Basically fool around wit the sounds. When you have akl the sounds sorted make sure they have proper names, so u can work easier and save yourself a headache trying to find ''that one sound''. Also dont be scared to make mistakes when recording or making your arrangement, those dont exist, some of the coolest sounds i got where by accident
(Tip: Maybe think of investing in a fieldrecorder, reallife sounds are always unique and in my opinion makes your music even more personal)If youre using fx plugins, play around with the presets and tweak them untill youre happy with it. Keep your channel levels low this will be handy when you mix your track down as you get room to adjust the overall sound. These days almost all trax released are digital so when youre ready and want to master use a program like Wavelab, personally i like to use the Izotope plugin or The Waves Bundle, when mastering my trax, it gives u a variety of options to work with. Also avoid making your mastered track to loud (if the wave looks like a solid block, go back and re do it) it will just sound terrible and eqing it when you play it on a party will be not having any effect. For the rest i think its important to have fun making your tracks and just really discover your own sound...
-
V5 DJ-Producer
- Interact. Don't Spam.
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Re: Fxpansion Competition_Win DCAM SYNTH SQUAD or TREMOR
Hey guys,
Really nice tips on here, itll be hard to keep up, but Im going to try anyway. Ive got two tips to throw into this competition, both of them to be used in your productions. Hopefully they will be of use. Please note that I will be using Ableton in both of these tips and could be slightly different depending on what software you are using.
First up is the Snare Roll - The Big Snare Roll 8)
The snare roll is good for the intro to your song or can be used to lead out of a break...
Ok, you've got all your drums set up...Kick, Snare, Hats/ Rides/ Crashes, Percussion, Claps etc. For this tip we are going to use a separate snare drum, one that sounds different to the main snare in your drum loop. For this to work, we will be using Ableton's Impulse and will be drawing MIDI notes into the grid, so drag the Impulse into a new MIDI channel, double click on the first available slot in the MIDI channel (this creates a MIDI clip).
In the MIDI clip, you should see 8 lanes, your snare drum is labelled in the first lane, we are going to add the MIDI notes to this lane. By default Ableton has already set the grid size to 1/16, we will need to change this to 1/32 (you should see this in the bottom right hand corner of the grid). To change the grid size, hold CTRL and 1.
We are going to spread the Snare Roll over 8 bars...lets get started! Make sure that the pencil tool is ON to start adding notes. To begin, draw a note similar to the kick drum pattern, (1-5-9-13), repeat this in the next bar. Ok now we want to half the distance between notes, so this time add a note between the notes you drew already and repeat for two bars. And again for the next two bars repeat the process, this time halving the distance again, by adding more notes in between. And finally for the last two bars, we simply add notes into every slot, leaving no gaps this time. Now press play, your snare roll should start slow and then slowly build up to the climax at the end
Ok that sounds good, this snare roll is good enough to leave it by itself but now we are going to add some noise to it, to give it a rising effect. You can use whatever sound you like, ideally one that is the same length as the snare roll, it could be a sound loop or you could make a white noise sound in a synth. In the Arrangement View, simply layer this sound under the snare roll, press play again, you should hear that the noise has just added something more to the snare roll.
You could also choose to add a big reverb setting to your the snare roll instead, simply just mess around with reverbs till you find the one you like
Second tip - The "Micro Stop" 8)
I dont know if its actually a micro stop but thats what ill call it for now. Its quite a simple little trick but effective.
This will come in handy for transition between parts or to bring in a new part. In this we will just concentrate on the kick drum, though it can be used with any parts you like and working in Abletons arrangement view.
Were going to put this at the end of every bar - drag your kick loop from bar 1 to bar 9. When thats done go to the end of the newly created drum loop and scroll in so you can see all of the kicks waveforms.
Now click on the end of the kick loop and drag back so that you lose the very last kick hit. Copy and paste you kick loop to bar 33.
At bar 9 we are going to add a hihat loop, so drag that from bar 9 to bar 33, press play! You can hear how it kicks in nicely.
This time we will add the open hats at 17 to 33, press play again! Magic 8) Now just follow the same process till your done.
See the video here - to watch how its done 8)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kg3wh8JA ... e=youtu.be
Really nice tips on here, itll be hard to keep up, but Im going to try anyway. Ive got two tips to throw into this competition, both of them to be used in your productions. Hopefully they will be of use. Please note that I will be using Ableton in both of these tips and could be slightly different depending on what software you are using.
First up is the Snare Roll - The Big Snare Roll 8)
The snare roll is good for the intro to your song or can be used to lead out of a break...
Ok, you've got all your drums set up...Kick, Snare, Hats/ Rides/ Crashes, Percussion, Claps etc. For this tip we are going to use a separate snare drum, one that sounds different to the main snare in your drum loop. For this to work, we will be using Ableton's Impulse and will be drawing MIDI notes into the grid, so drag the Impulse into a new MIDI channel, double click on the first available slot in the MIDI channel (this creates a MIDI clip).
In the MIDI clip, you should see 8 lanes, your snare drum is labelled in the first lane, we are going to add the MIDI notes to this lane. By default Ableton has already set the grid size to 1/16, we will need to change this to 1/32 (you should see this in the bottom right hand corner of the grid). To change the grid size, hold CTRL and 1.
We are going to spread the Snare Roll over 8 bars...lets get started! Make sure that the pencil tool is ON to start adding notes. To begin, draw a note similar to the kick drum pattern, (1-5-9-13), repeat this in the next bar. Ok now we want to half the distance between notes, so this time add a note between the notes you drew already and repeat for two bars. And again for the next two bars repeat the process, this time halving the distance again, by adding more notes in between. And finally for the last two bars, we simply add notes into every slot, leaving no gaps this time. Now press play, your snare roll should start slow and then slowly build up to the climax at the end
Ok that sounds good, this snare roll is good enough to leave it by itself but now we are going to add some noise to it, to give it a rising effect. You can use whatever sound you like, ideally one that is the same length as the snare roll, it could be a sound loop or you could make a white noise sound in a synth. In the Arrangement View, simply layer this sound under the snare roll, press play again, you should hear that the noise has just added something more to the snare roll.
You could also choose to add a big reverb setting to your the snare roll instead, simply just mess around with reverbs till you find the one you like
Second tip - The "Micro Stop" 8)
I dont know if its actually a micro stop but thats what ill call it for now. Its quite a simple little trick but effective.
This will come in handy for transition between parts or to bring in a new part. In this we will just concentrate on the kick drum, though it can be used with any parts you like and working in Abletons arrangement view.
Were going to put this at the end of every bar - drag your kick loop from bar 1 to bar 9. When thats done go to the end of the newly created drum loop and scroll in so you can see all of the kicks waveforms.
Now click on the end of the kick loop and drag back so that you lose the very last kick hit. Copy and paste you kick loop to bar 33.
At bar 9 we are going to add a hihat loop, so drag that from bar 9 to bar 33, press play! You can hear how it kicks in nicely.
This time we will add the open hats at 17 to 33, press play again! Magic 8) Now just follow the same process till your done.
See the video here - to watch how its done 8)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kg3wh8JA ... e=youtu.be
Re: Tips from the subsekt / Fxpansion Competion [NOW CLOSED]
Thanks for entering everyone.. The winners are:
Tremor - ozias_leduc
DCAM Synth Squad - Yeuda
Congrats!
Really appreciate everyone for entering and taking the time to give a tip. We'll be tidying these up & including them in a post on the blog later.
Stay tuned for more interesting stuff happening towards the end of the summer
Tremor - ozias_leduc
DCAM Synth Squad - Yeuda
Congrats!
Really appreciate everyone for entering and taking the time to give a tip. We'll be tidying these up & including them in a post on the blog later.
Stay tuned for more interesting stuff happening towards the end of the summer
>> Click here for NEW POSTS on subsekt <<KennethExack wrote:My kids and I are completely shocked by the specialized secrets that everyone has on this forum
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Re: Tips from the subsekt / Fxpansion Competion [NOW CLOSED]
Congrats guys
Lots of useful tips!
Lots of useful tips!
Don't try for perfect, it's never enough
https://hearthis.at/patriek/
http://www.soundcloud.com/patriek
https://hearthis.at/patriek/
http://www.soundcloud.com/patriek
Re: Post your tips in here Guys : )
ozias_leduc wrote:lovely thanks man, i can post now
okay i call this phantom distortion, and it's good for rougher techno
one way to have drums (or anything) interact in an gritty/aggressive way is to bus them together and apply overdrive. eg, bus your kick and your Porc together, then put an overdrive on the bus. the effect isn't completely unlike the sidechain method; the Porc gets eaten by your kick (although in a nastier way)
however, this makes a mess of your kick and isn't always desirable
but we can have a totally clean kick distort your percussion (or whatever) if we additionally have a second bus , and set them up like this:
bus 1 - kick and Porc are fed into it, has overdrive plugin
bus 2 - as above, except that the kick ALONE is fed into it
now we phase invert bus 2 (if using ableton utility plugin , click PHZ-L and PHZ-R) to subtract the distorted kick and voila - we have the kick's devastating effect on the percussion; yet the kick itself has disappeared and can be routed elsewhere!
it's also handy to have a third bus to go between these 2 and the master
there is plenty of room to experiment with this technique also. assigning midi knobs to both distortion plugins with slightly different parameter ranges can lead to interesting results
Hey, would you explain this another way? I phased inverted the kick like you said and it didn't disappear. I know I must be doing something wrong. Even so, you have inspired me to use saturator, an effect I always overlook.
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ozias_leduc
- ANAL
- Posts: 918
- Joined: Fri May 04, 2012 5:35 am
- Location: melbourne, australia
Re: Tips from the subsekt / Fxpansion Competion [NOW CLOSED]
for sure - let's do some troubleshooting!
do you have an identical saturator on both buses?
signal flow should be like this :
kick -> send A and send B
Porc -> send A
send A has a saturator
send B has an identical saturator, followed by a phase reverse
does your kick disappear if you do that?
do you have an identical saturator on both buses?
signal flow should be like this :
kick -> send A and send B
Porc -> send A
send A has a saturator
send B has an identical saturator, followed by a phase reverse
does your kick disappear if you do that?
Re: Tips from the subsekt / Fxpansion Competion [NOW CLOSED]
Yo yo, got it working now thanks.ozias_leduc wrote:for sure - let's do some troubleshooting!
do you have an identical saturator on both buses?
signal flow should be like this :
kick -> send A and send B
Porc -> send A
send A has a saturator
send B has an identical saturator, followed by a phase reverse
does your kick disappear if you do that?
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CountingToes
- fancy woman
- Posts: 48
- Joined: Wed Jul 30, 2014 12:39 pm
Re: Tips from the subsekt / Fxpansion Competion [NOW CLOSED]
I realise the comp has ended, but I just posted this technique on gearslutz and by chance saw this thread afterwards.
Its just what Ive been looking for as I find Im repeating myself a lot in the studio and its a little boring.
Ill post another tomorrow or so, once I can be bothered to type it out.
Hope this helps someone
I'm just going to assume you're making house/techno
Put a kick on the 1,5,9,13
Pick (for example) 5 other sounds
Program in random patterns on those sounds
Now change the loop length for all the sounds other than the kick, so that they're all different, and non sensical.
For example
Kick (1 bar loop)
Snare (3 beats loop)
Hat (2.5 beats loop)
Tom 1 (1.2 bar loop)
Tom 2 (1.1 bar loop)
Tom 3 (1.3.2 beat loop)
Now hit play and record and let the patterns run for a few minutes.
Once recorded, go through the recording a bar at a time, picking out the loops that work best (copy and paste)
Now go through what you find.
You will find gold, probably too much/ too many options to make just one track
This works fantastically for elements other than drums too,
Kick
Bass
Synth
Vox
Stab for example.
Its just what Ive been looking for as I find Im repeating myself a lot in the studio and its a little boring.
Ill post another tomorrow or so, once I can be bothered to type it out.
Hope this helps someone
I'm just going to assume you're making house/techno
Put a kick on the 1,5,9,13
Pick (for example) 5 other sounds
Program in random patterns on those sounds
Now change the loop length for all the sounds other than the kick, so that they're all different, and non sensical.
For example
Kick (1 bar loop)
Snare (3 beats loop)
Hat (2.5 beats loop)
Tom 1 (1.2 bar loop)
Tom 2 (1.1 bar loop)
Tom 3 (1.3.2 beat loop)
Now hit play and record and let the patterns run for a few minutes.
Once recorded, go through the recording a bar at a time, picking out the loops that work best (copy and paste)
Now go through what you find.
You will find gold, probably too much/ too many options to make just one track
This works fantastically for elements other than drums too,
Kick
Bass
Synth
Vox
Stab for example.
Re: Tips from the subsekt / Fxpansion Competion [NOW CLOSED]
So, you just mean using polyrhythms? Or are you talking about using any amount of note values with each having different pattern lengths (i.e: not strictly having one time signature play against another in the traditional polyrhythmic sense)?CountingToes wrote:I realise the comp has ended, but I just posted this technique on gearslutz and by chance saw this thread afterwards.
Its just what Ive been looking for as I find Im repeating myself a lot in the studio and its a little boring.
Ill post another tomorrow or so, once I can be bothered to type it out.
Hope this helps someone
I'm just going to assume you're making house/techno
Put a kick on the 1,5,9,13
Pick (for example) 5 other sounds
Program in random patterns on those sounds
Now change the loop length for all the sounds other than the kick, so that they're all different, and non sensical.
For example
Kick (1 bar loop)
Snare (3 beats loop)
Hat (2.5 beats loop)
Tom 1 (1.2 bar loop)
Tom 2 (1.1 bar loop)
Tom 3 (1.3.2 beat loop)
Now hit play and record and let the patterns run for a few minutes.
Once recorded, go through the recording a bar at a time, picking out the loops that work best (copy and paste)
Now go through what you find.
You will find gold, probably too much/ too many options to make just one track
This works fantastically for elements other than drums too,
Kick
Bass
Synth
Vox
Stab for example.
Re: Tips from the subsekt / Fxpansion Competion [NOW CLOSED]
i've seen other posts that talk about this 'randomiser' technique in order to find good sounding rhythms or patterns, but in my opinion it is a distraction and leads you down the wrong path. don't get me wrong, i'm sure it works and it will, with enough time spent poring over the results, give you some good passages but i think one is better off studying how rhythms work and how and why different drum elements can be used.CountingToes wrote:I realise the comp has ended, but I just posted this technique on gearslutz and by chance saw this thread afterwards.
Its just what Ive been looking for as I find Im repeating myself a lot in the studio and its a little boring.
Ill post another tomorrow or so, once I can be bothered to type it out.
Hope this helps someone
I'm just going to assume you're making house/techno
Put a kick on the 1,5,9,13
Pick (for example) 5 other sounds
Program in random patterns on those sounds
Now change the loop length for all the sounds other than the kick, so that they're all different, and non sensical.
For example
Kick (1 bar loop)
Snare (3 beats loop)
Hat (2.5 beats loop)
Tom 1 (1.2 bar loop)
Tom 2 (1.1 bar loop)
Tom 3 (1.3.2 beat loop)
Now hit play and record and let the patterns run for a few minutes.
Once recorded, go through the recording a bar at a time, picking out the loops that work best (copy and paste)
Now go through what you find.
You will find gold, probably too much/ too many options to make just one track
This works fantastically for elements other than drums too,
Kick
Bass
Synth
Vox
Stab for example.
it's like people who spend hours looking for drum sounds in sample packs that fit with the kick when really they wouldn't have that problem if they knew how to manipulate samples, layer samples or synthesise their own drum sounds to get a result that works they way they want rather than one that is good enough. the same for preset-jockeys who cycles through presets looking for a sound because they don't understand subtractive synthesis.
i done this myself, as i'm sure most people do when they begin making electronic music. but when i started, there was no youtube and hardly any internet resources whereas today you can find tutorials on a lot of the skills and techniques needed to make the music. no-one needs to learn synthesis, sound design or music theory to make electronic music, but it will all help and then you won't need to rely on happy accidents and random bits that sound good, you can make it sound good by your own volition.
my tips would be
i. to think that some percussion such as toms and other drums like that that can be tuned are melodic and so can be treated like a melodic motif and should resolve, rather than just repeating over and over.
ii. velocity can be important for groove, and velocity linked modulation for some drum sounds (e.g. filter or attack/release, pitch) should be explored to give some groove and life to drum patterns.
basic stuff, but also overlooked easily.
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Lost to the Void
- subsekt
- Posts: 13518
- Joined: Sat Feb 18, 2012 1:31 pm
Re: Tips from the subsekt / Fxpansion Competion [NOW CLOSED]
It's effective but personally I dont like it.
It sorta feels like cheating, weird I know......
It's the machines and to an extent too much serendipity generating the outcome.
I'm a control freak, I like to have everything in my music come out of my head, and have the machines serving my will.
I am musically totalitarian.
It sorta feels like cheating, weird I know......
It's the machines and to an extent too much serendipity generating the outcome.
I'm a control freak, I like to have everything in my music come out of my head, and have the machines serving my will.
I am musically totalitarian.
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CountingToes
- fancy woman
- Posts: 48
- Joined: Wed Jul 30, 2014 12:39 pm
Re: Tips from the subsekt / Fxpansion Competion [NOW CLOSED]
Ha, I guess thats where people differ. I know how to use my studio inside out, however I find myself approaching making music in similar ways each time I sit down. Thats why I love techniques like the one I described above. It puts the patterns down to randomness and instead relies on my picking out what works for me.
I make a lot of loopy groove based techno so I guess it suits.
I make a lot of loopy groove based techno so I guess it suits.