am i learning

El Prophet

Member
Joined
Apr 6, 2006
i've been working on some tunes, ill be working on one tune and come up with a sound i like and start makeing another tune, but the way i see it for me to progress i need to set myself a target, my first one is mastering the art of making good drumm patterns and i dont mean a few kicks and snares i mean busy busy drums like zinc's i cant seem to find the ingredients for a busy drum pattern, i d/l'd kama's black n white and was impressed with the drums even had some fun rearranging them, is fl5 limited to drums or is it me just not seeing the big picture next target is make a reece that sounds good , now i havent spent long at all trying to make a reece iv just been working on tunes but now im gonna try and make a reece warmth was talking about modulation where is it what is it how do i aplly ect , can high freqencie noises be layered and should i compress each layer individually should i have distortion individualy and like wise with the other stuff, should i for each layer filter it in a range like 200hertz to 250hertz and the next layer 250 hertz to 300 and so fourth with maybe different sounds on different freqeuncie layers . im just find it difficicult cause im not sort of text book learning trying to pick up information here n ther bout all this production , dont get me wrong i have progressed a little way with making a beat and puttin a tune together but people say reece is is but at the mo it just a tad complicated to me...is there anywhere i can d/l good free tube distortes and other usuful plug ins.
 
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man, I totally agree...
check out the post sook posted on the thread Advanced... it's good..

Ok, likewise, logikz had a good point, harmonise... uhmm, cos I always thought it was about having that magic C note, but if you harmonise(think it's putting more then one note, like a chord), and then bend 2 or more notes in a sequence of choise they obviously become oftuned(you would want to have a note +5 sometime and +8 another, just try bending a C and a +5 down one note), but if you do it early on in the making of the reece(and using that one saw that sounds tetriz-like, no detune) and applying other notes to it, a nice chord, I know, it's gonna sound shitty at first... but it really comes out great at the end after processing... then you really can´t hear the notes you put in there at first, it becomes a nice C note reece... that's as far as I could get, I'm gonna try out a few techniques which sound great and get back on the subject...

Anyway, drums, ye, I've gotten down how to make the background(rides/chrashes whatever), but it's always a question about quality, my drums sound like noise mashed up and kinda in your face instead of each sound standing out and being completely seperated.

it's kinda pointless trying to explain where to put each individual one-shot sample..

A good point is taking a break (from the Break-Post on this board) and applying your own hits to it (y)

FAKE IT TILL U MAKE IT, my son 8)
 
Im bored so here it is
the big brother of my reece post

Drums (long post)
-ONLY WORK IN MONO WITH BREAKS!!!!!
it will save you phase hassles and stereo imaging problems.
-monitor at different levels. monitoring loud might sound cool cause your break sounds big. This will quickly fatigue your ears, or do permanant damage (8 secs at 120 dbSPL is enough to cause permanant dammage). Plus the human ear responds differently to low and high frequncies at different volumes as per the "fletcher munsen curve." (btw the loud button on your amp or stereo, adjusts hi and low frequencies in accordance with this graph, to simulate a flat response at low volumes), Also the best way to reference the volume of one sound against another is to lower the volume to a point where your sounds start to becoming inaudible.
"hey i cant hear the snare anymore, but i can still hear the kick, maybe the snare needs to come up a little." simple.
Trust your ears over peak monitors.
-Get ride of your shit samples. use only samples with no effects and light compression. you can always apply effects later. You cant undo it.
USE VERY VERY HIGH QUALITY SAMPLES ONLY!!!!!!!
this is the most important thing you can do in dnb production.
-Make sure your drums are all in tune. drums have relative ptich. Use a wave editor find the fundamental of every single hit sample you have and name it. it will save you a load of time. while your in the wave editor clean up the sample. cut it at the zero crossing. normalize it (leave
a few dbFS headroom though) save it as a mono file.
e.g deepkick A 65.7Hz.wav
its ok to tune a hit a few semi tones either side of its fundamental. But not to far otherwise it will sound shit.
-Take one or more nice sounding breaks with a nice character. Chop them up different tracks for kicks, snares, ghosts, hats etc.. in your sequencer or sampler (kontakt is awesome for drums, dom uses kontakt for his beats. Rhino anyone?).
-i know a lot of ppl use propellorheads recycle to save time and keep the original grove of the break when changing tempo. But i dont like this program, it creates artifical tails on the hits also i think the algorithims
used to process the files are inferior giving it that definite propellor head sound which i dont really like. not saying you cant do good things with it (evol intent use reason, though they master in logic) its just hard to get away from 'that sound'. if you want to keep the groove just use the hit point editor in nuendo and groove quantize it.
-rearrange the break to fit your current tempo i always use 172bpm (so do noisia and phace) nice dancefloor bpm.
-Create a nice groove (or use groove quantize)
-send all your snare to a snare bus, all your kicks to a kick bus etc.... the same as you would do if mixing down a live kit. This way you can process the hits individually and apply effects to the different hits without colouring the whole break.
-Use your sequencers or samplers envelope editor to remove the tails of your hits. Tight clean hits is the name of the game.
-now goto your library of single hits. use hits that are in tune with your break. use your ears if it lacks depth use
deeper hits. if it lacks snap or punch use a hit with a nice transient. layer in these extra hits in new tracks and send ther new single hits to the buses. Kicks to kick, snares to snare etc...
-Try not adding some of the kicks on all your kick hits. to create intrest through timbre (tone colour)
N.B add them all to beats 1 and 3.5 (the accents)
-It is imortant to Eq each channel and buss.

IF YOU LISTEN TO ONLY ONE THING IN THIS WHOLE POST LISTEN TO THIS!!!!!!!!!!
Only ever use subractive eqing techniques!!!!!!!!!!!
so important! if you have to add frequencies to a hit you are using the wrong sample or the right sample for the wrong reason. by adding frequencies you just raise the noise floor for no good reason. (outboard passive eqs are best for this)
-The million dollar question is now do i compress???
some ppl do (noisia), some ppl dont (teebee, calyx)
it just depends on the drum sound you want.
Never compress or add effects just for the sake of doing it. Personally i like to compress the individual hit buses ever so slightly (very slightly). It helps the different hits to gel together.
-When compressing your master bus (i think this is important). dont place the compressor in the insert chanel (i know this is theoretically wrong, delay modelers in send chanel amplitude modelers in insert chanel. But this is a proven mix down technique for drums). Set up 2 - 4 sends to different compressors at diferent settings
(nothing beats real tube outboard compressors sent from a real analog desk for this). Mix in different amounts of these sends to suit. works a treat.
-I Dont like limiting my drums (some producers like noisia and spor do). it will Make your drums sound bigger. but at the cost of killing the character of your break. Limiting is just compression with an infinite compression ratio.
Why not use good compression techniques instead of limiting.
Exception
-natural limiting caused by overloading a nice analog desk such as calyx uses drums or reeces is really good. Why is this different to solid state or software limiters. Its all about Total Harmonic distortion and the way tube or analog gear distorts harmonics related to the fundamental. Im not going into detail about this now it would take to long, just trust me on this. Even better than this is the natural compression gained by saturating tape.
If your lucky enough to own or have access to a reel to reel record you finished break onto the tape a little hot.
then resample it........warm drums.
-Make sure you hi pass your drum break at about 50 - 70hz so it doesnt interfere with your subs. THIS IS IMORTANT

P.S final note
- if you have an analog desk use it as your suming bus. Why? because every bit in a digital signal is a one or a zero where as analog is a continuous current. When you add one snare to another every bit will be a one or a zero. creating a step like effect in what should be a smooth waveform. Not so with analogue it adds the signals together exactly as they should be.

P.P.S finalist note
-try setting up a midi channel to modulate the decay on the envelopes of your hi hats slightly can create intrest in an otherwise static break

P.P.P.S Finalized note
-try sidechaing a multi band compressors to your bass line keyed by your kick to 'duck' the bass slightly under your kick every time it hits will make you kick stand out without a noticable difference to the bass.

SO REMEMBER
1)Work in mono
2)Use good quality samples
3)Only use subtractive EQing
4)Dont process a sound only for the sake of it
5)trust your ears
6)monitor at different levels
7)tune your drums.
8 )try new things


i am available for childrens parties
 
Amazing post, absolutely no commas!

I'd recommend PSP VintageWarmer. It's pretty heavy, but can boost sounds incredibly.

I Bus breaks and layered samples together and multicompress (with VintageWarmer or C4) very slightly. It just helps the drums to blend together.
 
All that Sook said can be done in fruity. Basically you just arrange everything in it, but use wave editors or outboard samplers to layer and tweak the sounds. You just have to push it and try new things.
 
whats a wave editor and outboard sampler i got cool edit but i chop samples with it if u name some of em im sure ill have one
 
The thing about only ever using subtractive EQing is cobblers.

Using sounds that create the right mood is the most important thing in dnb, not how little you have to work to make them sound good.

Yes it'll make it easy but if you have an idea and it's musically sound then stick with it. If you're using old reggae or rara groove for samples then you're gonna be doing a shitload of work to them!
 
I think you missed the point serum.
The idea behind subractive eqing isnt about cutting down
on your workload or making things as easy as possible. Regardless of eqing there is a lot of work to be done on a break, days even weeks if you want a really good sounding break (and it isnt easy). If it was about making things easy my post would have gone more like this.
How to make a good break
-put break you like in recycle. save as .rex, use in project.
done!
its about not raising the noise floor and not introducing extra unwanted noise into your mix for no good reason. Im trying to get my drums sounding not only big but also clean and tight. Dnb is about more than just musically sound ideas. if you want a track released it has to be upto the standard of the rest of the pack (which is very high.......... most of the time). This idea isnt just limited to dnb aswell. i was first introduced to this idea working in a studio with excellent and experienced engineers mxing rock music. If you like the groove of a poor sounding break why not just use that groove with another good sounding break (Groove quantise in your sequencer or do it the old fashioned way, chop it up and re arrange it)?
But that said by all means if the sound you want in your break is the one your achieving using old reggae breaks you have add extra frequecies (and noise) to which you dont think can be done through layering, do it. The beauty of music is as long as you get the end result thats all that matters. The process i posted is the one i use, but more importantly one used by the producers whose drum sounds i most respect.
But no sorry this idea isnt cobblers.
 
CoolEdit is a wave editor.You got it just right. Easiest way to do layering is (like sook said) bounce one sound to wav (export wav --> pattern in fruity) and bringing it in to fruity. then tweak the sound all you like, and bring another wav to play with it. Repeat until ready. Put the different layers on different FX channels to cut or boost bottom or high or mid or whatever. I'm not sure if this is what you asked, but this is what i answer anyway.
 
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