DnB FL collab on tune

dannyb1

This is my last shot
Joined
Jun 29, 2009
Location
Chichester UK
Hi guys I recently started a thread asking for help with my production as I have nearly given up but wanted to give it one last shot with the help of some of you guys.

Anyway I have a zipped package of a tune I was working on in FL studio (soundcloud one below) before I uninstalled it (I have reinstalled again) gone back to it, stripped away the overkill processing I thought sounded good so it is nigh on back to bare bones with only some EQ on some channels which I thought it needed (again this is where I need help)

I would be very much grateful if any one of you here could take the time to look over it and maybe help or talk through where I would do better or where I'm going wrong etc.
Thank you for your time and possible forthcoming help.


(PS what's the best way to share it with you)

 
What is it that you struggle on the most? Yeah the track could do with more variation, everyone says that but its pretty much the biggest thing with music in general, dont see variation as changin like the whole bass line, see it as little things like stops/starts, fills, fx, little added drum stuff, added bass stuff here and there, if you wanna make jump up and drum and bass then you dont have to go balls deep with it, unless you wanna make big neruo productions, continue what you are doing mate. I looked on your soundcloud and that spaceman thing 2, yeah it may come across as proper scooped out in the freq, but you need to develop that type of mix mate, its like spoaw and splosh stuff they make well differenet mixed stuff it sounds sick. But on that track shorten the intro a bit, get more fx, perc, varied bass on the drop completely to your own taste and your sorted.
This is something Im making at the mo btw, https://clyp.it/r0obbcub in comparison to your track its got a bit more gloss, highs and dynamics, you dont want to brick your drums get some movement in dem fam!
 
Cheers for the feedback mate much appreciated, the spaceman track got deleted with the instance of FL that I uninstalled as I am just close to giving up which is why I started this thread https://dnbforum.com/threads/hi-guys-please-help.190095/ which might explain things better as to where I am production wise.
Like I say I don't want to give up as the ideas and inspiration are partly there it's just the where's, whys and hows if ya get me.
 
I had another listen to deep in the jungle, now the drums are quite solid, but they aint cutting through, its like the whole drum beat is all at one volume, no dynamics, i dont know what plugins you used on a bus if you did use a bus, but you need to get some more movement in them, the snare should cut through the bass but at the same time, you need to be able to distinguish both sounds, its very difficult to tell you how to do this only hearing what you are doing than seeing what you are doing. like i can try and give you some pointers and that, if you take some printscreens of your daw and what plugs your using, like open the eq stuff up on screen, its just an idea but im sure i can point you in the right direction quicker that way, but the elements in your track are hitting at the right places, which is a good start and its fairly clean, then its just sample selection, not loop samples but the sounds you use and choose, your bass is working with the drums, but to me its just slightly bland, needs a bit more colour and edge,
 
Arrangement screen


grouped_drum_channel.jpg
Grouped drum channel


hat.jpg
Hi hat


high_pass_break.jpg
High passed break


jungle_background_sample.jpg
Jungle background pad


jungle_vox_1.jpg
Jungle vox 1


jungle_vox_2.jpg
Jungle vox 2



jungle_vox_2_delay.jpg
Jungle vox 2 delay


kik_drum.jpg
Kik drum


low_pass_of_bass.jpg
Low pass of bass


mid_pass_of_bass.jpg
Mid pass of same bass
 
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I wouldnt roll off all that high freq on the hat, thats basically what makes a hat what it is man! Id just do the usual cut at like 16k or 17k and cut the lows off, maybe leave some on like roll it off with a 12-24db pass but obv always get rid of all the sub freq with most sounds, it will clean up that area, but in saying that, with bass that im gonna have a clean sub underneath, ill cut at like 85 sometimes, as theres possibly some sub overtones at that freq that give a bit more thickness to the sound, though if i use a sine and then a sine octave above i will consider cutting higher, all this sub nonsense is to do with phazing issues, my subs have been more powerful doing all this stuff then when i wasnt at a lower skill level.
Now with the break, i wouldnt duck out all them mids and nice sharp freqs at like 1k man, thats what gonna make your drums cut through a bit more, if you are gonna boost you can practically boost any freq there isnt a rule but if i were to boost a break, id firstly use a proper eq pluging (waves pultec stuff) first as boosting with shitty channel eq is nasty digital sound, and dont roll off them highs too soon! if anything you wanna boost that area haha. vox stuff is fine. in that kick if i were to cut some muddy areas id probably do it a bit higher up, it starts to cut out just after 100hz thats basically all the meat of the kick man! keep some sub in the kick depends what vibe your going for but ill cut around 50-65 all depending, if im making fast drum beats with sustained sub i wont have a deeper kick than im doing like house, or deeper stuff where you want the kick to sub a bit, if i do wanna go like techy i might keep a lot of sub on the kick, just gotta play it by ear with the sub, solo out the kick and sub and stuff just to check, in saying that ill solo out individual freqs in all areas of the track so ill just listen to the sub, then like 100-200, then 200-500 and so on... then solo out individual parts of the track like just drums, bass.... all of that stuff! again with the bass, dont duck that area, well you deffiantly shouldnt have to duck out that freq that is the dirty area of where a bass shines, especially in jump up most deffiantly, if you synthesis your bass' then just try and make it clean to start with, I.e dont make it muddy in the synth and try to sort it out externally, you can have the roughest bass out there but its super clean like it hits at all the right freq, 1k to like 2.5k is your dirty, metallic area, 100-250 around that, is the warm area, warm bass stuff, then 5k is the gloss and the 10k is the fizz which is not completely necessary on bass, but recently on all bass ive got a white noise layer quiet, when you start to distort/saturate/eq and so on, its turns that harsh noise into a nice sheen that just slightly fills that area of the spectrum. the snare, same as the other, dont duck and roll off later in highs, i dont know what that low cut/shelf thing is on the snare but id just completly cut it at like 100 and dont start to duck out freq right before the peak transiet of the snare cause your start to lose that punch, in terms of where that punch is happening, around 140 to quite higher, some neruo tracks and other stuff have snares punching at like 500hz haha, obv 140 is a very low phat snare and if you dont have a good sample of that snare at that freq your prob have a hard time trying to mix it in with a track, espeically if you have a lot of bass around there cause they both take up head room and you want to try and maintan as much headroom as possible while have the most you can in your freq spectrum and mix, but usually the snare will punch at around 200hz. think break same stuff. So lets recap short, TLDR dont duck/cut 1k-2k freq and roll off much later on stuff like hats, kicks can roll off earlier like 10k, even lower if its just acting as a sub and 100-700k like punch and you have breaks loops and stuff with it, low cut sub out of sounds but monitor this and always reference your sounds, frequency areas and most importandly, monitor your whole track on as many speaker systems as you can, car, headphones laptop speakers everything, wear 1 ear on headphone, swithc ears... listening on speakers?? stand up, look to the right/left, up, everything, move around the room in all areas as your track is playing, youl pick up on things you didnt realise doing this. your ideas are good and just need to pursue music making its a long haul journey, this aint a 5 minute thing and some people spend 30-40 years making music or learning instrument only to become a high level master, basically a musical genius. My dad once told me as a musician, some people spend their whole life making one track to finally.. 30 years later they complete it, they didnt spend 30 years on one project, they spent 30 years developing there ideas and combined every idea they thought on track before into this one track, just a thought! But dont give in man think of what you could be doing in 2-3 years time, making money from it? maybe sonner... Hope this helps its a fucking essay and a half but these sort of things cant be said in 2 lines.
 
Cheers mate sorry I ain't responded I been a bit busy, I will give the method you've given a go with the EQ work.

I have used mainly all samples in this track so with the bass one I split that sample into a mid and a bass/sub by pushing the EQ either way, would you recommend anything different like making a separate sub and just leaving that mid passed bass separate?

I always find it hard to figure out another bass that you can transition with the one chosen (like having a beefy 808 at the end of 8-16 bars etc) and variations for drum patterns, percs and fills etc incidentals and things like that, plus my melodic skills ain't great but I can tell if something don't sound right but putting something together (chords etc) then I'm lost (I know I don't sound a great student to work with lol)

So I'll get back on it maybe later then I'll repost screen shots and upload new version on the soundcloud, I might add if of importance that I'm only using my lappy with onboard soundcard and a pair of Senheisser HD205 headphones.

I know I shouldn't jump before I can walk but this is the inspiration for a jungle/dub tune that I have tried to do before but would love to do again.

 
I wouldnt roll off all that high freq on the hat, thats basically what makes a hat what it is man! Id just do the usual cut at like 16k or 17k and cut the lows off, maybe leave some on like roll it off with a 12-24db pass but obv always get rid of all the sub freq with most sounds, it will clean up that area, but in saying that, with bass that im gonna have a clean sub underneath, ill cut at like 85 sometimes, as theres possibly some sub overtones at that freq that give a bit more thickness to the sound, though if i use a sine and then a sine octave above i will consider cutting higher, all this sub nonsense is to do with phazing issues, my subs have been more powerful doing all this stuff then when i wasnt at a lower skill level.
Now with the break, i wouldnt duck out all them mids and nice sharp freqs at like 1k man, thats what gonna make your drums cut through a bit more, if you are gonna boost you can practically boost any freq there isnt a rule but if i were to boost a break, id firstly use a proper eq pluging (waves pultec stuff) first as boosting with shitty channel eq is nasty digital sound, and dont roll off them highs too soon! if anything you wanna boost that area haha. vox stuff is fine. in that kick if i were to cut some muddy areas id probably do it a bit higher up, it starts to cut out just after 100hz thats basically all the meat of the kick man! keep some sub in the kick depends what vibe your going for but ill cut around 50-65 all depending, if im making fast drum beats with sustained sub i wont have a deeper kick than im doing like house, or deeper stuff where you want the kick to sub a bit, if i do wanna go like techy i might keep a lot of sub on the kick, just gotta play it by ear with the sub, solo out the kick and sub and stuff just to check, in saying that ill solo out individual freqs in all areas of the track so ill just listen to the sub, then like 100-200, then 200-500 and so on... then solo out individual parts of the track like just drums, bass.... all of that stuff! again with the bass, dont duck that area, well you deffiantly shouldnt have to duck out that freq that is the dirty area of where a bass shines, especially in jump up most deffiantly, if you synthesis your bass' then just try and make it clean to start with, I.e dont make it muddy in the synth and try to sort it out externally, you can have the roughest bass out there but its super clean like it hits at all the right freq, 1k to like 2.5k is your dirty, metallic area, 100-250 around that, is the warm area, warm bass stuff, then 5k is the gloss and the 10k is the fizz which is not completely necessary on bass, but recently on all bass ive got a white noise layer quiet, when you start to distort/saturate/eq and so on, its turns that harsh noise into a nice sheen that just slightly fills that area of the spectrum. the snare, same as the other, dont duck and roll off later in highs, i dont know what that low cut/shelf thing is on the snare but id just completly cut it at like 100 and dont start to duck out freq right before the peak transiet of the snare cause your start to lose that punch, in terms of where that punch is happening, around 140 to quite higher, some neruo tracks and other stuff have snares punching at like 500hz haha, obv 140 is a very low phat snare and if you dont have a good sample of that snare at that freq your prob have a hard time trying to mix it in with a track, espeically if you have a lot of bass around there cause they both take up head room and you want to try and maintan as much headroom as possible while have the most you can in your freq spectrum and mix, but usually the snare will punch at around 200hz. think break same stuff. So lets recap short, TLDR dont duck/cut 1k-2k freq and roll off much later on stuff like hats, kicks can roll off earlier like 10k, even lower if its just acting as a sub and 100-700k like punch and you have breaks loops and stuff with it, low cut sub out of sounds but monitor this and always reference your sounds, frequency areas and most importandly, monitor your whole track on as many speaker systems as you can, car, headphones laptop speakers everything, wear 1 ear on headphone, swithc ears... listening on speakers?? stand up, look to the right/left, up, everything, move around the room in all areas as your track is playing, youl pick up on things you didnt realise doing this. your ideas are good and just need to pursue music making its a long haul journey, this aint a 5 minute thing and some people spend 30-40 years making music or learning instrument only to become a high level master, basically a musical genius. My dad once told me as a musician, some people spend their whole life making one track to finally.. 30 years later they complete it, they didnt spend 30 years on one project, they spent 30 years developing there ideas and combined every idea they thought on track before into this one track, just a thought! But dont give in man think of what you could be doing in 2-3 years time, making money from it? maybe sonner... Hope this helps its a fucking essay and a half but these sort of things cant be said in 2 lines.
going for longest reply ever ?
 
If you can teach audio production and go into depth cause you know full well that people are not gonna get anything out of a 'Needs to up the volume of that one hat that you cant hear anyway by 0.1 db' then be my guest and do it in lesser words xD
you are right! more longe posts I say :D
 
Well I take all input from anyone long or short lol.
Anyway kind of like you said I levelled the EQs back up and cut within the suggested ranges and must say things do sound a lot clearer where as I thought my cutting was doing it all a favour.
I looked at it in SPAN and noticed the peak was at -1.3db and RMS at -20db I have uploaded the new version below.
Now to think on how to progress with it?

 
Well I take all input from anyone long or short lol.
Anyway kind of like you said I levelled the EQs back up and cut within the suggested ranges and must say things do sound a lot clearer where as I thought my cutting was doing it all a favour.
I looked at it in SPAN and noticed the peak was at -1.3db and RMS at -20db I have uploaded the new version below.
Now to think on how to progress with it?


sorry man i was completely unaware that you messaged with that track for inspiration didnt see the post. But the new tracks mix sounds really good, much clearer. Ill write up a post tomorrow ive left my only jack adapter at someone else's place and at this late i cant play on the speakers, though i can get sound through one ear or really quiet because i used a 3.5 female to female then into a 3.5 to right/left phono which has a rca to jacks on them haha, if i had another 3.5 to phono i could use the cans in mono but cba finding them through the boxes of cables and crap lol
 
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