the hopefully mighty "groelle will try to help you" thread.

groelle

groelle

Well-Known Member
VIP Junglist
Joined
Feb 6, 2007
Location
northern germany
sooo. as you may or may not know, ive been here for quite some time and havent been in recent months. due to work, general agony etc - but now im trying a little comeback, or at least i hope to do so.

and this is the thread to do so in. i want to help out you guys starting on music production, as this board helped me first.

buuuut. i dont want it to go down like the "members tracks" board as i could easily just read thru that, listen to the projects i like and post "yeh, good snare" underneath. but instead, i want to help and moreso, want this help and my effort to stay somewhere. with the members tracks threads, they do get buried and lost - with all the helpful adive in them.

in this thread the premise is. you post something you made, or something you want to make (ie. a sound) - and just flat out ask me your question. important to that is, that all the information needed should be publicly shared and kept online, at least for some time.

the next time i got some spare minutes on my hand, ill come back to this thread, see what you guys posted and try to make an effort to answer to the best of my possibilities, hopefully including sound samples etc.

hopefully this will be of some help, at least to some of you.

please, ask your questions! :)
 
I look forward to posting some stuff here hopefully soon. Could do with some advice; personally I just wing things and tinker around 'till it's sounding like I hope it to, but it would help to have some definite clear direction on some things.
 
Hey Groelle,

Im glad you started this thread as i have many questions!!

Like for instance, how on earth is the bassline in this track made!? I just can't figure it out, I mean it's definitely a noise of some kind :teeth: Any help would be much appreciated!
 
Its hard to say how it was made as its a sample from an older track.

It was originally on massive dunno bout the waves but i dont really use anything other than square saw or sine. They were probably squares or saws to begin with in a series, with a notch pass and then scream with lots of distortion and something interesting goin on in the envelopes and lfo's.
I'd go into more detail but I've lost like everything I ever made and all that we have are the samples i exported and sent over to each other.

So we basically stuck a noise that was doing a rhythm with envelopes and lfo's in the granulizer. Added some more distortion and stuff and it started warping and doing some crazy shit. We then sampled it again and cut a chunk of it and stuck it back in the granulizer and that stab was made, layerd it with a sub etc.

Was pretty difficult to control but its a good process to making some really fucked up sounds! The trick is to have a interesting loop of bass to begin with that is somewhat gritty (achieve the grit thru notches and distortion) the longer the sample is that you stick in the granulizer (doing random envelopes and lfo's on the filter) the more the noise will flip out and you can create some really crazy sounds!

Hope this helps anyone? However vague im being the process behind what im saying is there just experiment. If I had my Hd's i would do an exact step by step but unfortunately i can't ill try find the sample that we used for it before it got granulized, might help?
 
groelle said:
but youre kinda right tho sammy. the more towards the liquidy side of things the questions go, the more ill be able to help ;)
Click to expand...

Aight ill be serious for a min, ive been making these uber gay synthy high leads, like Netsky type shit :rolleyes:
My approach is usually a single saw or square (mainly saw) with loads of voices playing chords or 3 saws at different pitches (0,5,+12 whatever sometimes 19, basically make the chord first) with minimal voices playing single notes. Then maybe a really dry flange and a bit of reverb or chorus etc.

But how would YOU approach making this type of sound??
What would you do different or add/change etc
 
Re: the hopefully mighty "groelle will try to help you" thread.

I don't want to cut breaks that are already made by someone else because It's not as fun.
It's super easy to make a nice kick and snare pattern but when I add hats in between it doesn't sound really good. Sounds weird, together it doesn't sound like "Drums". Hats sound like they are playing for themselves far away from kick and snare.

- - - Updated - - -

I got myself some prime loops dnb sample packs. dnb dna, liquid dnb essentials, dnb warriors, greatest hits of dnb... blah blah
When I'm making a break I am not really sure what samples should I put together, I just pick out some samples that I like and make a beat out of it.. sounds like complete phail.
BTW. I don't have a problem with drum processing like EQing, saturation, parallel compression and similar.

- - - Updated - - -

^ all that about me having problems with making dnb breaks. And why do I have a limited amount of letters in single post?
 
Re: the hopefully mighty "groelle will try to help you" thread.

Cold Quake said:
I don't want to cut breaks that are already made by someone else because It's not as fun.
It's super easy to make a nice kick and snare pattern but when I add hats in between it doesn't sound really good. Sounds weird, together it doesn't sound like "Drums". Hats sound like they are playing for themselves far away from kick and snare.
Click to expand...

It's because you quantize them too much on your DAW grid. Try a smaller grid resolution. Percussions need groove and a "human feeling" so you have to work on real grooves. I would recommand you to high pass some real drum breaks and/or beat slice them to extract MIDI files which allow you manipulate those groose. BTW if you intend to sequence them yourself try to some groove quantize DAW function (like Ableton grooves) or plugin like Livecut, DBlue Glitch with a shuffle function.

NOW my question to groelle, thank's to this topic, could you give me some tips to create this type of bassline
 ? I tryed to follow this tutorial with more on less success and wonder if bass is processed only in Massive or if this could be resampled/granularised to have this metallic grain? And yeah it's a life-and-death situation :teeth:
 
Last edited:
Re: the hopefully mighty "groelle will try to help you" thread.

first of sammy, thanks for going into detail a bit. that was exactly what i tried last night - but due to the complexity of that sound i naturally didnt even come close (got some pretty good sounds still tho)

secondly, i tried that space time mid-range - and tbh, its all in the tutorial. try to work out the high end more by putting a fair amount of bitcrush into the other insert, put a LITTLE bit of phase on the roughmath osc, maybe some dimension expander and some tube (i used c tube), and the most important part, EQ! i put on the massive eq and put every poti to roughly 10 o clock, and the high end poti a fair amount up, sounded way closer that way, too.
maybe a bit pan position (in the voicing tab) isnt off aswell.

thats as far as processing goes. hardest thing to do right here is getting the frequency-shift right. you have to have half dry/half wet and then experiment with the pitch (do as he does and go to the macro controls for exact tuning).

only thing i didnt get quite right is how they played a melody with that, i would need to find the sweet spots for each sounds, as resampling didnt work, neither did midi :/

- - - Updated - - -

Sammy Dexcell said:
Aight ill be serious for a min, ive been making these uber gay synthy high leads, like Netsky type shit :rolleyes:
My approach is usually a single saw or square (mainly saw) with loads of voices playing chords or 3 saws at different pitches (0,5,+12 whatever sometimes 19, basically make the chord first) with minimal voices playing single notes. Then maybe a really dry flange and a bit of reverb or chorus etc.

But how would YOU approach making this type of sound??
What would you do different or add/change etc
Click to expand...


ok. lets go :)

first of, it really depends on what kinda "uber gay high synth lead" you want to do - that midrangey bass you used in your last tune? ;)
or more like a realy lead like in danny byrds daydreamer remix?

generally your 2 approaches are both getting you more or less the same results, but with the first one - single notes and playing chords - you dont restrict yourself to certain keys, so i like that more, being more flexible and all.

for the more bassy sounds i really like to keep it simple. single square/saw (a bit of both, depends on the timbre i want to achieve, you can leave that for later tho, doesnt really matter first). maybe some dimension expander and tube and thats it, synth wise.
then i lay down my chords and get an camel phat on top to get the filter movement (as im playing 3 or more notes, i dont want to do that inside the synth)

for the processing a bit of chorus, some distortion and a little bit of reverb usually does the trick, eq to taste obviously.


for the more leady sounds, i like to use single notes and layer them in the synth - due to some things i cant add as easily in the processing later, like pitchbend. mostly its the same tho as above, take some oscs you like, put them into a chord (or layer 2 octaves up) as you want a good rich sound.
add chorus, distortion and some expansion or reverb in the synth, and then it gets down to playing with it to make it interesting.

get some pitchbend maybe, some vibrato even. link the filter to the keys so the higher note you play, the more the filter opens. etc. possibilities are endless here, and tbh, this is what makes or breaks a tune with a high pitched lead, haha :D

hope some of that is of some help, could record a little youtube video aswell, or provide sound samples? whats more helpful?
 
Ok, I know that it's nowhere near any kind of EDM, but do you know what FX are added to the guitar from the cheesy old queen song 'I want to break free', in the solo somewhere in the middle of the track?
 
Thanks Groelle to have take some of your time to help ! I didnt manage to sequence it too maybe they used special chords or something. ANYWAY I was just curious and this discoveries makes me get seriously my nose into Massive, to experiment and create my own patches :)

Well I have a question more about your worklow, do you follow a specific schedule when you start a new project ? Do you begin with drums for example ? And how long you work a day ? I'm searching some tips to be more effective
 
smoothassilk said:
Ok, I know that it's nowhere near any kind of EDM, but do you know what FX are added to the guitar from the cheesy old queen song 'I want to break free', in the solo somewhere in the middle of the track?
Click to expand...

most probably guitar rig 3 i guess ;)

on a more serious note, sounds like a wah wah with a fair amount of delay (its pretty short but also kinda wet, you hear that clearly on the first note). most interesting part of that sound is the attack, dunno how they got that as fat?! maybe its due to the delay that impacts exactly when the main body of the sound starts? just a guess tho. not processing acustic music that often.

Shakelturn said:
Thanks Groelle to have take some of your time to help ! I didnt manage to sequence it too maybe they used special chords or something. ANYWAY I was just curious and this discoveries makes me get seriously my nose into Massive, to experiment and create my own patches :)

Well I have a question more about your worklow, do you follow a specific schedule when you start a new project ? Do you begin with drums for example ? And how long you work a day ? I'm searching some tips to be more effective
Click to expand...

with that space time sound, tbh i did get almost all sounds they used in that song, but got nowhere near when trying to sequence aswell. tried to resample etc, playing the notes with plain midi didnt work either. doubt they programmed every note in massive aswell. maybe they used the pitch in massive, didnt try that as it seemed unnatural at that point, might try it out later tho.

as far as workflow goes, i tend to always start with the drums first. i do get stuck quite often then tho, because you get waaaay too technical in the early stages of a tune, and lose the focus on the tune itself, which should be about more than just drums ;)

best tunes are the ones started around a particular idea, ie i got some strong bass sound and build a tune around that, or just a vocal sample which inspires you. or a simple melody. depends on what kinda dnb you want to make. for the liquidy stuff its probably best to start of with a chord sequence, while when writing dirty dnb the bassline and drums are far more important.
 
Back
Top Bottom