3 Steps To Get A Killer Kick

November 3rd, 2008 • Production Tips
Tags: Direction Mixer, Kick, LinnDrum, Logic, Roland, TR 808, TR 909

Etape 1 : Choix du Kick et Sommation

Il va varier selon le ton donné de la production, un vaste choix de banque de samples reprennent les sons des TR 808 et 909 de chez Roland ou encore du LinnDrum qui sont réputés pour leurs qualité et leur efficacité.

Si un sample ne vous satisfait pas suivez ces indications sinon passez directement à l’Etape 2 avec le sample choisi :

Prenez un Kick avec une attack longue et frappant dans les bas et prenez un deuxième avec une attack très courte avec un ton sec puis mettez les sur deux pistes audio.

Afin d’éviter de passer dans le rouge au niveau de la sommation une bonne équalisation fera l’affaire .

• Pour le pied bas :

Sonalksis SV-517 Mk2 Equaliser Plug-in

• Pour le pied sec :

Sonalksis SV-517 Mk2 Equaliser Plug-in

Envoyer les deux kick dans un même Bus.

Etape 2 : Mix & Compression

Réglez les niveaux des pistes en fonction de l’effet désiré, le principal étant de ne pas saturer, traitez la panoramique afin de ne pas créer un hors phase lors de la sommation à l’aide d’un plug par ex Direction Mixer de Logic.

Direction Mixer by Logic Studio

Mettez une compression sur le bus avec une attack très courte 0,08 ms par ex, plus la release sera courte et plus elle rallongera votre pied, un ratio de 4.1 sera suffisant afin de ne pas écraser trop le kick avec un seuil à -8 db.

EQ

Etape 3 : EQ

Afin de redonner du punch au kick rajouter après la compression un EQ en remontant les bas vers 120 hz.

Sonalksis SV-517 Mk2 Equaliser Plug-in

Par Edu O

3 Steps To Get A Killer Compression

May 20th, 2008 • Production Tips
Tags: CompressorX, GuitarRig, Heras, Mutekki Vengeance Electro Essentials, Native Intruments, PlugSound, Timeworks

Here comes the fourth episode! Thanks for your patience with all May days off in France I just couldn’t write a single line!

However, what I’ll try to explain in three steps today is: how to get a killer over compressed sound like Justice, Revolte, etc…

Step 1: Choose The Right Drums

Everyone knows a good electro track is before all: good drums! So take time to create rich and punchy drums & beats.

• If your old-school midi-composing style (like me) try my all time favorite PlugSound Volume 3 Drum & Percs (VST/DirectX)
• If your more drum loops oriented then give a try to Mutekki Vengeance Electro Essentials.

Step 2: Choose The Right Overdrive

Most of dirty electro tracks today have, among over-compression, a crunchy and noisy effect on basslines, synths or guitars…

There are of course a lot of effects to put some overdrive on your tracks… But if I could only pick one plugin, it would definitely be the GuitarRig by Native Instruments. You need a huge configuration to make it work properly, but the result is here: awesome!

• Select the kind of distortion/overdrive you want to apply (eg: guitar, bass, etc…) in Bank Menu.
• Select the preset in Sound Menu.
• You can also setup everything manually from amp to reverb on the right…

Don’t hesitate to try it on your drums or synth!

Step 3: Choose The Right Compressor

Again, there are a lot of compressor in the market. So I will talk about what I know and use heavily. In fact most of the time, I use the natural compression of my sidechain effect.

But when I want to add a powerful crunchy and pumpy effect, I use the CompressorX by Timeworks. It simulates analog compression and really rock it, giving a warm and powerful feeling.

Compressor X is amazing. Where do we start? This is more compression control than you should need in this lifetime. [...] this unit has it all, I am able to emulate Urei’s 1176′s, DBX 165a’s, Manley variable MU’s, Digital comps, you name it. This thing is amazing. Try it, see for yourself what it can do. (source: www.sonictimeworks.com)

As long as we compress differently, I will give you a different setting that the one I recommand in the 3 Steps To Get A Killer Mastering, but this fits better for a Justice-like musical style, and that’s what it’s all about, right?

So, add the CompressorX to your master or a bus with the drums (at least the kick). This will replace the sidechain. You will compress the overall mix, and your track will react with noises and overdrive to your compression and distortion.

Then set the CompressorX as follow:

• Put the Out button a bit on the right (not too much this would crush your channel)
• Put the Threshold button a bit on the left in order to make the track pump.

Be careful with thos settings this can quickly make your mix more dirty than you really want it to be. Don’t hesitate to test it on several speakers (hifi, headphones, etc…) and compare with other tracks…[/lang_en]

3 Steps To Get A Killer Mastering

April 23rd, 2008 • Production Tips
Tags: Samson Rubicon R5A, Sonitus, Sony MDR-V700DJ

Third episode of my production tips and a very important and rich subject: Mastering…

Mastering and mixing are some of the most important skills a producer has to master… The question is how to get your averall track sounds:

• Clear
• Powerful
• Wide

Step 1: Do I Have The Right Speakers?

Ask yourself the question: do I have the right headphone or speaker?

I can assure you one thing, as long as I plugged my PC to a Hi Fi I’ve not been able to master anything. The bass boost was completely falsing the overall mix and when I sent some demos at this time I got feedback such as “Your music is cool, but, damn! Your sound sucks!“. Ask Joachim Garraud when I sent him some track in early 2004…

If you have to invest in something for your studio, it’s in the speakers. It’s like when you recover your sight when putting on your glasses…

For me, there’re two options:

1. You got people around you who don’t care about your beloved but noisy boom boom boom music and you need to work with a headphone: I use you this one: Sony MDR-V700DJ. Excellent and precise sound.
2. You don’t care about other people! You want to work with a speakers, then here are the monitors I use: Samson Rubicon R5A.

What you have to retain of this step is: Speakers are the most important part of the studio.

Step 2: Never Touch To The Master Channel

I never touch the master out. I used to and I never got any good result. I tried to compress, I tried to EQ but nothing clean and powerful came out.

What I advise you to do is to work on the sound of buses separatly. Work the equalization, the compression, or whatever of each buses instead of applying a compression to the general channel.

This needs more work but you will definitely make your mix more clearer, more powerful and easier to modify.

Step 3: Cherish The EQ

The basis of all good mix is a clever management of frequencies. You know that, right?

• A bassline, kicks, etc… by definition will deliver bass frequencies
• Cymbals will deliver high frequencies.
• Pads will mainly deliver medium/high frequencies.

The idea is to try to isolate each instrument in its range of frequencies. Results will be immediat.

If you cut a little bit of bass of your pad and add a little more high frequencies you’ll see your pad will be clearer and the overall mix cleaner.

Anyway, the secret of a good mastering is every instruments used can be precisely heard… Work on frequencies of each instrument until you hear everything clearly.

But be careful to go easy on adding or cutting dB for frenquencies. It’s a matter of precision.

3 Steps To Get A Killer Sidechain

April 14th, 2008 • Production Tips
Tags: Bus, Db Audioware, dB-D Dynamic Processor, Itajai Vibes, Sidechain

One of the most important things I learned in production is: as long as you want to make a quality club house track you got to make it pumping.

I tried a lot of effects and settings before finding the final and accurate sidechain I would never leave for my productions and remixes. But before getting to that point I needed a little bit of theory:

Side-chaining uses the signal level of another input or an equalized version of the original input to control the compression level of the original signal. (source: Wikipedia)

That’s all you need to know! Basically, if you want to make your synth channel pump, you will need to apply a signal that will compress your channel on the beat.

For me, a good sidechain is making the overall mix pump without crushing the instruments and the stereo.

Step 1: Choose the right signal

Click

This is the signal I use to apply sidechain on the channels of my track. Just a metronome click.

1. I create an audio channel called “Click” to put my click loop.
2. I create a bus called “Sidechain” that will receive the sidechain signal… I will root the channels I want to sidechain to that bus.

Step 2: Choose the right compressor

As a compressor, I use the same effects for years.

This is a 39$ effect you will never leave: dB-D Dynamic Processor by Db Audioware.

1. I add this effect to my “Click” channel to send the signal. I put the Gain button to “Mute” and the Send button to “A”.
2. I add this effect to my “Sidechain” bus to receive the signal. I put Thresh to “-30.0″, Ratio to “LIMIT”, Attack to “0.5″, Decay to “100″, Knee to “1.5″ and RECV to “A”.

You can also play with the overall compression settings by normalizing the Click loop, this will increase the compression.

Step 3: Choose the right mastering

As far as I remember, I didn’t have to use more than two separate sidechain buses on my tracks.

For example, on my remix of Itajai Vibes I used two sidechain buses:

1. A bus for the bassline only to keep it warm, powerful and pumping without crushing other elements.
2. Another bus for the other elements.

In the case you want to create more than one sidechain bus you repeat exactly the same manipulation but the buttons Send and Recv are to be set to “B”, or “C”, etc…

3 Steps To Get A Killer Bassline

April 7th, 2008 • 6 comments Production Tips
Tags: Alan Braxe, Bassline, DJ Rudy.D, Fred Falke, Renaissance Bass, Spectrasonic, Trilogy, Waves

Have you ever wondered how the hell did Alan Braxe & Fred Falke do to make such a wonderful bassline on their legendary house track Intro?

They simply made the Queen of Funky bassline…

Maybe you would be interested to know how to setup such a bass sound with VST instruments and effects? Well, that’s what I’ll try to explain you.

Step 1: Choose the right bass sound

I’d recommand an old-school fingered bass sound, to give this warm sound Fred Falke have…

Trilogy by Spectrasonic is amazing and features a large choice of Fingered/Picked basses that can definitely be a good basis for your sound.

Step 2: Choose the right EQ effect

OK. Now you got your nice fingered/picked bass… But how to give it this such warm and special sound?

Since 2002, I use the same effect to EQ my basslines and make them warmer. This is the Renaissance Bass module by Waves.

Use the preset Nose Job and have a listen… You’ll see what it’s all about.

(I advise you to adapt the Freq. (Hz) setting to fit your master mix.)

Step 3: Compose the right bassline

If you have a listen to Alan Braxe & Fred Falke’s track Running, you’ll hear that, as a lot of Funky tracks do, the note used are very short and follow or complete the rythm. Depending on your composing level, try to use eighteenth or sixteenth notes.

Don’t hesitate to give me your feedback about this short tutorial. I plan to write a lesson every 2 weeks or so if you guys like it!