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Messages - Slizz

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16
Finished Tracks / Re: hey i'm guppi
« on: January 28, 2016, 05:09:55 pm »
This is wicked cool. I'm not going to make judgement on this mix listening on my headphones but I think if you turned the bass down you'd get some clarity.

17
Composition/Arrangement/Theory / Re: melody questions
« on: January 28, 2016, 05:04:48 pm »
HookTheory.com is incredibly helpful for building melodies.

BasicMusicTheory.com will give you access to scales and chords within different scales.

There is a lot of theory involved with writing melodies that resonate with large groups of people. Everyone has their own unique preference but certain note patterns on top of different chord progressions will elicit very specific types of emotional responses from huge swaths of people.

For example,having a melody start on a perfect 5th or perfect 6th and having it "resolve" to the root note at the end.
Hook Theory has a lot of EDM on there so that might be a good place to start.

18
Sound Design / Re: How to effectively pitchbend 808s
« on: January 28, 2016, 04:43:09 pm »
Like the above poster said, don't use samples. If you only learn how to do one thing as a producer, learn how to make sub bass patches. Its the loudest part of any song (from a decibel standpoint), so make it count.

Take a sine wave from whatever stock synth comes with your DAW. I use ableton so operator is my go to.

Zero volume decay, short release, usually 50 to 100 ms. 1 voice.
Pitch envelope of 12 semitones, with a decay time that matches your kick drum, more on that later.

Now, run it through any amp simulator and distort it, making sure your low end doesn't get crushed out but distort it enough so a simple sine wave starts producing all kinds of harmonics throughout the spectrum. This will fatten your low end and give you some character. I like to use ableton's glue compressor after that to squeeze it a little. After this whole chain, I put a hard filter on everything over 100-150hz. Now you have a fat bottom end.

Next, I'll group that chain to an instrument rack and add another instance of operator with a square or saw wave instead of a sine. I like to duplicate the original instrument and change the waveform so all my envelopes are consistent. I'll run that through a low pass filter and distort it heavily AFTER the filter to add new harmonics in the frequency spectrum that are different and have more character than sin waves. Once these frequencies are added I'll high pass them so the low end doesn't interfere with the sub (usually I'll eliminate a huge portion of the lows and low mids so I don't get any mud). I'll then throw another compressor on the end of the instrument rack so it compresses BOTH CHAINS to glue them together.

Now, as far as the kick sample goes. Find a kick that you like (sage advice  ::) ) and cut out everything below 100 to 150hz. I recommend kicks with fast attack since, in my opinion, an 808 is used similar to a marching band kick drum which is basically a slap with tons of low end.

Now adjust your pitch envelop to give it the same attack as your kick sample. You'll be able to hear when it's right as the two instruments will clash when the timing is off because they'll be momentarily out of tune.

After that you're pretty much done. I don't like side-chaining my sub bass to allow for the kick to hit because you get a pumping sound that creates a disconnect between the two sounds when it's supposed to be one instrument, which is why I filter the low end out of my kick drum.

Now it's all about drawing pitch envelopes to get the bend you want.

Another thing you can do is use a multi step pitch bend like the one in operator and make your whole sub slide to -1 semitone at a really slow rate (AFTER your initial pitch dive to simulate a drum). This will give your sub some character but if it goes too fast all your hits will be out of tune, so be careful with it.

Hope this helps.

19
Mixing/Mastering / Re: EQ TIPS
« on: January 28, 2016, 03:47:22 pm »
I have a very unorthodox approach to EQ because I have zero formal training so I have a lot to learn, but one of the most important things I do, for me, is putting a hard 4x eq high pass and low pass at the end of every chain on every instrument. This part might might sound dumb but I close my eyes and slowly close the filter until I hear a noticeable change in timbre. Often times I'll remove huge amounts of high and low end from sounds, much more than anticipated.

Timbre, in my opinion, is the most important aspect of a production. I will design a new sound to use with certain notes just to make sure the timbre is right. With EQ, I think abandoning certain "rules" is incredibly important to make sure timber stays in tact. For example, I will use volume modulation with volume shaper by cableguys or any other "brick-wall" style compressor to give instruments room to breathe at certain frequency ranges before I start cutting sacrificing frequencies. In the song in my profile the main bass pluck hits hard in the 100-200 range, and so does the sub that I layered it on, which interferes with my kick. If I cut those frequencies it loses its character, so I brickwall them for almost an eighth note to allow the kick to get its time in the limelight. The sub pluck hits at that frequency very early in the sound and dives by 12 semitones, where the mid bass doesn't hit that area until later in the envelope, so they don't particularly overlap.

I think this is a long winded way of saying that over EQing can turn songs into a brick that is a little too neat and loses its soul. I like to listen to songs that I think have good production (read: doesn't have to be a mord fustang or madeon or whoever tune), and throw them in ableton then listen to certain frequency bands using a filter to see whats going on. Most of the time you will hear all kinds of shit besides just the kick drum or sub bass hitting in the sub 100hz range, which makes you wonder why some people are so adamant about high passing everything.

I'm easily the most annoying poster on here. All my shit is long winded.

TL:DR version:
EQ is a matter of taste as long as your songs aren't muddy and don't clip.

20
Sound Design / Re: Snares
« on: January 28, 2016, 03:13:31 pm »
150 Hz is my must have fundamental, my secret is FL Studio`s Snare Basic.wav because my goal is to have Madeon-like snares and it`s actually made by him.
Some noisy sample, Snare Basic.wav is fine haha, I use transient shaper to give it more sustain
A smacky, snappy snare for the attack part.
Some random french sounding snares
Voila!
I noticed you make mostly discoish housy stuff, are you using four on the floor style kick patterns or alternating 1/3 kick and 2/4 snare? 150hz is kick drum territory which usually leads me to filter a snare that hits in that region to make life easier when mixing (since 99.99% of ears can't discern the difference anyway). I always assumed people making that style of music did the same thing but maybe the snare and the kick have such similar properties that you just use an alternating drum rhythm letting the snare do the work on the 2 and 4? I'm always interested in how other people go about their business.

21
Finished Tracks / Re: slizz -- hollow
« on: January 28, 2016, 03:03:15 pm »
thanks guppi. i write songs keeping my style of DJing in mind and I like songs that run through kind of quickly allowing me the time to set my own loops and create build ups based on how i'm feeling at the moment rather than going through the standard 32+ bar intro. Jah feel?

22
Sound Design / Re: Snares
« on: January 27, 2016, 07:47:50 pm »
I'm a sample pack guy all day. I didn't go to school for sound design so I'm not going to try and reinvent the wheel when ASDR and Loopmasters are paying people to produce samples.

That being said I'm usually adding some kind of layer to a snare, whether its a clap and a snare or a couple snares and a tuned drum. It really depends on the song. I feel like the mainstream dubstep guys are the biggest snare people since they always have snares that are mega loud and hit like 4 different frequencies very hard, but honestly that sound is becoming super dated. I feel like its taken 4 years for everyone to catch up and figure out how to sound like skrillex and now that they do the entire dubstep scene is saturated with a bunch of barking bass bouncy dub tunes that sound identical...erm..

so anyway, I approach snares in 3 steps

1. Whats the main transient? the slap. the actual stick hitting the skin of the drum. I'll dig for a snare with an attack that I like and start there.

2. Whats the key of the song? If the snare I like has good high end but when I tune it to hit in key with the song it loses character, I'll wash out everything I don't need with a hard 4x high pass eq in ableton and I'll add a waveform at the right frequency with a pitch dive. So a simple sin wave hitting in key anywhere from 200 to 1khz and i'll give it at least an octave of dive with fast attack that matches my top layer. I'll pass this around where I pass my slap layer so it doesnt sound like a computer bleep but gives nice punch to the drum.

3. how much snare do i need? If i need the snare to have a long tail I'll find a clap with a big reverb tail and take the highest frequencies of that and layer it on top. So maybe filter everything below 10k, for example, keeping just the white noise aspect of the reverb.

Once all these layers are sounding like they are at the right levels i'll group the 3 audio tracks and compress them with the multiband compressor ableton has to make sure i'm squeezing it together but allowing for certain frequencies to breathe a little. I'll record that to audio and use the sample.

Also, if necessary I'll put a low pass reverb on the midi track i'm usuing for punch and add that in sparingly during the recording process to give it more of a live drum feel. too much reverb in the middle register will make the mix a nightmare though so its usually super quick decay with zero lag and tiny room size. looking to recreate reverb within a drum, not a cathedral, afterall.

Finally - if your snare doesn't stand out in the mix I don't think its an issue of volume or reverb. Adding a fuck ton of reverb to a snare will just give it so much presence that any limiting you do on a master will squash your other sounds. If your snare sucks you either haven't left enough room for it or you need to start from scratch with a new sample. I'm a firm believer that the less reverb used the better. I'll use reverb before compressors on individual sounds to give wideness and unique characteristics and all that but I NEVER use a reverb buss or slap reverb on top of my synth or drum buss or something. Reverb is good for mashing all your sounds together and making them cooler when your track sucks, a good track that's almost bone dry will sound infinitely better on a big system than one that's dripping in reverb. Reverb also kills your headroom.

I hate reverb.

snares are cool though.

23
Finished Tracks / slizz -- hollow
« on: January 27, 2016, 07:19:40 pm »
Techno? Electro? I don't know, I just like horror movie melodies and weird bass sounds.

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