Okay so a bit of a tutorial

seannash

Right so after the discussion about needing more tutorials on here ive decided to do one.

Ill try and walk through the elements for the last track ive done

it can be heard here:http://soundcloud.com/seannash/sean-nash-ollie-jones-untitled-128kbps-rough-mix

ill first say that im definitely not the most professional of producers and my techniques could be all wrong but if people would like to chime in on better ways to do things or an easier way to do something please do so.

so heres the screenshot of the whole project


So lets start with the kick.
this particular kick is made up of two kick that i got from a vengeance sample pack(i know i know)
so hears the first one:

pic:

And audio clip:http://www.zshare.net/audio/712367272cc508f3/


And now hears the second one

Pic:

And the audio clip:http://www.zshare.net/audio/712367852ff1d8d4/


So the reason i chose these two sample was because i liked the low end of the first kick and the second kick had a nice high end in it.i wanted to borrow the low of the first kick and add the high of the 2nd kick(simple enough i know)

After i selected these two kicks i routed them both to the same bus and set about leveling them.

i set the first kick to -2.4 and the second kick to -23.

Now i know theres a hell of a difference to these two values but it seemed to come together at these levels.

So after routing the two kick to the same bus i eq,d it

Heres a pic of the settings on the eq:

Again i eq,d it just to what made it sound good to my ears giving it a slight boost at around 80hz.
i also made steep cut at 36hz to clear out any mud and also a severe cut at around 182hz to get rid of a frequency i didnt want.

i really wish there was more of a technical explaination to this eq,ing but its really just what sounded good to me.

after all that i ran the two kicks trough a compressor to gel them together.

heres the settings i used:

I set the attack at around 9.5 so as to let the punch of the kick come through.the attack was just set to what i thought sounded best.


here is a clip of it before the compressor was applied:
http://www.zshare.net/audio/712371937d8f3e87/


and here is what it sound like with the compressor:
http://www.zshare.net/audio/71237223c453e6bd/


Now i know it might not be the best kick in the world but it did the trick for me.
anyway if people want they can follow the settings and see how it comes together for themselves.

Again if people have any suggestions a to improvements.id normally eq my kicks individually before i run them to the bus but i didnt need to on this occasion.

So hopefully ill get round to a few more of the elements in a bit

(sorry about the short kick clips repeating.just download them to hear them properly without it repeating)

seannash

Okay so next up is the snare from the song


Its made up of 2 seperate samples

First sample is a snare drum sample i have.its just a standard snare with a little bit of low end in it and it has a nice little punch to it.
Heres a pic:

Heres the audio:http://www.zshare.net/audio/71238032bb7a0c5d/


The other sample is a clap.i used this to give the snare a nice crack sound to it.

Heres the pic:

and heres the audio:http://www.zshare.net/audio/7123785786916f65/


So basically what i did was i has the snare sample panned right down the middle with the clap sample duplicates and panned slightly left and right just to widen the whole snare sound just a touch.

i then ran the 3 sounds(single snare and double clap) to a bus with a plug in called monomaker(its free,check it out) and a compressor on it.

So the monomaker basically centres the whole snare sound.i know i panned the sounds a little and mono,ing it might sound a little silly but it seemed to work well for the sound.

I then ran it to the compressor with the following settings


its basically the same setting as i used for the kick for the exact same reason.

i didnt eq this snare at all as it sounded good to me as is.
So here it is before the compressor was added: http://www.zshare.net/audio/712381949529a7a5/

And here it is after:
http://www.zshare.net/audio/712382554a6ec3e3/

theres an obvious volume difference but it also seems punchier(to me anyway)

again probably not perfect but thats how i did it.

EDIT:forgot about the reverb!!!!!

Forgot to mention that once i had the snare sound i was after i applied a bit of reverb.
The reverb i used was Logics space designer

Heres a pic with the settings(it was a preset):

So what i did was from my snare bus i used a send from another bus(bus 10,see pic below) which is where i placed the reverb.this way i could dial in how much reverb was to be applied

so heres the snare bus channel
pic:

seannash

Okay so next i did the bass.
In the song i have two bass,s.a low one and a midrangey one.

Ill show you the lower one.

I made it in a really great bass plugin called Audiorealism Bassline 2.
Its really an acid box but it does bass really really well

pic:

The preset is one ive done myself and saved coz i like it.its pretty simple,just a sawtooth wave but it sounds amazing(see pic above)

I didnt need to eq the bass sound either as the filter on the synth did a good enough job at getting rid of the unwanted higher frequencies.

I then ran it through my compressor and sidechain compressed it of the kick(i made a seperate kick track for this)

Here it is without the sidechain compression: http://www.zshare.net/audio/712390019994d8c9/

And with: http://www.zshare.net/audio/7123911941c2e3aa/

These are the settings i used for the compressor for sidechaining:

If you dont know how to sidechain,check youtube theres millions of tutorials on it already.

So after all this i levelled the bass kick and snare til they sounded right(or close enough to right.

At the moment i had the kick at -10,the bass at -6(this of course is also dictated by the synths volume output) and the snare is at -6.1

So onto the next bit (yes its a slow night)

ICN

Cool Sean.. Thanks for sharing Man

Just a question about the whole kick / bass thing?

Did you have a bassline in mind to begin with or did it come after the kick?

Did you choose or edit the kick so that it was in tune with the bass or vice versa?


Recently I've been trying to tune all the drums / Claps / Hats etc.. (as far as I can) to the bassline.

I've been choosing a kick thats really good & then working from that. Just experimenting really. I have the tuner in Logic on the master & solo + pitch whatever I'm working on.

Most of the basslines have been in F,G or E with the kick. Octave wise / Frequency wise there seems to be more room & everything sounds tighter. They're just really the kicks that I've found to be really good anyway. I've been throwing whole tracks of other people into Logic & chopping them up & finding out the exact notes. Bit Anal I know! :pac:

I originally thought that you tune the kick to the bass by pitching it up or whatever - but it sounds rubbish. I havent been very good making kicks so far, so tuning the bassline to the kick is helping me out.

Appears to be making everything sound much tighter for me.


Havent even listened to your track yet Mate.. Going to have a mess around with everything later though for sure. But just wondering how you approached it.

Neurojazz

I'd ask to double take on the attack settings on the bass drum compressor - i've found 99% of kicks transients only get through at about 40-50ms - so not sure what's going on there.

Hesho

Fair play man. This is the sort of stuff im looking for!

ICN

Hesho wrote: »

Fair play man. This is the sort of stuff im looking for!

How are things Man.. What sorta stuff are you making?

seannash

ICN wrote: »

Cool Sean.. Thanks for sharing Man

Just a question about the whole kick / bass thing?

Did you have a bassline in mind to begin with or did it come after the kick?

Did you choose or edit the kick so that it was in tune with the bass or vice versa?


Recently I've been trying to tune all the drums / Claps / Hats etc.. (as far as I can) to the bassline.

I've been choosing a kick thats really good & then working from that. Just experimenting really. I have the tuner in Logic on the master & solo + pitch whatever I'm working on.

Most of the basslines have been in F,G or E with the kick. Octave wise / Frequency wise there seems to be more room & everything sounds tighter. They're just really the kicks that I've found to be really good anyway. I've been throwing whole tracks of other people into Logic & chopping them up & finding out the exact notes. Bit Anal I know! :pac:

I originally thought that you tune the kick to the bass by pitching it up or whatever - but it sounds rubbish. I havent been very good making kicks so far, so tuning the bassline to the kick is helping me out.

Appears to be making everything sound much tighter for me.


Havent even listened to your track yet Mate.. Going to have a mess around with everything later though for sure. But just wondering how you approached it.

hey man

to be honest this track just came about when i was messing about with just making kick and snare sounds.i just did the bass just to see how they would sound and it went from there.
cant say i tune anything to anything really,not conciously anyway.i guess i just correct it on the fly if it doesnt sound right.

the bassline started out more eleaborate and got edited down to the simple bassline once the second bass was done

to be honest though id normally just rob a kick from a track i have in my collection and save myself looking to create it by layering(lazy i know):D

seannash

Neurojazz wrote: »

I'd ask to double take on the attack settings on the bass drum compressor - i've found 99% of kicks transients only get through at about 40-50ms - so not sure what's going on there.

sweet man,ill definitely try increasing the attack and see where it gets me.

all the samples are there if you,d like to give us an audio example of what your talking about too

Neurojazz

seannash wrote: »

sweet man,ill definitely try increasing the attack and see where it gets me.

all the samples are there if you,d like to give us an audio example of what your talking about too

I used to have little or no attack on bass drums and basses... then something happened... i think it was a mastering tut on dvd and the guy started reeling off attack times for certain sounds... so i stuck a loop on and never looked back...

a typical dance bass drum would be 45-50ms (as you turn it up slowly from 0 you can hear the thump come out) with a shortish release (20/30 ms) and a 1:4 ratio (higher they get a bit 'brittle to my ears) - the threshold i just do by ear to check it doesn't get to flat in the main mix.

The basslines the same, but longer attacks again, slightly longer release.... some bass sounds seem to go up to 90ms to have a nice punch in mix.

I could be totally wrong of course... some tracks i've messed about with have had 2 compressors on the bass drums, one used as a limiter and the other to shape the sound...

seannash

okay so fiollowing on from the other elements ill move on to the more melodic elements

The higher bass sound was made in gforce's oddity

Pic:

If anyone wants to look at how its made up heres a closer pic of the filter and oscillator section

Pic:

Now im still getting to grips with this synth so i made this sound by just messing about but it seems as though its two sawtooth waves with a bit of ring modulation applied.
The cutoff on the filter is set to 253hz
The attack on it is set to 5ms
The decay is set to 748ms
The release is set to 48ms
Sustain is at zero

I then applied an eq to it.Heres the settings i used
pic:

So with the eq i did a severe cut at 75hz to clear out all the low end frequencies from there whilst still giving the sound some meat.
My thinking was that the first simple bass would occupy these lower frequencies and as this bass was more a melodic element it didnt need to be working down that low.
Hopefully that makes sense.
I then gave it a little boost at 80hz and 200hz just to suit my tastes.

So after that this is what it sounded like: http://www.zshare.net/audio/71260471f9aabe95/

I didnt run it through any compressor or sidechain it.didnt think i needed to so i leveled it and left it at that.:)

Oh and heres a pic of the notes that are playing as well as the midi file if you want to bang em into your daw


midi file:http://www.zshare.net/audio/71260993b8a8020e/

seannash

Neurojazz wrote: »

I used to have little or no attack on bass drums and basses... then something happened... i think it was a mastering tut on dvd and the guy started reeling off attack times for certain sounds... so i stuck a loop on and never looked back...

a typical dance bass drum would be 45-50ms (as you turn it up slowly from 0 you can hear the thump come out) with a shortish release (20/30 ms) and a 1:4 ratio (higher they get a bit 'brittle to my ears) - the threshold i just do by ear to check it doesn't get to flat in the main mix.

The basslines the same, but longer attacks again, slightly longer release.... some bass sounds seem to go up to 90ms to have a nice punch in mix.

I could be totally wrong of course... some tracks i've messed about with have had 2 compressors on the bass drums, one used as a limiter and the other to shape the sound...

great man,like i said im no expert but tips like this is what i was aiming for when i started this thread.
Nice to be able to hear tips on how to improve elements and where im going wrong in regards to settings etc.
Hopefully people will find it useful and it might generate more discussions:)

seannash

Edited the snare post to include reverb

seannash

Okay so in my drums on this track there are some toms.
I basically got these from another plug in called Audiorealisms ADM(its great)

Pic:

These are just classic 909 tom samples.
I made the arrangement for them and then duplicated the settings to another channel.
i then took one channel and panned it to the left(-41) and then took the other one and panned it to the right(-41)
This means that the toms are coming out both speakers but they are not coming straight down the middle which is where the kick and bass is.

The reason i did this is because the toms have a fair bit of low frequencies in them and i wanted to keep them in there but if they were to be coming straight down the middle it would clutter up the low end when coupled wit the lower frequencies from the kick and bass.

(thanks to JTSUITED for that tip:D )

No eqing on them as they sounded fine to me

Hears the audio: http://www.zshare.net/audio/712621187571625e/

Theres also a skin drum in there.
I got this from Sculpture(logic inbuilt synth)
Pic and setting(preset with some tweaking):

I applied a cut with the eq at 61hz to clear out the mud without changing the sound of the drum.
Pic:

To this sound i applied some reverb using Audio damage Reverence
Pic:

This reverb has a long tail on it,just done to taste.Agin this was done by placing the reverb on a bus and using the send to dial in the amount of reverb(just like the snare)

I also duplicated these settings and panned one left and right(-13 on the left and -13 on the right)

i figured there is also a bit of low in this sound,some of which i have cut out with the eq but theres still quite a bit there.
seeing as how thew toms were all the way on the left and right of the spectrum i figured i could also pan these left and right but not as hard so that they sit in a different area(hope that makes sense)

Anyway
Heres how it sounds without the reverb: http://www.zshare.net/audio/71262449a41c2359/

And here it is with reverb applied: http://www.zshare.net/audio/71262580580206b1/


So heres how it sounds so far with all the elements ive covered(nothing on the master on these )
http://www.zshare.net/audio/71263054e3baab07/

alan kelly

Good post man.. Enjoyed reading it,, Keep it up

ICN

Just going to mess around with this now.

Great Thread Sean. Hats off - You took a lot of time to do that Mate.


Do you ever use the other Compressor types for different things or do you use the Platinum setting for everything?

I like the way the Platinum sounds.. not too over the top.

seannash

ICN wrote: »

Just going to mess around with this now.

Great Thread Sean. Hats off - You took a lot of time to do that Mate.


Do you ever use the other Compressor types for different things or do you use the Platinum setting for everything?

I like the way the Platinum sounds.. not too over the top.

thanks man.

I dont really mess too much with the circuit type.like you said platinum seems to be an all in one type setting.

truth be told i normally use a sonalksis compressor but as this track started life by being made through ear buds i was just grabbing what was easy at the time but it turned out it sounded alright

if anyone has a specific part or element of the track that they would like me to explain feel free to ask.
if not ill just keep posting up how the individual elements and sounds were made and processed

ICN

Cool Mate.. Got to get away from the Net - I've been here probably for the last hour d!cking around..

Really interested to try out that tom panning thing.

Were there any problems with putting it in mono or did it just all work out?

Dd you delay one of the channels or anything?

Hesho

ICN wrote: »

How are things Man.. What sorta stuff are you making?

Just messing about on Ableton really but im still getting to grip with the basics but I find these step by step complete song tutorials to be extremely helpfull. I was actually looking around for some kickdrum tutorials so this thread is pretty handy!

Olliejones

Hello Fella!

Great thread, really detailed and full of great info for producers of all levels......the track isnt bad either

ICN

Olliejones wrote: »

Hello Fella!

Great thread, really detailed and full of great info for producers of all levels......the track isnt bad either

Welcome Ollie!

Olliejones

ICN wrote: »

Welcome Ollie!

Hi mate, cheers!

There is loads of quality information on here. Takes a while searching about though the website/forum is HUGE!!

seannash

Olliejones wrote: »

Hello Fella!

Great thread, really detailed and full of great info for producers of all levels......the track isnt bad either

hey man,bout time.ive been telling you about here long enough.:D

seannash

Okay so i guess ill explain about the synth melodies in the buildup next and how they were built,first up the leadline

So fot this leadline i used gforces imposcar
Pic:


Its basically a pulse wave and a sawtooth wave together with a long decay and release,short attack.
because this was a leadline i didnt really have any need for the lower frequencies in the sound so i did a cut at around 200hz.this seemed to clear up the low end without taking away too much of the character of the sound.

eq pic:

i then duplicate the settings for this and panned one of them left and one of them right to get it sounding wider.again i didnt want to clutter up the middle.

once i had them duplicate i then set about making small changes to the midi notes on each so that different notes would be playing at different sides of the spectrum at different times.
i didnt do it on any of the long notes as this would have been to obvious to the listener but on the shorter notes i deleted from one side and kept the other side(if that makes sense)

Okay so heres a picture of the midi of the leadline on the right

Pic:

And heres the audio for the right(the panning is kinda subtle): http://www.zshare.net/audio/71303856b1fcfc65/

So if you compare it to the midi from the leadline panned to the left,youll see its slightly different.
pic:

Audio for leadline panned to the left: http://www.zshare.net/audio/71304118302c9e08/


Hears what they sound like when played together,granted its hard to make out the different notes playing on different sides: http://www.zshare.net/audio/71303612289a9913/

so after i had done that i ran the two leads to a bus with a compressor on it for sidechaining off my kick.
Pic of settings:

Just for comparison heres the leadline with sidechaining and without.

With sidechaining: http://www.zshare.net/audio/71303612289a9913/


Without sidechaining: http://www.zshare.net/audio/713044241a5fa5fd/

So that was it really for the leadline.Throughout the track i use it for a synth stab before introducing it fully in the main breakdown.

I also use a reversed version in buildups and for stabs by themselves.

Heres what it sounds like: http://www.zshare.net/audio/71304577cf727912/

If you couple that with a leadline stab it gives a nice effect
Audio: http://www.zshare.net/audio/713047035473de4e/

All pretty simple things that can help bring a song together and help introduce instruments more smoothly rather than having the leadline just suddenly appear at the break. i just kept stabbing it in at appropraite times.

oh the leadline stab with the reverse leadline can be heard at around 5:12 in the song just to give it some context as it sounds a bit ****e by itself (my favourite part )

seannash

ICN wrote: »

Cool Mate.. Got to get away from the Net - I've been here probably for the last hour d!cking around..

Really interested to try out that tom panning thing.

Were there any problems with putting it in mono or did it just all work out?

Dd you delay one of the channels or anything?

just saw this now man.

i cant take credit for the panning thing,that was all jtsuiteds advice

i didnt delay the toms,i didnt want them any wider sounding so i just kept them the same so they would hit at the same time.

bit miffed about the putting it in mono part.do you mean putting the whole track in mono?

ICN

seannash wrote: »

just saw this now man.

i cant take credit for the panning thing,that was all jtsuiteds advice

i didnt delay the toms,i didnt want them any wider sounding so i just kept them the same so they would hit at the same time.

bit miffed about the putting it in mono part.do you mean putting the whole track in mono?

Sorry Man.. Should have explained that a bit more.. Didnt mean it to be taken literally.

I meant, was there any problems in mono with phasing / cancelling stuff out with the 2 tracks of toms?

Tried it out myself with the parts & it sounded fuller.. fuller in a way that you dont seem to get from just compressing. Thats the kind of stuff that I need to learn.

I've seen "In the Studio" Interviews in the past were someone is getting a bass, duplicating it & panning one all the way L and the other all the way R.

Thats the worst about getting info from all over the place.. things get a bit foggy. I thought that it might cause phasing.

Wondering if you can you do that with any part for a fuller sound?

Neurojazz

Stereo is something that usually gets left behind in dance music, a few reasons for this... some esoteric and some logical.

A common sense approach to panning is to imagine a stage and pan the drums a little left a right, leads, bass, bass drum center (and vocals) and pan everything else around.

If everything is panned center, the 'sum' of the parts becomes a mush.

Now, it's difficult to listen and do the mix in this way initially - so it's best to stop or turn down mix... pan the sounds around and then run the mix - a sort of 'reset' for the ears... the clearness of a mix is amazing once a few sounds are taken out of the center channel.

duplicating things and panning isn't clever, it's better to use a tool or stereo delay on the sound or chorus etc... putting the same sound left and right just is what a mono signal is.

ICN

Neurojazz wrote: »

Stereo is something that usually gets left behind in dance music, a few reasons for this... some esoteric and some logical.

A common sense approach to panning is to imagine a stage and pan the drums a little left a right, leads, bass, bass drum center (and vocals) and pan everything else around.

If everything is panned center, the 'sum' of the parts becomes a mush.

Now, it's difficult to listen and do the mix in this way initially - so it's best to stop or turn down mix... pan the sounds around and then run the mix - a sort of 'reset' for the ears... the clearness of a mix is amazing once a few sounds are taken out of the center channel.

duplicating things and panning isn't clever, it's better to use a tool or stereo delay on the sound or chorus etc... putting the same sound left and right just is what a mono signal is.

So is it better to "duplicate pan" a a duplicated mono track than a duplicated stereo track - or does it matter?

I tried doing it with a Klopfgeist bass there earlier - kinda deep sine-y bass - & bussed the 2 to another channel with a compressor & it sounded much bigger.

Would duplicating the same kick drum in this manner be ok? Certainly sounds louder, but are there is any fundamental problems or things to be aware of..

Neurojazz

don't duplicate parts in stereo, it might sound fatter but what's happening to all the other sounds? - they are getting hammered...

Look at balancing a mix like maths... you have a dynamic range that is limited, and the more 'loud' sounds you have means the will cover something else up (if they share the same frequencies) - i'd use compression and eq to fatten a sound up, but remember that any sounds that share the same frequencies will suffer.

Experiement with EQ pre and post to a compressor, cut the extreme low sub sonics that can't be heard pre and then mess about with boosting and cutting on the pre eq.... then once happy, start fattening up with the post.... then add another compressor after and flatten it. Give that a whirl

seannash

Neurojazz wrote: »

Stereo is something that usually gets left behind in dance music, a few reasons for this... some esoteric and some logical.

A common sense approach to panning is to imagine a stage and pan the drums a little left a right, leads, bass, bass drum center (and vocals) and pan everything else around.

If everything is panned center, the 'sum' of the parts becomes a mush.

Now, it's difficult to listen and do the mix in this way initially - so it's best to stop or turn down mix... pan the sounds around and then run the mix - a sort of 'reset' for the ears... the clearness of a mix is amazing once a few sounds are taken out of the center channel.

duplicating things and panning isn't clever, it's better to use a tool or stereo delay on the sound or chorus etc... putting the same sound left and right just is what a mono signal is.

just to add i never duplicate bass,kicks or snare.

just a question why is it bad to duplicte and pan but okay to delay and throw that delay to the opposite side of the spectrum.surely its practically the same,especially if you duplicate and delay one of the channels

Neurojazz

seannash wrote: »

just to add i never duplicate bass,kicks or snare.

just a question why is it bad to duplicte and pan but okay to delay and throw that delay to the opposite side of the spectrum.surely its practically the same,especially if you duplicate and delay one of the channels

Delay happens after the sound, whereas to duplicate makes the sound essentially mono.... in 'normal' band music you could have 2 different guitar performers playing the same parts and pan those (as they would be slightly different sounds) - but to put identical sounds left and right will just make it sound louder and become a mono signal if i remember correctly.

With delays... a piece of information i forgot... is that you can adjust the delayed signal in a few ways to avoid phasing, modulation of the pitch slightly and push or pull the timing a few ms so that phasing is avoided.

Depends on the situation and sound though... this is where you end up with 857389457348957 ways of getting around problems... sticking flangers on the delayed effect... etc.... ad-infinitum.

It's going to depend a lot on the sound and it's effect on the others around it.