Back To Your Roots

If you’ve ever had writers block in the studio ( and lets face it who hasn’t?) or can’t finish a tune or other catastrophes then have a crack at getting back to your roots and sampling some shit. Now for some that might mean going down to the local $2 used record shop but for me that means chugging my way through the mountains of sample cd’s that I have on my HDD and in my CD wallets.

You see, even though you can write a tune with just some drums and some bass the reality is you is going to need some more sounds. Pads, FX, Swooshes, Vocals, Movie snippets are all required in your work. Ok, maybe not in all your work but you get the point. Anyways, like I made the point in an earlier post about drum n bass production.  Collect and prepare  all your samples first before you start arranging. This makes the arrangement part that much easier and mixing down the track will NOT be a living nightmare.

Anyways, to help me with this NOT so enjoyable task I’ve enlisted the help of Ableton Live and its brilliant audition/explorer window. (narrow strip down the left side)

So, all I do is…

1. Set the BPM at 172-174

2. Import a break. (Probably one of mine)

3. Pick a sample folder

4. Start auditioning some sounds and dragging in the ones I like

5. Oh… I use the arrangement view, NOT clip view. (hit TAB button)

6. After I have finished with the folder I will Collect All and Save (file menu)

7. Delete folder

8. I have also worked out that if you “consolidate” all the samples you like you can find them

easily in the project folder for use later on.

9. Just save what ever sounds you like. FX, Bass, Drums or whatever. The idea is to just weed

out the crap samples from your HDD first.

What Generally Happens…

What I find usually  happens is I’ll quickly get some sort of groove/vibe going straight away. I’ll find a pad/atmos sound and then some stabs and then fx. (I suppose it depends on what sample cd I’m auditioning. ) I’ll lay out the samples in some of sort of arrangement that makes sense e.g. Swooshes at the end of bars, Hits at the beginning etc. Then if its a solid vibe I’ll save the project under a descriptive name e.g. Jungle vibe and move on. I’ll mute the parts and continue on finding samples.

This is a great way of working quickly and efficiently. Being able to work quickly as a producer is a skill that can not be underestimated. I’ve been searching for years for a work flow that could get me good results but still allow me flexibility.  Ableton has given me what I wanted and I’m a happy man indeed.

What About Me…

Ok, what if you don’t use Ableton Live? Well, I suppose you could use Media Bay in Cubase or the Add media in Logic. However, I just don’t see them as good. Don’t get me wrong they ARE good but just not as good as the one in Live. Also you could try using Kontakt Sampler and using the “next sample” feature which gives you the option of playing the samples but I’ve found that to be hit and miss.

What Next?

After I’ve gotten all my samples together its time to work out their pitches and weed out the samples that just don’t fit the track. Sometimes I’ll place a “holding Bass” groove in there to project to see how all the samples fit temporally and continue on with either finding more samples or doing a quick arrangement. Right now at the moment I’m NOT 100% on mixing down in Ableton Live but I’m giving it a go anyways. Its not perfect by any means but I’m willing to live with the restrictions.

So, I hope you get down and dirty and find or create some phat ass sounds to use in your projects. Also, if you haven’t tried Ableton Live yet give it a shot, it might work out for you and that ain’t not bad thing!

Howdy, happy new year and all that. Yes, its a little late but hey, better late then never!

So, moving on… gotta treat for you because a good friend of mine Severity Zero put together some tasty instruction on how to create your very own Sub Bass Patch.

So make sure you click the link and follow/comment etc.

Severity Zero or Leo as I know him is one of the rising stars in DNB so keep a look out for his name.

Enjoy.

*** How to get a basic, decent sub bass sound going … on a shoestring ***

One of the pillars of drum and bass production is getting that ‘dnb’ sub bass sounding right. Being able to master this skill is absolutely essential, as this is “drum and bass” after all, and without the latter.. well, you got nuttin’, man!

The good news is that it really not hard to get a decent, booming bass sound going. You know, the type that makes chests vibrate on the dance floor – AND you don’t need to pay top dollar for the right VST/plug in to do this. I’m an advocate of the “less is more” rule when it comes to choosing the tools to get the job done. Personally, I’m an Ableton user and, call me crazy, I like to stay clear of any external VSTs, plugins, “bass-o-nators”, synths, etc. Yes, it is certainly possible to get a HUGE sounding bassline happening by just using your DAW’s built in tools, irrespective of what DAW you use!

Whatever your weapon, wether it’s FL Studio, Ableton, Cubase, etc.. A decent sampler is part and parcel of any modern DAW. I recommend you become well familiar with how your DAW’s built-in sampler works. In particular, learn how to load samples, loop them, set loop points and how to adjust attack and release times.

Before you start writing me off as a cheat, I’m gonna make it clear that I’m not going to direct you to pluck a bassline samples straight off your favourite sample pack, chop out one note and then play at different pitches, etc… Instead, we’re going to be creating this shizz from scratch. Yeahh!

What I would like to share with you is my recipe for my basic sub bass sound. What you choose to do after that is entirely up to you, the possibilities are indeed endless.

Have I hyped this up enough already? Enough with the blabber, let’s get down to business. What you will need for the job is:

- A sine wave waveform (ie. in a wav file for instance)

- A sampler (Most DAWs should have one) that you can play notes with using the piano roll

- An overdrive/saturator effect (most DAWs come with one built in)

- EQ – use the DAW built in, or your favourite external one

- Spectrum Analyser – same as for the EQ

Load the sine wave into the sampler, and set the sampler it to loop that wave continuously. Don’t loop a big section of it, 4 to 5 ‘wave crests’ will do. Now play a note of that sample, preferably a high one (ie C3,C4) so you can hear the typical “sine” sound. In most instances you will hear a clicking sound, and this is because as the sine wave starts repeats itself, there will be a gap. What you want to do is to move the looping points (start and finish) so that they’re placed exactly at a point in which the wave crosses the middle line, thus eliminating the gap.

Got it? Now what you’ll find is that as you play lower and lower notes, you’ll get more of a “sub bass” sound going. However, the “pure sub bass” in that fashion is, well, quite boring as it lacks harmonics. There’s no mid range or highs. What you’ll find is that, unless you got a sound system capable of playing those realllly low notes, you won’t hear any bassline at all. Think of those poor people who will be hearing your future blockbuster hits on their crappy ipod headphones!!

The solution here is to add some grit to the sound in the form of distortion/overdrive. This will add harmonics to the sub bass and make it resonate at other frequencies which will now be audible on all types of speakers. There you have it, “byass for da masses!!” I like to be gentle with the overdrive, but that is personal preference. Feel free to experiment with this so that you can get your unique sounds going.

Now that we’ve got our bass sound, we want to make it sound more natural, more like a real instrument. Think of a bass guitar and how a plectrum strikes the string, and then the string vibrates until the sound dies out. The next step is to adjust the attack and release times on that sampler so that when you play an individual note it doesn’t just start and stop abruptly, instead it mimics that “string” action. I recommend adjusting the attack to about 30-50ms and the release to about 800ms. Again, experiment with these values to get your own unique sounds going. I find this really adds that “Boom” quality to the bass sound.

Next, EQing. Although our bass may be sounding quite decent at this stage, it may or may not fit well within your mix. I suggest using an EQ to roll off the frequencies above about 200hz. I find that if this isn’t done, the bass sound may start interfering with other sounds in the mix such as vocals, keys, pads etc. Again, this is not a hard and fast rule. You may choose not to EQ that bass at all if you’re doing a track that is mostly drums and bass and not much else going.

Finally, you want to use a Spectrum Analyser to check that your bass is hitting the right frequencies. I’ve run countless commercially released tunes through an analyser to see what kinds of levels the producers applied to their subs. I found that, within the “sub” territory (ie. between 30 and 150Hz) the notes peak at anywhere from -10dB to -6dB, so you’ll want your sub peaks to be within this zone. How far within the zone really will depend on your mix. As it has been said often, “use your ears”.

There you have it, a simple guide to get you started with writing some sick sub basslines. Remember, this is just the basic, basic stuff. You can add any effects you want to create some proper sick sounds. Try adding some chorus (between distortion and the EQ) or crank that distortion right up. Hell, maybe even use a totally different waveform, like a saw or triangle. Rip out little bits of other samples and zoom in enough so that you find a bit that roughly resembles a sine wave, then and loop that instead. Layer another more mid-rangey soundin bass (or two) for a fuller sound. Anything is possible!

By the way, yes, you can do most of the above by using a soft synth, too. You can set an oscillator to sine, add an overdrive within the synth, etc. But how much fun is that? Besides, synths can cost ya $$$, especially if you collect dozens of them. Stick to the basic building blocks, I say. Not only will this save you money, but this sampler-based method will also use less of those precious CPU cycles on your machine.

Happy producing!

Okay, this tip is not really a new one. The plugin I’m referring to here is the PSP Vintage Warmer 2 by those Polish boffins of Audio Software PSP.

If you had the chance to check out the latest CM mag with heavy weights Icicle, Reso and the Qemists then you’ll know what I’m talking about.

If you didn’t. Go out and grab the magazine or Google that shizzle.  Most definitely worth it.

Works absolutely brilliant on drums and well… er anything. Perfect if you need to add a bit of life to your drum break or fatten it up 200%!

Using The PSP Vintage Warmer 2

1. Turn up the drive knob.

2.Play with the Knee. 0-12 should do it.

3. Put it into FAT and Multi mode.

4. Turn the Limit OFF (use the Sonnox Oxford Limiter)

5. Adjust the High and Low band EQ to taste. I use them subtractively to flatten out the break whilst using Voxengo Span.

The thing about PSP VW2 is its pretty ease to use but the results are awesome.

Now… go out there and FU*K up some breaks!

Listen, in this day and age of unlimited downloads, torrents and cracks its easy to have a VST folder that’s jammed packed full of synths that you have absolutely no idea about what they do or how they sound.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.

STOP

Go back into your folder and uninstall all of them except 1/2/3.

I don’t really care which one’s you pick. Just pick them and be done with it.

“Its easy to make a wrong decision right then to make a decision”

This was a famous quote by somebody who I can’t remember but anyways… you get the point.

Make a decision and move on.

Okay, so after you choose the synths you want to work with have a play around with them. Work your way through some presets and get to know how each one of them sounds. Turn off the effects and appegiators on the presets if they have them and have a good listen. Bounce out some sounds if you like and maybe draw in a bit of automation if you feel inspired.

Now after playing around you should load the initial/initialize preset (if there is one). Some synths come with an initial preset and some don’t. I reckon EVERY synth should have one. Its only when you start to build your own synth patches will you start to understand the synth. Which brings me to a good point.

I struggled with synthesis for ages. Sure I had a rough idea about what stuff on a synth did, LFOs, Envelopes, Detune etc. However, it wasn’t until I went through www.Nickstutorials.com courses that I started to really understand synthesis. Do yourself a favor and check them out. They start at the crazy price of $8 US and the amount of stuff you’re going to learn is worth WAY MORE than that.

Okay, so after you get a grasp of synthesis (by watching the videos etc) start building up your own presets and bounce stuff out for your own sound library. In next to no time you’ll have a large collection of your OWN sounds and your tracks will have start to develop your own personalized sound. Which is what making drum and bass music is all about.

Okay, over the last couple of months I’ve been formulating some cool new drum and bass production techniques and song writing techniques. Some haven’t worked as well as I wanted but some have proved to be “outstanding!” This one technique below is absolutely smashing my productivity meter through the roof!

SET A TIME LIMIT

Yep, I’ll say it again… “set a time limit”. This one killer technique has improved productivity a million% and I’ve written more stuff in the last month than I have all year!

Here’s the steps I go through:

1. 2 hour time limit. (yep, 2 hours is all you/I get! )

2. Find your samples, drums, bass, atmos, vocals, etc…

3. Fire up Ableton Live 8

4. Put down the atmos to get a vibe.

5. Work out the Bass line.

6. Drums go next.

7. Fx goes in about now.

8. Arrange the thing out to about 240 bars.

9. Freak out about the lack of time!

10. Allow 15 minutes for quick mixdown.

11. Done.

Now, before people freak out about the 2 hour time limit. DONT! Its only a time limit. I just made the damn thing up. It helps me work quickly. Which is the point. Also it ain’t going to be no Noisia, Current Value mega production standard tune. No, its just a technique to fire up the tune making juices and get some finished tracks under your belt!

Now, I don’t go back and do the tune when the 2 hours is up. I MOVE onto the next track. I’ll revisit the tune in a few days. This lets me be critical and judgmental later. Which is when you want to be, not when you’re trying to be creative!

So to sum every thing up.  SET A TIME LIMIT! I can’t say that enough. Oh and be really strict with it as well, no distractions, no emails, no Facebook etc. When 2 hours is up, your done! Put down the mouse. Take a break. Have a coffee. Go for a walk blah blah blah. You get the point.

Most importantly. Give it a whirl. See how you go. Even if you write a tune in 4 hours 19 minutes 34 secs you ain’t doing too badly are you?

Anyways, enough yacking from me.

If you have a bunch of questions about this technique or any others just write them below or shoot me an email.

Speak to you soon.

Dauntless