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Hey Teamliquid, I have been creating electronic music using several programs (primarily FL Studio) for several years now....I've figured out a lot about the process and learned a lot, mostly self taught. I thought It would be helpful and fun to make a little helper article to show people how to do one of the neatest things in electronic music, namely producing your own unique sounds. There are already tons of tutorials out there, but 99% of them suck ass. Plus I'm here to answer questions.
When you first start using music software, synths are the most intimidating things in the world. It took me goddamn forever to figure out how to actually use all the 100s of intimidating knobs and not just click in presets. I still like to use presets, but making your own sounds from scratch is WAYYY more fun and you can get exactly what you want. Its actually pretty easy too, if you have someone around to show you some basics.
With this howto I'm going to focus in on one of the things many people want to learn nowadays: how to make really neat and interesting bass sounds. Yeah, dubstep is cool and all, but these basses can be used in pretty much any genre and are a great intro to how to program synths and create awesome and bizarre effects. In this tutorial I assume you know how to use the basic functions of your music software (playing notes etc...).
Here are some sounds you can make using the methods in this Howto:
DISCLAIMER: I am not a professional sound engineer by any stretch of the word, I am 99% self taught. What I write here is just how I get my sounds, It may be blatantly wrong but It will make cool noises.
HOW TO USE THE SYNTH
The synth I'm going to show the basics of is Native Instruments Massive. Why? Because its a great synth. A word on synths here, most non-sample based synths out there do basically the same things. Its not like a guitar and a drum where if you want a drum sound you have to go get a drum...a really good programmer can make pretty much any sound using any commercial or free synth. What mostly separates synths is just the user interface. I am showing Massive off because it has a GREAT interface and is readily available to anyone who wants it. Massive can be used as a plugin in pretty much any music software (Cubase/Ableton/FL/Logic/blahblahblah), and will operate exactly the same in all of them.
After you've got Massive installed and all that (google if you have trouble), open up an instance and It should look like this:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/3Xjjz.png)
The first thing you are going to do is click File-New Sound, because for some reason it doesn't come up blank.
Now I'm going to show you how this shit works...Its actually REALLY simple.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/LoVYz.png)
There are actually only four things in this synth you have to worry about:
1. GREEN: The oscillators! There are three of them, stacked. OSC1 OSC2 and OSC3. They generate the noises you use as building blocks for your sound.
2. RED: The filters! There are two of them, stacked. We will only use one so just ignore Filter 2. They filter the noise, taking away some frequencies.
3. BLUE: The Effects! There are 2 at the bottom and two on the right, they add effects to the noise like echo and other more complicated shit.
4. YELLOW: General settings. They are in tabs just like your browser, you only have to worry about the ones I have circled.
You can ignore everything in the synth I haven't circled. You can fuck around with it later but its not important right now. Basically you will turn on some of those oscillators over on the left, they will make noises that go through the filters and then the effects to come out at the end as savage bass or string plucks or whatever.
Ok, so you wanna make a basic bass. First we are going to pick what oscillator we want, we'll only use one for this simple bass. So just make sure only one oscillator is on (the little blue light next to the name), and make it look like this:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/7bC9X.png)
The pitch number is going to be brought down an octave (12 semitones) because we want bass, and the top setting "Sin-Squ" is picked out of that big drop down menu. This menu is different types of oscillators that make different types of sounds. You can use whatever you like the sound of but lets start with Sin-Squ. The three knobs in the oscillator are its settings, Wt-Position and Intensity influence the sound (wiggle them to see how), and Amp is the oscillator's volume. When you play a nice long note with the synth right now it should make a boringish buzzy bass tone. Great.
Now we are going to add the filter to make it interesting.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/1djzR.png)
Click the dropdown menu and select Lowpass 4. This filter is going to let the low frequencies "pass" through, and cut out the high frequencies of our oscillator. How much it cuts off is dependant on that "Cutoff" knob. Lets turn the 3rd knob (Resonance), all the way down for this sound (you can wiggle it to see how it sounds, just adds resonance durp). Now play a note and turn the "Cutoff" knob back and forth, you should hear the high frequencies being modulated....This is the knob you turn to get that classic wobble sound used in dubstep all the time. However you cant sit here and turn that knob manually all day long, so we are going to have the synth turn it for you (this also makes the wobble sound nicer).
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/F2Dk8.png)
You see those blue and green tabs in the settings area? Those are your automatic knob turners (called envelopes and LFO's). The only thing they do is turn other knobs in the synth automatically. Click on LFO # 5, the one I circled. When you assign this thing to another knob in the program, it will turn that knob up and down according to the shape shown in the middle. We want it to turn that cutoff knob in the filter, so all you have to do is click the green + next to its name and drag it up into the first box under the cutoff knob. It should look like this:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/8yB4Z.png)
Ok, now that thing is automatically assigned to turn that knob. We just need to tell it how we want it turned. This is how we do that:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/T7fsH.png)
Whoa dont get scared, its only three things. First we tell the LFO (knob turner) what shape we want it to turn the knob in, we want that sine wave on top, so we move the crossfader all the way to the top. Second, we want to tell it how far to move the knob. We do this by clicking on the green 5 in the box under cutoff and dragging up or down. The LFO will now turn that knob up and down in that range of motion. Third we need to tell it how fast to turn the knob, we want it to turn the knob in sync with the BPM of our project, so we turn on Sync, then move the bottom number right above Sync to 4 by clicking and dragging up and down. If you set the bottom number at 8 it will sound faster, and if you set it at 2 it will go slower.
If you have all the settings looking like that picture and play a long note, it should make a nice wobble bass just like this:
If it doesnt sound like that make sure you are playing a note you put into the piano roll and not just hitting a key. If you are just hitting a key then the synth cant sync to the program and the LFO wont turn the knob.
Congratulations, you just made a wobble bass from scratch and hopefully actually understood what you did  . Lets add some effects to make it sound better.
Lets add a Dimension expander (select it from the drop down), its an effect which will give the sound some stereo and make it sound bigger. Heres a setting I like:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/4eUqb.png)
You can play with the setting and various effects in these two slots all you want, just whatever sounds good.
That was cool and all, but how do you make crazy complex sounding stuff like this?
Imma bout to blow your mind....more automatic knob turning, that's it. You know how we had the program move the cutoff up and down? What If you also set it to move the volume of one of the oscillators up and down? Or to turn a knob in another filter? Or even.....to turn a knob IN AN LFO THAT TURNS ANOTHER KNOB....WHOA WTF KNOBTURNCEPTION! Yeah, that's all there is to it.
Lets look at that the bass that made that sound I just linked:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/c1Y1a.png)
Whats going on here? Simple stuff you just did, only more of it. I have 3 different oscillatiors turned on and loaded with different waveforms (Sin-Tri, Acid, and S-Yard) running then through a Comb Filter (up top), and a S-Shaper (in the insert slot), and then finally through the good old Dimension Expander at the very end. Then I just have all 4 knob twiddlers all assigned to different knobs in the filters and oscillators. Its actually very simple. All you have to do is find out what knobs make cool effects when twiddled with. I heavily recommend the S-Shaper I used in this sound, as well as the Wt-Position in each oscillator.
Get out there and assign some LFO's chappies! Remember you can use these tools to make any sound you want, not just wobble bass, you can make trance plucks or leads using the same method, just assign the envelopes to different knobs and use different Oscillators in at a higher pitch.
ADVANCED METHODS
Just one more tip once you are a pro at assigning LFO's. Those blue things (Env) actually do the exact same thing as the green ones, they can be assigned to turn knobs too, only they turn them based on the shape shown inside each one starting from when the note is hit:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/avUsl.png)
And the LFO's can turn knobs not just in waves, they have two other modes as well:
One, the Stepper, which turns knobs to the values you put into a stepping graph:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/4uRvA.png)
And two, the Performer, which turns knobs based on a series of curves you put into a chart:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/g7aTj.png)
These alternate options can be selected from the far upper right drop down in each LFO. They behave exactly like the normal LFO except they turn the knob in more interesting shapes.
If anyone has any questions or inquiries on how to get a specific noise or gets stuck and confused or other stuff just post and/or PM me! I can help you probably! I can even stream a little lesson which makes everything about 100x easier so don't hesitate to ask.
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Is it just me or is every picture in this thread just a square that looks like this:
x x
_-----_
EDIT: ![[image loading]](http://gyazo.s3.amazonaws.com/misc/limit.gif) The bandwidth are limited for embedding this image now.
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On October 15 2011 05:55 Serejai wrote:Is it just me or is every picture in this thread just a square that looks like this: x x
_-----_
Not just you, seems he used a bad image host.
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i guess you have some problems with your images
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On October 15 2011 05:55 Serejai wrote:Is it just me or is every picture in this thread just a square that looks like this: x x
_-----_
ohhellno I guess Gyazo is fucking up again, its so convenient I always try to use it....I'll switch it to imgur
hold on a sec
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Was hoping this was how to make a sick fish.  I'm hungry.
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Awesome thread thank you. I'm still trying to figure out FL studio too and all the creation process and this will help me a lot.
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As someone who dabbles in this kind of stuff, I am thankful for your post. I'm self-taught and a lot of UIs are still really intimidating to me.
BUT, I must admit, I expected this thread to be about how to poison large fish.
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+ Show Spoiler +
Here's how I make Sick Bass.
Edit: Useful tutorial, I'll definitely reference it if I ever get into making Electronic music.
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The post is great, I love that you've put together a guide for this. Pictures soon? Bookmarking this regardless, it's good info either way.
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The images are are available if you right-click the dizzy-face icon, and select the appropriate option. inconvinient, but better than 'nuffin.
OP got fixed huh. Thanks 
It'd be awesome if you'd be doing some video-tutorials on that issue (sick bass and perhaps using music software in general). Seems like you could get some proper tutoring going on right there :D
I'll watch!
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Alright, fixed the damn pictures, should be good to go now.
If anyone gets confused just tell me where and I'll edit the post to clarify for everyone.
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Looks great, thanks again!
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Ive been looking for a tutorial lke this for so long. and you post it the day after my pc breaks T.t ^^
ty and gj
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Should pop on your own FL Studio tutorial too =)
Great job, always wondered what a low-pass filter was.
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I assumed this thread was going to be people quoting this:
Nigel: The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and...
Martin: Oh, I see. And most amps go up to ten?
Nigel: Exactly.
Martin: Does that mean it's louder? Is it any louder?
Nigel: Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?
Martin: I don't know.
Nigel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?
Martin: Put it up to eleven.
Nigel: Elevn. Exactly. One louder.
Martin: Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?
[Pause.]
Nigel: These go to eleven.
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cool guide! as an audio engineer and electronic music producer, i approve! I also like the fabfilter stuff, really quality.
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This is actually a sweet guide! Thank you!
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On October 15 2011 08:06 ChineseWife wrote:
cool guide! as an audio engineer and electronic music producer, i approve! I also like the fabfilter stuff, really quality.
If I send you some of my ableton files can you master them for me pretty please? 
Nice guide! My biggest issue with Massive (and synths for that matter) is Voicing. I don't really understand what's going on there, or what the difference is between monorotate, monophone, etc.
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I love TL. So much information on this site. Awesome OP.
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On October 15 2011 08:22 FREEloss_ca wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2011 08:06 ChineseWife wrote:
cool guide! as an audio engineer and electronic music producer, i approve! I also like the fabfilter stuff, really quality. If I send you some of my ableton files can you master them for me pretty please? Nice guide! My biggest issue with Massive (and synths for that matter) is Voicing. I don't really understand what's going on there, or what the difference is between monorotate, monophone, etc.
No clue what monorotate does...Sounds the same as Mono to me in all my experiments.
Poly vs monophonic is just how many notes/tones the synth will play at the same time, if you wanna play chords then you will have to use poly, if you want to glide between stacked notes you want mono. Also pretty much all bass should be made while set to monophonic with only one voice, otherwise you can get destructive interference when you have filters going...I've had it happen before I knew what was up, makes all your bass disappear occasionally and is really F-in annoying.
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On October 15 2011 08:22 FREEloss_ca wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2011 08:06 ChineseWife wrote:
cool guide! as an audio engineer and electronic music producer, i approve! I also like the fabfilter stuff, really quality. If I send you some of my ableton files can you master them for me pretty please? Nice guide! My biggest issue with Massive (and synths for that matter) is Voicing. I don't really understand what's going on there, or what the difference is between monorotate, monophone, etc.
lol i do mixing & mastering, but i usually get paaaaaaaid yo
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On October 15 2011 08:52 ChineseWife wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2011 08:22 FREEloss_ca wrote:On October 15 2011 08:06 ChineseWife wrote:
cool guide! as an audio engineer and electronic music producer, i approve! I also like the fabfilter stuff, really quality. If I send you some of my ableton files can you master them for me pretty please? Nice guide! My biggest issue with Massive (and synths for that matter) is Voicing. I don't really understand what's going on there, or what the difference is between monorotate, monophone, etc. lol i do mixing & mastering, but i usually get paaaaaaaid yo
Where did you learn how to master?
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lots of practice! went to school for music production & worked at a few studios. wouldnt call myself a mastering engineer, bc i dont have the cash to invest in a proper mastering setup, but my monitoring and d/a chain is mastering quality.
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I think that it's always best to record a normal bass, and then add effects later(or analogue effects before recording). This gives the bass sound a lot more feeling etc. I will, however, try this out, since a change is nice once in a while!
Thanks for the guide :D
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Sick to see this kind of thread on TL! I've been making electronic music for a couple of years now, Am a regular over at Dubstep-forum.
Nice guide on basic synthesis!
If you really want to get into the nitty gritty be sure to check out this. While you do that, download this book. Additive synthesis will blow your mind! lol Infact I find sound design and the general sonic world both fascinating and infinitely mysterious.
Fun times!
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On October 15 2011 08:59 ChineseWife wrote:
lots of practice! went to school for music production & worked at a few studios. wouldnt call myself a mastering engineer, bc i dont have the cash to invest in a proper mastering setup, but my monitoring and d/a chain is mastering quality.
I'm a starving artist and can't afford to have anyone master my tracks. I can do basic EQing but I just can't get that high production quality that say, a Skrillex or Deadmau5 track would have.
How much do you charge normally? And do you have any samples of your work?
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On October 15 2011 06:04 AutomatonOmega wrote:+ Show Spoiler +Here's how I make Sick Bass. Edit: Useful tutorial, I'll definitely reference it if I ever get into making Electronic music.
Came into the thread expecting this.
Was not disappointed. Excellent job sir!
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On October 15 2011 08:59 ChineseWife wrote:
lots of practice! went to school for music production & worked at a few studios. wouldnt call myself a mastering engineer, bc i dont have the cash to invest in a proper mastering setup, but my monitoring and d/a chain is mastering quality.
Do you know if pretty much every reasonably sized electronic producer sends out their tracks for third party mastering or do many of them do it on their own?
I mean I just listen to a huge amount of electronic and many of the best producers just have this crystal clear mastering that blows my mind. Its such a black art to me and I have no idea how to get my tracks to sound that clean. I can get professional results with tracks without too much shit going on, but when I try to fit big basses and kicks into a really big track its generally a disaster.....Is it actually that difficult that everyone sends their stems to a pro or am I just a noob? I mean I often notice unsigned artist with very nice tracks and amateur/poor mastering releasing their first signed EP and it just sounding 1000% better. Is this the work of a professional studio or are they just being told how its done?
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On October 15 2011 09:07 FREEloss_ca wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2011 08:59 ChineseWife wrote:
lots of practice! went to school for music production & worked at a few studios. wouldnt call myself a mastering engineer, bc i dont have the cash to invest in a proper mastering setup, but my monitoring and d/a chain is mastering quality. I'm a starving artist and can't afford to have anyone master my tracks. I can do basic EQing but I just can't get that high production quality that say, a Skrillex or Deadmau5 track would have. How much do you charge normally? And do you have any samples of your work?
Its down to a shit ton of practice man and unless you are intending on trying to get some form of monetary gain from your works i wouldn't fork out for an M.E. just yet. I feel I learn a whole lot more about sound (and mixdowns!) when i master tracks as best I can off my own back. [ btw, bad choice on skril/mau5 ] Check out some NitGrit/16 bit or if you like more chilled shit try some Geiom maybe?
I tend not to like the main stream 'bro-step' type of hyped up, dumbed down gimmicky dubstep, sort of a total exploit of what the genre began as and where it came from culturally. meh, call me an elitist lol
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On October 15 2011 09:12 sob3k wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2011 08:59 ChineseWife wrote:
lots of practice! went to school for music production & worked at a few studios. wouldnt call myself a mastering engineer, bc i dont have the cash to invest in a proper mastering setup, but my monitoring and d/a chain is mastering quality. Do you know if pretty much every reasonably sized electronic producer sends out their tracks for third party mastering or do many of them do it on their own? I mean I just listen to a huge amount of electronic and many of the best producers just have this crystal clear mastering that blows my mind. Its such a black art to me and I have no idea how to get my tracks to sound that clean. I can get professional results with tracks without too much shit going on, but when I try to fit big basses and kicks into a really big track its generally a disaster.....Is it actually that difficult that everyone sends their stems to a pro or am I just a noob? I mean I often notice unsigned artist with very nice tracks and amateur/poor mastering releasing their first signed EP and it just sounding 1000% better. Is this the work of a professional studio or are they just being told how its done?
EQ out all of the freqs you don't need in all of your sound elements in a track, shit 'will' be clashing with very 'wide' patches, synths/basses for example. You need to carve out space for everything. I could go into it in a lot more detail, but there's been hundreds of thousands of words written on the subject over at dubstep forum/Dogs on acid.
Look into fletcher munson curves/frequency masking and the finite limitations of dealing with digital audio (clipping threshold e.t.c.). Learn about making room for your sounds in a track and learn to pay attention to the frequency content of sounds in regard to keeping the intended timbre but allowing similar elements to breath along side prominent elements.... Its a matter of frequency manipulation, stereo placements and of course the mix (amplitude). Think of those as your 3 axes (plural of axis). Its basically down to research and a lot of practice/dedication.
EDIT: Freeloss, You may also find this video series infinitely informative
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My rates usually depend on the amount of work/time it would take me, budget of client, and scope of the project. I was getting paid minimum wage to work at a very high end studio (mostly top 40 artists), but realized it was not at all worth it, so I'm trying to freelance. $25/hour is a pretty typical rate for small studios and freelancers like me, but if its a whole project I will usually work out a flat rate for X number of tracks.
@sob3k: I would say 90% of top electronic artists have their own mixing engineers and mastering engineers that they either hire full time or send tracks to. Well I've known a few artists to hire full time engineers... If you look at the insert or the album credits you can usually find out who these people are. If you downloaded the album you can usually find the credits at a site like http://www.discogs.com/
Here's a link so some of my stuff, but it's all pretty rough/unfinished work (i get lazy with my own music xD):
http://soundcloud.com/fortiesforeigners
@freeloss_ca: Mastering completely depends on the quality of the mix, and if you have to opportunity to EQ something before mastering, you are always better off doing that. Same thing applies to compression and levels. You never want to fix a mix in the mastering stage unless you have access to the stems of the track
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I thought this thread on how to make fish at first. epic fail on me
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On October 15 2011 09:23 BMF-Showtime wrote:
I thought this thread on how to make fish at first. epic fail on me
me too
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ive always wondered how they make the sounds they make, enlightening. Thanks.
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On October 15 2011 09:22 ChineseWife wrote:
@freeloss_ca mastering completely depends on the quality of the mix, and if you have to opportunity to EQ something before mastering, you are always better off doing that. Same thing applies to compression and levels. You never want to fix a mix in the mastering stage unless you have access to the stems of the track
Yip, Freeloss, mastering is more about getting the tune up to peak amplitude without clipping distortion and shaping things to get that serious sheen on things. Mixing is much more about creating the vibe by using compression/adding auxilleries/adjusting levels, anything the track needs really beyond the basic melodic content and actual musical content of the track (tracking in a studio/composition in a DAW). Mixing is the next step, giving it the embellishment it needs to reach fruitition. Finally mastering is the stage you add the real sheen and refine it into a truly finished product. Mastering is the hardest in it own ways but also the most technical/non 'musical' in a lot of respects. Mixing, at least afaict, is where that 'crispness and sheen/fullness is created (on top of the actual track its self of course, but these things are becoming much more entwined anyway).
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That's one of the reasons I have so much respect for Deadmau5 as a producer; he's one of few artists who does all the work on their own tracks; the only person that ever touches a mau5 track is the mau5 himself.
I guess I just need to get better at EQing and mixing everything down. I'm using ableton so I'm primarily using Ableton's EQEight and Compressor. I understand EQing but have no clue how to properly utilize the compressor.
Is it good to put a waveform on the master channel and look at what's too high and too low and try to get it all leveled?
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Deadmau5 is not a mastering engineer, however. His tracks sound like garbage, but are very loud lol, so I guess he is successful in that regard.
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On October 15 2011 09:22 ChineseWife wrote:My rates usually depend on the amount of work/time it would take me, budget of client, and scope of the project. I was getting paid minimum wage to work at a very high end studio (mostly top 40 artists), but realized it was not at all worth it, so I'm trying to freelance. $25/hour is a pretty typical rate for small studios and freelancers like me, but if its a whole project I will usually work out a flat rate for X number of tracks. @sob3k: I would say 90% of top electronic artists have their own mixing engineers and mastering engineers that they either hire full time or send tracks to. Well I've known a few artists to hire full time engineers... If you look at the insert or the album credits you can usually find out who these people are. If you downloaded the album you can usually find the credits at a site like http://www.discogs.com/Here's a link so some of my stuff, but it's all pretty rough/unfinished work (i get lazy with my own music xD): http://soundcloud.com/fortiesforeigners@freeloss_ca: Mastering completely depends on the quality of the mix, and if you have to opportunity to EQ something before mastering, you are always better off doing that. Same thing applies to compression and levels. You never want to fix a mix in the mastering stage unless you have access to the stems of the track
Damn, that sounds so clean, that's what I'm talking about. I REALLLY want to learn how to do that.
People always say to EQ everything but I have never had any success with EQ, whenever I get a nice clean full sound and try to cut out some frequancies to make room for kicks or whatnot It sounds like exactly that...I'm cutting out a bunch of frequencies. I get left with all these instruments that sound like they are coming out of a cardboard box, no matter how slight the EQ. I just resort to handmaking each synth and testing it constantly to get one that just happens to fit in the mix ok. Anyone have any tips? Like I'll make these really awesome basses with nice snap and be completely unable to fit a lead or melody over them because of the high freq in the bass....If I reduce them the bass just sounds flat and fake...
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This thread is awesome! I wish I had something like this back in High School Media Tech and had free access to Reason 2-3 hours a day.
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On October 15 2011 09:33 FREEloss_ca wrote:
Is it good to put a waveform on the master channel and look at what's too high and too low and try to get it all leveled?
IXL do an analysis suite, one of the utilities is a spectrum analyzer which allows you to visually see the frequency content and relative decibel for each frequency band of a sound.
As for EQing. Different EQs tend to give different flavours to a sound. If you ever manage to, check out Wave's 'SSL' range, the SSL EQ vst has a gorgeous warm sound to it. On the other hand Neodynium do a great linear phase EQ and Fabfilter's PRO Q has a very clean sound analogous to how a filter sounds, very transparent.
As for EQing things making them sound weak. Find the prominent harmonics of that sound and make sure you're not cutting them. If a bass patch sound nice because of the highs, don't use a high pad/lead as a harmony for that part of the track, write a riff, but bring it in in a verse/bridge e.t.c. There are certain things you can't get around with sound. Listen very carefully to good tracks, you'll notice that this nature applies. That is, only when frequencies can be removed from a sound still for it to retain its character will layered sounds be used. Benga's 26 basslines is a good example of this. pay close attention to the sonic content of sounds, notice things are only layered in the middle of the register when its 'applicable'.
As important as EQ and compression is choosing the right sounds. If they don't complement eachother, no amount of precessing will get them too. Thats an extremely important rule, and what you're experiencing is an effect of this not happening and what you're trying to do is remove frequencies essential to certain sounds as an attempt at fixing something thats route cause isn't essentially something that 'can' be fixed with EQing, as you're loosing the nature of one or both of the sounds in the process. Try panning/reverb e.t.c. to place the sounds at different areas of the stereo field and further worward or backward in the mix. Also try the 'cut and boost technique.'. By slightly cutting the freqs of one sound and boosting the same area of another sound that's having trouble cutting through. You can do the same thing with basic relative amplitudes when you learn enough about frequency masking and pay attention to the specific harmonics of the sounds in question.
Its a game of balance and compromise. On one hand a sound may have a certain initial vibe, but getting it to sit in the mix will almost always alter it. try and hear the sound after the cuts/processing objectively and see if it still 'works' had you not heard it in its original state. On the other hand, pick and chose when you layer different sounds and when you don't. Either way works as well, music is more about the motifes and the 'hook', the timbre usually comes in second, adding to the flavour rather than defining it.
EDIT: Added/extended some to the body of the post.
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awesome OP i hope it rewards you right
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Teamliquid, the second Encyclopedia.
Seriously, like I can find everything from TL.
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deadmaus sucks
User was temp banned for this post.
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Seriously guys...lets just pretend we never even started in that direction...
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The funny thing is that Deadmau5 doesn't claim to be a dubstep artist. If anything he is house
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Honestly, I've never seen any professional audio engineers whip out a spectral analyzer unless something was seriously wrong with the sound. You gotta use your ears and relying on data like that won't really help you at all. I actually use very little EQ when I'm making electronic music, because I pick sounds that work well together as I make a track. Having a good monitoring chain makes all the difference! :D good thread
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Funny how this topic pops up just when I finally decided to start messing around with electronic music. I am just wondering whether I should get FL or cubase. Some say that FL is slightly more user friendly but cubase has more potential and most pro´s use cubase.
I am not planning on making dubstep though. I hope to make trance and psytrance.
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Fuckin way cool. Thanks for this!
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Wish this were reddit so I could upvote you bro, this is awesome
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On October 15 2011 10:46 ChineseWife wrote:
Honestly, I've never seen any professional audio engineers whip out a spectral analyzer unless something was seriously wrong with the sound. You gotta use your ears and relying on data like that won't really help you at all. I actually use very little EQ when I'm making electronic music, because I pick sounds that work well together as I make a track. Having a good monitoring chain makes all the difference! :D good thread
Thing is the average bedroom producer won't have a professionally treated room with expensive monitors. They won't be able hear the little things, and an analyzer can really help you figure out what to emphasize in the mix to make everything fit.
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Honestly you can do a lot without having to use an analyzer, if you're willing to invest in some decent monitoring. I worked off of a pair of $400 monitors (that I bought used for $150) for almost 2 years in my bedroom and my mixes translated decently. Upgrading to some real high end monitors tho, I've noticed a tremendous difference in the quality of my material. I would say for anyone looking to make electronic music, get yourselves some decent speakers. I have friends and I've known famous hip-hop producers to use KRK Rokit's and those are pretty cheap
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Ideas of band called "Sick Bass" playing some sick bass, whos up?
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I read this as How to make your boss sick... "Make Sick Boss"
NO WAY I CAN SIT AT WORK ALL DAY WITH NO SUPERVISOR TL HERE I COME!
son... I am disappoint.
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On October 15 2011 08:39 sob3k wrote:Show nested quote +On October 15 2011 08:22 FREEloss_ca wrote:On October 15 2011 08:06 ChineseWife wrote:
cool guide! as an audio engineer and electronic music producer, i approve! I also like the fabfilter stuff, really quality. If I send you some of my ableton files can you master them for me pretty please? Nice guide! My biggest issue with Massive (and synths for that matter) is Voicing. I don't really understand what's going on there, or what the difference is between monorotate, monophone, etc. No clue what monorotate does...Sounds the same as Mono to me in all my experiments. Poly vs monophonic is just how many notes/tones the synth will play at the same time, if you wanna play chords then you will have to use poly, if you want to glide between stacked notes you want mono. Also pretty much all bass should be made while set to monophonic with only one voice, otherwise you can get destructive interference when you have filters going...I've had it happen before I knew what was up, makes all your bass disappear occasionally and is really F-in annoying.
That's called phasing, where certain frequencies cancel each other out. Look up linear-phase eq and filters.
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My god, I love the TL community
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On October 16 2011 14:52 BentoBox wrote:
My god, I love the TL community
This.
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wow, thanks for this guide, i will keep for later use, cheers
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You will need Cliff Burton for that.....
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On January 24 2012 06:01 Bleak wrote:
You will need Cliff Burton for that.....
Best gravedigging post ever.
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Massive is such an awesome VST, already using it but I might learn a thing or two with your tutorial, thanks
EDIT = Damn that topic sure got bumped
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Thank you man you helped me a great deal
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o150/Infares/Largemouth600x530.jpg)
