Habits, Thoughts, and Tips from 12 Highly Skilled Producers

Sam Matla - EDMProd

As music producers, we each develop our own set of processes when it comes to creating what we create. We might have developed something unique in terms of workflow, an alternative approach to sound design, or ways to keep the inspiration flowing constantly.

Everyone has different thoughts and ideas; thoughts and ideas we can all learn from. I reached out to 12 highly skilled producers asking them about their habits and what’s involved in the creative process for them.

1. Adam Szabo

Adam Szabo is an electronic music producer and sound designer signed to Enhanced Music who releases at a quality level like no other. Here’s what he has to say…

Before finishing a track, I give it a test run. I’ll put it on my MP3 player and listen to it when I walk or run. This way I can get a feel for it without concentrating on it too much and I might discover problems with it that I might have missed during sessions in the studio.

Often we can get caught up in the visuals of the track, or the environment we produce in. It can be helpful to get out of the studio and listen to your music in a different setting.

I think Adam’s shared something incredibly valuable here.

2. Perverse

Perverse are a dubstep duo straight out of my home country, New Zealand. They’ve had releases on various labels such as Bassweight, Tribe 12, OG Recordings, and many more. Here’s a quick tip from them:

Don’t get stuck in the habit of using the same samples/plug-ins. While it may sound like you have a “theme” or “sound”, what you’re really doing is limiting yourself and not progressing.

Using different sounds and plug-ins allows us to break creative frontiers and learn, with that said – don’t go overboard. You do not need 100 synths. A producer’s style doesn’t come from the plugins he’s using, but rather their personal taste in music. It’s a combination of compositional technique, sound design, sample selection, and more.

3. Mikael Wills

Mikael Wills is an electronic music producer, label manager, DJ, and vocalist also from New Zealand! He’s made appearances on EDMProd before in the form of an interview and guest post. 

If you’ve got an idea but you want to apply another idea to the mix you’re working on to see what it’s like, save the old idea as “version 1″ before going ahead and destructively transforming it to try and fit the new idea.

Versioning is really important in production, because we’re humans, and humans make mistakes. Hitting Ctrl + S is easy, but you’re always overwriting the old file. If you’re making a big change – then save as a new version! You’ll thank yourself the next day when you realize that what you changed/added really wasn’t that good.

There have been many times where I’ve been making a synth (especially FM) and thought it could be better. I’d then spend a while messing with it only to realize it sounded worse than before. Always save/version what you have.

Again, re-iterating the importance of versioning on a micro-level.

Read Mikael’s article on ignore pressure and focusing on the important. 

4. Distantt

Distantt is a young and incredibly talented producer who shows diversity and skill. He shares one of his habits…

A big habit of mine is remaking. Whenever I have spare time, I like to sit down and take a considerable amount of time remaking songs I enjoy. It’s good practice for getting new sounds and figuring out how to do different kinds of mixes.

If there’s one thing you remember from reading this article, it should be this. Remaking is eye-opening, it makes you listen to music critically and analyze everything that’s going on. It’s also a good way to keep improving when you’re lacking original ideas.

5. Wrechiski

Wrechiski is one of my favorite producers. Listen to his song “Aquamarine” and you’ll find out why.

A habit I have is working with different styles. This helps me A LOT with workflow and the study of sound design and mixing as it allows me to know of and create different kinds of sounds and arrangements.

Regardless of whether you’re a trance producer or techno producer, branching out and trying out different styles can be an enjoyable learning experience.

6. River Accorsi

River Accorsi is a bass music producer with an extreme talent for sound design. Here are two tips from him:

Organize your sample library and know where all your best sounds are.

If you’re a newsletter subscriber, then you may have got a recent weekly tip stating how important it is to organize your sample library. It helps immensely with workflow and feels a lot nicer in general. Don’t put it off for too long!

It’s better to know your tools inside out and have a select few tools rather than all the plugins in the world.

If you’re constantly hoarding more and more plugins, you’ll spread yourself thin. You won’t have time to learn the plugins, find their hidden characteristics, their weaknesses and strong points. Focus on a few and learn them inside and out.

7. Alex H

Alex H is a progressive house producer from Australia. He’s recently released a beautiful EP on Progressive House Worldwide which I encourage you to check out.

I always upload my edits to Soundcloud as people like to hear my ideas. It also helps keep my profile active.

There’s a little controversy surrounding this. Should you upload unfinished work? Or should you wait until it’s finished?

I personally love seeing artists upload their WIPs, it’s nice to see the difference between the conceptual ideas, and the finished product. From the creator’s perspective, I think it can also be helpful. If you get good feedback on an edit or WIP, then you’ll feel more inclined to finish it.

8. Hazem Beltagui

Hazem Beltagui is a trance and progressive music producer as well as label owner and A & R manager at Fractal Digital Recordings. Here are two habits that he has:

I keep hitting Ctrl + S every minute or so.

Simple? Yes. But there’s nothing worse than losing your hard work, get into the habit of saving frequently, but remember to save as a new version if you’re making a big change.

I tend to mute/unmute the kick in session view to see if it has the impact I’m looking for

This is really cool habit and something I’ll be trying out more. In electronic dance music particularly, the kick needs to be the driving force. If it isn’t right, your song won’t be either.

9. Axis

Axis is a talented producer signed to Enhanced. If you’re a regular on the Anjuna forums you will have seen him helping out other producers and sharing some knowledge. Here’s his long list of tips!

Organize your samples and synth presets (either factory or self-made). Scrolling through hundreds of sounds when you’re working on a track can kill inspiration, especially considering that most of the sounds included in sample packs are useless anyway. Audition and choose the best sounds and organize them. Do this regularly and keep your library compact.

A huge sample and preset library is pointless if only 5% of it is usable.

Keep your project organized. It’s easier to work on a project where all parts are color-coded and where you don’t have a huge number of muted channels/regions scattered around taking up space.

This is a killer tip. Most of you know how important organization is, and the impact it has on workflow, but if you don’t – then start doing it! Color code and properly name all your tracks.

Add arrangement structure early. Copying arrangement markers from a released track is a good start, and it can be changed later. Having a rough arrangement layout right from the start can help with finishing tracks.

Don’t stay in the 8-bar loop trap for too long. Arrangement is something that should be sorted first and foremost, I’m sure many would agree.

Challenge yourself by re-creating sounds from released tracks. There are sounds that work and sounds that don’t work. It’s very important to learn how to make sounds that do work, and A/B comparison with released tracks is essential. The same principle applies to mixing.

One thing you learn from analysing other’s work is the chemistry between synths, basses, and everything else. You quickly pick up on sounds that don’t work together in your own productions. Using released tracks as a reference is also incredibly helpful.

Read: Getting the Most out of Your Reference Tracks

Bounce everything to audio. Working with audio is easier and it frees up CPU and RAM. It also stops you from getting stuck tweaking MIDI and allows you to move forward with the track.

Some people do prefer to work with MIDI, but there are major benefits to working with audio. If you’re someone who spends hours tweaking a filter cutoff – then bouncing to audio might solve a few problems for you.

Optimize your workflow. Learn hot keys, create custom ones, etc. The faster you work, the higher the chances are that you won’t get bored with your track before you finish it.

10. Tygris

Tygris is a talented producer residing in Australia with killer tracks. Here’s his tip.

Always try to experiment with new sounds and using different ways of processing sounds even if you don’t know what you’re doing. You’ll eventually learn something new that nobody else knows but you and it’ll help sculpt a new sound.

Originality is something a lot of us strive for. Where does it come from? Experimentation. Break the rules.

11. Fractal

Fractal can’t be confined to one genre, so I won’t bother. He’s done exceptionally well in the world of electronic music and doesn’t take it lightly. Here’s what he has to say:

Whenever you become “stuck”, try seeing your piece as an arrangement of cement, that – importantly – has not yet hardened. Don’t be afraid to erase and change what’s already there in order to make room for what could be. Destruction is imperative for creation.

Read that again.

Destruction is imperative for creation.

We often become scared to erase something we’ve worked hard on. We justify it by thinking that it’s just our ears tricking it, when in most cases – it just doesn’t sound good. Don’t be timid, chop and change confidently.

Your ability to be productive in front of your DAW is heavily reliant on your state of mind. A peaceful, open mind allows a developing piece of music to be heard as it is – an ever-expanding canvas of infinite possibilities, remarkably similar to the universe itself. Upon pressing play, instead of hearing what it is, the expanded mind is able to hear the endless masterful symphonies of the sacred creative consciousness unravel before it, and thus is able to transcribe these visions of sound over time (with an accuracy based on skill leve). Meditation is great for this, and peaceful ambient music can really help you achieve deeper mind states fast. Minimizing external light sources and keeping your eyes closed are also great tricks when you don’t have access to exceptionally inspiring environments. Have faith in your own creative intuition, and you’ll never be “stuck” again. 

Just take that in.

You might think it’s a load of philosophical crap, but the fact is that creativity relies so heavily upon your state of mind that if the latter is suffering, the former will too.

12. Naden

Naden is another name you may have seen on EDMProd before. He did an awesome interview a while back. Here are some things he does.

Keep making more and more music. I make a lot of projects in between songs to rake out ideas I like the most and then use them in one track. Also, when I feel the beat and have something going, I try to finish it in that same sitting. There’s a huge chance I won’t finish it if I stop while “in the zone.”

Naden mentions two things here. The importance of quantity and putting time into your craft, and the state of flow. Both are important, and one is less controllable than the other.

The more work you create, the better you’ll become. That’s obvious.

As for the “the zone”, it comes at the best and worse of times. I’ve written an article about it, but the most important thing you should know is that if you do find yourself in the zone – you should see it through till the end!

What would you add to this list? Do you have any habits of your own that you think are unique?

“Do you wanna know how much money I make?” - Nick Thayer

Nick ThayerIn The Mix

Yesterday, versatile Australian beats and bass producer (and OWSLA-man) Nick Thayer published to his Tumblr something you don’t see that often: A comprehensive breakdown of just how much money he makes from releasing an album and going on tour.

It’s a fascinating look at the financial challenges facing artists, so we asked Thayer for permission to run it as an opinion piece. If you want a convincing argument as to why you should buy that album rather than torrenting it, read on. If you’re an aspiring producer, look away now.

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I wanted to take a second to break some numbers down for you. I’m doing this to be transparent. To let you know what the life of a producer/DJ looks like from the financial end. People often think there’s a huge amount of money in this scene. There is, but it is very concentrated and in the hands of very, VERY few people. The vast majority are on similar numbers to me, running on fumes most of the time to make this thing work. We do it because we LOVE THE ABSOLUTE SHIT out of writing music, playing music and sharing music.

Let’s start with a release.
Here’s the TOTAL sales breakdown for my Like Boom EP (March 2012). This is sales across all platforms (iTunes/Beatport/etc.). Bear in mind this EP was the #2 overall release for thirteen weeks on Beatport so you can assume it was a comparative success.

Like Boom: 2600
Facepalm: 2932
Totalitaria: 1125
Haters Gonna Hate: 652
Top Of The World: 710
What Props Ya Got: 614
Rise Up: 658
Like Boom – Nick Thayer Remix: 1953
Facepalm – Remix: 969
What Props – Remix: 509

So that’s 12,722 total sales.

For the sake of making this as simple as possible, let’s be generous and call these sales $2 each (most are a bit less). Then let’s split 50% (give or take) for whatever site you sell through, meaning the site takes $1 and there’s $1 left. Most labels these days run on a profit share arrangement which means you split what’s left of that down the middle too. Let’s also allow for any writing splits where other artists have been involved, adding vocals etc. So here we have total income that gets to me after the site, the label and the other artists involved have all taken their cut.

Like Boom (50% to sample clearance, 25% share to three vocalists): $162.5
Facepalm: $1467
Totalitaria: $562.5
Haters Gonna Hate (50% to vocalist): $326
Top Of The World (50% to vocalist): $177.5
What Props Ya Got (30% to vocalist): $158
Rise Up: $329
Like Boom – Nick Thayer Remix (50% to sample clearance, 25% share to three vocalists): $122
Facepalm Remix (50% to remixer): $242
What Props Remix (50% to remixer): $127

So that’s a total income from the EP of $3673.50. (I’m not going to include Spotify or YouTube here as they total less than the price of a beer overall).

At this point you pay your management 15% of what you have. Mastering comes in at approximately $150-$200 per track, so that’s $1500 total. Artwork is $1000 for anything half decent that’s usable across all platforms. A decent publicity campaign is about $300-$500. There’s a myriad of other smaller costs involved too. Some labels will cover these costs up front but it will be a ‘recoupable advance’ meaning you have to pay them back before they give you any money so it’s the same as fronting the money yourself.

So you can see at the end that this EP, which probably represented a year of work, actually ended up COSTING me money (though not a lot) to release. If somebody said to you ‘put your heart and soul into this project for a year and at the end give us some money for the privilege of having us listen to it’, what would YOU do?

What about touring?
At this point people usually say ‘well you make a lot of money from gigs right?’ Well, not really. Around six months after this EP came out, so in late 2012 – enough time to potentially see the benefits – in the US I was earning between $1000 and $1500 for a show. That might sound like a lot of money, but that is TOTAL.

Let’s say I did a run of nine shows across three weeks (Thursday, Friday, Saturday nights for weeks) at $1250. That’s $11,250. That’s A LOT right? Well. Right off the bat the booking agent will take 15%. As an Australian in the US I pay 30% up front on tax too (this is reclaimable but Australia has a reciprocal tax agreement with the US so it comes out of the amount of tax I owe here in Australia). So that’s down to $6200 straight away. Then I have to pay for travel. Let’s say return flights from Australia ($1500 economy fare) plus travel in between shows ($200 per flight if lucky) and we’re down to $2687. You can usually get the club to pay for a hotel on the night of your show, but that’s it. So that leaves maybe ten nights where you are covering it at $100 a night if you can find it. Often they will be much more expensive so you survive by sleeping on couches in friends’ places every second night. That’s $1687 left. Now pay management 15% and we’re at around $1434. Then there is food to pay for ‘cause you can’t live on bar snacks for three weeks. At $30 per day (that’s $10 for breakfast, lunch and dinner) for three weeks is around $600 and at that point all you’re left with is around $800 for three weeks’ work, which is not exactly a fortune.

So what?
This is not a sob story. This is me saying to you please, PLEASE support artists you like in any way you can think of.

Buy the whole EP when they release it instead of just one song. You would not believe the difference this can make. Even buying two songs instead of one helps chart positions, which creates exposure, which means more people listen and the cycle repeats itself.

Share the links to their music on your Facebook or Twitter or re-post them on Soundcloud or wherever you can. Promoters keep an eye out for whoever is being talked about the most across social media so instead of bugging your favourite artist to come to your town talk about them as much as you can and bug the promoters to bring them.

I want to say now THANK YOU for every single person who has supported me in any of these ways: who has bought my music, shown their friends, stuck stickers on things, come to a show or whatever. THANK YOU.

Some points of clarification from my post yesterday.

Seeing as my post has been picked up and has had a much wider reach than I expected I want to clarify some points:

Artwork costs being $1000/other EP expenses
It has been commented that this is a lot. What I said is that this is artwork ‘usable across ALL platforms’. That is, usable as a digital album picture, a sticker, an ad mat, tour art (vectorised and layered to make for easy adaptation) and more. I also paid for the original photo. I believe in paying people properly for their work.

Label deals/splits etc.
It has also been commented that labels will split costs on a 50/50 deal. Without going into the specifics of this contract, I paid for the art up front. The mastering expense (I just looked up a statement) was $1700 and was split with the label, so yes, that does alter my maths a little. I only tried to provide a rough guide anyway.

I also mentioned other expenses. These include things such as vocal sessions and lawyers (for sample clearance and for record contracts). These came directly out of my pocket (the track with the sample was completed including clearance before the label was in the picture and a label is not going to pay for your lawyer to sort out a contract with them).

Travel expenses
It has also been commented that venues should be paying for travel. The deals my US agent (AM Only) works on for me are all-in deals. They do not include flight shares. This is not the case for me worldwide (in Australia and NZ travel is certainly added on top of the fee), but I wanted to use a REAL tour to highlight the situation.

I wrote this post as a way of being transparent. I spend money on things I think are important to my art, in this case the costs of mastering and artwork fall into that category. I now do all my own mastering.

I will also say that yes, there are other streams of income for artists I didn’t include. There is publishing (which is like a lottery and can vary from $5 to $5000 a year for apparently no reason), there are performance royalties (APRA in Australia) that again seem to operate largely on an arbitrary base. There are remixes, session work, mixdowns and the like too. My point was to isolate one EP and one associated tour.

Once again I want to state that I LOVE what I do. And I want to thank everyone who has ever supported me, bought my music, booked me for a show or let me stay on their couch.

Via Nick Thayer’s Tumblr Like Boom.

Skrillex vs. Lupe Fiasco ("Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites" & "Kick Push" mashup by 11:11)

Thought I would share this epic mashup with you guys, enjoy!

An In-Depth Study of Sidechaining

Sonic Transfer

Sidechain Compression Tutorial, Sidechaining, SSS Side Chain Compressor. The whole french house scene is practically defined by a signature sound. While the music itself is very different, every track seems to have this really loud sound. Some DJ’s call it a “push, pull”, “breathing”, or “suction” sound. It isn’t just artistry that creates this signature sound, it’s a lot of studio magic. That magic has a name: Sidechaining. After reading this SonicTransfer.com tutorial, you’ll know exactly how to do it.

To follow this lesson you will need:

1. A VST Host (e.g. Ableton Live, Cubase, Pro Tools, etc.)
2. SSS Stereo Side Chain Compressor – Free VST Compressor (now for Windows and OS X). Click here to get the SSS Stereo Side Chain Compressor.

What Does Sidechaining Do?

Sidechaining takes one sound and uses it to manipulate another sound. Most often you will see it on compressors, gates, limiters, and expanders. However, it can also be found on vocoders, synthesizers, and other effects. It is a really, really useful feature on compressors and gates because it allows you to place multiple instruments in the same frequency range without clashing. Or, more succinctly, it can make your mix sound really good.

This tutorial is going to demonstrate ducking using a sidechaining compressor. Ducking is the technique used by french house producers to get their characteristic “pumping” sound. Here are two snippets from popular french house songs that make heavy use of ducking:

• Daft Punk – One More Time
• Thomas Bangalter & DJ Falcon – Together

Listen to the horns in the Daft Punk sample. Notice how they become quiet when the kick drum plays? That’s ducking. The horn volume is ducked to make room for the kick drum. Listen to the DJ Falcon sample. The vocal loop gets ducked for the kick drum in the exact same way.

Now go grab any french house record from the last eight years. Almost all of them do it.

How Does Sidechaining Work?

Sidechaining really just means feeding sound into an effect that works on some other sound. But when most people talk about sidechaining, they are really talking about using sidechain compressors and gates to produce ducking. That’s what you will do today. This tutorial will guide you through setting up a Side Chain Compressor.

So, what does a Side Chain Compressor actually do anyway? It uses one of your audio tracks to control the volume of another audio track. To get a ducking sound, it will lower the volume of one of your audio tracks when the other gets loud. The screenshot below shows the volume of a synth pad before it is effected and after it is ducked to make room for a kick drum.

Now that you know how it works, it’s time to do it yourself. Read on.

Setting Up the Audio Tracks

First you need to prepare two audio tracks to feed into the compressor. The first audio track will hold a four-on-the-floor kick drum loop. The second audio track will hold a synth pad loop. Click the link below to download a ZIP file containing the two loops.

Click here to download a ZIP file containing two WAV audio files.

Start your VST Host (e.g. Ableton Live) and create a new song. Then open the ZIP file and place the two loops on separate audio tracks in your VST host. Make the loops repeat at least a couple times. Label the audio tracks if you prefer. When you are done, your VST host should look like the screenshot below.

When you press play you should hear the kick drum and synth pad playing on top of each other. The goal is to get the pad to “duck out” for the kick drum. You’ll need the SSS Side Chain Compressor to make that happen. Read on to learn how to set it up.

Setting Up the Compressor

Before you can use the compressor, it must be installed in your VST plugins folder. If you haven’t already done that, do that now. Next, load the SSS Side Chain Compressor effect onto the track with the synth pad. If you are using Ableton Live, you can click here to read a tutorial on using VST plugins with Ableton Live.

When press play you hear that nothing has changed. Before the compressor can work its magic you need to route the audio from the kick drum track into the compressor. If you are not using Ableton Live, then consult the manual on your VST Host’s audio routing procedures. Or, write a request on the SonicTransfer Forums. If I receive a request then I will usually write a tutorial for your host. Click here to visit the SonicTransfer Forums. If you are using Ableton Live, then reference the animated screenshot below.

Once you have routed the kick drum audio into the compressor, you are ready to start ducking the pad. The next section explains how to tweak the compressor’s settings to get the french house “pumping” sound.

Tweaking the Compression Settings

(NOTE: DualComp users should click here to read a tutorial on tweaking the compressor.)

Now when you press play you hear the pad ducking out for the kick drum! But, you don’t hear the kick anymore at all. This is easily fixed. Turn the knob on the far right of the compressor labeled KeyVolume. Turn it all the way up to 0.0db and the kick drum will return in full force. Wasn’t that easy?

The rest of the adjusting is up to personal preference. The threshold is a bit low so you may want to move it up to around -13 or -10db. Since the goal of this exercise is just to duck out the pads, you should turn the ratio knob all the way to infinity to give the pads the largest dynamic range possible. Keep the attack low at around 5ms. The hold knob will keep the pads quieter a bit longer and for this exercise should be somewhere around 40ms. The release determines how long the pads will fade in after each attack (and hold) and in this case should be around 90ms. Lastly, there is no need for any makeup volume so the gain knob should stay at 0db. (See the screenshot below.)

If you are using Ableton Live, you can click here to download the finished arrangement file.

Now you are ready to write some funky french house. Or, at least you’re on your way 

Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed learning about Side Chain Compression. This technique alone can really improve the quality of your music. Keep experimenting and remember that this tutorial only scratches the surface of what is possible with sidechaining. If you have any questions or comments, please post a message on the SonicTransfer Forums. Click here to visit the SonicTransfer forums.

For more advanced side chaining, read this tutorial on side chain compressing a submix in Ableton Live.

Happy Producing!

Matt Sonic

(Note: Mac users might also be interested in the commercial Sonalksis Analogue Gate. )

Also, check out the free MdspCompressor for more sidechain fun. (Thanks Ben!)

Dear visitor, ignore these links, they are for the search engines:
sidechaincompression.com, freevstplugin.com, bassvst.com, abletonplugins.com, makehousemusic.com, howtomakehousemusic.com, www.sonictransfer.com/links

How to Make Dubstep "Screams" in NI Massive

(Special thanks to ByzaniteTV for this tutorial)

How to Get That BIG Kick!

Hello all! I apologize for my long absence --- have been quite busy lately with both my music and my novel, not to mention a long-overdo paint job for my bedroom. That's right, we are talking three walls white, one bright turquoise, how about that, eh? I wake up every morning feeling like I'm staying in a Caribbean cabana, minus the pretty island girls running around with grass skirts and pina coladas. All in due time though, all in due time.

Let's get right down to business, shall we? I'd like to use this article to share some of my most prized secrets --- some of the most esteemed and vital bits of information I have uncovered in my journey as a producer --- to creating the almighty "giant kick drum." You know the kind of kick I am referring to. And if for whatever reason you do not, go to Beatport.com and listen to the current #1 track (Martin Garrix - "Animals"). Even crazy Russian Youtube prankster Vitalyzdtv gave a shoutout to the epicness of this track. If Vitaly says it's good, it's probably good. He is a self-proclaimed Nutella connoisseur, and apparently an epic kick drum enthusiast as well. You can trust Vitaly.

Time to get that sound.

Time to kick society in the face with a... kick! Here we go...

To start off, let's refresh our memories as to where the most essential frequencies of a kick drum fall in the overall frequency spectrum. The sub frequencies of a kick drum lie in the 46Hz - 100Hz range while the higher, snappier "beater" frequencies that help a kick cut through the mix can usually be adhered to with a high shelf boost of about +2 or +3 dB at 2kHz and up. (See my article "The Correct Way to Choose Drum and Percussion Samples" for more info on layering kick samples).

Assuming that you already have nice, satisfying, thick kick drum in the works (whether layered or a single sample), I will now offer you some tips as to how to make it as massive as possible. First and foremost, if you have not yet sidechained your basses and pads to your kick, put down your Fun Dip and do it. Sidechaining is essentially what some producers traditionally call "ducking," in that the bass or instrument track that is sidechained with the kick will "duck" in volume each time the kick drum sounds. (I will explain in extensive detail how to sidechain in a future article.) This will ultimately free up the low-end frequencies that your bass tracks inhabit during each of the kick hits, thus allowing the deeper components of the kick drum sound to cut through the mix. It could almost be looked at as "pushing aside" the other instruments in your mix to allow your kick to punch through to the surface and breathe.

Never overlook the power of a simple sub frequency pulse beneath your kick drum samples. You can achieve this via NI Massive or just about any other synth software at your disposal that allows you to create a simple sine wave with very fast attack and release. Try experimenting with mimicking the sound of a kick drum by adjusting the release time, pitch, attack, and other envelope parameters until you get a nice heavy sub bass "boom". For example, to mimic the slow "booooom, booooom" (apologies for my inability to think of a more effective way to describe it) of the "Animals" kick drum, your sine wave pulse should have a quick attack with a slower release. Try increasing the sustain time as well to achieve the drawn out resonance. Depending on the nature of your software, either the sustain or release can offer you the optimal result of a long, powerful sub kick. The key is to know your software and experiment; your ears are your best weapon. As far as building a sub kick layer from Massive (or other softsynth), it is important to remember that the sound you are building is intended to blend with your main kick sample(s) rather than stand out as the prominent component of your kick. That said, it may not sound like anything special when you trial it separately, but depending on where the frequencies fall (16Hz to about 25Hz is ideal) it will certainly add a surprisingly thick, deep "thump" to your kick drum sound when layered over your other kick samples. Of course, the proper EQ and compression treatment for a sub kick would be applicable for your sine wave pulse layer, i.e. a low pass filter and beefy compression. Word of warning: this method is to be used very conservatively. In other words, it won't take much volume to get the self-made sub kick to serve it's purpose. Make sure it is low enough in the mix so that you don't necessarily "hear" it, but rather "feel" it.

One seemingly simple yet extremely critical concept to consider when striving for a gigantic kick drum is to keep an uncluttered mix. Don't overdo the instrument tracks if you want your kick to be the focal point of your beat. This does not have to be considered for the entire song, however, but when you are attempting to create a track that features a passage where the pulse of the kick drum dominates the entire mix (in place of a bassline perhaps, even), you want to have a clean slate to lay down your beat. To reference "Animals" once again, let us examine the passage where his monster kick drops. You have only two components occurring musically at this moment in the song: a.) the insanely massive kick drum; b.) a minimalistic percussive stab melody to accompany it. That's it. Two things. Think about the implications of this. With only two sounds, Martin Garrix has crafted a drop that pushed his track to the top of the Beatport charts. The key is to be tasteful and to have a plan as far as what you wish to accomplish with your drop. For him, he chose to throw all crazy growl bass Skrillex-ey whatever sounds out the window, settling instead for a minimal house club-thumping kick pulse doing nothing more than hitting the downbeats. That is all there is to the bass component of this drop. There is no bassline whatsoever in the drop, just his huge kick. This is what I mean by focusing on your "plan" for the drop, and for paying attention to how your mix should not be overflowing with instrument tracks. When you are shooting for a massive kick, keep your mix simple. I will say this again because I cannot stress it enough as far as huge kick drums are concerned. When you are shooting for a massive kick, keep your mix simple.

Always make sure to use your monitors with your subwoofer when producing kicks, as well as any bass or sub-frequency sounds for that matter. This may sound like common sense but you would be surprised at how many novice producers underestimate the importance of having a subwoofer in your arsenal, settling instead for standalone computer speakers or headphones. Though each serve their purpose, producing a giant kick drum is best adhered to when done through your monitors with your subwoofer turned up.

So there you have it. It may take rocket science to put a man on the moon, but getting a massive ass-obliterating kick drum is thankfully much easier. The most critical elements come down to paying attention to the quality of your samples, making sure your mix is not over-cluttered, a generous dose of sidechaining, and perhaps a subtle sine wave pulse mirroring your kick samples for added sub frequencies. Utilize these concepts when crafting your next kick drum and you might just be the one who "kicks" Martin Garrix out of the #1 position on Beatport!

And who knows, if you are lucky enough you might even get a shout-out from Vitalyzdtv!

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(Special thanks to Le Fu Music for this video)