How to Make a Koan Sound Style Reese Bass

(Special thanks to Le Fu Music for this video)

Mixing Like a Conservative: Gain Control and Headroom

There happen to be a decent number of possible pitfalls along the way to achieving a great mix but the most critical lies in the treatment of your gain levels. Without proper control of the dB levels of your tracks, your master fader may clip causing undesirable distortion, noise, and general poor quality. In order to avoid this problem, you need to get into a unique mindset specially made for the mixing stage; you need to think like a conservative.

Now, before you start assuming that this article is about to turn into a political shitstorm, take a moment to recall what the term “conservative” really means in a music production context. It refers to a very modest approach to the utilization of your production tools and techniques. In the context of gain levels, a conservative treatment will fare your project well and leave you with plenty of headroom in your master fader.

The master fader itself should be brought down at least -5 dB to begin with. Keep your kick and snare set anywhere from -8 to -10dB so as to allow for extra headroom for your basses. Don’t worry about your track sounding “loud enough” at this stage; this is a MAJOR pitfall that will cost you a balanced mix if you worry about your overall loudness at this stage in the game. Getting your track to be a strong contestant in the “loudness war” comes during the mastering stage. Worry about it then, and only then.

It is always a good idea to A-B (compare) your work-in-progress with a professionally mastered song of a similar genre or sound. However, it is easy to get anxious and frustrated while doing so since your track is obviously a work in progress and has not been treated with the mastering components (loud amplitude, cohesive saturation, stereo metering, etc.) but don’t let this get to your head. Remember, you are in the mixing stage, not the mastering stage. Pay close attention to the professional track’s mix and do your best to see beyond the mastering aspects, i.e. volume. It is the sound of the professional mix you are after right now, not volume. One tip I have picked up over the years that will aid in making the A-B process more fruitful is to bring down the volume of the song you are trying to emulate so that it matches your project rather than boosting the volume of your project to match that of the other song.

Let’s say, for example, that you are trying to create a growl bass similar to the one from Skrillex’s “Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites” but you are finding that your drums are sounding a bit weak in the mix. You open iTunes and play back Skrillex’s song to compare and you find that not only do his drums cut through the mix but they are punchy and have a vitality all their own, and the overall volume of the track is much louder than your work-in-progress. Well, as I said before, forget about the volume issue right now. Bring down the volume of iTunes, listening by ear, until it matches the volume level of your session. This will allow your focus to go where it should: the mix.

Now, back to the drum issue. You want yours to kick and snap with the punchiness of Skrillex. Instead of simply dragging the fader of your drum bus up a few dB, simply bring everything else down -1 or -2 dB and leave your kick and snare hitting right where they are (which should be -8 to -10 dB). You should find that, with proper treatment such as sidechaining your basses and melody synths and proper EQing, your drums will definitely cut through the mix in a much clearer, punchier manner.

A conservative approach to gain control will be sure to put you on the right track for a clean mix that is powerful, crisp and huge. It is important to remember that power comes from a good mix, not from an over-limited slab of non-dynamic sound waves. Think like a conservative and bring down dB levels of opposing tracks rather than boosting one or the other so that it overpowers its opponent. Headroom is your best friend when it comes to dynamics and a clean mix, and when you leave enough dB between your peaks and 0dB, you will make the mastering process incredibly easier. That volume that you seek to emulate from professional tracks comes from the mastering process, but the power comes from a mix that was treated carefully and conservatively.

Free Plugins: The Ultimate List (VST, RTAS, AU, AAX, etc.)

Audifex - ampLion Free - guitar amp simulator

Avid - Structure Free - sampler
Avid - SignalTools - metering
Avid- Xpand! - virtual instrument
Avid - D-Fi - low-fi sound design
Avid - Bomb Factory plugins - various free Bombfactory plugins
Avid/TL Labs - TL Utilities - tuning, metronome, metering
Avid/TL Labs - TL AutoPan - panning effects

Blue Cat Audio - Free Plugin Pack - a little of it all
Blue Cat Audio - Chorus - chorus
Blue Cat Audio - Flanger - flanger
Blue Cat Audio - FreqAnalyst - frequency analyzer
Blue Cat Audio - Gain Suite - gain utilities for controlling volume
Blue Cat Audio - Phaser - phaser
Blue Cat Audio - Triple EQ - 3-band EQ

Brainworx - bx clean sweep - hi and low-pass filter
Brainworx - bx solo - M/S tool

Cableguys - Pancake - panning modulation

Camel Audio - Alchemy Player - virtual instrument with 1G sound library
Camel Audio - CamelCrusher - distortion unit

De La Mancha - FMMF - user-friendly FM synthesis

Desample - Glaceverb - vibration and acoustic response emulator

DDMF - Colour EQ - EQ with custom-made 4th order IIR filter

Elysia - Niveau Filter - a handy filter tool

Flux - BitterSweet II - transient designer
Flux - Stereo Tool - stereo shaper/designer

FXpansion - Orca - virtual synthesizer instrument
FXpansion - ClapOMatic - virtual crowd/clapping simulator
FXpansion - DCAM Free Comp - a model of a classic console bus compressor design

HOFA-Plugins - ProjectTime - measures the elapsed hours of work that went into individual projects
HOFA-Plugins - Meter, Fader & MS Pan - metering, fader and MS decoder
HOFA-Plugins - Goniometer and Korrelator gonio and correlation metering

Human Touch Technology - SIKA Oriental Scale - SoundFont player dedicated to Arabic and Oriental scales

IK Multimedia - AmpliTube Custom Shop - amp and FX simulation
IK Multimedia - T-Racks Custom Shop - lots of helpful plugins
IK Multimedia - SampleTank 2.5 - virtual instrument

iZotope - Vinyl - vinyl simulator

JK Plugs - JK Pipe - captures default audio input set in System Preferences

Klanghelm - DC1A - user-friendly compressor

Magix - Independence Free - sampler workstation

Massey - Massey Tools - various helpful plugins

Metric Halo - Thump - extreme bass modulator

Native Instruments - Kontakt Player - sample player for use with Kontakt instruments
Native Instruments - Reaktor Player - virtual instrument
Native Instruments - Guitar Rig 4 - modular effects processor

Ohm Force - Frohmage - a nifty filter device
Ohm Force - Cohmpost - a very bizarre, filter-ish plugin
Ohm Force - Symptohm: Melohman PE - virtual synthesizer instrument

Pleasurize Music Foundation - Dynamic Range Meter - metering tool

PSP Audioware - PianoVerb - a strange reverb unit
PSP Audioware - PSP VintageMeter - metering tool

Sonalksis - FreeG - metering tool

Sonoma Wire Works - DrumCore - virtual drum instrument

Soundhack - Delay Trio - creative delay effects
Soundhack - Freesound Bundle - an array of helpful tools

SPL - FreeRanger - EQ unit

Studio Devil - Studio Devil BVC - amp modeling

TriTone Digital - MuteTone - a workaround to the inability to shut off input monitoring

Two Notes - Torpedo PI-FREE - mic and speaker simulator

U-he - Zebralette - virtual synthesizer

UVI Sound Source - UVI Workstation - sample player

ValhallaDSP - Valhalla FreqEcho - frequency shifter and echo unit

XLN Audio - Addictive Drums Free - virtual drum instrument
XLN Audio - Studio Grand Free - virtual piano instrument

Yohng - 4Front Bass - virtual bass instrument
Yohng - 4Front E-Piano - virtual electric piano instrument
Yohng - 4Front Piano virtual piano instrument


(Let me know if I missed any!)

Using 808 Samples to Create Sub Bass

The following video shows how to create a sub bass using 808 drum samples. Quite a unique way of going about it! (Thanks to dubstepforum.com participant Skeemstep for this tutorial)

How to Glitch-ify your Dubstep Tracks

A key component to making creative dubstep lies in attention to detail. Often, the more detailed and complex your soundscape, the more your track will stand out from the plethora of competition on Beatport, Soundcloud, Youtube and the internet in general. In most cases, complexity indicates a certain skill: the art of subtlety. Dubstep subgenres like complextro (technically not a specific subgenre, but let’s say it is for the sake of example) are almost entirely based upon their detailed structure with the rapid morphing from one bass sound into the next, syncopated waveform oscillation, percussive additives and more, lending the “complex” aspect to it’s name. It’s all in the “glitch,” as you will soon learn. It is the art of the unexpected. Today we will be exploring how you can “glitch-ify” your own tracks, making them as interesting as possible.

As previously stated, the secret to great, glitchy sound lies in the unexpected nature of your transitions, sounds, and overall flow. Start by creating your bass patches. If you are a Massive user (I would highly suggest investing in this wonderful software instrument if you are not), create a bass patch with a fast attack, long sustain and some grit. Throw a Sine Shaper onto it along with a Tele Tube or Classic Tube effect to bring out some distortion. Adjust the stereo width to your liking.

Now that you have one bass patch you are happy with, it is time to make the next one. Here is where the “dubstep mindset” really comes in. You want to be glitchy and unexpected, so adapt this concept into your workflow. You know that your last bass sound was hard-hitting and gritty, so perhaps it might be worth your while to make a bass with a slower attack and more warmth to counter it. How you will use it in the context of the song comes later. Don’t worry about that just yet. For now, create a palette of varying bass sounds.

When you have two basses with qualities that lie on completely opposite sides of the aural spectrum, make at least three more to fill out the middle arena of sound. (By “middle” I am not inferring midrange frequencies, per se). Make some basses that include aspects of both your first and your second bass patches, but this time around add some interesting effects via wavetable oscillation, filters and 3^rd party effects plugins. The key is to exercise true freedom when it comes to sound design. While it is important to think of your work as a whole and envision the atmosphere of the end result, too much planning can inhibit your creativity as you will end up losing that sought-after “craziness” that you can only get with musical freedom being point number one in your musical mindset.

Play around with different ratios in your oscillators and don’t be too discouraged if what you are making sounds lackluster on its own in solo mode. All too often I slave over getting a patch to sound “just right” in solo mode, not realizing that the “power” I am seeking is really that of the full mix. You may have just heard your track and thought to add a new bass; next, you add the midi instrument track for the bass and solo it to work on crafting that sound without background noise. Here is the pitfall one must be aware of in this stage: don’t try to make your bass as loud (or worse, louder) than the pre-existing mix. Your sound obviously can’t hold the same amount of amplitude or frequency range as the entire mix of your song in one sound and expect it to blend well, so it is important to bear this in mind when you are finding your basses a little weak while in the designing stage (in solo mode). Keep A and B-ing your new sound in solo with the rest of your mix so that you are working towards a solid sound that meshes with the mix rather than one that tries to overpower it. It is easy to get carried away with distortion and volume, but be wary of how you treat these when it comes to basses since the quickest way to lose your balance in the mixing stage is by working with sounds that are competing with just about everything else in your track. I guarantee you, if you follow this step carefully you will be much happier and quite surprised at how amazing some of those basses are that you otherwise thought would not be powerful enough. Power doesn’t necessarily come from volume. It comes from a balanced mix with well-crafted sounds — sounds that were crafted with that particular attention to detail that is crucial in glitchy electro or dubstep.

While an array of bass sounds with different modulation rates lends the glitch aspect to your low-end groove, cymbals and white noise swells can play crucial roles in your high-end and your buildups. The standard crash cymbal features a long decay and quite often a slight tinge of reverb. To glitch things up a bit, try separating your sample in half and remove a portion of it in the middle so that there is a small gab between the two sections. When done correctly, you can get a nice, flavorful stutter effect which really lends some interesting flavor to an otherwise normal crash cymbal. A perfect example of this can be heard in Porter Robinson’s song “Spitfire.” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89KV_LcbqsA)

It might also be worth your while to take into consideration the level of interest of your kick and snare patterns. A 4-on-the-floor, thumping kick might work well for house or electro, but when it comes to glitchy dubstep it simply will not suffice. Switch things up and try cutting into half time at key parts of your song. A few “misplaced” kicks often lend a really interesting aspect to dubstep that artists like Skrillex have been known to use prevalently. It is critical to make sure your overall beats themselves are quantized to the grid so as to preserve neatness and order, but transitions can be made much more interesting when you let the beat fall to the wayside with a quick flurry of bombastic mayhem during those key transitions. (I practiced this technique in my Leona Lewis “Trouble” remix which can be heard throughout the song, particularly at the transition starting at 1:42. Pay attention to what the kick does there. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHAg1cpv_W0)

The key to adding interesting glitch aspects lies in how creative you are willing to get. It requires an open mind and a loosing of all of those “hard and fast rules” you were taught to follow. While it does pay to stick to formulas that have been known to work, sticking too much to any given formula will only lead you into the arena of “heard it once, heard it a million times” and no producer wants that. Think for yourself, use your ears, and open your minds! The possibilities are endless.

Remixing - Six Tips You Won't Want to Miss

1. Envision the finished product before you start. Make sure you have an idea, even a general one, of how the overall mood will play out in your version. You might work better with an open-ended project that could branch off into many surprising ways, but a clear vision of the desired atmosphere is the key starting point. Was the original slow, somber and moody? Think about how you can put your own unique twist on that. Perhaps you want to completely change the mood. Speed up the tempo, throw in some energizing synths, unique percussion, polyrhythms, etc. Dominate the vibes. With attention to the bigger picture, your remix will take a shape of its own and each section will seamlessly blend into the next, leaving you with a cohesive final product.

2. Screw the original version. That’s right, forget all about it. By disassociating with the sound of the original song you let your creativity take control and steer the direction rather than subconsciously mimicking the aspects of the original. Though on the surface it may seem to be important to have an understanding of what you might want to make different, the truth is that getting that “different” sound you are looking for means letting the vibes do the work. You are continuously in the process of perfecting your signature sound, whether you are aware of it or not. Let that subconscious instinct be the drive for your remix, not the desire to be different.

3. Use phase cancellation to isolate vocals. If you can track down a good quality instrumental version of the song you are remixing, you can use it to extract the vocals from the original song by inverting the phase on the instrumental track. (If you are not sure how to do this, please read my article that explains this process in detail: “How to Extract Vocal Samples Using Phase Cancellation”).

4. Make room for your own drums. If you are using a WAV or mp3 of the full original song rather than separate stems (i.e. isolated vocal tracks, drums, bass, synths, etc.) sidechain the original song’s audio track to your kick bus. You can even route both your kick and snare to the same bus if you should so choose, so as to allow your drums to replace the original beat. You may run into some issues depending on the complexity of either your drums or the ones from the original song so use your ears and if what you are doing isn’t working, don’t do it. It isn’t fool proof, but it can make life a heck of a lot easier when done right. At more complex breaks where you want the instruments to shine through over your sick drum fill, simply bypass the compressor you are using to sidechain.

5. Slice up the original. Clip the beginnings of each beat on the original WAV or mp3 to make room for your own drums. This works effectively in conjunction with the aforementioned sidechaining method. It isn’t easy working with a single block of audio, and to make your touch really stand out you need to “take over” the song. The best place to start is by implementing your own drum samples. By splitting the original song on all of the main downbeats and clipping off a few milliseconds immediately following, you will allow your drum samples to snap through the mix, as if they were the original drums. It is an illusion but an effective one!

6. Change the chord structure. Pay attention to the melody line of the vocals and think of ways in which you can tear out the “foundation” of chords underneath and replace them with ones of your own. Familiarize yourself with the circle of fifths and as much music theory as you possibly can. This will allow you to have a better understanding of what is going on in the original, and what will work (and won’t) in your remix. Most importantly, use your ears! If a minor chord sounds boring, make it a minor 7^th and see if that fares you any better. Most likely it will. Keep things fresh, interesting and unpredictable.

How to Extract Vocal Samples Using Phase Cancellation

For all of you remixers out there, it can be a daunting task to find quality a cappella tracks for the songs you are planning to remix, especially if the original songs are from lesser-known artists. Thankfully, there is a way to get those sought-after vocal stems yourself without having to browse the millions of websites claiming to have them but clearly do not. If you are able to track down a master-quality instrumental, on the other hand (which is usually much easier to do), you will be in good shape. You may be wondering “how the hell is an instrumental going to help me in the vocal sample department” and I don’t blame you if you are new to this in any degree, but as you will soon see, it is not only possible but relatively easy. Now, let’s get on with it, shall we?

The first thing you want to do is to drag both the original song and the instrumental version into your session. Bring the beginning of each song right up to the 0:00 marker so that they would both start at precisely the same time. The key is to get the songs to line up so that the waveforms match, and the easiest way of doing that is by ensuring the unison of their start point, i.e. dragging them both right up against the 0:00 point all the way on the left of your screen.

You may notice that even with this seemingly fool-proof measure, the waveforms might in fact still be slightly off as far as lining up correctly goes. If this is the case, you will need to pick a track and nudge it into alignment with the other. You may have to zoom in quite a bit to ensure that all of the peaks are lining up as close as they possibly can. Use the cursor as a guide.

The next step is where the magic happens. Once you have the waveforms lined up, you will need to invert your instrumental track. Depending on how your DAW is organized, you should likely be able to locate this function in an options menu, audio effects menu or even as a pop-up option when right-clicking. As a Pro Tools user, I know that I can get to the invert function by going to the Audio Suite drop menu and looking in the “Other” sub menu. I would imagine that Logic, Cubase, FL Studio and other such DAWs use similar wording as to the names of menus in which the invert function can be found, but if you are having trouble finding it, a simple Google search should yield the answer in a matter of seconds.

When you find the invert function, apply it to your instrumental track. You may not notice any difference in appearance and when you solo it back it will sound exactly the same, but the science behind “inverting” the audio lies in the fact that the actual waveforms themselves have been flipped so that the troughs (dips) and crests (rises) are in the opposite position that they were before.

As some of you recall in my “The Correct Way to Choose Drum and Percussion Samples” article, I made mention of phase cancellation and the hassles one could run into when trying to layer samples. The way in which the troughs and crests of two different sounds line up dictates whether or not the combined sound will be more or less powerful in amplitude. For example, a kick drum sample starting with a crest will lose its snap and punch when layered with a kick that begins with a trough in its waveform. They essentially “cancel” each other out, resulting in the complete opposite effect you were intending to get with the additional layer.

On the contrary, this phenomenon works wonders for isolating vocal stems! The inverted instrumental track, with its opposing crests and troughs, will “cancel out” the majority, if not all of, the instruments in the original song, leaving you with a crisp, clean vocal stem with minimal background noise. Since the only variable between the original song and the instrumental is the vocals, the vocal frequency waves will be the only waves left over after the instruments cancel each other out.

A slight bit of work might still need to be done at this point, however. You may notice that some of the instrument noise slipped through the inversion cancellation process leaving you with some strange, muffled sounds in the background or in the parts that lack vocals in the original song. This noise can be deleted pretty easily via noise gates and proper EQing. Start off with a noise gate and set your threshold as wide as you can so that you hear no difference initially. Then slowly start decreasing it and you will begin to hear the noise become less and less. Tread carefully with gating, however, as you wouldn’t want to jeopardize the quality and nuances of the vocal lines like breathiness and softer phrasings which might accidentally get cut out with too much gating. Use an EQ to gently high and/or low pass the isolated vocal track to get rid of additional noise that your noise gate was not able to take care of properly. Again, pay special attention to the nature in which the filters might interact with the vocals themselves. These tools should be used very sparingly so as to leave the main vocals intact with all of their power and clarity. More chances than none, a little bit of leftover noise is hardly noticeable in the mix anyway, especially in a heavy dubstep track with a full range of pumped frequencies.