The 'help me make that dungeon sound' thread

[Steve_French]

thanks for the input, but isnt that just icicle producion masterclass vid transcribed? :p
not knocking you tho, this is seriously usefull,

another protip for everyone:
use 1 fm module in thor, using the same process's as dyssomania has used. make the sure the modulater is 1 octave higher, and then assign the fm knob to an envelope, or LFO.

[Dyssomnia]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the first part of the video basically sounds similar to a bassline which is used in Hindzy D's - Laser treatment.
Not sure about that though. I just tried some things in Reason and found out it could sound nice if I did some other things which led to this bass

I'm not sure what you mean though, so could you upload a patch? (about the FM thing)

[Steve_French]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the first part of the video basically sounds similar to a bassline which is used in Hindzy D's - Laser treatment.
Not sure about that though. I just tried some things in Reason and found out it could sound nice if I did some other things which led to this bass

I'm not sure what you mean though, so could you upload a patch? (about the FM thing)

the results were very similar then, not knocking your technique tho mate, produces results, i posted a patch on a few months back, will edit this when i find

[dopocc]

[Mutiny]

Heres a tutorial on creating a Low passed Reese which is well worth a look, originally posted by District. Its a good basis for getting started if your not sure how to go about programming a synth and can also be easily adapted to create your own unique sound. Also check out the thread for more info on making Sub Bass:

http://www.dubstepforum.com/viewtopic.p ... 6#p1988366

been working on this sorta thing for a minute now, i'll show you how i do it but i use cubase so you'll have to bastardise some of the techniques and plugins for ableton.

using massive you want settings along the lines of this:



osc 1 has the standard initialised square - saw 1 waveform, i've put the wavetable postion all the way to the right (5 o clock) so its just a pure square wave and set the intensity and amplitude to about 1/2 o clock on the dials. i've pitched this down an octave and set the filter settings on the right so it's only being sent to filter 1

oscillators two and three are both using the va - pulse saw pwm waveforms and are detuned (one + 0.25 and the other - 0.25) both are being sent to filter 2. note theres not too much wulse width modulation going on. you only need a little bit.

i've dragged the filter 2 routing to serial and set a lowpass 2 filter on filter 1 and a scream on the other. by separating the sub oscillator with the detuned oscillators you get a stronger low end, it's not wobbling up and down like the pwm oscillators and basically means that you've got some dynamics in the lower mid frequencies but the subs still punching through. (this methods pretty similar to how most people did it on the old juno synths)

other things to note on the patch, got a hard clipper on insert 1 which has been placed infront of filter one, (see pic 2 for routing) a classic tube distortion on fx1, just to bring out the harmonics a little bit and some chorus (settings also on pic 2) on fx2 just to thicken it out, makes the patch a bit wider. (its worth playing with for a bit too just to see how far you can stretch it)



now you've got your patch set up you need to do a few things to bring it out a bit more.

if you wanna be anal you can save a few multi shot samples of your patch say 8 bar loop playing one long note for the duration (i tend to use C2 sometimes A or F)

in this instance i've just used c2 though.

you wanna export the midi loop from your patch back into your daw as an audio mixdown, and then duplicate the audio loop onto three channels.
we're gonna separate it into sub, mids and highs so using a decent eq ( i'm using the waves rennaisance EQ's, they'r ok but not very strong so i've used two on each channel like this...)


(gonna have to copy and paste this image link in, its too big for the forum)
http://img843.imageshack.us/img843/7968/eqsx.jpg

the first channel has two req's on the inserts low-passed down to 300 hz, note its got a sharp cutoff too on the filter
next channel has the mids so it's low passed and high passed so only 300 hz - 3000hz is coming through
and lastly, you've got your highs, everything abover 3000hz.

usually i'll stick a limiter on the sub channel, but in this instance it's already pretty weighty so we dont need to (if you used more chorus or different effects you may have to. cos i used the hard clipper in massive earlier its not needed)

mid range channel i've put cubase's native plug in amp simulator hardly doing anything to the initialised patch just boosting it and giving it a touch of overdrive. LESS IS ALWAYS MORE. when you're resampling like this it's loads better to apply slight effects rather than caking it all on we just want to get some more harmonics in the sound here. again heres a pic of the settings just so you can see how i've done it



cos' we've just distorted it we need to put another mid filter on, it just tidies up any artefacts the amp sim might have placed on the low end and top end and keeps the sound tight for those frequencies (dont want any distortion on the sub atm)

some of the braver production heads on here may go for a bit of chorus on the the mids as well but i'd advise only a very slight amount

high end channel, gonna put another amp sim on, boost the drive and overall volume a bit as well here, the tops are gonna be the quietest so they'll need a bit of amping just so we can get them in the mix.

again make sure you're putting eq's after each stage of processing, keep the frequency bands nice and tight dont go mad with the distortion. cant stress this enough.

added a very short reverb (one of the cubase legacy reverbs from the good ol' days of sx) short decay, small room low in the mix, just to spread the sound out a little bit and a really slow phaser. clock the dry/wet mix signals on them all. you dont need much

(again, gonna have to copy and paste this image link in, its too big for the forum)
http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/9076/hiend.jpg

you wanna solo all three channels and export that as a single waveform now. if you've done it right, it shouldn't be peaking on the master out but it will probably sound a bit harsh on the tops, we're gonna sort this out now.

now you can either choose to go back and repeat the previous methods adding different effects like phasing and filters to the different frequency bands and start getting some neurofunk style bass stuff or you can load your wav into a sampler and start playing with it like that.

i'd recommend the freeware sampler shortcircuit, it's a vst so will work in ableton or whatever other daw you've got and its a little lighter on the cpu than kontakt i find. (also running a shedload of these is loads better than a tonnes of massives or albino's or whatever you're using)
get it here! ---> http://vemberaudio.se/shortcircuit.php



fire a track up with shortcircuit and load your newly multisampled wav in. once loaded should look like this:


what you're gonna have to do to get it playing across your keyboard is bring your low key right down to c-2 or whatever (you probably wont get further than C0 anyway) set your root as C2 (or whatever note you saved it as on the midi editor earlier!) and shoot the high key right up so it's mapped across the whole keyboard. it's also worth setting the velocity sensitivity from -30db to 0db so its hitting at the same level each time, its a bass not a hi-hat you want it punchy each and every. pitch benders might wanna knock the pb range up to 12 so you can fuck about a bit more in the automation later on.

i've stuck a 2-pole lowpass filter on mine so it's a bit deeper but still sounds like a classic reese. cos its a 2 pole filter you're gonna get some of those low mid harmonics slightly poking through, giving it a bit of character and helping it stand out more in the mix (it's also gonna give off the impression your bass is a bit louder. this is also a good thing.)

and finally to give it a bit of movement ive added a sine wave lfo which is keytriggered and moving at a rate of 0.401 hz (the number isn't important, just the fact it's nice and slow) and its moving the cutoff on the filter up and down very slightly (check the modulation routing window) you only need it moving by a touch, drive the depth up and its gonna start opening the filter up more but it's also gonna knock the lower end out on the second part of the sines cycle (to avoid this change the bottom scoop on the step lfo so its just a straight line, you'll get this cutoff opening that keeps the low end in but just growls ever so slightly)

other finishing touches, maybe set the voice mode to legato and stick a bit of glide in using the portamento. just have a play with it. i'd say learning how to make a decent reese is as important in this sorta production as learning to ollie on a skateboard.

hope this helps, any questions i'll try and answer em. sorry if its a bit patronising at times, tried to explain it all so you understand why everythings been done. knowing the process is nothing compared to understanding it and then being able to fuck about with it and just lording it over bass sounds.

anyone wants to hit me up i'm on soundcloud @ http://soundcloud.com/district
twitter: http://twitter.com/District2019
and myspace: http://www.myspace.com/district2019

allow the spamming, writing this up was long!

[Rekah]

Heres a tutorial on creating a Low passed Reese which is well worth a look, originally posted by District. Its a good basis for getting started if your not sure how to go about programming a synth and can also be easily adapted to create your own unique sound. Also check out the thread for more info on making Sub Bass:

http://www.dubstepforum.com/viewtopic.p ... 6#p1988366

been working on this sorta thing for a minute now, i'll show you how i do it but i use cubase so you'll have to bastardise some of the techniques and plugins for ableton.

using massive you want settings along the lines of this:



osc 1 has the standard initialised square - saw 1 waveform, i've put the wavetable postion all the way to the right (5 o clock) so its just a pure square wave and set the intensity and amplitude to about 1/2 o clock on the dials. i've pitched this down an octave and set the filter settings on the right so it's only being sent to filter 1

oscillators two and three are both using the va - pulse saw pwm waveforms and are detuned (one + 0.25 and the other - 0.25) both are being sent to filter 2. note theres not too much wulse width modulation going on. you only need a little bit.

i've dragged the filter 2 routing to serial and set a lowpass 2 filter on filter 1 and a scream on the other. by separating the sub oscillator with the detuned oscillators you get a stronger low end, it's not wobbling up and down like the pwm oscillators and basically means that you've got some dynamics in the lower mid frequencies but the subs still punching through. (this methods pretty similar to how most people did it on the old juno synths)

other things to note on the patch, got a hard clipper on insert 1 which has been placed infront of filter one, (see pic 2 for routing) a classic tube distortion on fx1, just to bring out the harmonics a little bit and some chorus (settings also on pic 2) on fx2 just to thicken it out, makes the patch a bit wider. (its worth playing with for a bit too just to see how far you can stretch it)



now you've got your patch set up you need to do a few things to bring it out a bit more.

if you wanna be anal you can save a few multi shot samples of your patch say 8 bar loop playing one long note for the duration (i tend to use C2 sometimes A or F)

in this instance i've just used c2 though.

you wanna export the midi loop from your patch back into your daw as an audio mixdown, and then duplicate the audio loop onto three channels.
we're gonna separate it into sub, mids and highs so using a decent eq ( i'm using the waves rennaisance EQ's, they'r ok but not very strong so i've used two on each channel like this...)


(gonna have to copy and paste this image link in, its too big for the forum)
http://img843.imageshack.us/img843/7968/eqsx.jpg

the first channel has two req's on the inserts low-passed down to 300 hz, note its got a sharp cutoff too on the filter
next channel has the mids so it's low passed and high passed so only 300 hz - 3000hz is coming through
and lastly, you've got your highs, everything abover 3000hz.

usually i'll stick a limiter on the sub channel, but in this instance it's already pretty weighty so we dont need to (if you used more chorus or different effects you may have to. cos i used the hard clipper in massive earlier its not needed)

mid range channel i've put cubase's native plug in amp simulator hardly doing anything to the initialised patch just boosting it and giving it a touch of overdrive. LESS IS ALWAYS MORE. when you're resampling like this it's loads better to apply slight effects rather than caking it all on we just want to get some more harmonics in the sound here. again heres a pic of the settings just so you can see how i've done it



cos' we've just distorted it we need to put another mid filter on, it just tidies up any artefacts the amp sim might have placed on the low end and top end and keeps the sound tight for those frequencies (dont want any distortion on the sub atm)

some of the braver production heads on here may go for a bit of chorus on the the mids as well but i'd advise only a very slight amount

high end channel, gonna put another amp sim on, boost the drive and overall volume a bit as well here, the tops are gonna be the quietest so they'll need a bit of amping just so we can get them in the mix.

again make sure you're putting eq's after each stage of processing, keep the frequency bands nice and tight dont go mad with the distortion. cant stress this enough.

added a very short reverb (one of the cubase legacy reverbs from the good ol' days of sx) short decay, small room low in the mix, just to spread the sound out a little bit and a really slow phaser. clock the dry/wet mix signals on them all. you dont need much

(again, gonna have to copy and paste this image link in, its too big for the forum)
http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/9076/hiend.jpg

you wanna solo all three channels and export that as a single waveform now. if you've done it right, it shouldn't be peaking on the master out but it will probably sound a bit harsh on the tops, we're gonna sort this out now.

now you can either choose to go back and repeat the previous methods adding different effects like phasing and filters to the different frequency bands and start getting some neurofunk style bass stuff or you can load your wav into a sampler and start playing with it like that.

i'd recommend the freeware sampler shortcircuit, it's a vst so will work in ableton or whatever other daw you've got and its a little lighter on the cpu than kontakt i find. (also running a shedload of these is loads better than a tonnes of massives or albino's or whatever you're using)
get it here! ---> http://vemberaudio.se/shortcircuit.php



fire a track up with shortcircuit and load your newly multisampled wav in. once loaded should look like this:


what you're gonna have to do to get it playing across your keyboard is bring your low key right down to c-2 or whatever (you probably wont get further than C0 anyway) set your root as C2 (or whatever note you saved it as on the midi editor earlier!) and shoot the high key right up so it's mapped across the whole keyboard. it's also worth setting the velocity sensitivity from -30db to 0db so its hitting at the same level each time, its a bass not a hi-hat you want it punchy each and every. pitch benders might wanna knock the pb range up to 12 so you can fuck about a bit more in the automation later on.

i've stuck a 2-pole lowpass filter on mine so it's a bit deeper but still sounds like a classic reese. cos its a 2 pole filter you're gonna get some of those low mid harmonics slightly poking through, giving it a bit of character and helping it stand out more in the mix (it's also gonna give off the impression your bass is a bit louder. this is also a good thing.)

and finally to give it a bit of movement ive added a sine wave lfo which is keytriggered and moving at a rate of 0.401 hz (the number isn't important, just the fact it's nice and slow) and its moving the cutoff on the filter up and down very slightly (check the modulation routing window) you only need it moving by a touch, drive the depth up and its gonna start opening the filter up more but it's also gonna knock the lower end out on the second part of the sines cycle (to avoid this change the bottom scoop on the step lfo so its just a straight line, you'll get this cutoff opening that keeps the low end in but just growls ever so slightly)

other finishing touches, maybe set the voice mode to legato and stick a bit of glide in using the portamento. just have a play with it. i'd say learning how to make a decent reese is as important in this sorta production as learning to ollie on a skateboard.

hope this helps, any questions i'll try and answer em. sorry if its a bit patronising at times, tried to explain it all so you understand why everythings been done. knowing the process is nothing compared to understanding it and then being able to fuck about with it and just lording it over bass sounds.

anyone wants to hit me up i'm on soundcloud @ http://soundcloud.com/district
twitter: http://twitter.com/District2019
and myspace: http://www.myspace.com/district2019

allow the spamming, writing this up was long!

i missed this when it was first posted nice one

[Dyssomnia]

That's just so extremely useful!
Gonna be busy with that for the next couple of days

Edit:
I love how he kinda apologies for making his explanation so long.
The longer it is, the better (that's what the miss always say)

[Kilo beats]

absoulutly wicked thread.. please, more of the tutorials/ tips n tricks of how to make that dungeon sound, if anyones on aim who i can fire questions to id be insanely greatfull..

[Mutiny]

Also, heres a thread on gain structure and mixing, this should improve your mixes tenfold. A must read - http://dubstepforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=74832

[Dyssomnia]

Another Computer Music tutorial is released today, this time it's by Kryptic Minds!
I'm gonna get the mag as soon as possible The Icicle one was very useful

[NilsFG]

Hrmm, even with those tips I suck. Just gonna give up on producing..
Not enough patience, creativity, ...

Gonna go full focus on DJ'ing. If anyone wants their shit played out in BE or needs an honest opinion >>> pm.
Looking for dubs lol I'm such a wasteman.

[serox]

oops. Just seen this thread after I posted in another asking the same thing.

Is that a 808 or something made using a synth? cannot get anything like it with an 808. Tried with overdrive, comp, lp filter and playing around with the attack and some reverb but something is wrong:)

[Dyssomnia]

Hrmm, even with those tips I suck. Just gonna give up on producing..
Not enough patience, creativity, ...

Gonna go full focus on DJ'ing. If anyone wants their shit played out in BE or needs an honest opinion >>> pm.
Looking for dubs lol I'm such a wasteman.

You won't give up mate
I've been at the 'Imma go full DJing'-stage a lot of times already, but I just love the idea of playing out my own tune one time
If you're already sure you wanna make 'Dungeon', then you should certainly not give up. Push harder mate, it's gotta be worth it!

[Kilo beats]

not sure if this is totally "dungeon" but id love figure out how truth made the bass in "revelation" (from 0:54)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGnaxYhO954

from what i hear theres diffrent 3 basses per bar, repeating over the whole track. my guess is the first bass is mayb a square & sine wave with LFO & a little resonance. The second bass sounds like just a sine wave that drops in pitch by 12 or so semitones assigned to a LFO that starts with a fast rate & gets slower as the bass drops in pitch. the third bass i imagine is an 808 bass..

now my question is this: am i right in my analisys? i think im close enough, but i know if i tryed to remake the bass myself using the settings i described id more than likley end up with a bloody mess, sounding nothing like truths track. im wondering if theres any major elements im missing, or do i have the basics down right and it just comes down to how you process the basses that makes the diffrence? also does it make much of a diffrence what synths you would use? all synths can pretty much do the things i discribed.

i love this style of dub, and anynone who can help me getting there id happly let f*ck my sister (if i had one)

[gyu]

not sure if this is totally "dungeon" but id love figure out how truth made the bass in "revelation" (from 0:54)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGnaxYhO954

from what i hear theres diffrent 3 basses per bar, repeating over the whole track. my guess is the first bass is mayb a square & sine wave with LFO & a little resonance. The second bass sounds like just a sine wave that drops in pitch by 12 or so semitones assigned to a LFO that starts with a fast rate & gets slower as the bass drops in pitch. the third bass i imagine is an 808 bass..

now my question is this: am i right in my analisys? i think im close enough, but i know if i tryed to remake the bass myself using the settings i described id more than likley end up with a bloody mess, sounding nothing like truths track. im wondering if theres any major elements im missing, or do i have the basics down right and it just comes down to how you process the basses that makes the diffrence? also does it make much of a diffrence what synths you would use? all synths can pretty much do the things i discribed.

i love this style of dub, and anynone who can help me getting there id happly let f*ck my sister (if i had one)

I like this tune
I think you're more or less right, although I can hear four basses if you include the distorty lfo one at the end. There's also a short sound with a really fast lfo on it. The first two notes are also layered with some kind of mid-high crashy sound.
Imo you do have the basics down and you just have to keep practising and experimenting until you get something you like. I would say that it doesn't make too much difference what synth you use, just do it:)

[TherapyBE]

I'm trying to recreate this automated lowpassed synth. no idea how to start. it's repeated throughout the entire track.
thanks in advance.

[Dyssomnia]

Taking a more melodic approach for this question.
What scales are often used in the deeper and darker 'dungeon' music?
I have some basic knowledge about major and minor scales etc. (8 years of piano lessons and 3 years of guitar solo'ing stuff)
But I'd like to know some scales that producers like to use in deep and dark dubstep.
Do they even look at scales or is it just trial and error with some pads?
Thanks in advance.

[NilsFG]

Hrmm, even with those tips I suck. Just gonna give up on producing..
Not enough patience, creativity, ...

Gonna go full focus on DJ'ing. If anyone wants their shit played out in BE or needs an honest opinion >>> pm.
Looking for dubs lol I'm such a wasteman.

You won't give up mate
I've been at the 'Imma go full DJing'-stage a lot of times already, but I just love the idea of playing out my own tune one time
If you're already sure you wanna make 'Dungeon', then you should certainly not give up. Push harder mate, it's gotta be worth it!

We'll see. At least I'm going to try and finish the last thing I was working on; Don't mind Soundcloud fucking up a lot.
Soundcloud

[Kerosine-1]

Hrmm, even with those tips I suck. Just gonna give up on producing..
Not enough patience, creativity, ...

Gonna go full focus on DJ'ing. If anyone wants their shit played out in BE or needs an honest opinion >>> pm.
Looking for dubs lol I'm such a wasteman.

You won't give up mate
I've been at the 'Imma go full DJing'-stage a lot of times already, but I just love the idea of playing out my own tune one time
If you're already sure you wanna make 'Dungeon', then you should certainly not give up. Push harder mate, it's gotta be worth it!

We'll see. At least I'm going to try and finish the last thing I was working on; Don't mind Soundcloud fucking up a lot.
Soundcloud

Really mate? That is a great sounding track. I actually just made an account specifically to tell you that.

[hasezwei]

Hrmm, even with those tips I suck. Just gonna give up on producing..
Not enough patience, creativity, ...

Gonna go full focus on DJ'ing. If anyone wants their shit played out in BE or needs an honest opinion >>> pm.
Looking for dubs lol I'm such a wasteman.

You won't give up mate
I've been at the 'Imma go full DJing'-stage a lot of times already, but I just love the idea of playing out my own tune one time
If you're already sure you wanna make 'Dungeon', then you should certainly not give up. Push harder mate, it's gotta be worth it!

We'll see. At least I'm going to try and finish the last thing I was working on; Don't mind Soundcloud fucking up a lot.
Soundcloud

Really mate? That is a great sounding track. I actually just made an account specifically to tell you that.

and i'm actually using my 1000th post to tell you that i think so aswell.