Gaining Sounds To Make Them Sound Fat

[Metropolis]

Found this in another thread. What's the best way to gain up sounds to make them sound big fat and heavy?

[Lucifa]

Don't understand your question, just posting so i remember to watch the video later tonight.

In terms of fatness of sounds, its always a case of layering, compression, distortion and mixing isn't it? I don't know what you mean by gain up, isn't that literally just increasing amplitude?

[Metropolis]

I'm on about the violent EQing he uses to make quiet samples sound fat. It's in the vid if you get chance to watch it.

[Lucifa]

oh sick, tbh all my eqing is subtractive so this would be technique im not familiar with. Have you got a time reference for it as i wouldnt mind a quick look now?

[Metropolis]

@ 5min 15

[therapist]

Found this in another thread. What's the best way to gain up sounds to make them sound big fat and heavy?

Gain doesn't affect the 'fatness' basically, it's the shape of the EQ. The curve on that EQ is a bit crazy, but it's mainly because he's boosted the volume within the EQ instead of a separate gain. You could have a curve that shape centred on 0dB on the EQ, and a separate gain adding whatever+dB and it would be the same.

It's really just a big top-end boost that is making it sound a bit sharper, and the massive gain + means those freq. cuts look far more drastic than they really need to be.

[Metropolis]

Going to give it a try. Do logic EQs warm the sound, opposed to an analogue one, making it better than just normalising or a gain boost somewhere else?

[Lucifa]

Do people EQ every sample? I just tend to have channels for Kicks, Snares and Hats, then all little clicks and bloops will go into a Percussion one. Don't ever use a sampler either really to shape them, maybe i should.

[Metropolis]

I love EQ. It's a dark art. I EQ everything. I use it more than anything else, e.g. compression

Some jungle producers sometimes even use an outboard EQ just to run things hot through. Can't be arsed with that but thinking about getting a tape deck to play about with.

[Lucifa]

I don't even compress much either really, only if somethings not pulling through the mix enough. Just a little on drums.

I've only stuck with FL's parametric EQ, although i've noticed it isn't that effective at cutting out frequencies even if you have a steep gradient, to the point where i have to double up inserts just to remove the sub from a kick. Outboard EQ'ing sounds excessive, I can't even bother to use my hardware synth most of the time.

[Metropolis]

Yeah, I'm mainly on about newer jungle producers like Fanu and the old school people like Paradox. A lot of people tend to ask about EQing drums and stuff, but most of the 90s jungle drum break sound came from Akai samplers. Now when I hear a lot of new AMEN SMASHERS it sounds like a sample that's been on 50 different peoples hard drives and rex'd up or something. I pissed about on fruity loops for years and was genuinely surprised by the sound of logic, might just be a DASEIN PERSPECTIVE thing though.

[Metropolis]

[Lucifa]

Yeah, I'm mainly on about newer jungle producers like Fanu and the old school people like Paradox. A lot of people tend to ask about EQing drums and stuff, but most of the 90s jungle drum break sound came from Akai samplers. Now when I hear a lot of new AMEN SMASHERS it sounds like a sample that's been on 50 different peoples hard drives and rex'd up or something. I pissed about on fruity loops for years and was genuinely surprised by the sound of logic, might just be a DASEIN PERSPECTIVE thing though.

I really like sound degradation and especially on drums, but im skeptical about how different running something through an outboard sampler is to well applied saturation/down-sampling plugins. I also doubt that a vanilla sample through Logic is any different to one in FL, unless the Logic EQ has intentional imperfections to add warmth.

[Metropolis]

I'm not an expert either, and people do some cool things in fruity. Just going on what my ears tell me having grown up obsessed with 90s and vintage sound and then listening to tunes now. A good story I heard on a Detroit techno documentary about detroit producers coming to london in the early 90s and all the english producers had these big studios with professional mixing desks etc.. and were wondering how to get the detroit sound. And the detroit producers where just confused because all they had were a few synths. Would be interesting to see what dub techno people like Rod Modell use and if anyone can actually make it using software.

I'm happy to use software though cus I've found other ways to get the sound I want for the music I want to make.