DSF Q&A 20: Downlink

[Efrafa11]

Big up for the Q&a!

What are your influences outside of dubstep?
and
Which of your tracks do you think gets the best audience response and why?

Again, massive respect for your time man.

[Primitiv]

Your a legend for doing this Q&A man,

How do you process your drums for your average track (Compression, Saturation, EQ etc.)?

Do you use a drum machine or straight audio hits?

Do you run effects through Sends & Returns, or are the effects just slapped straight on the drums?

Thx again.

[downlink]

Hey. Big ups for doing this.

Got any tricks up your sleeve to get a good mixdown? I'm not talking about hard rules like "put your drums at -10 db", but more vague methodology. Like, do you take a walk between passes, do you listen to the mix on a zillion systems or just a few you know well, how the hell do you clear your mind out after mixing for 8 hours and not get OCD about a couple elements, etc. etc . That kinda stuff.

Thanks!

Honestly man after a while I think you tend to get pretty good at mixing as you go. I have a template that I use with all my routing and sends all set up so when I'm writing I just bus stuff appropriately and adjust levels as I go. Usually by the time I'm done writing the tune I've got it pretty close to where I want it. I do often take breaks when working though to give my ears a rest. Lately I've been getting sore ears much faster than I used to. I monitor at quieter volumes these days but my ears are still destroyed from years of abuse. Fuck a Klondike Bar, I want new ears!

[downlink]

Hope you don't mind if i fire another question your way, but who would you say are the biggest influences on your sound? Who do you look up to most in terms of production or those who have a direct influence? If you have any non-dubstep (i hear the jungle influences with the amen breaks and the like) or even non-electronic inspirations that really helped shaped your music, then that would be really interesting to hear too.

Again, it's really cool you're doing this!

The biggest influence on my sound has been drum n bass and heavy metal. I love really heavy riff driven stuff and aggressive sounds. From a technical standpoint dnb is by far my favorite stuff to listen to as well.

In terms of production I look at different artists tunes for different things. I can go from AB'ing my stuff against Doctor P's tunes, to AB'ing against Nero or Knife Party or even Noisia. It really depends on the type of tune I'm writing.

In terms of musical style I have drawn from lots of places. tech step dnb, jungle, clownstep (yes i said it), dubstep, hip hop, metal, IDM, videogames, film.

Honestly when I'm at home and not working on music, I listen to almost everything except EDM. I'm listening to Beck 'guero' right now, was listening to Alice in Chains before, maybe rock some Thievery Corporation or Tipper while I play a few words with friends games before passing out. The only EDM I listen to regularly around the house or in the car is drum n bass.

[downlink]

Thanks for doing this man. You're a great producer. Crippled Camel has to be one of your best tunes.
How do you go about your drums? Whats your favorite sample pack/sample company? How do you mixdown your drums? Drums buses or individual drums? Last one about drums: Midi or Audio?
Big ups man.

Thanks man!

I make my drums using a fairly common method- layering. I am at the point now where I have a folder full of kicks and snares that I've created by layering.

For a snare for example I might have found a sample in a Vengeance pack that has a really nice low end on it that peaks in just the right place, but the hi end is shit. I will then either introduce a clap or a little blast of white noise that I shape with an enveloper / transient shaper. I bus those together, eq and compress them / add subtle tube saturation. Then I resample the resulting snare and see how its hitting, sometimes I will layer in another snare, maybe something acoustic to give the sound a bit more character. Depends on the song really.

Drum bussing is essential to me . I usually have a kick bus, a snare bus, a hat bus, a breaks bus, then all of those will get sent to another bus and treated. I like having them all have separate busses before hand so that I can process each aspect of the drum track separately. I can do things like sidechain all the hats to the snare really easily if I want to do that.

Also I work almost exclusively with audio when doing drums.

[Marzz]

Thanks for doing this man. You're a great producer. Crippled Camel has to be one of your best tunes.
How do you go about your drums? Whats your favorite sample pack/sample company? How do you mixdown your drums? Drums buses or individual drums? Last one about drums: Midi or Audio?
Big ups man.

Thanks man!

I make my drums using a fairly common method- layering. I am at the point now where I have a folder full of kicks and snares that I've created by layering.

For a snare for example I might have found a sample in a Vengeance pack that has a really nice low end on it that peaks in just the right place, but the hi end is shit. I will then either introduce a clap or a little blast of white noise that I shape with an enveloper / transient shaper. I bus those together, eq and compress them / add subtle tube saturation. Then I resample the resulting snare and see how its hitting, sometimes I will layer in another snare, maybe something acoustic to give the sound a bit more character. Depends on the song really.

Drum bussing is essential to me . I usually have a kick bus, a snare bus, a hat bus, a breaks bus, then all of those will get sent to another bus and treated. I like having them all have separate busses before hand so that I can process each aspect of the drum track separately. I can do things like sidechain all the hats to the snare really easily if I want to do that.

Also I work almost exclusively with audio when doing drums.

Nice man. Thanks for answering my question!
Great technique. I am going to try all of this man. Thank you.
This is great.
Big ups.
Any tunes coming up soon?

[downlink]

Cheers for this Downlink!

So when you sit down at your computer, where do you start? How do you go about sculpting your tunes? And when you start, do you usually have some idea or inspiration in your head or do you just mess around until you start getting somewhere?

2nd question: How many tunes do you finish versus how many tunes do you give up on/put aside?

1st question I answered before.

2nd question. I scrap stuff quite early along a lot of the time. There's no sense in polishing a turd. I mean sometimes I'll just continue working on a track because I'm developing a certain technique or trying something different, even when I don't plan on releasing it. I have a lot of weird music on my hard drive that I've made that is just self indulgent crap that I would never release. Although now that this music thing really has become my career and full time job, I tend to try not to fuck around all that much. When I sit down to work I'm usually doing something that I intend on releasing. If I have to work all day to get a solid 16 bar loop happening then that's what I'll do. If I scrap 10 ideas first, then thats just the way it goes.

[downlink]

hey man thanks alot, i love these Q and A's

my question is this.

when working on a tune, do you find yourself jumping from technical things (programming synth patches, adding compression, reverb) to creative (writing notes and melodies and or riffs) and back? or do you try and set up your sessions in a specific manner before trying to write a tune? i.e. get all the sounds you want then begin placing and arranging them?

also do you try and finish the bulk of tunes in one day? i find myself not being able to get into the same mindset if i open a project a few days or weeks later.

thanks alot, i feel my biggest problem is workflow, so im just wondering how you manage yours

Hey man good questions.

When I'm working on a tune I often bounce around a lot from technical things to creative things. No real rule or order that I approach these things. Although I will say that for some tunes I've developed all of the sounds before sitting down to write the tune itself. Like with Factory for instance I already had this idea of exactly what I wanted to do with the tune. I spent two days on sound design just building all of the noises that I wanted to use in the tune. Then when I sat down to write it, it was all there and it just flowed. I did the bulk of that tune in one afternoon.

Also I have to admit that I rarely finish a tune in one session. I almost always go back in on a tune a bunch of times before I'm really happy with the way it sounds. I hear from people that they have a hard time going back and working on a tune but I absolutely have no problems with this and often find that when I come back to a tune with fresh ears the next day I hear things that really need attention or I find myself re-inspired and ready to rock on a new part of the track.

[downlink]

Thanks for taking the time to do this man!
My questions are:
1. Any tips on being more focused on a tune? Like do you ever turn off the internet/eliminate distractions?
2. Do you make your own drums out of drum machine samples instead of vengeance samples, and if you do any tips?
Thanks!

I think the best way to stay focussed is to turn your phone off and turn off the internet / aim. Personally caffeinated tea and candy are my accomplices in the studio. Both keep me focussed and on track, and I find I work faster (no shit eh?!)

2. I spoke before about how I go about drums so hit that post up

[downlink]

Bigup, love your stuff
I would just like to know your favourite plugins, like disto or compression. (ohmicide or something like that?) :p

Fuck I got logged out of account and lost my response to this question so I will quickly summarize a few faves.

Logic built in plugins are great. Overdrive, Guitar Amp, Ringshifter, Bitcrusher - all staples in my diet.

Other companies stuff I regularly use stuff from are: Waves, Sonnox, Sonalksis, Camel Audio, NI, SugarBytes, Soundtoys, Schwa, Voxengo, Cytomic, Fabfilter.

Recent faves are

Fabfilter Saturn (an amazing multiband disto/saturation tool with really cool mod options)

Soundtoys Echoboy (great sounding delay that does what I want)

Cytomic "the glue" (great compression for giving things a solid cohesive character)

[downlink]

first off, just wanted to say thanks, downlink. you were a major inspiration for me when i started producing ~2 years ago.

question: what is your work flow like? do you normally start with drums, a melody, arrangement, or synthesis/bass patches? basically, i'm just looking for the order in which you produce the different elements of your tracks.

the better i become at synthesis the harder it becomes to arrange and compose tracks - to take the next step... but i know this is because my work flow is all over the place.

Word man glad to hear my music inspired you. That's wicked.

Anyways I kinda touched on workflow earlier, but to sum up quickly I usually start with a basic kick snare hi hat drum loop and then start to add in sounds. Basically I try to build an insane 8 bar loop, and then develop that into an insane 16 bar loop. I then look at the whole thing again and start tweaking the drum groove and notation to gel even better. Then I work on fill parts, whether they be musical or rhythmic or both. That's pretty much how it normally goes. Again as I stated before there is no absolute 100% approach though. Sometimes a song will be spawned just based around a new plugin or new sound or sample.

[downlink]

I just want to say hello out of politeness really,i have no questions or need for help in direction i just wanted to say hello and how you doing?

what's up man?! I'm chillin. thanks for being polite. I had heard this place had become a haven for a rare breed of ravenous sleep-steppers, but its been peachy.

[downlink]

What music down you find yourself listening to aside from electronic?
Do you play any instruments?
When do you prefer to work with audio vs. midi? (pro tools user) LOL
indica vs. sativa during production?

I listen to almost everything man. I know a lot of people say that but I really do listen to a pretty wide range of music. My Ipod is a vast and when on shuffle you would think it has multiple personality disorder. From 1940's Big Band to Instrumental Sitar tracks, to Autechre and back to Big L, 90's grunge and alternative to liquid dnb, Sade to Slipknot. I'm all over the place.

I used to play guitar and I intend on picking it back up again here.

I use both audio and midi when I produce. Audio for drums. Midi almost everything else, though I do bounce down and resample a lot. Kontakt is my friend.

Indica all the way for me if I have the choice. Sativa can be good if you can maintain focus and not get all noodly with things and wind up making a strange voyage into loop land and it just ends up sounding like shit the next day. To be honest I dont even really blaze that much anymore. I sometimes will though when I've gotten stuck on a tune or just want to listen to a tune that I think is done to get myself into the headspace of a kid in a club. I can then kinda vibe on it and see if maybe something could be better or something.

[downlink]

what made you so big? How did you get known?

I don't really know man. I made a few big tunes early on when there wasn't such an oversaturation of heavy dubstep. Songs like "Ignition" and "Gamma Ray" really helped put me on the map in dubstep and from there a series of collaborations with Datsik and Excision helped further fuel the fire. I've been all over the world touring and have played some pretty legendary venues. Got to even work with one of my favorite bands from my high school years, Korn. Got to mix that whole record and tour with them across USA and Europe which was sick. I don't know how to really pinpoint how I got to where I am but I do know that I worked really hard and put my time in before actually going pro with it all.

[downlink]

Where do you start in your production ie do you start with drums, basses, leads et.

I've answered this one in an earlier post bruv. Check it out

[downlink]

I've been using Fm8 a lot lately.

However, I wind up mainly using filters and stuff to make the sounds I want. You said you've been doing fm synthesis. So does the FM do most of the work.. or does it really just set up the tone for other plugins to destroy?

Thanks. I was jogging to your music the other day. Thanks for helping me stay in shape!

With FM8 I tend to steer away from the filters in the synth. I do use the envelopes a fair bit but when I want filtering I will just use a plugin to filter the sound I've created. OR I will bounce down the sound I've made in FM8 and then just load it up in Kontakt and filter and fuck with it in there.

Honestly I'm not that great with FM8 and most of the dope stuff I've made I've kind of made by accident. I just find myself making Skrillex or Knife Party "growl" sounds and then I'm like wait a minute, I don't really want to sound anything like them, and then I end up tweaking shit further and making other digital sounding heavyness. It's a cool synth and you can make a lot of unique sounds with it. FM synthesis is just more exciting to me than Subtractive at the moment. I guess its just kind of new to me, even though its been around for years.

[mthrfnk]

I thought up a couple more questions, hope thats cool:
>You mentioned you use Ozone for mastering in an earlier post - what setting do you utilise, do you base them off a preset or do you got through each setting manually and tweak? Is Ozone the only plugin you use on your master bus? Aside from self mastering, do you get tracks progessionally mastered, if so how do they compare to your self-masters and when (if at all) would you recommend using a mastering house.
>I think you kind of covered this, but when designing a bass sound do you like to utilise multiple instances of a synth (e.g. Massive) to cover various frequencies and then EQ & glue them together or do you prefer to start from a single source sound?
>Finally what is the sound/melody that you are most proud of creating?

Thanks

[downlink]

What's your favorite color?
Melody or Tone: Which is more important?
Synthesis or Sampling: Which is more fun?
Sennheiser, Shure, AKG, Audio-Technica, Beyerdynamic, KRK, Yamaha, M-Audio, Mackie: Preference?
Dogs or Cats?
Coke or Pepsi?
Behringer: Thoughts????????

Blue
Tone
Synthesis, although I've been on a mad Kontakt kick lately
Audeze for headphones, KRK monitors (they suck but I know them)
Dogs, I'm allergic to cats
Coke
Behringer - I have only known as the shitty summing mixer that crackled and popped a lot when we were jamming in my friends garage growing up.

[RandoRando]

whats your live setup consist of? ever consider moving to ableton like datsik has done?

[Burgeamon]

Hey man - thanks so much for doing this!

Couple of questions.

Do you layer your basses much or are you tending to achieve a lot of your sounds with a single bass patch that you then process / resample a bunch.

I'm still at the stage where my basses are missing that midrange that pushes the sound almost through your headphones so am trying to figure out my mistakes.

Cheers man!