White Noise...

[musicandme]

Is something simple I just can't wrap my head around...some of my favorite artists like James Blake, Nicolas Jaar, and Shlohmo have a way to make these pulsing white noise waves and trails on drum hits. My problem is that no matter how I filter out the high frequencies or how quiet in the mix I put the noise, it still sounds piercing to my ears and leads to quick ear fatigue. I've tried using samples and Massive w/ only the noise oscillator on without any luck...any advice would be really appreciated.

Here's a couple examples also:

James Blake - Sparing the Horses @ 1:50



Nicolas Jaar - Specters of the Future (This is just a warm vinyl crackling sound, but even that sounds piercing more often than not)

[MassAphekt]

maybe don't distort or over saturate the 15khz+ area? Only problem I can understand myself is maybe theres too much compression or effects to brighten the noise.

[musicandme]

I actually havnt been processing the samples,or massives noise oscillator with any thing but a low pass filter and occasionally a vinyl distortion unit..just sounds so harsh and piercing as opposed to warm (as far as noise goes)

[Gurnumsbug]

I like to low pass my white noise to a certain degree...also a good amount of reverb at the end of the chain helps as well.

[narcissus]

turn it down? stereo filter delay, and artificial stereo field plugins (or 'spread' control on synth) can soften it up. make a little cut in certain regions 14-22khz if it's piercing.. also i almost always hipass with low Q around 800-1000hz, idk

[Hircine]

bandpass -> low pass slightly -> reverb as an insert -> eq the highs a bit.

[Marzz]

love working with whitenoise

such a mysterious and sexy sound

[NinjaEdit]

EQ it. Somewhere around the midrange sounds like vinyl crackle.

Oviously keep low- and high-pass filtering it.

Maybe pan it somewhere.


EDIT: I hipassed at 200, lopassed at 4600, cut at 500, and boosted at 300 and 1200.

Maybe try distorting it.

[Barka]

highpass it at like 3khz, and put a slight eq dip at around 4,5khz to make it less harsh. this is one way, but definitely try different eq settings. use a reverb on it.