Dark metallic Blawan/boddika esque Synths

[Chris mack]

Any one got tips on achieving these sounds? I have tried and go sort of close, but the chord stabs always sound more metallic and dank.

[skwiggo]

get a sample of the korg m1 piano preset with quite a short decay and filter it down with a low pass filter with some resonance and then add saturation/bandpass filter/other beefing up effects to it. You could alternatively use any synth with a sawtooth wave with short decay instead but i think the piano sample is more authentic IMO.

then stick a metallic sample underneath, tune it so it sits right with the piano sample, set the attack and decay similar to the piano sample, compress and effect them together on the same bus. make sure the metallic sample doesn't overpower the piano sample.

if you want the blawan esque pitch effects on the synth, make a duplicate copy of the synth part you want the pitch effect on and pitch bend the copy of it up or down but don't pitchbend the original synth. it gives you that strange detuned quality you get on what you do with what you've got.

[Naan_Bread]

yeah for the stabs its basically either m1 piano or load a square and a saw wave in your synth of choice, pitch down the saw an octave, apply a sharp enveloped low pass filter, run it through a midi chord insert thing and set it to only play 7ths ( or play manually, I use cubase so I'm not sure if there are "chorder type things in other daws)... and then effects to taste.

for the bass lines (at least as far as I can hear) it's basic saw/squares but just with a lot of processing and automation. disortion and an automated filter and reverb send are a good place to start.

also, bouncing out the audio and repitching, reversing, applying bitcrushers/ring modulators and mixing it in with the original signal works very well hear.

There's a lot of chat about the stabs in particular in the Techno and House Production thread - recommend checking it out

[Naan_Bread]

yeah for the stabs its basically either m1 piano or load a square and a saw wave in your synth of choice, pitch down the saw an octave, apply a sharp enveloped low pass filter, run it through a midi chord insert thing and set it to only play 7ths ( or play manually, I use cubase so I'm not sure if there are "chorder type things in other daws)... and then effects to taste.

for the bass lines (at least as far as I can hear) it's basic saw/squares but just with a lot of processing and automation. disortion and an automated filter and reverb send are a good place to start.

also, bouncing out the audio and repitching, reversing, applying bitcrushers/ring modulators and mixing it in with the original signal works very well hear.

There's a lot of chat about the stabs in particular in the Techno and House Production thread - recommend checking it out

[Chris mack]

Thanks, will definitely give those korg piano samples a go. Cheers!

[5415]

yeah for the stabs its basically either m1 piano or load a square and a saw wave in your synth of choice, pitch down the saw an octave, apply a sharp enveloped low pass filter, run it through a midi chord insert thing and set it to only play 7ths ( or play manually, I use cubase so I'm not sure if there are "chorder type things in other daws)... and then effects to taste.

for the bass lines (at least as far as I can hear) it's basic saw/squares but just with a lot of processing and automation. disortion and an automated filter and reverb send are a good place to start.

also, bouncing out the audio and repitching, reversing, applying bitcrushers/ring modulators and mixing it in with the original signal works very well hear.

There's a lot of chat about the stabs in particular in the Techno and House Production thread - recommend checking it out

Cool will give this a try.

[Sarah808]

get a sample of the korg m1 piano preset with quite a short decay and filter it down with a low pass filter with some resonance and then add saturation/bandpass filter/other beefing up effects to it. You could alternatively use any synth with a sawtooth wave with short decay instead but i think the piano sample is more authentic IMO.

then stick a metallic sample underneath, tune it so it sits right with the piano sample, set the attack and decay similar to the piano sample, compress and effect them together on the same bus. make sure the metallic sample doesn't overpower the piano sample.

if you want the blawan esque pitch effects on the synth, make a duplicate copy of the synth part you want the pitch effect on and pitch bend the copy of it up or down but don't pitchbend the original synth. it gives you that strange detuned quality you get on what you do with what you've got.

And what about the man's drums? What exactly is going on with all his tops in Tuesdays march? it doesn't sound like rhythmically placed samples, but sounds so cool. All his drums have a somewhat live feel to them... transparent kicks that punch so hard.
the his he she & she percussion is mental.
Anyone any ideas?

[crunkedxup]

And what about the man's drums? What exactly is going on with all his tops in Tuesdays march? it doesn't sound like rhythmically placed samples, but sounds so cool. All his drums have a somewhat live feel to them... transparent kicks that punch so hard.
the his he she & she percussion is mental.
Anyone any ideas?

There was actually a quite in-depth thread about Blawan and Randomers drums a while ago, it came to the conclusion that it was mainly down to sample choice and something called "warping" in Ableton.

[Perej]

And what about the man's drums? What exactly is going on with all his tops in Tuesdays march? it doesn't sound like rhythmically placed samples, but sounds so cool. All his drums have a somewhat live feel to them... transparent kicks that punch so hard.
the his he she & she percussion is mental.
Anyone any ideas?

There was actually a quite in-depth thread about Blawan and Randomers drums a while ago, it came to the conclusion that it was mainly down to sample choice and something called "warping" in Ableton.

How could warping make drums sound fat? It just degrades the signal... every time you take a drum and start messing with it it loses quality sooo rapidly.

[glottis5]

sounds like he uses a lot of pitch shifting to me

http://www.audiodamage.com/effects/prod ... ?pid=AD025

maybe a plugin like this

[wolf89]

Worth mentioning that Blawan I think owns a fair amount of hardware.

He definitely has a Dave Smith Tempest

[skwiggo]

Worth mentioning that Blawan I think owns a fair amount of hardware.

He definitely has a Dave Smith Tempest

Your def right here - he confirmed in a recent karenn interview that they're both predominantly hardware based now. you can definitely hear that analogue sort of sound on his newer stuff and the karenn stuff.

those hollow kicks he uses a lot nowadays aren't that hard to make IMO - take a real kick drum sample, filter it down to taste with a low pass filter (some kicks are just a thump, some have more high end content) and add saturation/compression to shape the sound further.

his old stuff i don't think its warping but pitch envelopes on toms, lots of woodblocks and other organic percussion and weird found sounds- the half life sample pack here: http://www.mediafire.com/?r3x7igeqcylqls0 is a good start for the weird found sounds like the door lock sounds, concrete and wood sounds etc.

he's obv a dab hand at mixing the percussion sounds to actually sound good too which is the hardest part!

[Sarah808]

Worth mentioning that Blawan I think owns a fair amount of hardware.

He definitely has a Dave Smith Tempest

Your def right here - he confirmed in a recent karenn interview that they're both predominantly hardware based now. you can definitely hear that analogue sort of sound on his newer stuff and the karenn stuff.

those hollow kicks he uses a lot nowadays aren't that hard to make IMO - take a real kick drum sample, filter it down to taste with a low pass filter (some kicks are just a thump, some have more high end content) and add saturation/compression to shape the sound further.

his old stuff i don't think its warping but pitch envelopes on toms, lots of woodblocks and other organic percussion and weird found sounds- the half life sample pack here: http://www.mediafire.com/?r3x7igeqcylqls0 is a good start for the weird found sounds like the door lock sounds, concrete and wood sounds etc.

he's obv a dab hand at mixing the percussion sounds to actually sound good too which is the hardest part!

Hey, thanks for the sample pack! Will download it tomorrow when I get a chance.
Yeah, as I was saying in another post on here, maybe it does just boil down to layering, and I'm just not doing it right
Before this I would have layered say a tom with a rimshot and maybe a snare, try to tune them all up so they have the same pitch if possible, then bandpass all the fundamental frequencies of them all, and group compress / saturate them.
The next question then is getting that human feel. Automating shuffle, velocity and filter frequency on each hit doesn't seem to be doing it either. I think maybe making a few variations of your layered hit would work well to helping with this.

[HighBot]

Yeah, layering is deffinately the way to go. I got these type drums just layering up sounds and compressing the living daylight out of them. I think they have that roomy kinda vibe? Soundcloud.
Just use your ears. If you hear a sound you like ask yourself why you like it, break it down into what it is and you should always be able to recreate it somewhat.
The guys you listed in the title are badmen

[Perej]

Yeah, layering is deffinately the way to go. I got these type drums just layering up sounds and compressing the living daylight out of them. I think they have that roomy kinda vibe? Soundcloud.
Just use your ears. If you hear a sound you like ask yourself why you like it, break it down into what it is and you should always be able to recreate it somewhat.
The guys you listed in the title are badmen

That's weighty! What drums did you use there man?

[zonetrooper5]

Posting in here to keep this thread alive, knowledge is good.

[skimpi]

Worth mentioning that Blawan I think owns a fair amount of hardware.

He definitely has a Dave Smith Tempest

Your def right here - he confirmed in a recent karenn interview that they're both predominantly hardware based now. you can definitely hear that analogue sort of sound on his newer stuff and the karenn stuff.

those hollow kicks he uses a lot nowadays aren't that hard to make IMO - take a real kick drum sample, filter it down to taste with a low pass filter (some kicks are just a thump, some have more high end content) and add saturation/compression to shape the sound further.

his old stuff i don't think its warping but pitch envelopes on toms, lots of woodblocks and other organic percussion and weird found sounds- the half life sample pack here: http://www.mediafire.com/?r3x7igeqcylqls0 is a good start for the weird found sounds like the door lock sounds, concrete and wood sounds etc.

he's obv a dab hand at mixing the percussion sounds to actually sound good too which is the hardest part!

Hey, thanks for the sample pack! Will download it tomorrow when I get a chance.
Yeah, as I was saying in another post on here, maybe it does just boil down to layering, and I'm just not doing it right
Before this I would have layered say a tom with a rimshot and maybe a snare, try to tune them all up so they have the same pitch if possible, then bandpass all the fundamental frequencies of them all, and group compress / saturate them.
The next question then is getting that human feel. Automating shuffle, velocity and filter frequency on each hit doesn't seem to be doing it either. I think maybe making a few variations of your layered hit would work well to helping with this.

maybe the are loops so they have that human element cos he actually hit things with a rhythmic pattern or like sampled it from elsewhere. some of it sounds just like a mechanism or summat lol

[HighBot]

Yeah, layering is deffinately the way to go. I got these type drums just layering up sounds and compressing the living daylight out of them. I think they have that roomy kinda vibe? Soundcloud.
Just use your ears. If you hear a sound you like ask yourself why you like it, break it down into what it is and you should always be able to recreate it somewhat.
The guys you listed in the title are badmen

That's weighty! What drums did you use there man?

As I said I layered a good few for each hit. 3 - 4. Different things like toms, snares and kicks. Saturate them and compress at the end to get a more together sound.

[Naan_Bread]

In addition to what's already be said, for getting that hollow sound on the drums and perc having a well compressed, maybe distorted or bitcrushed reverb send (very short, like a small room setting or similar) is a little thing that helps a lot imo.

[Ldizzy]

well this is talking about drums now.

just stick to making patterns... i mean, people think the samples will do the job.

i can spend an hour looking for the right kick drum. something i kept from sampled hip hop production days. trying to be hi tek dilla and mad lib

as for patterns... its things you learn when moving stuff off grid.

like what an earlier snare sounds like, what a later snare sounds like. etc

then u get creative. there are no rules.

couple years ago i was browsing this forum lookin for recipes like the sorry ass dude taht i was.

then i started making more music, taking more time making the sounds, getting busy, smoking weed, doing coke, beating up children... and i like my drums more then ever.