Techno & House Production Thread (Not for Feedback)

[crunkedxup]

anyone have an idea about the chord(?) sounds in this that come in briefly after the organ? whenever i make a chord stab it always sounds weak or pretty bland, is that down to the character of the synth/vst itself?

[skimpi]

anyone have an idea about the chord(?) sounds in this that come in briefly after the organ? whenever i make a chord stab it always sounds weak or pretty bland, is that down to the character of the synth/vst itself?

The chord sound in that tune sounds pretty weak to me tbh lol

Just get squares and saws, play around with different octaves for the waves, and just get a low pass of band pass filter controlled b an envelope to get it nice and stabby. Maybe try distrotion or pitch envelope to

[Perej]

anyone have an idea about the chord(?) sounds in this that come in briefly after the organ? whenever i make a chord stab it always sounds weak or pretty bland, is that down to the character of the synth/vst itself?

compress it, add chorus, add stereo width, add very stingy amount of reverb, maybe add a bit of sub under each note.

[crunkedxup]

nice one fellas.

and yeah that was the only example i could find haha

[NicDefn]

Hi Everyone

How are you all doing?

I just thought i would post this thread to see if anyone else had an interest in the type of equipment and production and mixing techniques that go into specifically UK based techno from the likes of Surgeon, Regis and downwards label.

Not that i am one for ever replicating some ones style but as a purely technical stand point i thought this thread by interesting none the less

so heres a link to an example from Regis


let me know what you guys think about what he's done in terms of drum programming and eq/compression and possibly effect processing techniques

Cheers Nick

[NicDefn]

what no ones replied to this, no one like Techno?

[AxeD]

Analog gear. Tape etc..

Regis tracks are co-produced by god.

[NicDefn]

I was wondering how he gets his drum sequences to have that tightness in terms of swinng and that sort of jeff mills rolling feel, and do you think he's just using analog drum machines or sampling as well and if so what sort of source material?

maybe old skool breaks?

le me know what you think

[skimpi]

well, he is probably either using drum machines or samplers, but im sure there wont be much swing on the go, dont really know about samples though, but doesnt sound like he is using a break in this one, unless he has just take a single hit from it for a snare or whatever, but i dont think he would be using it as a loop or anything.

[AxeD]

Quite confident Surgeon uses mostly analog gear.
Doepfer, 909, 303 stuff like that.
Although there's obviously a lot of rave / break influences.

Rolling bass is usually achieved through heavy pitched down toms or just extra kick lines.
You could also try wacking some drum loops on the kick line with like everything above 400Hz cut off.

[skwiggo]

a lot of these sort of tracks use a 909 drummachine but it doesnt sound like a real 909 in that tune - if it is, its heavily processed to the the point of being unrecognizable. although i wouldn't be surprised if regis did have a lot of hardware and drum machines etc.to me its more likely just good drum samples (check out goldbaby or wave alchemy) with a lot of good processing

the rolling feel sounds like percussion loops that he's either made or taken which he's then chopped up in time to fit the track - theres quite a heavy bass underneath too - you can get that sort of bass by making an interesting rhythm with a long 808 kick drum, filtering it down to around 100hz with a lowpass filter so you just have a sub bass line, putting it underneath your actual kick drum and compressing/saturating it with the rest of the drum buss

these threads from mnml.nl go into lots of good techno production techniques - might not be exactly like that regis track but really useful nonetheless:

http://www.mnml.nl/phpBB3/viewtopic.php ... &start=156
http://www.mnml.nl/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=77460

[NicDefn]

yeah i seem to be getting along the right track, do tracks at 134-139BPM then by sampling old breaks and 90s hardcore records and then chopping it on my MPC3000 with some real 909 samples and programming a sequence on the mpc, but its just this rolling type of affect i cant seem to get.

maybe this is a better example of what im trying to achieve


im not saying at all i want to copy his technique but i just like this darker more industrial aesthetic, so want to better understand Regis' style and i think hes the best the UK has to offer in terms of techno

[skimpi]

yeah i seem to be getting along the right track, do tracks at 134-139BPM then by sampling old breaks and 90s hardcore records and then chopping it on my MPC3000 with some real 909 samples and programming a sequence on the mpc, but its just this rolling type of affect i cant seem to get.

maybe this is a better example of what im trying to achieve


im not saying at all i want to copy his technique but i just like this darker more industrial aesthetic, so want to better understand Regis' style and i think hes the best the UK has to offer in terms of techno

Ive never really been able to get what people mean by rolling beats and shit haha, like i listen to that, and theres nothing in the beat that i can pick out which id think people would describe as rolling

[AxeD]

I do, but not in that track. It's probably the synth line and shuffly hats.

[corpu5]

Does anyone know how scuba goes about creating those lush synth pads in tunes like dsy chn and his latest track hardbody (you can hear it in the breakdown) sounds a bit retro and cheesy but i would to learn how he makes them.

(3.30 min mark of this track)
(2.50 min mark of this track)

[q-t]

yeah i seem to be getting along the right track, do tracks at 134-139BPM then by sampling old breaks and 90s hardcore records and then chopping it on my MPC3000 with some real 909 samples and programming a sequence on the mpc, but its just this rolling type of affect i cant seem to get.

maybe this is a better example of what im trying to achieve


im not saying at all i want to copy his technique but i just like this darker more industrial aesthetic, so want to better understand Regis' style and i think hes the best the UK has to offer in terms of techno

I'm not really sure if this is what you're getting at, but I think a lot of that sound comes from it being very sonically dense and full of energy.

The samples used are def not "clean". This has been talked about a lot in this thread and it's still "the thing" that many people don't get when they try to reproduce certain techno. In this case, if you listen closely you can hear that every drum hit sort of glides into the other, filling up all the space in the rhythm. To achieve this, simply work with gritty, noisy samples (either sampling by yourself, putting effects on clean samples, or just find a solid sample pack) or better yet, with breaks and loops. Don't cut out that background hiss, reverb or whatever you've got in old samples. Different types of subtle noise will help you to achieve this sound. As said, these guys probably work with analogue gear, which naturally created this grit and imperfections. In your case, you're better of just emulating it with software and sampling as I wrote above. It also sounds pretty damn compressed to me.

Work with gritty samples / break / loops
Fill out all the space in the rhythm with percussion
Use low-passed loops or reverb techniques for sub
Compress everything with a "character" compressor
And for gods sake, remove the sync when programming drums. You want the percussion to be slightly off (done manually, not with a groove-preset / -template)

Edit: just noticed another thing in that track.
There's a barely noticeable melody rolling up and down behind the drums. It's sounds pretty low passed and sits perfectly in groove with the lower end frequencies of the rhythm. I can't say if this melody is something that he's programmed / sampled in separately or if it's a biproduct of compressing a loop very hard, bringing out certain tones on the drum hits. However, methods like this, that "tricks" you into hearing stuff and filling out the space in the rhythm in your head, is another key element of his sound.

Here's another track which clearly has that rolling feel. Notice how the drums and bass are glued together. There's also a high pitched pad coming in at around 1:30. I can't make out if it's a sustained note or if it's sidechained to the drums. Either way, it's creating one of those mindfucks (is the pad grooving to the drums or am I making it up?).

[dylanlolwut]

Somebody help me with this,
would like to try re-create similar synth that are used in this track. I love this track so much.
any information would be helpful!

[zsuffa]

Also gonna bump this one. I've been in to production for about six months, mainly doing hip hop and deep/soulful house. Lately tho i've begun looking in to a tad darker stuff. Perhaps not very dark for a lot of you people, but in relation to what i've been up to anyway.
A duo i've really come to appreciate is Willie Graff & Tuccillo. From what i can tell they seem to use quite a lot of samples, and go pretty heavy on the filters. What i am wondering tho is how they create their basslines. For example in these two tracks:


Drops at 0.50

And

Soundcloud

Troughout

Not having any proper monitors its hard for me telling whats on going on musically when the bass gets subby and a little muddy(in a good way). I'm sure this stuff isnt very hard for a lot of you guys, but i'd really appreciate some advice.

Cheers

[dylanlolwut]

anyone have an idea about the chord(?) sounds in this that come in briefly after the organ? whenever i make a chord stab it always sounds weak or pretty bland, is that down to the character of the synth/vst itself?

The chord sound in that tune sounds pretty weak to me tbh lol

Just get squares and saws, play around with different octaves for the waves, and just get a low pass of band pass filter controlled b an envelope to get it nice and stabby. Maybe try distrotion or pitch envelope to

Just taking a note of this, thats all.

[donpablo]

Hey guys.Whats your favourite techno music blogs/youtube promo channels/forums/etc ? By saying tehcno,i mean that proper detroit/berlin sound