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All about the vinyl distortion + erosion effect in Ableton, then using other effects to take off the highs, like multiband compression or using the amp models, which are great on drums but naff on guitar lol.

I would also say vinyl drum samples maybe with some vinyl crackle sounds are pretty nice for trip hop productions.

Haven't pushed these drums as far, but along the way. If there is anything that interests you, I can answer a q.

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A lot to lose is exactly what I want, what were the basics for those drums? And also, the vinyl crackling. I've been able to do it of sorts, but yours sounds much better. How did you do that?

Sample vinyl!

If you don't have infrastructure to sample vinyl, you can dl all kinds of samples of vinyl breaks and what not. Just do a bit of searching. There are tuns out there. I wouldn't recommend using mp3 breaks, as there are a lot of those out there as well. Stick with wav, will make your life easier.

BUT, I do recommend getting a turntable and sampling vinyl. You can get vinyl really cheaply, and it is a gold mine of all kinds of sounds, loaded with that character.

But sampling from vinyl or using vinyl samples won't get you all of the way there... you have to process and I think people have mentioned some things that you can do to really get that character. Now, mind you, Portishead/Portishead drums are like, I don't know, they're so far beyond me I couldn't begin to suggest how to get there. But when I'm processing vinyl my first stop is an eq, I'll pull midrange and push the highs with a shelf, and just go for it, don't be afraid to really push or pull something. Really and honestly use your ears. You might be pushing a high shelf +18db, and if that is what sounds good, just go with it. Then compression... you can do all kinds of things. You can essentially limit with a compressor, fast attack with high ratio, just to crush the transient and bring up the tail which is going to be super sizzling with that eq you just used. You can then use another compressor to recarve that pillowy/puffy envelope into the sound, slow attack, pretty high ratio. Mind you this is all on a buss or on the break channel, so it is going to all the sounds.

Then there is distortion. All kinds of names for it, saturation, distortion, waveshaping. This stuff can be used anywhere in the signal chain, before the eq, after the eq but before the comps, after the comps. Just play with it. Maybe you want harmonic saturation like spl's twin tube, or something like fabfilter's Saturn, a pretty versatile saturation device. Maybe Camelaudio's Camelphat. Lots of different distortion in there. Maybe you want to use Camelphat's filter, maybe on a parallel buss with a resonant peak on a high pass?

There is a lot that can be done. The point is to try things out and let your ears be a guide. I know that doesn't sound helpful, but it really is, you've just got to do it. Make those adjustments, when you're twisting knobs virtual or physical, just do it by ear, don't look at what you're doing. Find the spot that sounds right. Then look where the knob, just to see what you're doing, and learn what you like.

Then in the mix, decide how up front you want the drums. Mix them up.

And overall, don't be afraid to push it or take risks. That Portishead/Portishead album is pushed really hard, it is so fucking durty (AND CLEAN). There aren't a lot of producers/mixers who'd push that shit that hard, but they did and it is timeless.

Oh, and just like in oldschool hip hop, you can work with your vinyl break, but then use super clean electronic samples under the break to create impact. Just be mindful of how much you're hearing/feeling from those drum supplements. You can do all kinds of shaping techniques with them as well, transient shapers, compression techniques to create/decrease impact.

So, Eq, compression, distortion, supplemental sounds, valiant mix decisions. All not necessarily in that order.

Just play with this stuff

Okay, thanks, great advice! I've been trying alot of what you've said up to now after a lot of research. I usually remove a lot of the high's though, makes it feel way muddier. I managed to make a pretty decent hiphop break starting out with some sample hits and then using alot of abletons in-built plug ins but i never quite got it as fat as i wanted it. Maybe i crushed it too much, no idea. I haven't tried layering it yet, so maybe that's what i need to try. I also changed it to mono, is that something you did?

Never sampled a vinyl before. No idea how. Is the crackle constantly there then? I also don't own a vinyl player, but if that's how it's done then I'll definitely invest into one because i can think of a tonne of drum's I'd like to sample.

That is the spirit. Re the crackle of vinyl - dust and scratches and other kinds of surface imperfections create that noise. When I buy $1 records at second hand shops or from the dollar bin at record stores, I find all kinds of crazy shit. I bought this record from the Salvation Army that had foot prints on it. Sampling from vinyl has a sound to it. When you manipulate it, some of those characteristics become more pronounced.

But also, it is physical. You're limited by the records you have. It forces you to try harder to use sounds, to find sounds, to repurpose and alter sounds. There is goodness to it.

JH, really the issue is your ears. You've just got to increase the resolution of your hearing, and your knowledge of how your tools work. The only shortcut to that is just spending nonhigh focused time striving for a sound.

TOTALLY drop reference tracks into your daw, and analyze them. A/B your track against theirs. You might think, shit my track is bright as hell, then you drop something like P/P into your daw and you're like, holy fuck, I can push those highs another 10db. Haha, it is crazy. But by A/B'ing like that you create concrete objectives for yourself. You can really tell if you're getting to where you want to go.

Personally, the thing that held me back a lot was being a little bitch, and not pushing comps and eq's hard enough. Distortion too. Just go for it.

Oh, and A Lot To Lose, I think that was a mono break. I realized too late that I can't really give you the break down on those songs, as I just lost them to a hard drive crash. But I think that is a straight up break, in mono.

Ohhh, so that's where the crackling comes from. So buying 2nd hand, dusty vinyls makes for very crackly tracks? is this recorded by some kind of direct input or do you put a mic up to the speaker?

And yeah, I don't tend to A/B my tracks or go too crazy. I've just now recently got some studio monitors but before I was making everything on a range of earphones, so I've never wanted to do anything too extreme incase it sounded like shit on other devices.

Buying a vinyl is something i'm going to do now though, for sure. I know a tonne of places to get some 2nd ones, do you just literally buy anything? Because I can imagine that with enough creativity, you can atleast manage to make a few samples/loops no matter how obscure the songs themselves are

This is how I sample:


My turntable, a Technics 1200.


Into a

Behringer RIAA preamp - vinyl is encoded in a strange way, the frequencies are shifted to reproduce better on vinyl, this riaa preamp 'decodes' the vinyl to make it listenable. I don't recommend Behringer in any way. But there are a bunch of people that make RIAA preamps.


My audio I/O device, an Emu 1616m:

has a RIAA preamp, but I didn't want to run directly into my Audio I/O, I wanted to be able to patch my signal to various hardware devices as well as to play records without my computer on. You don't need a RIAA preamp if your audio I/O has an RIAA preamp on an input. Btw, the RIAA input is the one that says "PHONO" in that picture and has a place to attach a ground, as turntables need to be grounded. If your Audio I/O doesn't have an RIAA input you'll need to run the turntable into something that does have one, ie a dedicated RIAA preamp, or a dj mixer.

So in a simple setup:
Turntable -> Audio I/O (with RIAA preamp)

or

Turntable -> RIAA preamp -> Audio I/O (without RIAA preamp)

So note, I may take the signal from the Technics turntable, and send that from a patchbay into a tube preamp that can add some distortion, and then send that into an analog eq that has a gritty highend, and then send that into my Audio I/0 to be digitized and sent into my daw.

JamesHanvey wrote:And yeah, I don't tend to A/B my tracks or go too crazy.

Go a little crazy. You SHOULD DEFINITELY A/B YOUR TRACKS. This is not to sound like other stuff, but just to train your ears, to learn about your room and your monitors. Sound is really weird. It is like a slimy octopus or something, it moves around, it'll squirt ink in your face. You really have to hold it tight. You'll start to learn how to hear like this.

Never listened to Mezzaine before, picked up the CD today.

Half way through, lives up to the hype.

7.5/10

Male vocals, and over use of phaser, and flanger (did they just get some new pedels or something...) brings it down.

Drums, bass, guitar, and female vocals are sick though.

Was fine, got to track 7, and it's skiooing like fuck, shitty second hand CD's

Thanks for that set up, I'll write it all down now! And yeah, I'll definatley start A/B'ing now so i can get that octopus under control.

3za wrote:Was fine, got to track 7, and it's skiooing like fuck, shitty second hand CD's

Does that mean you've not heard "black milk"? (which i think is 8 or something).

It's probably the best track on there imo

JamesHanvey wrote:

3za wrote:Was fine, got to track 7, and it's skiooing like fuck, shitty second hand CD's

Does that mean you've not heard "black milk"? (which i think is 8 or something).

It's probably the best track on there imo

Nah only track 7, and 10 skipped, but it was all the way through both.

Yeah that one was dope, and I liked one a few before that which has a double bass in it (can't rememebr which)

nowaysj wrote:You don't need a RIAA preamp if your audio I/O has an input.

This is not what I meant at all. I meant, You don't need an RIAA preamp if your audio I/O has an RIAA preamp input. Sorry was early. Now it is late, and the world isn't making any more sense. But. Just having an input into your audio I/O will not allow you to plug directly into your Audio I/O. You specifically need the RIAA input, with a ground. Otherwise, you will need to run the turntable into an RIAA preamp, in my case that is a dedicated RIAA preamp, or you could run the turntable into a dj mixer, which has RIAA inputs on its phono inputs.

I thought I'd clear this up, but by god I may have made it more confusing. Have had a cup of tea and everything. You're in god's hands now, my friend.

3za wrote:Mezzaine

Sick album. Even the filler tracks are dope. I bought about 8 or 9 years ago when I was 16 and rinsed it. I listened to it again this year and it still blew me away.

Now try the remaster of Blue Lines.

NinjaEdit wrote:

3za wrote:Mezzaine

Sick album. Even the filler tracks are dope. I bought about 8 or 9 years ago when I was 16 and rinsed it. I listened to it again this year and it still blew me away.

Now try the remaster of Blue Lines.

Massive Attack can do no wrong...

Burn a big one and listen to Protection...then burn a blunt solo and listen to No Protection dubbed by Mad Professor. Loose your mind.

That entire mad professor LP blows my mind