Skrillex Interview (Computer Music)

[Electric_Head]

the wagon has stopped moving because people are over complaining
accept different styles and move on

[Sparxy]

TBH, he probably doesn't have to worry about doing his own mastering given the label he's signed to. Listen to some of his early work (Bees is a good example), interesting ideas but the production is raw as fuck. But it doesn't matter as the song is good, and a good song with a shitty mastering job will beat a shitty song with a good mastering job anyday.

Nail on the head
Remember music is about vibes, the vibes will come through no matter how shit / well a tune is mastered. Mastering will make your track powerful/loud enough to stand up next to other tunes in a club or on the radio but it wont make it a better tune. A good master is the icing on the cake but it wont make the cake taste much better, its not part of the baking process.

[Sparxy]

I quite enjoyed reading that from Skrillex.
I don't like some of his tunes as much as anyone else on the forum but you don't see me walking round telling everyone how much of a twat he is. if anything he comes across really well.
He clearly doesn't give a single, solitary fuck about anyone hating on him. He's earning far too much money and having way too much fun to care about that. He just seems like he's making tunes that make him brock out, and its having the same effect on others. As an artist that is all you ever want to do, that is your goal - make music you feel that many others do as well.

IMO anyone going out of their way to publicly hate on him is wasting their breath. That said, it still won't stop me cracking the odd joke

Bigup Skrillex, however gash your tunes are you have my respect.

[samdam1]

I don't dig his music. But fair play on this interview, relatively interesting.

Only thing I'd fault is the last question. "I think mastering is something that's given too much credit."

Fuck off, proper mastering takes real skill and talent. It's an art in itself.

thats the thing about skrill.

I think what he meant to say was that people rely too much on mastering to make the track sound good. Where as its in the rest of the production to the mixing

[mpharm]

hey guys,i was reading skrillex's new interview in computer music magazine and im a bit confused,i would really appreciate if somebody could help.
so basicaly, here is the piece from the interview:

How do you get your beats to drop so damn hard?

"The easiest trick I use is basically to make sure that whatever sample you're using, it's hitting at 200Hz. Look through a spectrum analyser and you'll see a little 'dunk', and it should sound like that. The beginning transient should look like a brick that kind of bubbles out into the notes, creating a big hit that dominates the whole spectral sphere of your music for that one second. The drum becomes the loudest element in your mix just for an instant."

EVERY sample hitting at 200 Hz??hmmm,what about the kick?? hats?! also,if you layer snares,(which most of us do),whats the point of layering 2 snares,both hitting at the exact same frequency??maybe i interpret that wrong,so if anybody could explain what he really means i would really appreciate:) cheers!

[Towany]

someone tried to explain this to me before and I still didn't get it....what the fuck is a ''dunk''?!

[benjam]

He didnt say every he said whatever. Hes talking about boosting snares at 200hz nothing new tbh

[-[2]DAY_-]

yeahhhh, er obviously if you layer two snares they're not both going to be the 200hz body of it... anyone who gets the point of layering will understand that
He said for drums to cut through the mix to boost at 200 , obviously not hi hats and cymbals as technically they are not drums, even if they're in your "drums" folder... but these are things you're just supposed to know... just a basic tip

[benjam]

someone tried to explain this to me before and I still didn't get it....what the fuck is a ''dunk''?!

Going down on a fat girl?

[jrisreal]

I think he's just talking about the initial kick at the beginning of the drop....that it needs to hit harder than any other instrument in the mix and that it needs to hit harder than any other kick throughout the track.

[mpharm]

well,thats the reason i asked,to learn..and i aggree that these are basic things,its just that 'EVERY SAMPLE' tripped me out a bit,and yeah,its says 'every' btw, i got the mag next to me.so, it seems that the ''secret'' he shared, is to boost the snare at 200...lame.
thanks for replying anyways

[benjam]

You didnt type the word every in that quote btw

[mpharm]

my fault yeah im sorry,anyways thanks guys.

[izaac c]

man some people..
hes basicaly saying try and make each samples fundamental harmonic be hard limited (flat waved) so that when it hits its fucking loud, something you can add to this is maybe make a really square version of a snare and layer it with the full dynamic version. so fucking simple to understand..

[Towany]

someone tried to explain this to me before and I still didn't get it....what the fuck is a ''dunk''?!

Going down on a fat girl?

hahaha!

[jrisreal]

man some people..
hes basicaly saying try and make each samples fundamental harmonic be hard limited (flat waved) so that when it hits its fucking loud, something you can add to this is maybe make a really square version of a snare and layer it with the full dynamic version. so fucking simple to understand..

I am 95% positive that is not what he was trying to say.

[ChadDub]

I'm pretty sure it is. You take a snare that has a 200hz "dunk" in it, you Bandpass that tone, you then distort the shit out of it or compress or whatever, you then bandpass it after the distortion/compression back to just 200hz, and then you layer it under another compressed high end snare that has been high passed to 200hz. Layer that bitch whoop.

[jrisreal]

I could be wrong.

[ChadDub]

so could I

[Augment]

No need to bandpass and layer a 200hz snare, just boost a snare at 200hz and distort it, but don't overdo it.