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My name's Matt, I'm 17. Over the past month I've recently been messing around with creating dubstep music. I may sound like a noob when I say this, but I use FL Studio since I'm most familiar with that DAW since I've been using it for the past 3 years creating hiphop instrumentals.

Anyway, I'm learning to use the Massive VSTi plugin and I'm learning to make a lot of good basslines, synths, wobbles, etc. but my songs sound extremely empty. I have the wobbles, growls, drum loops, etc. in there but it seems like some stuff is missing. It doesn't have that filthy feel to it, or that hard bass that rocks your subwoofers and makes you ejaculate all over your computer. I've watched Kev Willow's tutorials but those are just awful in my opinion. If I can post links, I'll post a quick sample or two of some songs I'm working on and let you know what I'm talking about

But, any tips for the problems?

Hmmm, I use noise fx which build to make the drop seem a lot bigger and I often cut out the music for the bar leading up to the drop and just have vocal sample or something then it all kicks in with the drop. Also if you fuse a few different basses together in a drop instead of having just one that makes things more exciting and the massive performer is a really cool trick aswell

Put up one of those tracks youre working on and ill be glad to try and help out

Here's one sample I have

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPuCnWheMwg

Hold on a much better one is uploading now haha

notdecidedmusic wrote:Hmmm, I use noise fx which build to make the drop seem a lot bigger and I often cut out the music for the bar leading up to the drop and just have vocal sample or something then it all kicks in with the drop. Also if you fuse a few different basses together in a drop instead of having just one that makes things more exciting and the massive performer is a really cool trick aswell

Sounds like an idea. Do you have any songs I could hear for an example? lol

Okay here are both my projects in the making :/ The second one I just couldn't get to sound dubstepy like it should be. The first one I just started last night lol.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPuCnWheMwg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8YPk_5vsoE

Kev Willow is a beast, you're doing it wrong.

but nah, a lot of people have that problem and I still do. It's just all about the subtleties and little things you put in to vary it. And when you make basses, makes sure they cover a good range of frequencies too. Or put together multiple basses, one for each freq range like Lows Mids and Highs.

Also, do you know how to do sub bass?

Reverb on your bass and kicks and snares don't make a nice full track.

Looking at atmospherics, percussion, panning and more than 2 sounds.

My name is Matt too.

Small amounts of reverb and lots of different hats and other percussion goes a long way, make your tracks stereo, put a quiet delay on your lead.

Reverb will fuck your whole mix if you use it with poor judgement, trust your ear, and if it sounds too busy it's too busy. Also Foley sounds, lots of them, stretch the shit out of one hits that obviously have lots of harmonics and turn the level down and reverb it wisely and you've got a classy sounding environment.

Trust your ears. Reverse the perc hits you're already using and turn them down low under the actual hits, if done right you won't hear it but you'd notice if it was gone.
Always aim for that when filling out a track.

16th note high hats for 34 bars a filled out track does not make.

The drums sound a bit weak and the midrange is lacking. Side-chain the kicks and bass and really work on the compression.

legend4ry wrote:Reverb on your bass and kicks and snares don't make a nice full track.

Looking at atmospherics, percussion, panning and more than 2 sounds.

And that's what I don't understand how to do lol, I just dont know how to put together a nice track basically. I guess I layer too many of the same frequencies that it sounds overloaded but when I take a certain sound out it sounds empty. What do you mean by atmospherics? I dont know much about percussions other than the kicks, snares, and hats. And I don't know how to use panning for my life. I try to and then all the sounds are all over the place. This is something where practice doesnt make perfect, it's the knowledge I need.

Heartless wrote:The drums sound a bit weak and the midrange is lacking. Side-chain the kicks and bass and really work on the compression.

What do you mean by compression? I dont even know what that does to be honest lol I've just been focused on filtering, reverb, and delay.

ChadDub wrote:Kev Willow is a beast, you're doing it wrong.

but nah, a lot of people have that problem and I still do. It's just all about the subtleties and little things you put in to vary it. And when you make basses, makes sure they cover a good range of frequencies too. Or put together multiple basses, one for each freq range like Lows Mids and Highs.

Also, do you know how to do sub bass?

His music is good, his tutorials were hard to follow. Maybe his accent screwed me up, idk.
Anyway, it's the "little things" that make the track sound empty. I have no clue what to add to certain parts because I have no clue what those "little things" are. And I always thought the basses needed to be at low freq, idk where the mids and highs would go in since they don't sound exactly "bassy" anymore. It's things like that where I dont understand and thats why I came here for help lol you guys seem like you know your stuff

Kes-Es wrote:My name is Matt too.

Small amounts of reverb and lots of different hats and other percussion goes a long way, make your tracks stereo, put a quiet delay on your lead.

Reverb will fuck your whole mix if you use it with poor judgement, trust your ear, and if it sounds too busy it's too busy. Also Foley sounds, lots of them, stretch the shit out of one hits that obviously have lots of harmonics and turn the level down and reverb it wisely and you've got a classy sounding environment.

Trust your ears. Reverse the perc hits you're already using and turn them down low under the actual hits, if done right you won't hear it but you'd notice if it was gone.
Always aim for that when filling out a track.

16th note high hats for 34 bars a filled out track does not make.

Hello, Matt

I'm getting better with the percussion, trust me I was not very good at that before. But it sounds weird to me, like the sounds don't go together at all. For example, if the hats sounded more "chhh" then "tik" and then throwing them together it sounds ridiculous. And what kind of delay do you mean? Like where the echo goes from L to R at a low volume? That I kind of know how to do (as you can hear in the beginning of the track with Squidward, that crash at the beginning if that's what you're talking about).

To me it sounds like reverb is that necessity on drums and certain synths (the lead synth in the second track I posted had that default reverb on it from NeXus so I didnt touch it). Without it, it seems so plain and boring.

Then from the sentence beginning with "Foley sounds" to where you said "filling out a track" was all jibberish to me :/ Damn I suck lol

You can respond to multiple messages in one post homie, quote code does not have a limit per post, abuse that in the future please.

It's all a matter of what kind of sound you're aiming for, like my sig clip the whole track has reverb but it's turned nearly all the way down, 5 different hats to fill the rythm out and also to give it an accelerated feel.

Little things can change a lot, practice moderation always, good sample choice is a lot of it too, there ARE reallllly shit samples everywhere, and it's hard to pick or find good ones for a long time when you start out.

One hits are single samples, just a kick or just a snare or just an orchestral stab, one hit is a really broad term for mostly anything that is a single sound, one. Hit.

Foley sounds are everyday sounds, legitimately anything you might hear walking down the street or in your kitchen could be one.

I don't have much to add except that I like the 'idea' of your tune that you called (bad) on youtube.

The first one is basically you playing with how to do stuff and this one actually has a musical idea. See if you can create a call and response style pattern to add contrast or create tension to the original sound.

That'll start you on your way.

Signed,
Someone that doesn't even know how to wobble yet haha.

stru wrote:

Heartless wrote:The drums sound a bit weak and the midrange is lacking. Side-chain the kicks and bass and really work on the compression.

What do you mean by compression? I dont even know what that does to be honest lol I've just been focused on filtering, reverb, and delay.

Basically a compressor alters the dynamics range of a sound. It can make tracks full, punchy, and loud, or pump like Benassi and Daft Punk. Can't stress enough how important it is to know how to use one.

Heartless wrote:

stru wrote:

Heartless wrote:The drums sound a bit weak and the midrange is lacking. Side-chain the kicks and bass and really work on the compression.

What do you mean by compression? I dont even know what that does to be honest lol I've just been focused on filtering, reverb, and delay.

Basically a compressor alters the dynamics range of a sound. It can make tracks full, punchy, and loud, or pump like Benassi and Daft Punk. Can't stress enough how important it is to know how to use one.

But good sample selection from the start means using a compressor more for a creative choice than a "fix" for dull drums.

legend4ry wrote:

Heartless wrote:

stru wrote:

Heartless wrote:The drums sound a bit weak and the midrange is lacking. Side-chain the kicks and bass and really work on the compression.

What do you mean by compression? I dont even know what that does to be honest lol I've just been focused on filtering, reverb, and delay.

Basically a compressor alters the dynamics range of a sound. It can make tracks full, punchy, and loud, or pump like Benassi and Daft Punk. Can't stress enough how important it is to know how to use one.

But good sample selection from the start means using a compressor more for a creative choice than a "fix" for dull drums.

This, so much this.


If your snare sounds like shit, and you compress the fuck out of it and boost at 200hz, it's still a shitty snare and now it's over compressed and pretending to be boomy.