Dubstepforum.com

Hey there! I'm new here, name is Tom, and I'm looking to get some feedback on my first ever "Dubstep" track. I'm a musician who only recently got into electronic music, I bought Reason 5 only a short month ago, after researching programs that would be good for messing about with Dubstep. I'm not a serious artist, my tracks are going to be made purely for the fun and enjoyment of it.

I used some youtube videos as a guideline to get started with Reason, because I easily got lost when I first opened the program! D: However, I can now say I can comfortably make a basic sounding track. I'd just like tips on spicing up the track, as it sounds boring to my ears at the moment, compared to a lot of the Dubstep I listen to (Gemini, DatsiK, Rusko, Benga, etc.). I'm not even quite sure if my track could be considered Dubstep?


Anyway, any feedback and constructive criticism is greatly appreciated. Going through and stalking through some threads on here, this forum seems like a very chilled group, I like that a lot. Thanks for looking!

EDIT: BTW, I'd like some tips on mastering as well. A lot of the songs I see in this section seem to sound a lot punchier, and more studio-quality. I'd really like to know why they sound so good? Thank you!

EDIT: This is the old version. New version is the lower one.
Soundcloud

NEW VERSION:
Soundcloud

Please try to listen to both side-by-side to see if I have improved the track, or made it worse.

Improvements I noticed or added:
Drums have more punch.
Bass has more grit, and less mud.
Intro pads had the mid-range reduced, and I'm still getting some odd clicking from when I change the rate of the wobble in them. (I can try to explain if needed?)
Background synth added during the main wobble section. I'm not sure if it sounds good? It's "sweeping" like paradigm suggested, though I'm still unsure if it fits the track. Pointers needed!
Tweaked the LFO's in the main wobble, on the first section I noticed unsteady transitions, and I smoothed them out.
Added ride cymbals or whatever you call them. I messed up, and on the last two measures of the second wobble section, they cut out early. This is fixed now.

That's about it. Please let me know any more improvements that I can add! Thanks!

I can tell right away you need some help eq ing, the beg pad is too mid range. 500 to 1000k The bass sounds ok and the LFOs too. You might wanna try adding some sound effects. Like sweeps etc. Your kick you wanna accentuate 60 K and run it through a compressor your snare you wanna bring out around 600-800 and 2000 or 1000 and put a compressor on that too. It comes down to eqing and compression for a punchier sound.

paradigm001 wrote:I can tell right away you need some help eq ing, the beg pad is too mid range. 500 to 1000k The bass sounds ok and the LFOs too. You might wanna try adding some sound effects. Like sweeps etc. Your kick you wanna accentuate 60 K and run it through a compressor your snare you wanna bring out around 600-800 and 2000 or 1000 and put a compressor on that too. It comes down to eqing and compression for a punchier sound.

Thanks for the quick reply! I will tweak the EQ accordingly. Also, I'm really new to this, so an example of some sound effects like sweeps or such would be appreciated, as I don't really know what those are yet. Thanks again.

If you take the subtractor and set all the occilators to white noise (where it sounds like tv static) then go to the lowpass fileter section and bring it down and then slowlly bring it up, thats basic sweep. You could probabbly find the file on google by typing in sweep sample. I know youve heard it before. In fact I think there is a patch in the subtractor called something sweep, start by looking at your presets.

Also when you go to the moves before the show they have this long long sweep sound where everything is low and then it picks up and up and up into a chord, thats a sweep too.

paradigm001 wrote:If you take the subtractor and set all the occilators to white noise (where it sounds like tv static) then go to the lowpass fileter section and bring it down and then slowlly bring it up, thats basic sweep. You could probabbly find the file on google by typing in sweep sample. I know youve heard it before. In fact I think there is a patch in the subtractor called something sweep, start by looking at your presets.

Can't say I've used Subtractor yet, mostly just Thor and Malstrom. I'll go try it out now, thanks man!

EDIT: Ah, now I know the sound you're talking about. I'll try messing around with incorporating it into the track.

Bump for added version. I added some stuff to it, details in original post. Thanks!