Subaqueous' Tutorial Thread

[subaqueous]

Getting a big sounding and resonating bass can be a tricky thing. Even using every trick in the book with software nothing compares to some good old hardware. In this article I wanted to feture a secret peice of hardware that I have been using to add a hell of a low end punch. It is the Aphex 204 aural exciter with big bottom.

For a bare minimum set up having an analog compressor, good sound card, and the Aphex you can get some banging bass. So on to the Aphex:

Here is some basic info I found from the Aphex website:

Aural Exciter

For more than 35 years, the Aural Exciter’s patented technology has been the audio professional’s secret weapon, a powerful way to improve and enhance sonic quality more naturally than with equalization.

For individual sounds or entire mixes, the Aural Exciter brings out detail, clarity and imaging that elevates your sound without adding level. For vocals and spoken dialog, it can dramatically increase intelligibility. For individual instruments, it adds punch and presence. And on mixes, it adds power, presence and sparkle. The Aural Exciter is the ideal solution for breathing life into MP3s and other compressed audio files.

Optical Big Bottom

The Optical Big Bottom adds a deep, powerful low-frequency punch, without the unwanted level boost that comes from adding traditional EQ. Deeper, more resonant bass response with tighter articulation helps to extend low frequency power and spectrum without the build-up or driver-damaging tendencies of bass EQ.

Basicly running your sounds in the Aphex 204 will give it a bigger and better rounded sound. When I run my Bass through it I end up shacking the windows but being at the same over all volume.

My Set Up


I have the Motu Express Card connected via USB. I then connect the output of 3/4 to the aphex input and then the inputs from the aphex to the instrument ins. I then send my sub bass in. I dial in the levels by sending the volume from my motu at close to -.01 db. Then I up the Aphex Drive until the light blinks then bring it back just a hair. I usually use it for sub bass so I keep my Tune Low and mix high.

I then sometimes do a second pass with the mid and high bass if I want to do some cool effects with the harmonic exciter. It can add a clarity to the bass that is really cool, yet I try and not use it all the time.

Then I do some final eq in the mix and done. My bass is now bigger yet not "louder" in the mix. If you only have one piece of gear and you make electronic music I suggest the Aphex.

If you have used the Aphex or have questions about it please comment. Also I have a lot of articles on sound production and sound design so feel free to check them out as well.

[subaqueous]

Forgot to add this... This is an example track I ran through the aphex so you can hear the bass.

Soundcloud

[3za]

Clever spam bot is clever



Its a doubleheader too...

[subaqueous]

I got a lot of responses from my article on drum processing. A lot of people here asking about Layering drums, so I have written this article on with more details.

To add a big sound to your drums or a larger then life sound a great technique to know is layering. By adding 2 or more layers to create your kick you can add more thump and so on.




Kicks
To get a solid kick I like to have 2 or more samples. I find a good sub bass, can be an 808 or other, and have that eq'ed for just the lo end. Then I find a good kick with an attack and have that on top. I like adding more than 2 so that I can obtain a sound that doesn't come off as digitally created. By dialing in these samples you will then have a uique and powerful kick. Eq Kick Drum togeather is the key here.



Snares/Claps
Most the time I do roughly the same thing with my snares. Start with a sound you like, like a clap, and layer it with a snare hit or rim shot. That will give it more punch. You can also layer it with natural sounds for more of an Eskmo sound. I generly have 2-3 layers of sounds and then adjust there velocity, volume, over the course of the song to make it modulate and sound like it is changing. Also adding a good convolution reverb will go a long way.

Hats
You should use at least 2 per each sequence of hats, otherwise you get this empty/mono/solo kinda sound. Layer your hats! A slight bit of reverb and/or delay will go a long way as well. With hats you can layer fun sounds as well like glass breaking, a glitch sound, or other fun abnormal sounds for electronic music. Keep in mind the hats are in the high end and don't go to much in the mids.

Some Basic Techniques for Layering

Here are some quick tips and tricks to keep in mind with layering:
Pitch up and down the same sample. For example take sample one and pitch it down, then take the same sample in another channel and pitch it up. Try this with already layered samples, by exporting your multi layered samples then reimporting.

Create Stereo Width - Simply pan the different samples across the sound stage. This gives a real feeling of width with minimal effort. Another route is to duplicate a sound and pan the two new versions hard left and right. Any difference in treatment to these sounds will now create a widened stereo image. A really simply way to create this widening effect without colouring the sound is to introduce a small amount of delay to one side. Even a few milliseconds can make a difference here.

EQing is a big key.Know where each sample is mainly taking up in frequencies and layer sounds that use up different frequency ranges and eq them together.

Once you do this to your drums it is important you do a final drum processing to make them all glued together. Check out the article on drum effects for more information.

Hope this helps and gives you some ideas to play with. I have more sound design articles and jazz at my website.

Thanks,

[subaqueous]

Coming from making a chill out downtempo album and in studio work to a live set brings a hole other world of changes and things to think about. It can be daunting after spending so much time in creating a track to then put it into a live performance set in ableton. This tutorial is going to take you through my own process and show a simple and streamlined way of doing it.

Bounce Down the Track

The first thing to do is go to your abelton project with the song you are getting ready for a live set. It is a lot easier for work flow in mastering your music and composing as well as for this step to keep your tracks organized. By grouping your tracks into groups you can easily bounce them down as well as during the mastering process you can have all your bass in one group and eq it and so on.


Here is an example of a track I have grouped togeather:




Usually I go with these groups:

• Ambient
• Melody 1
• Melody 2
• Accent Rhythms
• Drums
• Kick
• Bass
• Bass2

As you can see in the example I don't use all of these categories, and I fit the sounds into the groups that I feel fit best.


After getting them in groups is the fun and time consuming part of bouncing it all down. What I do is solo each group and bounce it down. So I would take "ambient" and solo it. Then Export Audio and save this track as "trackname_Ambient" And would continue this for all of them. Make sure you make the analysis file as well to make it easy to drop in a session.

The Cut

Now that you have the elements bonce you can cut it up into sections for triggering and the live set. You can take these files and load them in stacked on different tracks. I generally load these files in new tracks on whatever Live set I use for djing and performance (just makes it easier as I will show).





They you can just highlight the section and cut it (Ctrl E). Loop the section to make sure it sounds good and do this for each section of the song. Once that is down you can drag and drop these parts into your live set to make clips to trigger.



The Live Set




As you can see I just dragged these clips into my session view under the different categories. This way I can trigger a whole section (into and so on) or just a clip. Doing this to your songs you can also do live triggers and "mashups" of your own music and switch elements around. From hear you have a good start of your live set.



This way of bouncing down the tracks has been the most efficient and effective way I have found yet.



As an (Aq) Member you can download my example live set with catigory and groups. I will also be posting an Advance Live Set tutorial for how I deal with effects and my work flow in a live set for (Aq) Members. Join to have access to a larger knowledge bass.

Post a comment below on how you have used this infromation, comments, and such...

Isaac aka Subaqueous

[lyons238]

nice write up. thanks man

[ComfiStile]

Sweet, Hopefully this will help make my drums sound better, they always sounds shitty.

[press]

cool write up for sure! id add that when layering drums it will be VERY important to get in there and cut those samples so the attacks line up, tons of drum samples have a short bit of silence before them and even if not sometimes the different attack speeds dont line up and it ends up sounding sloppy or slightly offish. I have got into the habit of just automatically zooming in and tightening the attack on every sample i use right away. Sometimes if i dont and i sequence it all out then need a layer later its a bitch to want to go in and resequence them all once i have recut the sample.

[-[2]DAY_-]

gotta love how their idea of a "bare minimum" setup includes an analogue compressor.
And the line about "if you only have one piece of gear and make electronic music I suggest the Aphex"

lol, if you only have one piece of gear and make electronic music, your one piece of gear had better be FL, Live, Reason, or Logic... hahahaha.

And the part about running mp3s through it. lmfao

This is a triple header, too. Spammed a product, their blog, and their tune. gotta appreciate the efficiency.

[subaqueous]

Good Call man! I usually make my own drum packs so I do that during that process... But yeah that is something I do subconsciousness and didn't think about it.

Thanks for catching that.

[GothamHero]

I love you.

[dubesteppe]

good article!

[Jacob15728]

Nice article, thanks for posting!

[WereWolf]

There's a link in the second last sentence that you should fix

[Caligula]

An easy way to widen hits without bothering with delay is stereo pan 2 of the same sample left and right (amount of pan to taste of course bit I find using the same amount, what ever you choose that to be, in opposite directions sounds best) and zoom in close and stagger one of them slightly in relation to the other. Like you said even a couple milliseconds can make a big difference and sound huge without any fiddleing with delay settings. Also be super careful using too much sub while layering or you'll steal headroom from your sub bass and it'll either end up sounding shit in your mix or you'll mostly eq it back out anyways. And for the most part always AVOID layering samples that are similar in timbre, like you said layering hits that compliment each other in terma of freq is key. Analyze the samples at each step and correct with eq if necessary to make sure they don't cljash too much freq wise. It takes some time but try and get your layered hit to have as flat a peak as possible in whatever freq range your shooting for (for instance around 200for snares roughly). Good thread man!

[legend4ry]

cool write up for sure! id add that when layering drums it will be VERY important to get in there and cut those samples so the attacks line up, tons of drum samples have a short bit of silence before them and even if not sometimes the different attack speeds dont line up and it ends up sounding sloppy or slightly offish. I have got into the habit of just automatically zooming in and tightening the attack on every sample i use right away. Sometimes if i dont and i sequence it all out then need a layer later its a bitch to want to go in and resequence them all once i have recut the sample.

Indeed! (when going for clean, punchy layering).


Post above me sums up "Character" drums nicely.

[billybuxton]

Nice article, thanks for posting!

[Teknicyde]

Quick add, when layering kicks and snares, check in mono, bassy percussive elements are easy to phase out of existence in mono.

[Rekah]

you can get your drums to sound fat without a load of layering, you just need to find really good quality samples that fill the right frequencies, eq them so they sit right in the mix, maybe add a transient designer and the parallel compress them. this method keeps the the sound clean but adds punch and presence

[Gewze]

cool write up for sure! id add that when layering drums it will be VERY important to get in there and cut those samples so the attacks line up, tons of drum samples have a short bit of silence before them and even if not sometimes the different attack speeds dont line up and it ends up sounding sloppy or slightly offish. I have got into the habit of just automatically zooming in and tightening the attack on every sample i use right away. Sometimes if i dont and i sequence it all out then need a layer later its a bitch to want to go in and resequence them all once i have recut the sample.

wacking the trim up on the sample window in fl <3