Dubstepforum.com

Everyone always asks how to get those phat 808s so I thought I'd give you guys some tips.

The biggest thing for me which helped immensely was to stop thinking that 808s have to be clean sine waves. A lot of people on here say that clean sine waves hit the hardest, and yes that is true, but clean sine waves also take up a shit ton of headroom. Usually when I process my 808s they end up being much quieter db wise but with the same relative volume; this allows me to turn them up even more without ruining my mix.

Another big thing for me, is layering. A good trick I've found, is have your 808 in mono, duplicate it, then high pass the duplicated one to remove the low low end so you can then start messing with the content at 100hz and above without worrying about fucking up the low end. This allows you to use stereo effects but keep your actual sub content in mono. After this I usually compress the 2 layers a tiny bit just to gel them together again. I also always resample my 808s after doing this so I don't have to mess with 2 layers any more and it makes it sound a bit cleaner, because it scales all of the phasing effects you may have created during processing. Also I usually have a very long decay on my 808s so you can still play higher notes without the sample cutting off too early.

As for the actual processing, it is key to do all your distortion/saturation/etc in very small amounts. I usually low pass at the end too to bring the volume down on the higher notes, without having to adjust the velocity in the sampler itself.

Anyway, I Hope my wall of text helps someone haha

so you start this process in a synth or...?

I use 3xosc to begin with, and bounce out a nice long note.
Funny actually how we call any 808-sounding bass an 808, when an extremely small amount will be an actual 808 sample...

thumbs up man

a straight up sine wave in 3xosc? that's it?

That's what 808s are. Yeah yeah, a trv 808 has some hardware distortion/noise, but it's just a pitched sine.

dubunked wrote:a straight up sine wave in 3xosc? that's it?

Yea. I'm a bit confused by the OP...as it states that sines aren't ideal...so you use something else or is all that gain staging talk in the first 'graph how you make a sine work?

Also, I here what seems a bit of square wave in a lot of 808 sounds...or is that just distortion?

well if it's not from an 808 then it's not an 808 bass is it?
the thing about 808 samples is that they're not just pure sines

fragments wrote:

dubunked wrote:a straight up sine wave in 3xosc? that's it?

Yea. I'm a bit confused by the OP...as it states that sines aren't ideal...so you use something else or is all that gain staging talk in the first 'graph how you make a sine work?

Also, I here what seems a bit of square wave in a lot of 808 sounds...or is that just distortion?

I'm not saying sines aren't ideal, I'm simply saying don't be afraid to process sines in the same way that you would anything else, as long as the low frequency content is still there and in mono then using distortion/saturation to produce overtones is not going to harm anyone.

Also about the 808 thing, the majority of sines with decay are just labelled 808s when they clearly aren't from an actual 808, I'm not saying I agree with this but saying 808 is easier than saying "sine wave bass with decay". If you say 808, people know what style of bass you are talking about.

^OK, that's cool man. It's likely I'm just being dense ;p

FWIW, I really like squashing sines into more squarish wave forms for bass sounds occasionally.

Ableton's sampler:
Drag a sinewavekick/808 kick/something sine in to the sampler
And start fiddling around with the shaper and the filter enveloppe! The sine and 4Bit shapers give some crunchy distortion (And it gives your low end a little bit less thump, which can be nice sometimes)

fragments wrote:FWIW, I really like squashing sines into more squarish wave forms for bass sounds occasionally.

yeah, although I'm sure you're talking about processing with effects and whatnot, Massive's "sine-square" wavetable is perfect for this.

Nice tips, I'm getting more into using 808 kicks atm so will try these out

dubunked wrote:

fragments wrote:FWIW, I really like squashing sines into more squarish wave forms for bass sounds occasionally.

yeah, although I'm sure you're talking about processing with effects and whatnot, Massive's "sine-square" wavetable is perfect for this.

Yea, I mean I do other stuff, but I start by just compressing a sine wave until it doesn't sound like one anymore. I'm sure that sine-square wavetable sounds about the same : )

I like it because you don't get a perfect square wave usually.

Also guys, finding the right kick for your 808 is pretty important too. As well as the other elements in the tune, eg. An 808 in the tune might not sound as good on its own or vice versa

Trainrek wrote:
The biggest thing for me which helped immensely was to stop thinking that 808s have to be clean sine waves. A lot of people on here say that clean sine waves hit the hardest, and yes that is true, but clean sine waves also take up a shit ton of headroom. Usually when I process my 808s they end up being much quieter db wise but with the same relative volume; this allows me to turn them up even more without ruining my mix.

You process them for not just the sub yeah? The sub part is gonna be quieter anyway

blinkesko wrote:

Trainrek wrote:
The biggest thing for me which helped immensely was to stop thinking that 808s have to be clean sine waves. A lot of people on here say that clean sine waves hit the hardest, and yes that is true, but clean sine waves also take up a shit ton of headroom. Usually when I process my 808s they end up being much quieter db wise but with the same relative volume; this allows me to turn them up even more without ruining my mix.

You process them for not just the sub yeah? The sub part is gonna be quieter anyway

I mean my resultant, processed bounced 808 with the low end is basically always quieter (dB) than the clean sine I started with, but with the same relative volume, which means I can make the sub louder without taking up more headroom

Trainrek wrote:

blinkesko wrote:

Trainrek wrote:
The biggest thing for me which helped immensely was to stop thinking that 808s have to be clean sine waves. A lot of people on here say that clean sine waves hit the hardest, and yes that is true, but clean sine waves also take up a shit ton of headroom. Usually when I process my 808s they end up being much quieter db wise but with the same relative volume; this allows me to turn them up even more without ruining my mix.

You process them for not just the sub yeah? The sub part is gonna be quieter anyway

I mean my resultant, processed bounced 808 with the low end is basically always quieter (dB) than the clean sine I started with, but with the same relative volume, which means I can make the sub louder without taking up more headroom

wat, how do u make the sub louder without it taking up more headroom? something doesnt add up here in my head

blinkesko wrote:

Trainrek wrote:

blinkesko wrote:

Trainrek wrote:
The biggest thing for me which helped immensely was to stop thinking that 808s have to be clean sine waves. A lot of people on here say that clean sine waves hit the hardest, and yes that is true, but clean sine waves also take up a shit ton of headroom. Usually when I process my 808s they end up being much quieter db wise but with the same relative volume; this allows me to turn them up even more without ruining my mix.

You process them for not just the sub yeah? The sub part is gonna be quieter anyway

I mean my resultant, processed bounced 808 with the low end is basically always quieter (dB) than the clean sine I started with, but with the same relative volume, which means I can make the sub louder without taking up more headroom

wat, how do u make the sub louder without it taking up more headroom? something doesnt add up here in my head

Sometimes if you process a sound with saturation it loses some definition in the sub range (not always). Let's say your unprocessed 808 is peaking at -6dB and after processing it still is kicking at -6db.. But you lost some dB in the low end, so if you want you can add some dB to your processed 808 until the sub is back at the same level... This means your 808 is now at -4dB or something, but the sub part of the 808 is at the same level as before... But it'll sound like your sub is kicking a little bit harder is before!

But saying it doesn't take up more headroom is wrong... The headroom in the sub range will be the same, but you did add some more information in the mid region! But it is a pretty effective trick!

societyloser1 wrote:

blinkesko wrote:

Trainrek wrote:

blinkesko wrote:

Trainrek wrote:
The biggest thing for me which helped immensely was to stop thinking that 808s have to be clean sine waves. A lot of people on here say that clean sine waves hit the hardest, and yes that is true, but clean sine waves also take up a shit ton of headroom. Usually when I process my 808s they end up being much quieter db wise but with the same relative volume; this allows me to turn them up even more without ruining my mix.

You process them for not just the sub yeah? The sub part is gonna be quieter anyway

I mean my resultant, processed bounced 808 with the low end is basically always quieter (dB) than the clean sine I started with, but with the same relative volume, which means I can make the sub louder without taking up more headroom

wat, how do u make the sub louder without it taking up more headroom? something doesnt add up here in my head

Sometimes if you process a sound with saturation it loses some definition in the sub range (not always). Let's say your unprocessed 808 is peaking at -6dB and after processing it still is kicking at -6db.. But you lost some dB in the low end, so if you want you can add some dB to your processed 808 until the sub is back at the same level... This means your 808 is now at -4dB or something, but the sub part of the 808 is at the same level as before... But it'll sound like your sub is kicking a little bit harder is before!

But saying it doesn't take up more headroom is wrong... The headroom in the sub range will be the same, but you did add some more information in the mid region! But it is a pretty effective trick!

This is exactly what I was thinking, therefore not seeing how dafuq he would do something impossible possible