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| Ibiza Dreams |
Hey dudes, I just started producing and I have an intro (about 2 and 1/2 min of a tune) made and it's starting to sound pretty good. However, I'm using Buzz and it's buttload of different "machines"
They are variations of beat generators, effects, etc...
What I have been doing up until now, due to my lack of knowledge on the terminology and effectiveness of different sounds, all I do is purely experiment... say I don't like the sound of my new kick, I sometimes randomly pick an effect... chorus, delay, reverb, distortion, compression, gate, sidechain, etc, etc, etc... I say randomly because I really don't know what kind of properties will be imbued into my kick by that effect.
My question: Is there anywhere on the net, or maybe one of you kind and giving souls, can put some definitions of these effects and sounds or maybe if not definitions, what the best use for them is. I'm spending lots of time experimenting and not learning much as every time I use certain effects they sound different.
I can make a list of the effects i'm talking about if that would help... things like subtractive/additive synths, reverb, delay, distortion, chorus, compression, gate, sidechain, filters... umm.... can't remember anymore off the top of my head. I'm thinking many people can benefit from this, so thanks!
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| Tranc3 |
Hmm, I'm thinking we should incorporate that into our upcoming trance production site. Anyways, I'll give you a basic rundown (although experimentation like that is good, that's pretty much how I learned. Despite the fact that you won't know how or why a certain FX works, you'll know more or less what it does).
I'll just talk about the ones I'm sure about, there are some effects where I know what they do to a sound (so I know how and when to use them) but I'm not positive on how they work.
Delay - Sets up a delay line. Not to be confused with reverb, this will place the equivalent of an echo (or several echoes) into your mix. So if I have a sample that says "Werd!" and I place a 2 second, 3-step delay on it, it will play the original "Werd!" and then 2 seconds laer after the beginning of the first "Werd!" play three more samples of the same clip, all separated by an amount of time you set.
Reverb - Although large amounts of this will a long attack can create a delay line, typically it's used to fatten up a sound a bit. Something without reverb would be like talking in a small room that has carpet on the walls. Some reverb would be like talking in a hallway - lots of small echoes, or reverberations, but nothing big enough to be considered a delay. You can also get metallic reverberations - think talking inside a metal tank.
Distortion - Easiest way to explain this is to make a reference to square-wave distortion, although there are different kinds of distortion out there. Let's say you have a sine-wave and you run it through a square-wave distorter. As you add more distortion, the peaks and the troughs will start flattening out, and the ups & downs will start getting more vertical. A common method of distortion (albeit unwanted distortion) is to set your levels to allow clipping - that is, the amplitude of the wave is higher than the recording medium.
Record a kickdrum at normal volume, and look at the waveform. Then record a kickdrum with your levels turned up all the way so it sounds like a kick for a hardcore track, then look at the waveform. You'll see what I'm talking about.
Compression - This will boost all levels below the defined threshold to the threshold level, and reduce all levels above the threshold level to the threshold level...all within the confines of your set ratio.
So as an example (let's see if I remember this correctly), if you have a clip that's run through a compressor and your threshold is -10dB, and your ratio is 4:1, all levels below the threshold will be boosted by a 4:1 ratio, and all levels above the threshold will be lowered by a 4:1 ratio.
Along with compression is sidechaining. Technically, you could sidechain other effects, but the most commonly used sidechain is the compressor sidechain, and the most common use is with the kick and the bassline. If I have a kick and a bassline that take up most of the same frequencies, I can setup a sidechain compressor so that whenever the kick comes in, the bassline is compressed, and when the kick isn't, well, kicking, the compressor relaxes. This allows for a tight meshing between the kick and the bass.
Gating - This can be used in conjunction with many different applications, but the most common one in trance is to link it to the amplitude of the wave. Essentially it's just like a gate - it periodically allows some stuff to go through, and the rest of the time blocks it off.
So if I attatch a gate to a long, drawn-out vocal, link it to the amplitude, and set it to open and close at 16th note intervals, instead of hearing a constant "Ahhhhhhhhh" or what have you, you hear "A-h-h-h-h-h-h" where the "-" represents silence.
You didn't mention it, but there are also phasers. A phaser will take a soundwave and create a running copy of it, only with a phase offset as determined by you. Hard to explain what this sounds like - best heard first-hand. Just as you can get supernodes though, you can also get antinodes (which is essentially silence). Although rare, it can happen. |
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| Tranc3 |
Subtractive synthesis in a nutshell - You have a waveform with all the harmonics, then you filter them out as you wish (or not). Very simple to use and learn.
Additive synthesis in a nutshell - You have multipule waveforms, and you combine them to create new waveforms. I'm not familiar with newer additive synthesizers, but the older ones usually just had sine waves, and you layered them on top of each other with phase offsets and whatnot to create new waves.
I've synthesized saw waves out of pure sine waves using additive synthesis. It tends to be a bit of a pain though, and when you finally realize you could have spared yourself all that trouble (and gotten more harmonics...unless you use an insanely high amount of sine waves) using subtractive synthesis and the oscillator with the saw shape above it, you start wondering why you used it in the first place. The answer is it's easier to create different waveforms (not to mention more versatile), unlike in subtractive synthesis where you're fairly limited in the waveforms you can create. Although all sound can be reproduced using sine waves, I'd imagine that newer additive synthesizers use more than just sine waves. |
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| Ibiza Dreams |
Thanks a ton bro. That really really helped out... especially the ones I didn't have a clue about like Gating and Sidechain which are NOT self-explanatory. One question, so for sidechaining you must run both the bassline and the kick through the one sidechain machine (buzz terms) in order for both of them to "cooperate" with each other... my bassline and kick seem to be really loud when both of them hit at the same time... like a stacking effect, would sidechaining correct this?
And for compression, how this is normally done is by running ALL the sounds of your song through one compressor when you're almost done with the song? Or is it used creatively for different sounds to create a new sound?
As for gating... what James Holden did with the lyrics of his Returning 93 yada yada yada, do you think he used some type of "gating" technique? Because the vocals are not only distorted, but they go in and out, loud and soft.
Thanks again for such an in-depth reply, which is what I was hoping for. You really lost me when you got into subractive/additive synthesis, a bit too technical for me, but thanks! Everyone else feel free to add to this! |
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| MrCowski |
Subtractive synthesis - When you use any standard looking synth, it's probably subtractive. This would be a basic subtractive synth:
Oscilators (they make the sound), these are combined to make one sound. They can be detuned and have many other features.
A filter (removes frequencies - eg. highpass removes all frequencies below a certain level)
an amp, usually with an envelope to make the sound get louder or softer over time
output
Many other types of synthesis exist, and some terms/features will carry over. |
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| josh |
| Would like to know that how can I do the side chain for the compressor. Anyone? |
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| Tranc3 |
Josh - Depends on your sequencer.
Ibiza Dreams - I'm pretty sure Holden chopped up the vocals instead of just running them through a gate.
As for the master compression - yes usually you have a master compressor as a sort of normalizer. All tracks will run through it (well you aren't required to have all tracks run through it). Because of this, it's a good idea not to use overly extreme settings with your master compressor. Oftentimes a master EQ is also used in conjunction with a master compressor, although once again nothing too drastic as all the tracks will be run through it. |
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| josh |
| Im using Cubase SX. So, any idea or who so ever can help me for that?? Cheers and thanks alot :gsmile: |
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| moth |
| James Holden posted how he made the vocals in his Returning mix on his website a while ago. Might be worth a look. |
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| Tranc3 |
| quote: | Originally posted by josh
Im using Cubase SX. So, any idea or who so ever can help me for that?? Cheers and thanks alot :gsmile: |
Cubase's architechture doesn't have built-in sidechaining, unlike Logic (and other sequencers I haven't used). For sidechain compression, there's a workaround involving a plugin called Waves C1...I started a thread on sidechaining in Cubase a while back, do a search for it. |
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| josh |
| Ok. will do. thanks for letting me know! cheers mate |
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