by djnarrative | 29 Mar, 2011 | Reckorder Tutorials
As with making a Phat Kick, making a great snare out of layering sample is a similar process though you can add more layer (i think 3 is plenty for kicks and a couple more max for snares). Again I generally look for snap, punch, and weight. Snares weight is around 200hz, and the snap is around 2000 hz with the punch somewhere in betweeen, so again break out your frequency analyser and see where your sounds are hitting. Obviously electronic music snares are quite different from normal snares and have quite a range dependant on what style your making. Dubstep for example are massive snares, whereas techno snares are totally different, so again tune up, eq and layer some sounds and see if you can make the one your after. I generally look for it punching nicely at 200-250 hz for breaks type tracks so that might be a helpful starting point. Then when you got a kick and snare you happy with, play them together and see if they work well melodically and dynamically. If not repeat til you're happy. There's lots of useful snare making tutorials and i'll post them here when i find any particarly good ones, but til then here's a decent one from gear slutz forum - http://www.gearslutz.com/board/electronic-music-instruments-electronic-music-production/384973-big-snare-tutorial.html and some useful forum posts on glitch hop forum -...
by djnarrative | 29 Mar, 2011 | Reckorder Tutorials
If you're making electronic music you generally need a great kick and a great snare. A lot of work can go into making just those two elements in a lot of underground dance music tracks, but once you've got a few your happy with you can use them again so it's worth spending some time on it. There are a different styles of Kick for different genres, but basically the 3 elements i look for are punch, body and weight, so one approach is to first find, tune and eq, 3 sounds in drum rack which have those characteristics. Then layer them on top of each other and add another eq and compressor to that kick channel. Generally speaking i'm looking for the kick to punch at 80 - 100hz so i use a frequency analyser and eq, always rolling off as much as possible underneath to leave room for the sub. its also worth noting where the higher snap punches through in order to give it presence in the mix. And the other thing i do is make a dip in the eq of the bass where the kick punches so that they can exist together, or sidechain if more bass genres. I'll drop some side chaining info in another post as it can be a bit confusing if you've not heard about it, but very effective in getting your kick to punch through. Anyway for now load up a few sounds, tune and eq them so they make up a much better sound, group, and see where its punching, eq /shape as neccesary and drop a compressor...
