The Producer's trickbook

[EmpressCiela]

I saw this in another forum and I realized that we don't have anything like this here. I'm not sure how many producers/composers we have on the forums but there seems to be a decent amount on the main site, so I thought "Why not just make the thread and people can add to it as time goes on?"

The idea behind this thread is to get a bunch of members to post the tricks that we incorporate into our tracks and put it all together so that anyone looking to put a new edge on their work can get some ideas.

I've learned a lot of cool ideas from just talking with other producers and hope to get the same thing going here.

As we all produce different genres and all have our own flavor in our tracks not all of the things you find in here will necessarily be helpful to you. but I would encourage anyone reading this to please take a couple minutes and drop some knowledge on the thread to help future readers.


ALSO, if you are going to share something please put it inside a couple sets of dashes (I'll do it with mine so you can see what I mean) This will help separate the useful bits from the opinions and other chat that always gets started here in the forums.


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REVERSED BASS KICK

This is something any Hard dance producer should def give a try but it is also used in almost every other electronic genre from time to time.
It will give your tracks a lot more energy and make for a more dynamic bassline by filling the gaps between kicks with a very versatile yet simple sound. (this is mostly used with a four-on-the-floor kicker line)

1)
Sample a bass kick that has a long tail end (meaning the bass resonates after the initial kick/punch)

2)
Reverse the sampled kick. It should now sound like a building Whoomp with a weird punch at the end (it'll sound exactly like you think a kick would sound backward lol)

3)
Select the last 1/2 of the sample (where that nasty punch sound is) and fade it out until you are just left with that Whomp sound.

4)
Now place the reversed kick on the beat directly after your original kick. It may need some small tweaking from there but it should still sound about right. just adjust it by ear.

There you have it.
You should have a bass line that sounds like
Kick-Whomp-Kick-Whomp.
the reversed kicks are highly adjustable and can be set at different pitches to match the key of your melody. this glues the melody to the bassline very well and makes a very smooth backbone for a track.

 

[connortheskunk]

This works well with any instrument and even works cross-instrumental, but this trick especially works well with vocals.

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If you are ever having trouble figuring out how to harmonize, just add in one or more of the following intervals below your melody line:
Perfect Octave (12 semitones)
Perfect 4th (5 semitones)
Perfect 5th (7 semitones)
Major 3rd (4 semitones)

If you are a beginner at harmonizing stick to these 4 intervals and you should be good to go
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[EmpressCiela]

Not one I came up with, but it's helpful nonetheless.

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How to get a simple wobble bass. This is assuming you're using Serum btw:

1) Choose a simple sound on your synth. (Especially a Sine wave)

2) Select your LFO and set it to the speed you want (1/8 would be a good starting point)

3) Now assign the LFO to the Filter Cutoff. Which should for this example be a Low Pass Filter* as the sound we're going for is a deep bass.

4) You now have a basic wobble bass, from here the possibilities for tweaking this sound are endless.


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[EmpressCiela]

So as a sort of extension to my last post, I found a pdf showing how to create a Skrillex-esque growl. WARNING: THESE ARE VERY ADVANCED TECHNIQUES AND REQUIRE KNOWLEDGE OF FORMANT WAVELENGTHS AND PRECISE FREQUENCY EQUALIZATION.

 

[midnightsparky]

Lots of little bits over the years, though if I had one that strikes to the forefront... it would be kicks n bass
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Depending on sampler/software... If your bass does not sound right with kicks/other bass... try reversing the polarity of either the kick or bass and/or the phasing/timing. Usually simpler to tweak the kick. Waves out of phase at the right freq will fight each other. Reversing polarity will make em work together. Not always as easy as that but ya.

 

[EmpressCiela]

Bump, just in case.

 

[EmpressCiela]

Not really that exciting of a trick, but this one's for all those who work with mixing and mastering during a live performance

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I've found that some tracks could benefit from a sweeping HP Filter during buildups, but the track itself doesn't have one there. What I like to do is set my knobs on the soundboard to the Mid-High range and raise the "Q" value to her that gradually growing filter sound that makes builds a lot more hype. IDK if this works every time, but it's worked wonders the few times I've done it.

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[EmpressCiela]

Time to add to this! And remove that text color. Why the hell did I do that?

Anyway, I call this trick the "Mick Gordon." Take a bass sound, preferably percussive (when the transient sounds like it's hitting super hard and sounds like percussion almost) and run it through a few different things: EQ, Compression, Distortion, Pitch Shifters, Guitar pedals, quite literally whatever you want in whatever you want. Run it through the effect chain playing quarter-notes or a quarter-/eighth-note pattern.

Here's where things get fun. Start wildly adjusting parameters on the effect chain until you get something super crunchy and aggressive. I recommend adding a high amount of distortion before a compressor just to keep it from getting too far out of hand, but it's up to you. Keep messing with everything until you find that sweet-spot of absolute mayhem.

 

[EmpressCiela]

How to sidechain in FL Studio (one way of a few, but it is the simplest and the one with the most control, I've found):

1. Take the Fruity Limiter and assign it to an empty bus. Name the bus "Sidechain" to avoid later confusion.
2. Take the track faders you want to duck under the kick and assign them to the Sidechain bus with the "Route to this track only option" by first selecting the facers (make sure they're highlighted green) and right-clicking the arrow under the fader on the sidechain bus. It should be the second option from the top.
3. With your tracks assigned to the bus, do the same thing with your kick fader, but select the "Sidechain to this track" option this time.
4. Open up the Fruity Limiter on the Sidechain bus and switch to the COMP tab. Also, change the Sidechain counter (the one on the right) to "1"
5. Adjust the "Threshold," "Ratio," and "Knee" knobs until you get the track to duck under the kick just the way you want. I recommend looping an area of the track while you do this so that you can see it happening in the Fruity Limiter and also hear it.