Two Noob Requests: Mixing Advice, and Production Advice.

[arachnd]

This is going to be a lengthy post... mainly on the mixing side.
For reference, I'm using an APC 40 + Ableton Live:

First, the mixing part:

I'm trying to learn all the mixing/transition techniques and was >wondering if anyone could share their tips & tricks on this.

What I've been doing is the following:

Track 1 is playing a song. Full Volume, Full Bass.
Track 2 is a song I want to bring in. No volume, no bass.

I'll bring in track 2's volume slowly with the mids and highs toned down a little bit and then mix it in where it's noticeably blending with track 1. The part I get confused is the proper way to deal with the bass. As far as I'm told, you can't use two bass levels at once as it'd blow up club speakers, so you have to switch them very fast "slam it" or transition them evenly slowly.

Once I transition the bass level then I'll drop the volume on track 1 slowly.

This is a beginner technique I assume, as I just "assumed" this is the way to do basic mixing.

On one hand this mixing works, but it's also a little boring, AND it doesn't work all the time. It works with house/tech-house but almost NEVER with Dubstep.

Can anyone recommend me some tips? correct me on my mixing >echnique above? Something to use for dubstep/house/tech-house?
Thanks!

Second, the production part.
Can anyone share some tips on the general structure and techniques used?

In ableton I'm trying to master specific parts and eventually put it all together in unison. Right now I'm practicing various drum patterns that feel "dubsteppy" and then various "wobbles."

Eventually I should try to arrange this in a song but not feeling confident enough yet.

For one, I feel like the drum patterns are missing a "shuffle" type of feel; even though I am using the "groove" function of Ableton 8.

Kick on 1, loud loose snare on 3 and then some hi hats to try to make it shuffly. However it doesn't sound like you want to move back and fourth. Can anyone type an easy example I can play with?

All I really want to do for example is create a stupid simple, bad, dubstep beat with a wobble that transitions it's rate and pitch as the beat progresses.

Sorry for asking such noob-like questions... but if you have any two cents at all I'd really appreciate it.
Thanks!

[staticcast]

This is going to be a lengthy post... mainly on the mixing side.
For reference, I'm using an APC 40 + Ableton Live:

First, the mixing part:

I'm trying to learn all the mixing/transition techniques and was >wondering if anyone could share their tips & tricks on this.

What I've been doing is the following:

Track 1 is playing a song. Full Volume, Full Bass.
Track 2 is a song I want to bring in. No volume, no bass.

I'll bring in track 2's volume slowly with the mids and highs toned down a little bit and then mix it in where it's noticeably blending with track 1. The part I get confused is the proper way to deal with the bass. As far as I'm told, you can't use two bass levels at once as it'd blow up club speakers, so you have to switch them very fast "slam it" or transition them evenly slowly.

This isn't really true. You won't blow any club speakers, but if you have two dubstep tracks going at the same time with no EQ, and they've both got basslines going, it'll probably sound shit because the brain doesn't really like hearing more than one bassline at a time; its ability to separate different sounds is much diminished at low frequencies.

The most basic way is to bring in track B with the bass out, cut out track A's bass at some point before B's drop (slowly or quickly, it's up to you), then slam in B's bass shortly before (or on) the drop. Then you can either immediately pull out A entirely, fade it out slowly, keep it going for a while, play with the EQ.... etc. Of course there are variations, but dubstep on the whole doesn't lend itself so well to layering for long periods of time.

Most dubstep tracks don't have a bassline in the intro, so you don't actually *have* to cut the bass on the incoming track as long as you cut the bass or level on the exiting track as soon as the incoming track drops. Don't worry about blowing speakers. Just watch that your master level stays more or less constant and out of the red, and do whatever sounds good.

[arachnd]

Thanks. I appreciate the reply. That clears up some stuff.

Can anyone lend me a quick tip on ableton and programming the drums? Do you use a groove? What's your drum bar length like? Kick on 1? Snare on 3? Just a little newb help and I promise I'll come back with advice soon.

[antics]

For programming drums (I don't use ableton so hopefully this is relevent). Some people use swing at about 60% to get the hats sounding a bit like triplets, that way they feel like they are stumbling over themselves a bit, quite a cool sound, especially if you are leaving lots of space between kick and snare.

Brostep has a habit of dropping a bassdrum just before the snare to give it extra punch.

Night by Benga and Coki is considered very dancable because it has a straight hat playing and then another hat or snare which playes the beat before, so that its gets a skippy shuffle going. something like -oX---oX--.

Other things such as automating the volume/pan very slightly on the hats using an LFO, can get the hats to fade in and out producing that swing feel.

Also reccomenend having different sound hats, like a quick sharp sound, a hat hit and a shaker, as they will work together to create some nice rolls without even needing to swing, particularly if you have crappy samples that have obscure delays before them anyway...

Finally i reccomend getting some other percussion going, things like bongos on a 1 step delay, or a cowbell on a 3/6 step delay really help the flow.

P.S if you're really stuck, find a beat that you like from a tune, sample it and put it in your DAW, and then begin trying to recreate it.

[mojomusic]

remember when mixing, it's not about doing what's 'musically correct', it's about making the mix sound good and having impact when that second track drops. try every different mixing technique you can think of, and see which is your favourite to hear, even if the mixing techniques used are incredibly basic

[logic pro]

yeah kick 1 snare 3 is the standard ol pattrn...
but that doesnt nccessarily make people move, try to get the doubled tempo feeling,
and search the forum for 2-step patterns or hihat patterns, theres loads of threads.