Skrillex reveals details on how he makes his basslines

[GothamHero]

His label is named Owsla?

LOL.

[Autism]

His label is named Owsla?

LOL.

Soooooooooooo?

[RandoRando]

It's not terribly confusing, look up Trifonic's FM Synthesis 101 tutorials for a start.

Has anyone had any luck creating movement/vowel sounds with these FM8 growls without using an external filter? I can't get Ahh out of it, and that's about it. Any ideas? I know the envelopes play a role in this, but I'm not sure to what extent.

"aahh" like this? these are all straight out of fm8 btw, nothing external used at all
Soundcloud

sounds interesting, how does it behave on lower pitches tho?
i suppose thats the triangle sounds you were talking about?

if i go really low in pitch i just raise the ratios on certain operators and its a low growl which is great, and yeah i have like a square, a 2nd formant, and saw tooth all modulating eachother, then all those go into the triangle which has the envelope for the main sound, then all those go into a sine and parabol.

That sounds really awesome man. Can I ask you what the automatisation is on the first 11 seconds to get that wobbly sound? Is it the EQ, and if it is, how? Sounds different from other things I have heard. A bit like the wobbles on the song "WEEKENDS!!! (feat. Sirah)".

Would be really nice if you colud explain. Thanks!

like i said up there, its drawing the envelope that gives it that sounds. the triangles gives it that smooth "open and closed mouth" sound

[franzen]

like i said up there, its drawing the envelope that gives it that sounds. the triangles gives it that smooth "open and closed mouth" sound

Oh, I missed that part.. sorry. I have an older version of fm8 right now so I couldn't go in to the synth and try out the patch. But I will soon buy Komplete 7, so when I do i'm going to try! Thank you for the answer!

[wub]

Good thread - have added it to the Skrillex metathread at the top

[xrylex]

like i said up there, its drawing the envelope that gives it that sounds. the triangles gives it that smooth "open and closed mouth" sound

i feel like the envelopes in FM8 are really sluggish, i havent tried a triangle tho. where are you doing the main modulating? in Z?

[Mannyyyyy]

Soundcloud

fucked with fm8 for like 10 minutes threw in some eq's and camalphat and some pitch modulation

[RandoRando]

like i said up there, its drawing the envelope that gives it that sounds. the triangles gives it that smooth "open and closed mouth" sound

i feel like the envelopes in FM8 are really sluggish, i havent tried a triangle tho. where are you doing the main modulating? in Z?

If I use the filters I'm usually putting a modulator through them and then goin back into that modualtor. O realized the path I uploaded was a stock patch, idk how that happened, I'll fix it when I get home in 2 hours guys. Soy can see what I'm doin

[Grimenoceros]

@xrylex, what was your initial waveform in creating that sound? Is it essentially just an Operator with EQ and an automated vowel preset boosting back and forth between different frequencies?

I'm interested in this technique but I know not of any EQs other than Ableton's one that has vowel filters - WOW Filter comes to mind though that's not an EQ, but is it possible to do such formant EQ automations in FL Studio?

the initial sound really isnt that important with this to be honest. this particular sound is a combo of scrapyard and deepthroat, but ive gotten similar results with a totally different patch in massive using totally different waveforms. ive also got it running thru band reject in massive, plus some other random massive stuff (phase modulation, feedback, etc) none of that shit is important tbh, thats just to give different characteristics to the sound.

however the plug in chain is pretty long on this one, and ive got alternate versions of this that sound just as good with a shorter chain, but here is this one:

(all built into a custom ableton rack)
- massive > corpus > ableton vocoder > eq eight > ableton saturator > ableton phaser > wow filter > fabfilter pro-q > ableton guitar cabinet thingy > fabfilter pro-q
(then sent to my bass buss which is: Waves SSL channel > PSP Vintage Warmer > Ozone4)

automation macros in the ableton rack are:
- eq8 frequency movement
- vocoder formant shift
- saturator dry/wet adjustment
- vocoder dry/wet adjustment

oh! and PITCH BEND!! a ton of the movement in the sound is due to pitch bending....

you can def do the same thing in FL no problem. any parametric eq should work. and to be clear is not boosting up and down.. its MOVING what frequency you are boosting, my preference is what i said above in reply to mannyyyyy, having a big frequency CUT in between 2 boosted frequency points.

for example... this is the vowel of E as it looks on a EQ8...
http://postimage.org/image/ptxd43hg/

if you have ableton just look in the Eq8 presets under formant... from there is about moving the boosted frequencies with some automation to get EEEE-AAAA-EEEE type effects...


also, this is a great read on formant synthesis:
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/mar01/a ... nthsec.asp

Your example soundclip was absolutely fantastic and spot on. I really wish I had EQ 8 just for those vowel presets..I used your screencap to recreate my own filter in my Waves Q10 EQ and got some interesting results automating it. Would it be at all possible to screencap the other vowel sound presets so I can try to recreate them? I don't have a handle on how they're made yet on my own, even after reading that SOS article you posted right at the end, so I'd greatly appreciate it or tips.

[RandoRando]

His label is named Owsla?

LOL.

What's your label called

[Autism]

[xrylex]

His label is named Owsla?

LOL.

What's your label called

zing!

[xrylex]

@xrylex, what was your initial waveform in creating that sound? Is it essentially just an Operator with EQ and an automated vowel preset boosting back and forth between different frequencies?

I'm interested in this technique but I know not of any EQs other than Ableton's one that has vowel filters - WOW Filter comes to mind though that's not an EQ, but is it possible to do such formant EQ automations in FL Studio?

the initial sound really isnt that important with this to be honest. this particular sound is a combo of scrapyard and deepthroat, but ive gotten similar results with a totally different patch in massive using totally different waveforms. ive also got it running thru band reject in massive, plus some other random massive stuff (phase modulation, feedback, etc) none of that shit is important tbh, thats just to give different characteristics to the sound.

however the plug in chain is pretty long on this one, and ive got alternate versions of this that sound just as good with a shorter chain, but here is this one:

(all built into a custom ableton rack)
- massive > corpus > ableton vocoder > eq eight > ableton saturator > ableton phaser > wow filter > fabfilter pro-q > ableton guitar cabinet thingy > fabfilter pro-q
(then sent to my bass buss which is: Waves SSL channel > PSP Vintage Warmer > Ozone4)

automation macros in the ableton rack are:
- eq8 frequency movement
- vocoder formant shift
- saturator dry/wet adjustment
- vocoder dry/wet adjustment

oh! and PITCH BEND!! a ton of the movement in the sound is due to pitch bending....

you can def do the same thing in FL no problem. any parametric eq should work. and to be clear is not boosting up and down.. its MOVING what frequency you are boosting, my preference is what i said above in reply to mannyyyyy, having a big frequency CUT in between 2 boosted frequency points.

for example... this is the vowel of E as it looks on a EQ8...
http://postimage.org/image/ptxd43hg/

if you have ableton just look in the Eq8 presets under formant... from there is about moving the boosted frequencies with some automation to get EEEE-AAAA-EEEE type effects...


also, this is a great read on formant synthesis:
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/mar01/a ... nthsec.asp

Your example soundclip was absolutely fantastic and spot on. I really wish I had EQ 8 just for those vowel presets..I used your screencap to recreate my own filter in my Waves Q10 EQ and got some interesting results automating it. Would it be at all possible to screencap the other vowel sound presets so I can try to recreate them? I don't have a handle on how they're made yet on my own, even after reading that SOS article you posted right at the end, so I'd greatly appreciate it or tips.

thanks man.

it not even about the specific vowel sound presets, its about modulating them to mimic a mouth opening and closing. so the specific vowel doesnt matter. i have no clue where my eq/modulations fall in relation to specific vowels, i just started with the same basic shape as one of the presets, then started tweaking til i found something cool and notch filter sounding.. then started automating. if you already made something similar in your q10, then just mess with automating the top points back and forth so that it looks like the side view of a mouth opening and closing (if the mouth was pointing straight up) and the eq8 sucks tbh. its a sloppy eq. its just easy to work with.

im planning on doing a video tutorial on this entire sound, but there hasnt been too much interested expressed as of yet so i havent bothered yet.

[Autism]

@xrylex: Do it! I'm learning best visually than just from reading stuff. Automating the EQ sounds a bit complicated, but smart! This is a trick I haven't even thought of, so a tutorial would really be appreciated!

[franzen]

Your example soundclip was absolutely fantastic and spot on. I really wish I had EQ 8 just for those vowel presets..I used your screencap to recreate my own filter in my Waves Q10 EQ and got some interesting results automating it. Would it be at all possible to screencap the other vowel sound presets so I can try to recreate them? I don't have a handle on how they're made yet on my own, even after reading that SOS article you posted right at the end, so I'd greatly appreciate it or tips.

Hey, here is the vowels
http://postimage.org/image/31in0d2bo/full/ A - E - I
http://postimage.org/image/31iqbfrb8/full/ O - OE - U - UU

Hope that helps!

[franzen]

im planning on doing a video tutorial on this entire sound, but there hasnt been too much interested expressed as of yet so i havent bothered yet.

I would really appreciate a tutorial! Would be cool to be able to do that sound, but I also think I would learn alot about sound design in general. So a tutorial would be great!

[GothamHero]

His label is named Owsla?

LOL.

Soooooooooooo?

That's so cute! I'm a huge fan of Watership Down as well, I remember reading the book and I used to watch the animated series as a kid, and that really took me by surprise he would name it Owsla. He's an awesome guy.

I wonder what inspired his alias.

[RandoRando]

^^^the word sex & krill

[Autism]

His label is named Owsla?

LOL.

Soooooooooooo?

That's so cute! I'm a huge fan of Watership Down as well, I remember reading the book and I used to watch the animated series as a kid, and that really took me by surprise he would name it Owsla. He's an awesome guy.

I wonder what inspired his alias.

Oh, I thought you meant LOL in a sarcastic way.

[RandoRando]

His label is named Owsla?

LOL.

Soooooooooooo?

That's so cute! I'm a huge fan of Watership Down as well, I remember reading the book and I used to watch the animated series as a kid, and that really took me by surprise he would name it Owsla. He's an awesome guy.

I wonder what inspired his alias.

Oh, I thought you meant LOL in a sarcastic way.

Me too, i respectfully take back my rude comment, but will leave it posted for the lulz.