DSF Q&A 20: Downlink

[Toolman4]

Thank you Downlink for taking time to do this, much appreciated!

My question is a further elaboration of Jr's question, "Melody or Tone, which is more important?":

In the context of producing bass driven music, what is the mindset you have when composing basslines?

To explain: For myself, I'm very attracted to the upper end of the freq spectrum, especially harmonizing tones. Chords are so emotionally powerful, that I feel it'd be a crime to not use them in the main focus of the track (a la trance music). How do you translate the same emotional effect that trance has been built around, to the aggressive style that bass music has evolved to? I know layering is a good way to make a bass tone sound full, but are upper frequency harmonies to dissonant to low end bass music to be the focus of the track? Is there a reason trance and aggressive dubstep haven't seen much of a crossover?

[downlink]

hehe i meant to be the first to cut off the common questions but if not asked
what gear do you use soft and hard (gear porn)
what was your break through moment producing that gave you your sig sound
does mastering make a diff vs a good mixdown?
what piece of advice can you give to the i want to sound like downlink/skrillex/noisia crew to help them become unique?

my real question... do you play any real instruments and who are your influences?

I can't really say that I had a breakthrough moment. To begin with it was when I first came to grips with NI massive that I was actually able to achieve what I wanted in terms of bass sounds. Now I use a variety of synths to achieve what I'm after.

Mastering definitely can make a difference although to be honest I usually just mix down my tunes to the best of my ability and then master them myself using Ozone. Mixdown is definitely more important than mastering though.

My advice to the people that want to sound like other artists is simply that if you they are purely on a sound design quest to achieve a sound or style that another producer has come up with, then fine. But if they actually want to express themselves artistically, then I think deep down they have to search harder to find out what it is that they truly want to say with their art. Chances are they will realize that the sound they truly are after will sound nothing like a growly FM bass and some squelchy bits

I had played guitar for a few years before getting into electronic music, but the answer for the moment is no, I don't play any instruments. I should really get into piano though, maybe thats what I'll do.

[python453]

What guys (if any) do you look up to that are in the game right now? as in actively releasing material?

[downlink]

First off, thank you for participating in this.

Questions that come to mind from me:
>When you first began producing was it anything other than a hobby or did you set out with the aim of becoming a professional musician, did you have prior musical knowledge (piano/guitar lessons etc)?
>If you could change your career in any way, or possibly in the future, what would you like to change?
>How long do you spend working on a single track and in particular how long do you like to spend on sound design for individual basses & leads.

When I first began producing it was definitely a hobby, though I always dreamed it would be a profession at some point.

If I could change my career I would like to change it so that I could have a more normal life with less touring and travelling and be more of a producer than a DJ. It's hard though because in todays music industry we make most of our money from doing live shows, not from selling music.

I spend a lot of time designing sounds so that when it comes time to write a track I am prepared with an arsenal of sounds. I will sometimes just sit in the studio for like 8 hours just working on sounds. I'm sure many of you do the same thing. I find that some days I just don't feel like working on music and instead I want to just make weird noises or focus on learning new processing techniques or learning more about a particular plugin or synth. I think that any time you spend bettering yourself as a producer is not wasted time, even if you don't make horizontal progress in your DAW. Back to your question though, I can write a releasable tune in 12 hours but usually it takes me more like 20 - 40 to craft something that I'm truly happy with. And as for specific sounds, I can spend 4 hours on a sound but often what happens is a sound will spawn multiple other sounds, or it will change over time as I apply different processing to it.

[downlink]

How long, after starting, did it take for you to start making tunes you actually thought were good and were pleased with? Stuff that you were confident enough in to send to labels etc.? Was it an instant thing or did you go through a phase of disliking your own music?

Also, it's really cool how this all came together in the end, big ups

I definitely went through a phase where I wasn't happy enough with my stuff to try to get it released. Years actually hahahahaa. Anyways it got to the point where I was mostly just working on techniques and developing my sound and approach instead of actually finishing songs. Once I felt that I had developed my skills and sounds enough, I began finishing songs off and then started putting my stuff out there.

Thanks man, its surreal to me sometimes when I'm standing on stage in front of thousands of people. I pinch myself often

[downlink]

I love your music! Would you mind describing some of your midrange bass processing and resampling techniques?

I usually employ the same technique to bass processing but the application of it varies from sound to sound. The way I work is I have a channel strip in logic that I've created called "starting point" and its basically an effects chain with about 10 different plugins on it. All of my favourites are in there and sometimes the roster is changed up a bit as I get new plugins or discover old ones. Then when I dial up a sound I can quickly audition my effects chain on it. I may shuffle plugins around in the chain and whatnot but typically it goes something like EQ, Compression, Saturation (amp distortion sometimes), then more EQ, then i have various modulation plugins that I can go through (wow, bitcrush, phaser/flangers, other bits and bobs) and then EQ again and run everything into a limiter or camelphat. You have to be sure that you are getting the right movement out of the sound before you send it off to the bus though. Don't overlimit it to shit or it will have no dynamics in the mix. That being said, sometimes I will just squash the shit out of bass sounds just because I want it to stick out like a sore thumb and be a wall of sound.

For resampling I usually just make a dope sound using the above techniques and then I will play one note, usually F and then mod the shit out of the sound and give it lots of movement and variation. Then I will bounce this sound down and load it up in kontakt. From here I will pick which part of that "mass sound" that I want to work with by using the loop selection and sample start position. Then I will either reprocess this sound even more, or just start straight up programming a midi bassline or lead line or whatever straight from there. Kontakt is immense and there's a lot of cool shit you can do within the sampler itself. From simple stuff like modulation sample start position to more complex modulation of individual zones within a multi-sample instrument you've created from scratch. It's pretty intense when you start digging into it all. I'm still learning a lot about it, but I have to say I am really starting to love resampling and working with Kontakt. You will hear this more on my recent productions.

[downlink]

Have you ever done any Production Courses ?

I took an audio engineering course in Vancouver for a year. It was a waste of money and time in my opinion. They didn't teach me shit about electronic music production, and in fact in that section of the course I was teaching kids in the class more about synthesis and programming than the teacher could. If you want to be a traditional engineer working in a studio recording live instruments and stuff then I guess it might have been useful. Also I learned a lot about sound and signal flow and scientific aspects of audio. I would rather have kept the thousands of dollars and spent it on equipment.

[downlink]

Thanks downlink for doin this!

Do you find yourself starting a new track by making new sounds first. Or do you have your favorite presets you made and use a mixture of new and saved presets? And do you start with drums? Midrange?

I start with drums and an idea. Then I go about executing that idea using sounds I have created already, or sometimes I will have to create one for the track from scratch.

[downlink]

what would you do for a klondike bar?

I'd open a set with a trance record

[dubesteppe]

thanks for the answer! feel free to decline my reguest, but would you mind uploading a massive patch/project file for us to analyze?
would you say you do most of your filtering(for main movements ie wobbles, and big robot sounds) inside massive? or do you use massive's filters just to give it some movement and then proceed to process it outside of massive and apply external filters to achieve the main movement.
also, how does ableton come into play in your production process?

[downlink]

Thanks a ton for doing this! You make some great music, hope to hear lots more from you in the future.

Really curious as to how you and excision did Existence, that track is awesome and has basically just one bassline and drums going on, and its huuuuge.
Any insight into putting basslines like that together?
Do you flesh out a basic bassline and then resample and distort and stuff?
Or do you make it sound by sound, one complete sound at a time?
(hope that made sense)

Also curious as to what you were doing for the modulation in that track, there's a lot of movement in the bass.
Did you filter and automate stuff inside of a synth like Massive or did you do the filtering and effects after?

Stoked to see this Q&A happening, thanks again!

With Existence we basically just started writing it right from the drop. Most of the bass sounds are from NI Massive. There is a lot of movement happening within the synth itself and then there is more processing applied to the sounds after they were bounced down. Some subtle, and some extreme. I seem to remember that we were caining the bitcrusher and sugarbytes phaser on that track a lot.

If you want to write a bassline like that you have to get yourself in an aggressive angry headspace I think. I almost get myself mad like I want to fight and start breathing fast and hyping myself up (no joke) and then I try to maintain that attitude with everything I do in writing the bassline. From notation to sounds used to everything! That bassline took me like 2 hours to write. I was in fight mode for a lot of that. hahahaha. I swear I should be writing metal riffs not electronic music sometimes. HAhahaaa

[downlink]

Headin to the beach for a bit here guys. I'll be back later to answer more stuff!

[mthrfnk]

Thanks for answering my questions man

[OfficialDAPT]

Hey Downlink,
if you could tell all new producers something, what would it be?
Also, what pisses you off in the dubstep, dnb scene?

[MaZa1]

I'm always struggling with basslines/leads and in some point they sound ok, but after a while they start to sound crappy and again the same thing starts over. What is the hardest part of making a track for you?

[dubz]

Wssup D - long time listener, first time caller...
Wondering if the rumours are true about you hating Toronto like how the rest of Canada does?

Also - can you give us a couple of tips that you wish you knew as a budding producer that would help take producing to the next level?

Cheers (go Canada eh!)

[Dystinkt]

ezi mate,
one of the few heavy artists in dubstep that i can listen to and enjoy!
my question is,
have you ever tried making something radically different to what usually make, for example deep house or something?

[BonerJams04]

what would you do for a klondike bar?

I'd open a set with a trance record

wow, you must really like klondike bars then.

[Versuz]

big ups for doing this, big fan of your stuff!

questions:

what process do you go through to make your sub bass and and midrange bass flow together and sounding huge?

how should i mix down my tracks if i want to play them out in clubs?

do you plan on making any different genres in the near future?

how was it working with the guys from korn who have a lot of musical background?

what did you do use for the piano in your intro for "ghost"?

in your track "the scientist" with vaski how did you make that bass @ :55 that sounds like its being pitched down?

do you plan on doing collabs more often with other people in the Rottun crew besides excision or datsik? (liquid stranger, ajapai, etc)

thanks and keep up the good work

[_v_]

Cheers Downlink.
how about a random production tip?