Reso Producer Q&A

[reso]

best thread I've read in a while, cheers for doing this mate

one question, how long do you spend on sound design? seems like all I do now is sound design and I never get down to actually making music, do you have the same problem or is it pretty straightforward getting your sounds sorted?

I have days where i'll just make sounds, so bass sounds, atmospheres, drums, wierd fx. It basically prep so when you come to make a tune you've got all these great ingredients ready so all you have to do is mix them in the right order.

I have days where i sit there banging my head against the wall, others where i knock something up pretty quickly.

Having some sounds ready to roll really helps because you can concentrate on the musicality rather than spending ages making a sound.

[reso]

Before you were Reso, don of aggrostep, and we were all here kissin up and asking questions...

How ghetto was your setup?

Question two...

Best promotional outlet youve found to date?

Oh and EDIT::: Big up for doin this man, Id have nagged mods to set it up with you anyway, gotta love taking it into your own hands though dude, you just revived the QnA thing...

I had a emachines 2.6ghz pc and a audiophile soundcard, was still using my rokit 8 monitors which i have now, so my setup hasn't really changed so much apart from the extra power my imac provides.

Best promotional outlet is deffo civil music, the label i'm signed to, they smash it. They do full press, get sick artwork and get my tunes into places i would never dream of. Having a good label behind you helps a lot.

These Q&A's are brilliant, i learnt a lot from reading the other ones. brap!

[reso]

Hey Reso, sick tunes mate. Thanks for taking the time.

I'm just having a listen once again to "Hemisphere". You mentioned before a little about how you approach pads, and hemisphere has some great pad sounds. Could you explain a bit more about what you used in that track? I used to use FM8 a lot, but have been really trying to invent my own lately. But i am finding this the hardest area to find tutorials on inventing from scratch, probably as most people bang on some presets. Any further tips there?

I approach pads in my much the same way i appraoch everything else, by resampling like a nutcase.
you can make some amazing pads really easily, for example, just get a simple squarewave pad on the go, then add lots of chorus, duplicate the channel, add some filters like notches or whatever, then layer some bizarre crackle (say a distorted, high passed, pitched down vinyl crackle with some phase on top). Now bounce down about 10 seconds of 1 note (say low C), stick this in a sampler, assign an lfo to the pitch to make it warble slightly (gives it that nice boards of canada old skool analog vibe), run through a tape saturator plugin and then add reverb. Repeat again using more effects if you like.
This is one way of doing it, it's all about experimenting with various fx chains and pitch.

[reso]

Do you use a lot of distortion (bass, drums etc)?

And if so, what is your favourite distortion plugin/s to use?

You also mentioned breaks earlier so the obligatory top 5 breaks question must be asked

i use a fair bit of distortion on basses, the trick is a little, a lot of the time. so rather than sticking one distortion plugin on and ragging it, i'll stick 4 or 5 different ones and just drive them a little.
The thing i find with distorted bass is i don't want it to sound distorted, i want it to be a clean distortion if that makes any sense.
My favourites are:
1. logic autofilter
2. Camelphat
3. Bitcrusher
4.Kombinator


Fav breaks:
Amen
Amen
Amen
Amen
Think break

i use a lot of different breaks, too many to list.

[kejk]

Hey Reso,

First of all let me give you a huge big up for doing this.

I have one question that applies to me - and I'm sure it will be useful for others as well.

How do you finish your arrangements? Typically when I start a tune, it's because I have a simple melody in my head. The first part is easy, laying down the drums and a bassline. My production folder has at least over 1000 "songs" that consist out of 40 channels, but they are nothing more than a let's say 32 or 64 bar loop. I have finished 2 songs up to now - and both of these were done together with a friend.

I never have the patience to finish a song. When I have "the" loop done, I get bored and I already start getting ideas for other tracks.

I've read countless of posts about people having the same problem while starting out, but it has been around 5 years now for me and I think it's time to finish some tunes.

Thanks in advance,

[ENNO]

Top man for doing these reso, much respect for you and your tunes!

its seems all the obvious questions have been answered, but i still have some.

1) What got you into making beats, was it always dubstep?

2)Can you remember the first ever track you finished, have you stilll got it or did you scrap it?

3)Where do you see yourself in the future?

[nilone]

Yes Reso,

Massive thanks for taking the time to answer these questions - it's great to see a producer who's not scared to share the tricks which contribute to their style.

Two questions for you if you'd be so kind:

1. The sub bass in Hemisphere; how the hell do you get it to sound so damn wide and prominent, yet smooth at the same time? I'm guessing heavy limiting covers the prominence, do you use a 'Spreader' of sorts, plain old Chorus effect, or simply two instances of the bass with one panned left/one right and sample delay?

2. You mentioned previously that tunes like Hemisphere are a bit more 'you' - are there any plans for an EP made up of purely your more mellower ideas? I think Namida was the first track I'd heard by you, and for someone who's always had a soft spot for melodic electronic music that tune ticked all the boxes!

Keep up the excellent work anyway man, all the best.

Ed.

[Lapse]

Big respek for doing this informative Q&A! and the tunes!

1.Do you have any limiters or other processors on you master channel? and if so are they on there from the beginning of the writing process?

2. When you approach drum and bass do you do you generally do your drums in the same way as you mentioned earlier on by processing and resampling your kicks/snares etc then adding hats and breaks? or is there a different process?

3.Do you use any distortion/saturation on your beats?

Thanks in advance

Peace.

[antics]

Gotta ask a question

Do you think its possible to get big without DJing? or is that pretty important for one's presence?

And how did you get signed to your label? did they approach you? etc...

[youthful_implants]

Big up Reso, great thread. Very interesting and lots of good ideas! Nice one.

[kejk]

Gotta ask a question

Do you think its possible to get big without DJing? or is that pretty important for one's presence?

And how did you get signed to your label? did they approach you? etc...

Hey I don't want to hijack the thread, but look at burial for example. He's pretty big. Pretty big indeed.

DJing is just where the money rolls in

[Rickmansworth]

I never have the patience to finish a song. When I have "the" loop done, I get bored and I already start getting ideas for other tracks.

I feel your pain...

[txmmy]

nice one reso!!

i have a question,

how many songs did you make before you decided one was good enough to put out?

also looking at the screen shots
ohmydais
SO MANY CHANNELS!!!

keep it up man,

love,light,peace

[ninjadog]

First off, Hi Reso . Pretty sick your doing this.

How did you get your name?
How do you get thru writers block?
What advise would you have for one who absolutely loves dubstep but can't seem to write a decent dubstep tune?

[reso]

Hey Reso,

First of all let me give you a huge big up for doing this.

I have one question that applies to me - and I'm sure it will be useful for others as well.

How do you finish your arrangements? Typically when I start a tune, it's because I have a simple melody in my head. The first part is easy, laying down the drums and a bassline. My production folder has at least over 1000 "songs" that consist out of 40 channels, but they are nothing more than a let's say 32 or 64 bar loop. I have finished 2 songs up to now - and both of these were done together with a friend.

I never have the patience to finish a song. When I have "the" loop done, I get bored and I already start getting ideas for other tracks.

I've read countless of posts about people having the same problem while starting out, but it has been around 5 years now for me and I think it's time to finish some tunes.

Thanks in advance,

Good question, actually finishing a tune is the hardest thing to do. The way i get around it is by having a few different sections to a tune so as to keep myself interested and to make it a more interesting listening experience. It's also why i do lots of automation and put in loads of incidentals.
Another element is that you just have to be self disciplined, don't start anything else until you've finished the tune you're working on. This is mainly how i roll, i never really have more than 3 ideas on the go at any time.

Try incorperating the idea you had for another tune into the one you're already working on too.

Hope this helps!

[reso]

Top man for doing these reso, much respect for you and your tunes!

its seems all the obvious questions have been answered, but i still have some.

1) What got you into making beats, was it always dubstep?

2)Can you remember the first ever track you finished, have you stilll got it or did you scrap it?

3)Where do you see yourself in the future?

1. I've been into making tunes for about 10 years, ever since computers were fast enough to handle making music in a self contained way (no hardware longtings). Used to piss around on my friends computers before finally getting my own pc about 6 years ago.
I was really into hiphop, DnB and breaks (before it went totally rubbish) so i used to try and make those kind of beats.
I've always been in bands aswell.

2. the first track i ever made was a really crappy hiphop thing that has been well and truly lost. i've got some older stuff from about 5 or 6 years ago that i'll post up for you to all laugh your arses off at

3. Ideally i'd love to get into sound design for video games, maybe even doing a soundtrack ala Amon tobin with splinter cell.
Other than that just hopefully making good music that excites me.

[Korea]

3. Ideally i'd love to get into sound design for video games, maybe even doing a soundtrack ala Amon tobin with splinter cell.
Other than that just hopefully making good music that excites me.

I think your music fit really much to phantasy star online

[reso]

Yes Reso,

Massive thanks for taking the time to answer these questions - it's great to see a producer who's not scared to share the tricks which contribute to their style.

Two questions for you if you'd be so kind:

1. The sub bass in Hemisphere; how the hell do you get it to sound so damn wide and prominent, yet smooth at the same time? I'm guessing heavy limiting covers the prominence, do you use a 'Spreader' of sorts, plain old Chorus effect, or simply two instances of the bass with one panned left/one right and sample delay?

2. You mentioned previously that tunes like Hemisphere are a bit more 'you' - are there any plans for an EP made up of purely your more mellower ideas? I think Namida was the first track I'd heard by you, and for someone who's always had a soft spot for melodic electronic music that tune ticked all the boxes!

Keep up the excellent work anyway man, all the best.

Ed.

1. That bass is pretty simple really, it's just pure sine wave run through a triangle down filter on the esx24 with the drive up a touch so it gives it quite a punchy attack. Then i layered some really highpassed detuned squares with a sample delay slapped on top. I find with things like this your brain sort of fills the gaps and makes it seem like a super fat wide bass when it's rather basic in actuality.

2. My album has A LOT of much more musical stuff on there, it's probably bias towards the musical side by about 60-40 atm.
I'm sure this'll dissapoint a few people but i really didn't want to make an album of 12 four minutes bangers, that's just crap in my eyes.
You'll have to wait and see what you think

[lowpass]

I'd love to hear some of your first beats if you were being serious about that, when I was just into bands I'd love to hear where they came from (early demos and stuff) compared to what they are doing now, nice to hear a progression.

- sooo with the computer games, did you ever get into final fantasy? and if so which was your favourite?

[reso]

Big respek for doing this informative Q&A! and the tunes!

1.Do you have any limiters or other processors on you master channel? and if so are they on there from the beginning of the writing process?

2. When you approach drum and bass do you do you generally do your drums in the same way as you mentioned earlier on by processing and resampling your kicks/snares etc then adding hats and breaks? or is there a different process?

3.Do you use any distortion/saturation on your beats?

Thanks in advance

Peace.

1. I occasionally stick on the multipressor and limiter in logic to see how it sounds with some bodgejob mastering on top, i mainly do this when i am making heavier tunes as they're more of a battle for headroom. with the final mix i might put the wavearts tube saturator or psp vintage warmer and drive it just a tickle to phatten up the whole mix. I generally have my final mixes peaking at -2db.
It really depends what you want from your mix, if you want loudness at all costs then working with a maxed out limiter on the master is a way of doing it but at the cost of certain elements in your mix. You'd probably be better of asking nero about loudness lol

2. I apprach drum and bass in pretty much the same way but i probably do a bit more sidechaining.

3. Sometimes, more so on breaks to beef them up. My theory for dist/sat is for them to not sound distorted just fatter.