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paravrais wrote:(constantly getting grief in the feedback threads for having dry snares but it sounds way better that way!!)

Sounds like you found a limit to the value of feedback. Some things are just taste. This spaghetti sauce is too sweet, no it's not sweet enough. You're the only one who can judge that.

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naus wrote:

nowaysj wrote:SIDECHAINING Always knew it was there, just thought it was about pumping. But I've been up in that bitch like a mofo.

Please enlighten me..... I dont use it because i thought it was only about kick n sub etc...what eles can it be used for?

Can be used for everything. I like to use noisy/resonant/sustainy sounds that can all stack up on top of each other producing mud. Combine that with pads, and or beds, and you can be in split pea soup really quick. Now, maybe you like the swamp, just that hot mash of frequencies, but you still want some clarity and punch to your rhythmic elements. Just sidechain them, but don't do it so dramatically that you can obviously hear the sound being sidechained pumping, just take some db off. And take it off a bunch of sounds that are all adding up. Do it with a compressor that can do a quick enough release without breaking up.

Btw, your mind is sidechaining the fuck out of everything anyway. Louder sounds will mask out other simultaneous sounds. So, if the mind is already masking out sound, just do the same and actually let your speakers take a break and produce some clean tones, if only temporarily.

So, blah blah blah. A typical example: maybe you have a sustainy snare, maybe it's got reverb on it, maybe even delay. And you have a conga hit that follows pretty soon after the snare. You don't want the sustain of the snare to have to end to make space for the conga, so just sidechain the snare tail with the conga. That way as the sidechain releases, the snare tail can come back up and the conga tail can mesh into one fuzzy little space, but the actual conga hit can have enough impact to actually put that pulse in the beat that you want there.

neway

side chaining is awesome. the problem is you end up using it too much

sometimes i put it on my kick track and send the signal to my sub...reducing the sub about 4db when the kick hits.

i also use it on layered breaks that sit underneath the main kick and snare. this is also gives the tune a shuffley effect...not just the pumping feel you get from only side chaining the kick.

biggest sonic change in my mixes (besides having good gain structure) was when parallel compression became feasible in software.

i remember the day when renoise turned from a completely unintelligible mess of hex into a DAW with the most unbelievably perfect sense of logic

i was like, ooooooooohhhhhhhh

Sharmaji wrote:(besides having good gain structure)

How could I have missed this. This is definitely my biggest OHHhhhh moment.

Bitcrusher on a cleaner sounding bass. SHIIIII-

Modulation!!! in all shapes and forms...
I know, this is broad... but once I understood the basics of an LFO and FM synthesis, everything began to make more sense in terms of sound design and dynamics. Being able to THINK out a sound is awesome... you can describe most sound with 3 parts which can all be changed via modulation to create the sound.... pitch, timbre, dynamics... by adding modulation you can change any of these (eg: mod pitch w/ lfo, change timbre w/ ring mod or modulating one waveform with another, and using desired modulation on amp to change dynamics)... w/ those three you really can walk yourself through just about any sound w/ enough mental effort and being a little familiar with "what will happen if I modulate this???"..... excision talked about that on a forum, where he said to move away from filter cutoff modulation and try moving that LFO to other places to see what it sounds like

Now, maybe you like the swamp,

nowaysj, that was a good line... i always called dubstep sludge music... because dubsteppers will listen to house or something and go "it's way too fast" and i tell them "it's cuz your used to all that sludge!"

alexxross wrote:Bitcrusher on a cleaner sounding bass. SHIIIII-

I literally almost smiled when I read that and realised it was his first post.

chorded basses are waaaay better than single note basses OOOOOHH!!

figure out how to use sends in renoise..... mix downs take 1/4 of the time they used to

Rolling off the high's when it comes to reverb and wrecking rim shots with tube distortion. Nothing major, but it's goooood.

layering was a pretty big revelation for me.

There are so many, but some big ones were

Discovering the Mixing board in FL (OMG you can make everything sound like it's from a party next door! WOW!)
Discovering you can route seperate channels to their own mixing channel (WOW now only the drums sound they are from a party next door!)
Automaton.
The layer function to trigger multiple synths with one channel
Reading the mixing and mastering aka the money shot thread
Learning some music theory - MAJOR BREAKTHROUGH!

My latest has been discovering the envelope and keyboard controllers in FL.

At whatever point I am at I can never think of what the next thing will be, but there is always something else...

+ 1 on gain structure thanks to the moneyshot thread

i also forgot about using buses to properly route and group, and using the new york compression technique.
hats off to depone for solidifying this concept to me in his video.

this thread is awesome, thankyou for making this!

skyhigh wrote:this thread is awesome, thankyou for making this!

happy to oblige

grooki wrote: Discovering you can route seperate channels to their own mixing channel (WOW now only the drums sound they are from a party next door!)

i used to put a filter in each of the tracks and then make them all do the samething before i found out about sends......

took me half an hour to do a filter drum sweep, takes me 20 seconds now lol