A few questions from a beginner.

[Aerocity]

Hey guys, what's up? I've been coming here for a long time to read posts, and finally took the time to register to post my own questions. I can design my own synth sounds reasonably well, have a decent sense of melody, and I can make my mixes fit into themselves well enough for a 17 year old with 5-6 months experience. But I've definitely got a few questions before I can even think about going any farther. The genres I'm looking to produce at the moment (I'm trying to familiarize myself with as many as possible) are liquid DnB/liquid dubstep. I guess I should add that I'm attending a school for general audio engineering and production next year. I don't know yet what field I'll specialize in, so I might as well experiment for as long as I can.

Drums: I've noticed most of these liquid DnB songs have predictable kick/snare patterns, but I can't figure out what to do with my hihats. The track I'm thinking about right now is this. The drums seem to be exactly what I'm looking for when thinking about hihats. Furthermore, my samples come from the vengeance house/club sets. Are there any other sample packs I should look towards buying to produce liquid dnb?

Samples: Most of these liquid dnb songs tend to have vocals samples dispersed throughout. Where can I find some, and what tips might you have for chopping up certain portions and helping them to fit into the mix to compliment it without drawing attention away from the rest of the song?

Chord progressions: Holy goddamn, chord progressions. They're so much fun to play with, and so aggravating to try and polish. Do you have any tips for coming up with a large repertoire of unique, nice-sounding chord progressions? It seems like a lot of these liquid dnb songs are minor.

Synths: I'm fairly fluent in sylenth1 and massive, can work my way around nexus and operator, and know how to select presets in fm8. Any others I should look into?

Monitors: Kind of off-topic, but I need a pair of decent studio monitors. I'm using a pair of AKG-240s to mix now - they're both fantastic and accurate, but I would like more than one medium to mix from. I'm looking for a set of monitors under $300 that aren't very large, but will give me accuracy and durability.

I think that's all the questions I have for now. Thank you guys so, so, SO much.(:

[Depone]

hey welcome to the forum fam!

it sounds like your on the right track already and have pretty clear ideas of what you want to achieve!
As far as highhats go, just practice different rhythms with velocity changes and see ware it takes you. You might find getting an MPD or TriggerFinger might help you as it does me, by drumming your patterns in rhythmically and then fixing them after recording.

sample wise, I can recommend The Thomas Penton series (really amazing samples and drums) and the XFR Deadmau5 pack. Both have a an interesting verity and in my opinion kicks vengence's ass.

for vocals.. some record their own,and twist and pitch them up/down, otherwise you will have oppotunities to use vocalists when you goto that music school.

I dont have them myself but KRKs have a good cheap range, just make sure you at least get the 6" cone model not the 5

-Dep

[outbound]

From last to start

Monitors: AKG 240 are a great place to start for monitoring if you don't have any acoustic treatment. I know there are a few options for under 300 that a lot of people use but tbh without treatment I'd much rather stick with the 240's till you can get your room sorted then move onto a set of monitors (standards for that price range will be KRK, Yamaha HS series, if you can stretch to it possibly some 2nd hand adams)

Synth's : Sylenth and massive are very popular so probably better to get even more familiar with their operation but if you do want to look into other alternatives then the rob papen synths are quite popular (albino, blue etc)

Chord progressions : My only advice I can give with this is pick some of your favourite liquid tracks and find which progressions are used in those. After figuring out the basic structure try rewriting new melodies around it.

Samples : I'll admit it this is one of my weakest areas, for vox I usually just type something and acapella into youtube. (e.g rnb acapella, hiphop acapella etc)

Drums : if we're purely looking at percussion then try thinking of things other than hats (which I find a lot of the samples out there can sound a bit too aggressive for liquid) Some of my favourites are shakers (they have some nice energy around the 10khz mark) random hits like tabla, bongo etc are nice for some reverbed incidentals (especially in tracks with a lot more space) I've written bit more with processing and whatnot other here which may be worth a check:-

http://www.evolutionmastering.com/mixdown003.html

Hope that helps!

[Aerocity]

Depone:
Thanks for the info, I appreciate it. I've got almost no previous experience with drums (besides knowing one drum beat, kind of), so I doubt a drum pad will do me any good. I looked at the Thomas Penton series - are you referring to the COMPLETE collection, or an individual pack? I'll also have a look at the KRKs, thanks.(:

Outbound:
I'm moving to an apartment about 17 hours away in about 4 and a half months, so I'll wait til I move to work on sorting out a room. Til then I guess I'll just stick with my AKGs. Thanks.(: I've heard a lot about the Albino synth, I'll probably find a demo and try it out sometime this week. I'll look into the chord progressions on some of the tracks I've been listening to lately and try to find basic patterns. I've got a couple years of background in music theory, so it shouldn't be that difficult. I'll definitely try some shakers. It sounds like they've got some heavy reverb on a lot of these songs, so I'll try chaining in a wet reverb mix for shakers and see how that sounds.

Thanks guys, I appreciate the help so far.(:

[Aerocity]

Bumping the thread, hoping to find some additional advice.

[bigdaveo11]

Just wanted to post and recommend some sample packs. Wave Alchemy Drum Tools and Goldbaby are excellent.