squarepusher edifying tips n' tricks

[Alcofribas]

in light of the overwhelming success of a recent post of mine i feel like the time is ripe for offering some of my advice to ekt. i am not a professional, these are just some things i've picked up along the way.

 

composition:

 

a lot of you are going to encounter writer's block or otherwise find that your tunes are just lacking a certain something. don't freak out over this, there are some good work-arounds for this kind of thing.

 

the main thing i would suggest is astral travel/lucid dreaming. most of rdj's tunes were made in one or both of these states. i recommend reading as much aleister crowley as possible, specifically the first volume of the equinox in 10 numbers. for one thing, you can get lots of cool track titles from his books. tons of idm guys do this. like "444" or "777" or how john twells nicked his title page design for one of the xela records. basically the band coil just used as much crowley shit as possible. anyway, none of his writings have anything to do with music composition but with a little imagination you'll be able to apply his various techniques to your studio. you'll need to do banishing rituals before every studio session, you'll need to get esoteric items like oil of abramelin and you'll eventually need to get in touch with the secret chiefs and figure out your true will. but once you're on the path you can go into dreams and just fuck around with imaginary synths and fly and shit like that. you'll need a pen and paper by the bed so when you wake up you can quickly note wtf just happened. getting a little zoom portable recorder will also be good so you can hum the melodies you created on the astral plane and shit like that.

 

ok, now for theory:

 

theory is rubbish. idm is made by kids who never had the chance to study music, they just grew up with their parents record collection and hearing mad shit on the telly. this is also true for hip hop. idm is made by people who just got some cheap gear from a pawn shop and messed around until shit sounded tight. acceptable exception: you studied a little bit of guitar or possibly piano until you were 11 or so.

 

if you happen to have studied music and are really good at an instrument you have two options:

 

1) just lie about it.

 

2) make that your thing. like squarepusher, he's a wicked bass player. this will help you to cross over to the mainstream b/c your fans can be like, no this isn't just dj music he's actually a classically trained harpist and this will lend a more human touch to your stuff. but definitely process your instrument with effects.

 

ok so now you're ready to get into making electronic tunes. you'll need some synths, drum machines and samplers as well as some fx.

 

once you have your kit here are some pointers.

 

pads:

 

you want these to be lush i presume. so, you'll want your attacks to have really long attacks and really long releases. like, as long as possible. adding a phaser, chorus and/or flange will give your pads that creamy sound and adding reverb will make them sound cool and spacey. a cool tip is to sample a recognizable instrument (like piano) and mess with the filter and envelope so it sounds kind of like a synth. mental. the best route is to put the pads low in the mix so they're kind of hard to hear, this will give the listener a feeling of nostalgia b/c searching for the emotional pad tones in the mix is like searching your heart for lost time. if you come up with a tune that has an awesome pad part use a proust reference in the title. essential kit for this: roland chorus echo.

 

leads:

 

leads are just square waves. if you want it to be afx-y just modulate the pitch a little with an lfo. definitely use filter sweeps to make your leads more dramatic. adding delay can be cool but make sure it's in mono.

 

snare rushes:

 

take your snare and roll it in 32nd notes getting faster and faster by using a slider to increase the tempo. it should be so fast in the end that it nearly crashes your daw.

 

bass:

 

the sweet spot for bass is 418hz (another crowley reference for the initiated). you'll need to use compression bc otherwise your bass will sound terrible and muddy. make sure no other sounds in the mix have any bass frequencies. like, not even your kicks. sampling bass from funk records totally works. never use a digital slap bass sound. sampling chuck d right before the bass drops is a must in at least one song.

 

drums:

 

first, you want to fire up phantom power on your mixer. use xlr for beats, 1/4" is rubbish (unless you're using tip only). some of your tracks should be muted, at least partially. i need to ask, are you using hats? those should be solo'd and the aux returns cranked all the way up. i might as well tell you hats should always be panned hard right or if you're doing ambient left could work. put compression on one of the buses and route all the bass to it. don't even worry about gain ratios, just make sure the bass is clipping and in the red. for the snares (you're using 808 right? since this is an electronic song you're making right?) turn the high end up and cut off the mids and lows. then you want to use a hall reverb on this with the longest decay your system can take. this will give your beats that pumping sound. this is also called side chain compression. nb, never use front chain compression unless you want a completely fat beat. for more chemical brothers type stuff you're going to want to like, sample your break beats from james brown. for complex ae beats, sample from rob brown (i have his number pm me). over the whole mix you should lay down a low pass filter, think of this as a blanket where your beats can rest all cozy and shit amidst the flurries of your melodies and pads and sound fx. if you're using sound fx you should be getting them from old Halloween records if you want them to sound right. fluttering bat wings make really good hats. never use toms though, those are fucking lame and always sound corny. aphex uses mostly computers for his beats, you don't want to start there though bc it'll take you ages to learn how to use stuff like algorithms, vst, granular and shit like that. way too complex for a beginner. you're using an mpc right? cool, the pros use that. you can easily do stuff like dr. dre's the chronic with that. just sample jazz and r&b if you're making hip hop. for a really cool trick save your finished mix as a pdf so listeners can open it and see all the ins and outs of your composition so it'll do their heads in innit.

 

mixing/mastering:

 

as you all know using digital sounds makes your stuff feel cold and sterile. some ways to get your mix sounding more warm and organic:

 

record to minidisc. this is an all analog format and will make your shit really come alive. your highs will be rounded off and the brittleness will be replaced with a gentle sparkle. your low ends will not sound stiff but will sound really muddy, in a good way.

 

record at like 8bits. all of your stuff will sound like video games but this will only lend a certain nostalgix charm to the whole thing which will really boost your sales.

 

for mastering use compression. the pros all use loudness as well. you'll know you've mastered your files right when the waveform looks like a brick with no peaks or valleys. loudness is very important bc in this day and age people only listen to music on earbuds or laptop speakers.

 

artwork:

 

if you've made an ambient album use moody nature photos. sunsets are a must but also rainy/foggy windowpanes, close-ups of plants/flowers, or anything icelandy.

 

if you've got an idm masterpiece definitely use photoshop to make the cover look computery. definitely making the art look like a glitched out nes home screen could work.

 

in general, if you just use a pretty image that would not be out of place in a high end fashion magazine you'll be fine. eg, a picture of a pretty woman, an extravagant interior, something going on with an all white background, etc.

 

i guess that's it for now. feel free to ask any questions.

[ryancolecreate]

awaits locking of thread.

[cear]

how long exactly you reckon my attacks should be to achieve that lushness? think i messed up cant hear anything.tf

are you steinvord?

[Alcofribas]

if your attack is that long you might have to wait until the next track to hear it, that's normal.

 

i am steinvord, yeah. why?

[acid1]

I really want to know how to make my tracks bang harder. Seems like right now they don't bang, I go a few rooms over, and I can't hear it like I do at the Voodoo Lounge in Miama. Is a vst or something you use to bang?

 

I just tried your minidisc and 8 bit trick and it doesn't bang as much as it "chas"

[LimpyLoo]

What about actual tips n tricks?

[LimpyLoo]

are you trolling, Limp? the man just posted a pageful of insights

oh

[Alcofribas]

thanks Alco, that was quite helpful. I'm having difficulty getting my hands on the right gear though, what do you recommend I buy and where from?

 

here's a return tip for you: spoonerise the phrase "tips n tricks" to maximise your public speaking potential

I really want to know how to make my tracks bang harder. Seems like right now they don't bang, I go a few rooms over, and I can't hear it like I do at the Voodoo Lounge in Miama.

what's the clubbing scene in Miama like right now?

 

ah, making your tracks bang harder is pretty easy. for one thing, adjust the headphone volume on your mixer. this will get things really pumping and you'll see those lights on your mixer going wild. when they hit red, you're track will be really banging. here's another trick: if you want that sound like you're in another room and you can still hear your track, just roll off all the high and mids from your track. it'll sound just like that, you don't even have to leave your room.

 

usagi, really good question. so, the best place to get gear is harmony central. if you need vintage stuff get some back issues of future music where you'll find lots of old stuff in the classifieds. what kind of gear depends on what kind of music you are trying to do. like, for hip hop you just need either an mpc (older models have a lusher sound bc of sample rate aliasing), an spd12 and some technics sl1200s. for acid you'll need a roland sh101, tb303, tr606, tr808, possibly a tr909, a tr727, tr626 and a tr 505 for the sidestick. you can get most of these boxes from japan iirc. if you're doing ambient you'll need a guitar with some looper pedals, delays and reverbs. use a volume pedal to smooth the attacks, or better yet get an ebow. playing a lapsteel is best for ambient. you can get that from sam ash. you'll need a fender twin reverb amp which you can usually get locally from old-timey guys who used to play in the 60s. for noise you'll need a lot of circuit bent stuff, like old texas instrument toys and casio sk1 and sk5. modulars are also good for noise but pricey. if you're interested in idm you'll need a macbook or an ibm thinkbook running max and super collider. you'll need to learn c++. idm is a lot harder to learn though, you might want to start with drum n bass or something like that.

 

these are just some examples, there's a lot more stuff going on with the different genres and so on. each style has different clothes and stuff too, that's up to you.

[DerWaschbar]

A friend told me that parabolic mics were invented to reveal paranormal activity.

Is it true that I can reveal the presence of ghosts in an environment by using phase cancelling. Is this true?

If so, is it also true that this can only be done with a parabolic mic?

Very curious!

 

Regards.

[Guest RadarJammer]

in light of the overwhelming success of a recent post of mine i feel like the time is ripe for offering some of my advice to ekt. i am not a professional, these are just some things i've picked up along the way.

 

composition:

 

a lot of you are going to encounter writer's block or otherwise find that your tunes are just lacking a certain something. don't freak out over this, there are some good work-arounds for this kind of thing.

 

the main thing i would suggest is astral travel/lucid dreaming. most of rdj's tunes were made in one or both of these states. i recommend reading as much aleister crowley as possible, specifically the first volume of the equinox in 10 numbers. for one thing, you can get lots of cool track titles from his books. tons of idm guys do this. like "444" or "777" or how john twells nicked his title page design for one of the xela records. basically the band coil just used as much crowley shit as possible. anyway, none of his writings have anything to do with music composition but with a little imagination you'll be able to apply his various techniques to your studio. you'll need to do banishing rituals before every studio session, you'll need to get esoteric items like oil of abramelin and you'll eventually need to get in touch with the secret chiefs and figure out your true will. but once you're on the path you can go into dreams and just fuck around with imaginary synths and fly and shit like that. you'll need a pen and paper by the bed so when you wake up you can quickly note wtf just happened. getting a little zoom portable recorder will also be good so you can hum the melodies you created on the astral plane and shit like that.

 

ok, now for theory:

 

theory is rubbish. idm is made by kids who never had the chance to study music, they just grew up with their parents record collection and hearing mad shit on the telly. this is also true for hip hop. idm is made by people who just got some cheap gear from a pawn shop and messed around until shit sounded tight. acceptable exception: you studied a little bit of guitar or possibly piano until you were 11 or so.

 

if you happen to have studied music and are really good at an instrument you have two options:

 

1) just lie about it.

 

2) make that your thing. like squarepusher, he's a wicked bass player. this will help you to cross over to the mainstream b/c your fans can be like, no this isn't just dj music he's actually a classically trained harpist and this will lend a more human touch to your stuff. but definitely process your instrument with effects.

 

ok so now you're ready to get into making electronic tunes. you'll need some synths, drum machines and samplers as well as some fx.

 

once you have your kit here are some pointers.

 

pads:

 

you want these to be lush i presume. so, you'll want your attacks to have really long attacks and really long releases. like, as long as possible. adding a phaser, chorus and/or flange will give your pads that creamy sound and adding reverb will make them sound cool and spacey. a cool tip is to sample a recognizable instrument (like piano) and mess with the filter and envelope so it sounds kind of like a synth. mental. the best route is to put the pads low in the mix so they're kind of hard to hear, this will give the listener a feeling of nostalgia b/c searching for the emotional pad tones in the mix is like searching your heart for lost time. if you come up with a tune that has an awesome pad part use a proust reference in the title. essential kit for this: roland chorus echo.

 

leads:

 

leads are just square waves. if you want it to be afx-y just modulate the pitch a little with an lfo. definitely use filter sweeps to make your leads more dramatic. adding delay can be cool but make sure it's in mono.

 

snare rushes:

 

take your snare and roll it in 32nd notes getting faster and faster by using a slider to increase the tempo. it should be so fast in the end that it nearly crashes your daw.

 

bass:

 

the sweet spot for bass is 418hz (another crowley reference for the initiated). you'll need to use compression bc otherwise your bass will sound terrible and muddy. make sure no other sounds in the mix have any bass frequencies. like, not even your kicks. sampling bass from funk records totally works. never use a digital slap bass sound. sampling chuck d right before the bass drops is a must in at least one song.

 

drums:

 

first, you want to fire up phantom power on your mixer. use xlr for beats, 1/4" is rubbish (unless you're using tip only). some of your tracks should be muted, at least partially. i need to ask, are you using hats? those should be solo'd and the aux returns cranked all the way up. i might as well tell you hats should always be panned hard right or if you're doing ambient left could work. put compression on one of the buses and route all the bass to it. don't even worry about gain ratios, just make sure the bass is clipping and in the red. for the snares (you're using 808 right? since this is an electronic song you're making right?) turn the high end up and cut off the mids and lows. then you want to use a hall reverb on this with the longest decay your system can take. this will give your beats that pumping sound. this is also called side chain compression. nb, never use front chain compression unless you want a completely fat beat. for more chemical brothers type stuff you're going to want to like, sample your break beats from james brown. for complex ae beats, sample from rob brown (i have his number pm me). over the whole mix you should lay down a low pass filter, think of this as a blanket where your beats can rest all cozy and shit amidst the flurries of your melodies and pads and sound fx. if you're using sound fx you should be getting them from old Halloween records if you want them to sound right. fluttering bat wings make really good hats. never use toms though, those are fucking lame and always sound corny. aphex uses mostly computers for his beats, you don't want to start there though bc it'll take you ages to learn how to use stuff like algorithms, vst, granular and shit like that. way too complex for a beginner. you're using an mpc right? cool, the pros use that. you can easily do stuff like dr. dre's the chronic with that. just sample jazz and r&b if you're making hip hop. for a really cool trick save your finished mix as a pdf so listeners can open it and see all the ins and outs of your composition so it'll do their heads in innit.

 

mixing/mastering:

 

as you all know using digital sounds makes your stuff feel cold and sterile. some ways to get your mix sounding more warm and organic:

 

record to minidisc. this is an all analog format and will make your shit really come alive. your highs will be rounded off and the brittleness will be replaced with a gentle sparkle. your low ends will not sound stiff but will sound really muddy, in a good way.

 

record at like 8bits. all of your stuff will sound like video games but this will only lend a certain nostalgix charm to the whole thing which will really boost your sales.

 

for mastering use compression. the pros all use loudness as well. you'll know you've mastered your files right when the waveform looks like a brick with no peaks or valleys. loudness is very important bc in this day and age people only listen to music on earbuds or laptop speakers.

 

artwork:

 

if you've made an ambient album use moody nature photos. sunsets are a must but also rainy/foggy windowpanes, close-ups of plants/flowers, or anything icelandy.

 

if you've got an idm masterpiece definitely use photoshop to make the cover look computery. definitely making the art look like a glitched out nes home screen could work.

 

in general, if you just use a pretty image that would not be out of place in a high end fashion magazine you'll be fine. eg, a picture of a pretty woman, an extravagant interior, something going on with an all white background, etc.

 

i guess that's it for now. feel free to ask any questions.

 

this is like a migraine headache disguised as a forum post

[Squee]

[cear]

if your attack is that long you might have to wait until the next track to hear it, that's normal.

 

i am steinvord, yeah. why?

wow im thoroughly honored, got nearly all ur records. just mailed reflex studios and they said they were gonna send me their catalog..fuck yeh

 

people said u definitely used reason, but i cant seem to throw is plugin called glitch in it.. this is my location for all my vsts: F:/CP2012720p(30)/VstPlugins/Pictures/Steinberg/VstPlugins/AiR-REPACK/VSTplugins/ what am i doing wrong? thanks for ur help

 

also i saw people talking bout rooms, u reckon how much headroom i should have? thanx again bro

[Alcofribas]

just change "Steinberg" to "Stenivord" and you should have access to my stuff.

 

as far as rooms go, you basically just need one for your gear. you'll need a place to sleep too which is why a lot of idm producers start off as "bedroom producers." headroom? you know, just enough for a pillow, or more if you think ladies are coming over at some point.

 

re: ghosts, idk about that. the only ghost i know for sure was captured in window licker which you can see in the spectral analysis. pretty freaky stuff but idk how he captured that, possibly with parabola mics?

[soundwave]

you forgot portamento on IDM leads, 50% tape speed tape on ambient and Dblue glitch VST on all drum sounds

 

oh yeah the Amen break always sound better through an akai S1000 and if you put flat old batteries in a TB303 after midnight it starts to make its own riffs (something to do with the leaking acid apparently)

 

sell your album on Boomkat on a memorex cassettes that have been pre chewed in a Fiesta XR2 stereo in a strictly ltd edition of 14 with a picture 1984 Jessie Ventura on the front cover and the worlds your oyster

 

[Alcofribas]

flol at the 303 tip, soundwave. totally forgot about that one.

 

i'm totally blanking on where i've read the legend of old 303s sitting in closets that just made mental riffs.

[mcbpete]

Gamesmaster:

 

I'm about to enter the village dubstep competition but I'm worried that my drop isn't good enough - Do you have any good recipes ?

[Lucas]

you forgot portamento on IDM leads, 50% tape speed tape on ambient and Dblue glitch VST on all drum sounds

 

Being conscious there's humor in what you wrote, I'd just like to point out that this kind of composition option is imo one of the reason which makes a lot of beats sound dull or pointless. If you're going for the expressive / full-of-life kind of break beat I'd suggest to edit manually your rhythmic, or let's say 90% of it.

 

It always embarrassing to see a random guy who posts a song and claims it has a crazy RDJ or Squarepusher beat in it and then to hear that the random guy just random-processed his beats with a plugin.

[LimpyLoo]

you forgot portamento on IDM leads, 50% tape speed tape on ambient and Dblue glitch VST on all drum sounds

 

Being conscious there's humor in what you wrote, I'd just like to point out that this kind of composition option is imo one of the reason which makes a lot of beats sound dull or pointless. If you're going for the expressive / full-of-life kind of break beat I'd suggest to edit manually your rhythmic, or let's say 90% of it.

 

It always embarrassing to see a random guy who posts a song and claims it has a crazy RDJ or Squarepusher beat in it and then to hear that the random guy just random-processed his beats with a plugin.

Finally, a serious post!

 

 

Yeah, I agree.

 

Glitch, Turnado, Stutter Edit et all are good for specific duties but it always sounds half-assed and uninspired when a vst makes all of those types of decisions for you.