I'm printing this out in a big font on A3 paper. I fall into this trap too much.
Truth is, a lot of times musical elements, especially synthesized ones, need very little to get them working right. Composition, arrangement and levels are usually where the "tricks" are. This board and a lot of the YouTube tutorials out there lead you to believe you have to do all these wild things to get something "right" when that usually is not the case. Fact is a lot of the advice out there is from people who don't really have the kind of track-record to be handing out advice, and when the pro's do it (Pensado, etc), they are generally showing tricks to accommodate for someone's lack of execution for the three things i listed earlier, not as a be-all-end-all template for every 808 drum, synth pad etc that they come across.
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Parks
HeadQcourterz Studios
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@parksmusic
In my experience a good sample is all you need. EQ some saturation (if required) that's all. Sounds like you know what you're doing.
What i will say is that some of the best modern 808 style sounds actually have very little bottom end. In fact it's usually a sub layer in my experience.
It's very easy to overdo the SUB SUB bottom. Actually a lot of the good stuff is in the audible range 80 Htz up.
A good example of this and one of my fav modern 808 sounds is in the trac - I'm not saying it's anything special but the point i'm trying to make is it isn't as low as some may think.
Depends On the sample and what else is going on. If the sample has content lower than say 25 htz ill prop cut it to clean things up and give the speaker some less work ultimately given a tighter bass.
If I have a big sub synth playing that bottom octave ill hp the 808 more drastically. You know what o mean. Whatever is.needed. to many factors to really answer this simply.
Am I the only one who likes to high-pass his kicks to leave 70 and below for the bass? Less sub means more punch means tighter kick or am I on an island?
Am I the only one who likes to high-pass his kicks to leave 70 and below for the bass? Less sub means more punch means tighter kick or am I on an island?
I've used EQ to move down some frequencies but never straight-up high-passed from 70 down (I assume you mean a pretty steep filter, basically cancelling them entirely). That kind of roll off I'd start at 40, otherwise it takes too much of the beef.
Besides, in a pinch there's always sidechaining.
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Yeah if you're using an 808 it's going to be pretty tough to have a separate bass with presence below 70 Hz. I would think to high-pass the bass to make room for the 808 rather than vice-versa.
Has anybody had success using guitar amp simulation plug-ins on 808s to get more presence? I'm working on a song where I'm running a background vocal through the Waves GTR amp plugin for the distortion, and it occurred to me to try the same thing on an 808. So far when I blind A/B with and without the amp plugin, I prefer it without the amp. But I'm not super experienced with amp sims, and it seems to me like there might be a way to make it work well for this purpose.
Has anybody had success using guitar amp simulation plug-ins on 808s to get more presence? I'm working on a song where I'm running a background vocal through the Waves GTR amp plugin for the distortion, and it occurred to me to try the same thing on an 808. So far when I blind A/B with and without the amp plugin, I prefer it without the amp. But I'm not super experienced with amp sims, and it seems to me like there might be a way to make it work well for this purpose.
Just to give some air around the sample.. very subtle and light processing.. otherwise, the 808 sample usually folds in the mix: no bono.
Actually I'm lying... used it to give some crunch but in parallel..
See vid below (please dont mind the rap, at the time I was working with anybody and their mamas ) ... the ery first thing you will hear is an 808 sample...
Another thing to note is that a lot of what people call 808s are just sinewaves with a kick as the attack (808 or 909 kick as a matter of fact)
Last thing I would do to an 808 is compression. Subs and compression don't mix well for the most part, theres just to much energy in those frequencies and compressors tend to get a bit yanky down there. I think your spot on with trying to get some saturation/harmonics happening to help it cut on small speakers but I would avoid the comp. Imo it's mostly about making room for the sub as apposed to making the sub something different. In other words don't work the sub, work around the sub.
Unless it is played at different velocities/uneven. I would then use comp or limiting to even them out. Other than that i totally agree.
Try waves lo air. Tour and a little compression should do the trick. Also try doing a frequency sweep with a bell in low frequencies to find the ”sweet spot” of the 808 and raise it a few dbs.
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You've done too much work I think. If you really like a certain 808 in a certain song,instead of compression and distortion and harmonics, a million plugins,eq's filters, why not just take the one you like?? lol You have the CD. You see the 808 is just sitting all alone waiting to become the next man's sample. Filter it, trim it,call it a day. Then you could HPF everything else, just like you say they did........bam.
Start looking at your CD collection as sample kits. lol Actually their are kits for every artist already made up. Free. Cant recall what site it is, but google "----" drum kit.........
I think this conversation gets confusing when you put producers together with mix engineers....
The mix engineers have lots of tricks to fix what an inexperienced producer might have done on a finished track. Producers then take all those tricks and re apply them when they would do better to consider their sound selection first...
Thats the biggest trick, picking the best 808 or sine wave bass sound for the application. As for this theres really 3 things I always consider.
1. The pitch envelope of the sound in question. If we are using a sampled 808, a lot of the popular songs people mention have a tonal sine wave bassed 808 with a pitch envelope moving downward as the sample is played. You can use this in conjuction with a traditional adsr envelope to choose where the super low bass is most emphasized. Its kind of hard to explain, but lots of 808 samples have different pitch envelope settings. Most samplers will let you throw an additional pitch envelope there too. Obviously you are going to need to have things tuned right before you get here. If the 808 is also providing a bass melody, which it often is these days, make sure it sounds on key.
2. Distortion - This is the most important factor really. Whether its saturation with filtering, or the effect you get from hard limiting an 808, all we are really talking about is the added harmonics. Sometimes this can even be a result of pure and simple digital clipping....its adding something in there thats making it pop. Its not necessarily an issue of just turning something up...you want to shape the character of the sound so that it fits...
For mix engineers, I think this problem gets annoying when a client brings in a demo mix that is wayyyy too hot, the 808 is hitting red like crazy, but its giving it the harmonics to make it stick out. From a traditional perspective, its totally ass broken, but it works sometimes and people get lucky. If you can sort of understand whats happening though you can get this result using more controllable means.
3. Arrangement - This really isnt anything that can be explained with a simple technical solution, but if you dont give the 808 enough space to be huge, it will not be huge.. This can sometimes be rectified by aggressively eq'ing and compressing other elements...but if you are a producer, its almost always a better fix to just delete some of those instruments or elements that are going on top of your 808. Then you CAN simply turn it up...
I think the word "808" has really taken on a different meaning in modern music...some people still think people are talking about an old roland drum machine..in my experience its become a catch all term for talking about low and super low end dynamics.
To get that Bass sound, you want something like some saturation then a Low pass filter with a bit of Resonance.
That's how I've achieved it anyway. The rest, just mix it so that the bass plays the biggest role.
This. Especially for naked 808 sounds. The big thing is getting the extra harmonics to help the 808 cut through small systems.
That said there are plenty of samples out there with this effect already in the sample so this can be overdone.
Another big thing is not having conflicting instruments interfere with the mix of the 808.
It is mainly a trial and error thing. You have to be careful when layering a lot of low frequency stuff in your mix. Too much and your stuff will sound flabby.
There are tons of tricks though tuning, sidechaining, layering, EQ, compression, and saturation and distortion and not every song calls for all of this but with 808s a lot of your decisions depend on your other sounds and the overall vibe you want.
Use a spectrum analyzer when you play your synth lines. Not forever, just to make sure you are playing in the right area of the keyboard. Do this a few times and you will not need the analyzer anymore.
the point is that if you want sub bass and kick big in the mix you want to make sure the rest of your elements are arranged properly. This is mentioned often, but it really is super important. Your pad sound could be played too low and clashing with the kick for example.
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) ... the ery first thing you will hear is an 808 sample...
