Im trying hard to get those 808 to knock, but since im at a school right now, and only producing with Beats by Dre Pro, its hard for me to really hear if it is knocking or not.
It is 2 808's layered, did some EQ on both and tried to push them as much as possible.
On a more serious note,if you want your 808 or drums in particular to "knock"it'd probably best emphasizing the declining pitch enveloped part (the low mid punch) which am not aware an 808 has much of.unlike it's brother or err sister the 909
So my suggestion to you is you cut out a low mid section you like the sound of from another kick that "knocks" and mix it under your your 808 tail and transient.
I imagine the knock is a combination of the rather short transient sort of at the bottom of the hi mid range that follows into a short low mid pitched envelope and onto the thing that makes people flud to the 808. dat sub
So the logical thing to do to emphasize the "knock" is to extend the low mid section of the kick by a couple of milliseconds before it tapers off into the tail (sub)
This isn't obtainable with eq but i suppose you could do it with saturation as it would bring certain parts of the kick to around about on par with the initial stage of the kick with the 2nd order harmonics (or 3rd i forget) giving the impression the envelope is extended in that portion of the cycle.so you get more "knock".
me personally though,i'd much rather layer and or synthesize the portion to fit under the kick and piss about with its timing in relation to how it falls into the sub and the click,attack,transient falls into it (the low mid portion)
This beat will hit hard with a sub...I can hear the bass very clearly with my headphones on too.
A lot of beats these days with an 808 are only audible with a sub so it's on you if you want to add some harmonics to it or not. Depends on the sound you're going for.
i saw this tut on yt a while back, this dude talked about 'layering' and 808 with a regular kick so it'll knock harder. there's a ton of vids on this, but...
i think this dude didn't quite know what layering is, so what he did was...
he truncated the 808 so he chopped off the entire attack and glued another attack with more 'knock' onto the 808 tail.
i was like no! but tried it and it actually can work.
another plus is, because it's not actually layered... less low freq build up more headroom.
This 808 is too low... turn it up.
If you want it to knock... lose the attack by compression or use a ADSR envelope.
Then, layer it with a short, knocking kick.
Check the beat in my sig.. I made it yesterday.. it has an 808 in it.
Alteratively, I just made some quick stuff last night inspired by your stuff... quick mix in headphones too and it shows how you can compress less and let the 808 breathe through... might be overdone, not so clear though....
have you compressed/limited your main buss ? try to lower the amount as well.
i saw this tut on yt a while back, this dude talked about 'layering' and 808 with a regular kick so it'll knock harder. there's a ton of vids on this, but...
i think this dude didn't quite know what layering is, so what he did was...
he truncated the 808 so he chopped off the entire attack and glued another attack with more 'knock' onto the 808 tail.
i was like no! but tried it and it actually can work.
another plus is, because it's not actually layered... less low freq build up more headroom.
Thats sound design. I do this alot for custom sounds.
Another way to achieve this during mixing is to add a compressor to your 808 track and sidechain it with the "knocking" kick track. This configuration will duck the attack of the 808 and you can blend,eq, and adjust to taste.
I tend to "frankenstein" my drums alot to in a combination with layering
But if you would like to accent certain parts of a drums envelope, "frankensteining" is the way to go.it gives you the option to splice certain parts together (provided you understand the anatomy of how a drum evolves)it can be quite effective.you could extend the low mid punchy bit which is usually where the pitch envelope from the transient to the low mid decline envelope is so you can use slightly more cycles to provide that section and have a much shorter tail (which probably wouldn't work in a sub heavy genre like rap,hip hop)
Or you could do the opposite shorten the initial transient and the low mid pitch enveloped section (low punch) and extend the sub i.e an 808 or like an 808.alot of the time it's alot more effective than eq or if you would like your drums to have a unique sound
Using two 808's layered is going to present problems. If you need Booom use 808. If you adjust it to bring the attack (bump) sound foward it can work.
If not layer the 808 with a shorter type kick. Nothing sub heavy. The quick kick provides the bump or bap youre looking for.
Layering 2 different 808 blurs the sound. Probably weakens attack, clashes in frequency, and kills your head room making it impossible to get the track loud.
Quote:
Originally Posted by d1rdyd
they suck for producing get some sennheiser headphones.
I agree.
They are designed to hype the sound of a mastered/finished product.
I had a pair & sold them in a month because they sound great, but dont help your decisions at mixdown time.
Another way to achieve this during mixing is to add a compressor to your 808 track and sidechain it with the "knocking" kick track. This configuration will duck the attack of the 808 and you can blend,eq, and adjust to taste.
Thx for the feedback, i got some ideas and tricks to do as soon as get a couple of flat headphones, because the Beats by dre are really missleading. I'm at a school right now, so i dont have my KRK's here, but the school has a music room, but the room doesnt sound too good, and it's hard to get the bass right. So i think i will go with a couple of flat headphones like the KRK 8400 or something in that direction.
Thx for the feedback, i got some ideas and tricks to do as soon as get a couple of flat headphones, because the Beats by dre are really missleading. I'm at a school right now, so i dont have my KRK's here, but the school has a music room, but the room doesnt sound too good, and it's hard to get the bass right. So i think i will go with a couple of flat headphones like the KRK 8400 or something in that direction.
KRK headphones = not that good to be honest.
If you're gonna get some dcent headphones that are flat do your research.
Using two 808's layered is going to present problems. If you need Booom use 808. If you adjust it to bring the attack (bump) sound foward it can work.
If not layer the 808 with a shorter type kick. Nothing sub heavy. The quick kick provides the bump or bap youre looking for.
Layering 2 different 808 blurs the sound. Probably weakens attack, clashes in frequency, and kills your head room making it impossible to get the track loud.
I agree.
They are designed to hype the sound of a mastered/finished product.
I had a pair & sold them in a month because they sound great, but dont help your decisions at mixdown time.
Posted via mobile device.
True but depends on which model. The studio are actually relatively flat. Look at the graphs. The mid range is scooped and there is a top end bump but the bottom end on the studios is almost identical to BD DT880's. I still agree that for this purpose they are not ideal.
Why would you layer 2 808 kicks... there's such thing as phase cancellation.
There is also something called phase reinforcement. The reason I say that is because it's not guaranteed that you will introduce phase issues by using similar sounds.
Some 808s have clicks and some dont. Some are recorded to tape and others arent. The uniqueness of each one of these examples is why you would layer 2 808s together. There are many more reasons. But for example, recording to tape introduces a different harmonic content than a tube saturated 808. So maybe you like the thickness of a dry 808 but you want more upper harmonic content for better translation across playback systems. You can either layer a different sample or layer a treated duplicate of your original sample.
sometimes SPL transient designer works wonders, I use it to get that punchy attack on 808's all the time if im too lazy to go find another kick to layer and blend
if for monitoring, dont get the dt770 (although that's what I am using)
Prefer some open ended versions of the cans or semi-opened (dt880 for instance)...
Maybe try those... Or go on headfi.com and check the response curve of those phones.. I believe some ath (audio technika) are really flat. (but I don't usually appreciate their headphones).
as far as layering is concerned, you can also play by adding some delay (no more than 20ms usually) between the 808 sample to use as transient and the 808 sample you will use for its decay.
Works quite good... especially if you get rid of the transient on the second 808 with a transient shaper to make sure they do no interact weirdly.
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