Arkaik Tutorial Q&A session.

Hi iangcarter1995,

Im not too sure what you mean, but I think your referring to the sort of mid bass growls.
These were made out of the sub sample. I equed the sub out of them with a low cut ( so only around 100Htz+ left in) then sent that to 2 busses , one with distortion (wolfram),ensamble, eq, filter, space designer and sausage fattener , the other bus with just an eq cutting the low end and both of these buses went to my main mid bus. By changing the first eq on the track this changes how much sub is going to the distortion so can wildly vary how this sound comes out. changing the distortion plugin will vary this sound drastically. To develop this sound further i will send this to more busses, all with a similar channel chain just with different filters and different EQs so this thickens up the sound. Adding a sample delay to some channels also helps to make the sound wider.

Yea I was on about the growls I just didn’t know what to call em cause I associate growls with dubstep so I just threw a couple random words out there lmao. Cheers for the feedback man much appreciated.

Hi Balron,

I think with regards to drums its about getting the levels right and layering the sounds to make them sound full. Trying to accomplish amazing thick drums at the beginning of a project can be a tough task and I often find that doing it this way distracts you from making the track. You end up focusing on a snare for hours which can then prevent your creativity. you might change some elements in the drums later on and also you want your drums to work with your bass so you might eq them differently once the other sounds are in there.

using other sounds in your track like drum hits also helps your drums sound more phat as they are more joined with the rest of your track and feel more conected in the mix.

Id like to say that I only focus on the mixdown at the end of a project but i think its a constant process of tweaking the sounds as you go and finding what eq works for what sounds and how adjusting the levels changes the mix. At the end of the day you want the track to sound sick so its inevitable that along the way you are trying to accomplish this. my advice would be to get to a point where you are happpy with the drum sounds then move on to your bass or the rest of your elements, then go back in on your drums, then the other elements, and again , until you feel that they all sound good and the track feels as one

Hi Matt,

I think when trying to work out the bass /mids to fit into the groove of your drums, its best to have a clear idea of the sort of track you want to make and work out which the strongest idea (bass pattern or drum pattern) then fit the other elements around that, by using sidechain compression and other techniques to make sure they fit together well. i often make some drums then work on bass, and end up changing the drum pattern to fit with the groove of the bass better.

With working out a groove for the drums, i often start with the most standard kick snare setup then change the position of the kicks adding in extra kicks, then add hats n shakers, rides and change there position, then probably take some of the kicks out before finally getting to something that has a slight groove. i find adding in percussion on the off beats helps me to work out where to put the kicks and the sort of groove i will stick with. I hope this helps

cheers mate, glad this helps

Also you make lots of stuff quite stereo, does this not effect the mix in mono so much? Is it just a matter of double checking in mono or do you have some guidelines for this?

Cheers!
Leo

Hi Leo,

To get mid range frequencies out of a sub what i like to do is distort it, using an overdrive with a guitar app to make it louder, then use an EQ to cut out the low end and a filter with an LFO to give it some movement. When I make a sub from scratch I will do this in the same way, focusing on the low end using a sine & saw wave , then filter it down to the raw sub, then use distortion to bring out the mid, then maybe bounce this and resample and do the same again to exaggerate the effect.

With regards to making it mega stereo, it does effect the mono mix and i will go back in after puting the sterio width down in places which are not cutting through on the mono mix. Sometimes il double these tracks up with a mono channel just so i know it works well in both situations.

Nice man, I like the idea of adding a mono layer thats a cool little trick (Should have thought of that lol) Thanks for the response, I think maybe I need to get into the habit of resampling more than I currently am. Would you say that resampling is essential for making basslines ?

Thanks again,
Leo

Hi Mind Zero,

I glad you asked this, its hard to get these right without it distorting or one sounding weaker, but working on the kick first then working on the sub, then soloing them together and putting sidechain compression on the sub, sidechaining the kick, and just making it so it doesnt take out too much sub, but enough for it not to distort when the kick comes in. then eq the kick making sure it doesnt take over too much sub, but at the same time doesnt seem like its cutting out too much low end. when working on the sub mids, have these with a slightly greater sidechain so the mids pop out a little later, this will give the impression the kick is more subby and the bass is coming out of the kick, the sub mid range almost taking over the space in the mix where the kick was if that makes sense

Thanks for answering Pete!! Now that you talk about sidechain, I would like to ask about your settings and which compressor do you use. Long time I don’t sidechain the sub anymore because I feel like I’m creating a lot of distortion when I have the settings I need in terms of attack and thresold.

Hi Sunken Forest,

No plans to release the track in the video, however I may carry on working on it and give it away free in the forum to you guys, I make alot of music that never gets release and generally only pick the best bits to send out/test in the clubs

With regards to field recordings I have a little zoom H4N recorder that I take about and find its great little bit of kit, i also have a little zoom lightning connection version that connects to my iphone so it can record stereo which is also handy and mega small for taking about. When manipulating field recordings it depends on the room and the sound recorded for how i would manipulate it, but normally a cut the low end out and process the sound by itsef before adding it into a project. what sort of field recordings do you need to process?

Hi Paul,

This is a great question and still confuses me as im not a mastering genius and still and a bit complexed by the whole situation, there has been many times where i have sent stuff to get mastered and they know a limiter is on it and also the other way round were the engineer hasnt brought it up.

I use a limiter so that I can have a version of the track that is ready to use in a club and also so that i have a ruff understanding of what it might sound like when the pros master it. I find working in this way affective so that i can find out how much i can push a certain frequency and also how loud i can get the mix without it distorting / ducking.

When sending this as a -3db version to get mastered i will generally turn off the limiter (and the sterio width & dynamics on the output) and turn the output down -12db, this will give them enough space to play with the levels and I then know that when they limit it and do their wizardry it will sound better than my limited version. I will also send my limiter version to them to give them an understanding of my loudness expectations and how far they can push the levels, hope this helps

Hi Juan,

Mastering and getting tunes ready for an engineer is a whole tutorial in itself (if not even a few tutorials), this part can take some time getting it right #-3dbmixdownV23 .I should have mentioned that at the end that there is still alot more to work on before that track is finished and therefore not ready to be sent to anyone let alone to get mastered. After the track is finish i will sit on it for a while, play it out and see if people like it, tweak it if something isn’t right then send to labels once im happy with it, then start on the premaster if any labels are interested

Thanks Pete!

I get you on Phat FX’s layout being odd, I haven’t used it much as I’ve been working in Bitwig more than Logic lately. I did spend some time with it though, trying to figure out what was added since Camel Phat, and I put my notes here: https://idkandyoucantoo.tumblr.com/post/174024887416/notes-on-logic-xs-phat-fx-vs-camel-audios

And I understand about the design stuff, got a few friends that are in that field at that level, and their non-work creative sparks have tended to go elsewhere over the years.