Analysis of S6E12: QZB – Minimalism II

The final video for Season 6!

—
Part 1: Drums & Shuffles (17:30)

– “Tech Priest” track breakdown, unreleased as of June 2019, was finished in the spring of 2019. In the track you can hear filtering arps, a pulsing & rising white noise, and the tune drops after 32 bars.

02:00 – track is based on the sound of the arp

02:40 – analysis starting with the drums
– Drums are from an F9 Audio drum sample pack

03:28 – the kick is two layers, QZB say this one “felt right”
– They often change out drums near the end of working on a track
– These needed a little transient shaping

05:28 – looking at the snare group
– Built from five layers
– Mix & match of F9 samples
– Saturator to add crunch ➡ compressor to take down high frequencies a little ➡ EQ to roll off some low end ➡ multi-band compressor ➡ transient shaper

07:37 – looking at the hat group
– One very high frequency hi-hat playing
– Different speed hats (8ths vs. 16ths)

10:50 – sidechaining of percussion and hat groups

11:30 – “small, but effective groove”

12:00 – explaining decisions regarding the kick programming

12:45 – extra drums group

13:00 – drum programming switches at bar 49
– More rolling style drums
– Pattern goes from 1 kick per bar to a 2-step

15:30 – switches in sidechain, dependent on how the kick is playing

16:05 – looking at the shuffles group

16:45 – point out an edit at the start of bar 41, all drums cut out for the first 1/4th of the bar

—
Part 2: Subs & Mids (13:24)

– “sub intense tune”

01:00 – one MIDI track triggering the bass line’s sub & mid layers

02:50 – auto-filter using MS20 mode

03:25 – looking at the mids
– These tend to be fills at the end of 4-bar clips

04:00 – punchy horn as a bass stab on the 1’s of bars
– Stab on start of bar 1, mid fills at end of bar 4

05:50 – going over little bits from long resampling files

08:10 – talking about more mids

09:35 – the need for space & cuts for long bass sounds

09:58 – “frequency save”

10:35 – a drone / rhythm layer created from a vocal sample

12:30 – sometimes you have to let go of an idea that you’ve worked on for a long time and use the second drop you created as the first drop in the finished tune. Basically, you spent a lot of time making a first drop. You then create a second drop quicker, step back and realize it works better as the first drop.

—
Part 3: Arps & Aesthetic (19:20)

– Arp sound made in Serum, MIDI is the actual note pattern, a bit of automation

01:20 – arp pattern made with Xfer Cthulu outputting MIDI to another track, and then built up, different parts used throughout the track

02:50 – vocal bits from Kontakt Exhale instrument
– Sub was in E, arp in E Minor

04:00 – thoughts on intro FX, how the arp drops out, minimal cinematic effects hit, then the drop

05:00 – thoughts on reverbs & spatial awareness & placement
– Using dedicated reverbs

06:30 – “spare/trash” group
– This seems to be a sketchpad area, leftover sounds, and elements that did not get used in the final track
– Moved to the end of the arrangement. I’ve seen Break using this technique in one of his videos too.

07:50 – looking at the arrangement & mixdown
– QZB tend to mix as they write

09:50 – an auto-filter on the master, just used on the intro section
– Explains how to make use of energy, when there is a finite amount

12:00 – “anti-drop” bar, with just a stab, but all elements come back on the x.2.1.1

15:15 – thoughts on tunes being “tooly / sound design flex”, and tunes that are more emotion driven, catching a vibe

18:00 – thoughts on quick masters for demos, versus a mix that is sent to a mastering engineer

—
Part 4: Sampling (11:59)

– This part covers sound design tricks that QZB wanted to share

01:30 – Ableton Live template for sound design, set at their preferred tempo (174 BPM), and 8 sends to various reverbs and delays
– As an example of how they work, they try one snare going through each snare.
– They use a delay & reverb calculator found here (warning: donation pop-up comes up frequently): https://nickfever.com/Music/delay-calculator
– They use the calculator to determine the decay time to set for delays & reverbs

– Breakdown of the bus structure:
– Short ➡ a 1 bar decay
– Mid ➡ a 2 bar decay
– Large ➡ a 4 bar decay
– XL ➡ a really long decay

05:55 – other sends are for delays

06:25 – next trick is about sampling music off of Spotify, can apply to any streaming site really
– Demonstrating with finding a Musique Concrete playlist, record anything that sounds interesting or inspiring
– Alter & use the samples found for future sound design

09:00 – you can see QZB’s file organization for sound design folders
– Each year, than month, and in some months its further broken down by samples, resamples, etc.

—
Part 5: Synth & Resample (22:36)

– Same Ableton Live template, now with a Serum instrument track

00:45 – starting with a sine in OSC A, with one LFO mapped to multiple parameters

01:55 – second OSC (B) added, to frequency modulate (FM) OSC A
– Also adds the Sub OSC, Noise OSC, and runs OSC A through the Filter module

03:45 – moving on the Effects Rack tab, to shape the sound. They state they really like Serum’s FX module.

06:05 – changing LFO shape to start getting variations; this is after they get the general sound that they want

08:30 – bouncing down the Serum patch, and comping parameter changes that were made while recording

10:15 – putting the bounce in to Ableton’s Granulator II
– They also record scrolling through the device

15:20 – how QZB use vocoders
– Make new samples & variations of existing samples