QZB

Roll with the one you find, don’t know where we got the one we have. As mentioned, it’s not a specific tool, more a mindset. Use diff things and play around with it, as as it’s fun it’s the way to go. 🙂

I believe it’s part of the standard MAX4LIVE audio effects pack that comes with the software. Should be found here:
Max for Live/Max Audio Effect/Control Devices/Device Randomizer.amxd

There’s also a little tutorial on it here:
https://ask.audio/articles/randomizing-effects-and-devices-with-the-max-for-live-device-randomizer

Hey Bennett

The patches have been created with the latest version of Live 10. There is no legacy support for such presets unfo. :/

X

When the drums peak on -6db, try to push the other elements accordingly as high as possible without peaking too much.

But if you need a cheat for it:

Drums = -6db
Sub = between -11db / -8db
Mids = between -11db / -8db with low cut
etc.

Note also that you will get different answers from different producers, cuz that’s just how making art goes…

BUT

The best thing you can do is to start analyzing tunes and seeing where they peak out. Especially looking at tunes that are similar to what you want to create, this can be extremely useful. The data would be from a mastered song, but the levels are the levels, and there are many (MANY) artists who just mix right into a limiter and clipper and that’s it. I currently mix by making the lowest sub fundamental flick the 0dbfs line, and mix the rest of the components around that (my kick is usually -6 – -10, and snare is usually around -6).

QZB are obviously outstanding at their craft, and get very nice mixes and levels. But there are many answers out there, and my point is to study lots of music, and then lots of trial and error on your part.

@Balron

Let’s see if we can get them on here to answer your q’s.

One thing to suggest (which might be staringly obvious) is that once you have set your reference point of 6db, the rest is very much open season. Using your ears most importantly to mix the parts around it so it sounds right. Every tune could be different, but in the case of using an analyser to mix by numbers, maybe QZB can give you more info.

And -6db is one method, previously Sub Focus and the Prototypes have been saying they stick to -10db. So there is no rule, but usually it’s found that the more parts you have going on in a tune (at the same time) the lower the faders have to be. Maybe this is why minamalists such as QZB work fine at -6?
All this headroom system is doing is a) giving you room to work and b) stopping the signal hitting the master channel too hot.

Again let’s see if Ben or Thomas can jump in here and let you know their thoughts.

1. Yup, -6db is used as a reference point and we level everything around it. Usually the snares also hits at -6db straight. both kick and master level are peaking -6db all the time, in case it’s not possible anymore in the further production, we tend to periodically pull down all faders to make the peak -6db. (ofc please don’t use too much compression to get the most of dynamic range)

2. No, we never use clippers or compresssion on the maters. No unnecessary compression. As mentioned above, we draw all the faders down periodically during the production process, not just before the premasters. We apply slight multiband compression before bouncing the premaster, but nothing else is done on our end.

3. Mixdown is not only numbers, -6db is just a starting / reference point which we use throughout the production, there’s no golden rule here.

4. Low end is always very high in a spectrum analyzer due to it’s higher energy amount needed. We always keep the sub lower than the kick but level it in purely by ear (and a bit of number-levelling, but not too strict). Make sure your balancing sounds as good as it goes without the need to be pushed to infinity by further processing of your final track.

5. No, mastering is done by another person. When we do a premaster we apply Ozone 8 with a heavy gripping multiband and a heavy maximizer. When we deliver the premaster, we tone down the multiband and remove the maximizer.

6. Subjective oppinion, just doesn’t sound clean. 🙂 toplayer wasn’t chosen well enough!

Hope we could help!

Hello! Could you describe the main differences you realized?

Hi Bennett,

So to answer honestly: we may well have some of these longer videos in the future, but they won’t be the norm, we are always working to provide concise lessons, and so videos in the 45 minute range are what we mostly aim for, with a few exceptions. We can however always strive to get more detail in where necessary.

We are very aware that not every video will enlighten every viewer –
Given that a lot of people are at a more advanced stage. But that’s less to do with the video and more to do with that individual. We are also aware that combination of the monthly tutorial and the sample pack is very good value indeed, and feel strongly there is no short-changing going on.

So trust us, we have some great tutorials lined up for this year – lot’s of goodness to come!

Sure we have done several surveys over the years, and it was a big part of working out how to design Sample Genie.

” the most basic things could be omitted in a favor of the more interesting content that is specific to the genie and their work.”

This is often the lesson itself…
People seem to use their overactive imaginations and lurking self doubt to think themselves into the certainty that xxx producer MUST be using mad techniques to get their sound.
THEY MUST TELL ME THEIR SECRETS! THEY ARE OBLIGED BY LAW!
But in fact, often there are no secrets. Just the usual tools used in the usual way, only by a patent, hardworking and attentive set of ears… this is often the inspiring thing to learn, in order to stop people fretting about decibels readings to the nearest decimal place.

We will always cover basics as well as more advanced things, it’s just the nature of teaching people at a range of experience levels – something we have been doing for over a decade now.
If you like we could look into building ‘Balron Genie’ – a site dedicated specifically to what you need? 😉

The art of carefully choosing words, is often harder than the art of carefully writing music..

No problem whatsoever in speaking your mind sir, but we reply to whatever words are on the page and defend or elucidate where required.

We get that there is a frustration (often positively so) always bubbling just under the surface of a developing music producer, yearning to develop; always thinking about it, wanting to improve: and fast! This is what guides a lot of the dialogue, so we do understand where it all comes from.

Anyway, all the best!

Hip hop sub is included with Live Suite

So it is, thank you!

where is it?!

shrike wrote:

I can get you a quick overview; there’s a lot to cover, but essentially:

They are breaking up the 3 component pieces of a typical snare, meaning what happens physically when you hit a snare with a stick. These represent the different oscillators in operator (and yes you can use any synth to do, operator is just high speed low drag):

Osc 1 = body, IE the meat, and represents the largest vibration on the head of the snare
—this is often a sine wave, but could honestly be anything you want, as long as the fundamental freq pokes through properly

Osc 2 = transient, IE that ~10ms (depending on taste) initial attack of the drumstick hitting the skin of the drumhead
—they use a looped noise (looped so that it replicates the exact same on each hit) for the attack/xans portion, but you could experiment with all kinds of sounds for this component, depending on how far out there you want your snares to sound

Osc 3 = snare buzz or noise, IE at -inf db you’ll have a dry snare, more like a tom than snare, and at 0db you would have the snares engaged and get that white noise after sound, which represents the snares themselves buzzing…the degree to which this happens in your synthesized snare represents how much tension the snares have against the bottom head…lots of subjective possibilities here
—they use a white noise, which is a pretty standard response to get a snare sound; IMO the white noise waveshape is a pretty important piece of the puzzle

The macros are just a nice thing that Live provides so that they can build it all out once and then use it over and over in different tunes, knowing that they want to adjust certain properties on each project

You can get a nice snare sound out of Serum, you really can, but don’t fall into the trap of thinking that it must sound bangin’ right out of the synth. You really just need to get the above three bits right, and then eq, saturation, compression, etc are your friends in getting a great snare sound. Think of the synth as giving you the uncooked ingredients to a meal, and the effects are the thing that bake it all down into something tasty.

That’s just a quick summary, and if you have more specific questions just ask.

I’ll also say: I used Logic and Cubase for years, and resisted using Live until just a few months ago. The speed and creativity that you can achieve in Live is just unparalleled in those more traditional DAWs (don’t flame, just my opinion). I wish I hadn’t resisted so hard, and the point is that because of the instrument/fx racks that you can build in Live like the ones they built for the drums are SO EFFICIENT, and have changed the game for me.

Thanks for this man, this was a big help.

I started to have a play around making drums in massive and serum tonight, still can’t believe you can make drums in a synthesizer – madness!

I followed what you said more or less: I used serum’s noise generator for the attack, pitched sine waves as the body (and ringing sound) and then layered with white noise.

I found tuning the individual layers together to be really important, as well as really dialing in and trialing different attack and decay times (prefer serum for this as you can see physical values for decay etc.). Then buss them all together – compression helps a lot, saturation, distortion, eq and finally reverb.

I just need to try layering different elements over them now.

It is getting harder and harder to resist Ableton, particularly when every tutorial you see uses it.

Very happy to help. Also happy to listen and give feedback if you’d like.

And yeah, Live is great, and Operator can make some pretty bangin’ drums too. Try Ableton. Give it a real shot, and especially watch how fast your ideas can not only be created (grouping is the key, for me), but stored for future use (IE instrument racks).

I switched, maybe, 3 months ago…? And I am much more productive and creative.

There truly is a reason it’s so widely used. It’s a beast.

Unfo nope, we scrapped it straight away after illustrating the tutorial. :/ You’ll get more insights into the other realms of the construction of the tune with our next tutorial.

I am also interested in hearing about their method of finding the pitch of your natural sample.

Cheers!

there are several methods. a tuner plug-in (i use ableton’s built-in tuner) can be very useful. even if a sample is to short you can time stretch it to make it realisable. You can also use spectrum analyser to find the peek of the fundamental. Or if you are more trust in your ears you can load up a synth and find it on the keyboard. For hearing the harmonic content better in kick, snare, basses, etc pitching up 12 semitones can help a lot

Voxengo Span (or some equivalent spectrum analyzer…Span just has some very nice features, and is free)

Use it, learn it, it probably should be at the heart of everything you do.

Also, don’t underestimate simple solutions, like virtualpiano.net + your ears.

Thanks very much for such a fantastic masterclass, filled a number of gaps in my technical knowledge.

The only issue I’ve got is (same as Kenichi above) that the video mentions that we get the full sample pack used in the videos, however I can only find the Three Ableton patches in the main September pack.

Thanks for the quick reply, that makes a lot of sense. As a side note, I noticed the ‘Membership FAQ’ link at the bottom isn’t working, and I suspect my answer might have been there.

Yup.

To put it another way, you’re currently collecting Gridlok and Nymfo, etc samples that they may reference in their future videos.

Although it is up to the presenter if they use them in the lesson.

Some do, some do not.

This season is starting out well strong. I have to admit that I’m teeming over the Gridlok lessons. Being a yank myself, he’s been one of my heroes for a very long time. He’s one of the most legit U.S. producers, imho.

if i understand correctly it will never be a full downloadable pack of the qzb samples , instead you have to subscribe for 12 months and maybe you can catch some single samples in other months packs ?!?

if so i am really really disappointed since i came here to get my hands on a real sample pack from these artists :/

Drop us an email 🙂

Hi Resynth! Welcome to the forum and to Sample Genie.

The link to the patches is somewhere in this thread, but to make life easier for you HERE IT IS

Have fun 😀

I’m sure there is a way to freq layer (split) in Logic, but it’s been ages since I have used it, so I can’t quite recall…

BUT, yes, Live is the shit, for reasons just like this. The ability to split and come back together, very easily, and over and over again if you’d like, is a HUGE selling point for me.

*Probably* in Logic, one thing you could try is to send your bass sound to 2 or 3 channels, before it goes to the master, and EQ those channels individually so that you get your sub and whatever layers you are looking for. Then proc them, and you could even bring it back together in a single channel for further FX before it goes to master. That is how I did it in Studio One (very logic-like), before I moved to Ableton. The problem with the method is that your desk gets overwhelming with channels, it really is a PITA. And Live makes it easier, at least for me.

I think one of the challenging aspects of being a creative is seeing a technique you want to try, and then working out how to do it with the tools you have. It can help steer you towards different approaches, new ideas, and creating your own techniques. I would suggest taking some time working out the core concepts presented, and then try to apply to your tools.

I’ve probably mentioned this somewhere in the forums before, but I like watching tutorials of tools I don’t have, and then working out how to apply to what I do have. I also like finding presets on synths, and then trying to recreate in a different synth, usually getting a different (but totally usable) sound, and then saving those presets.

And then again, I have totally picked up tools purely based on seeing others use them, and going “I want that.”

Great advice mate.

You are 100% correcto

No. In an effort to keep the sample packs unique and useful, they are only able to be downloaded in the month during which they are live. After that month, they disappear forever.

Glad you enjoyed the class, and welcome to SG!

Thanks for the info!

Of course!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gGBepfnQWD-YwxDlhiNOYM2a5ykMTiWj/view?usp=drivesdk

Thank you for this! Just did a big search online for the Hat OP and read through this whole thread!

And the sub bass one… They all look great!

Wow thanks, I had missed that!!