vst plugins Archives - Mike Monday

The Biggest Mistake Music Producers Make With Their Bass End

I’ve been asked how to make fat basses by a lot or people. And I get the impression that they want a step by step guide on what synth or vst plugin to use and how to compress and EQ it.

But that would be misleading.

I’ve used as many methods to produce fat bass sounds as I’ve made tracks. What works in one situation won’t work in another.

So I’m not going to give you a step by step anything.

Instead I want you to focus on something else. If your bass isn’t working as well as you’d like, you’re almost certainly looking in the wrong place for the solution. Instead of obsessing about the bass itself, listen to what’s going on around it.

Find it and forget it

No matter what level you’re at or what gear you’re using you will already have more than enough to make an awesome bass sound.

(Hint – its hard to beat a simple sine wave.)

So play with what you’ve got and when you find a bass sound you like, leave it. You don’t have to love it, it’s not your girlfriend.

Give it room

Now listen to what else is playing.

You might have a kick drum, lo tom or some other bassy noise playing in the same frequency range. At best this will make your bass less effective. At worst it’s going to clash. So what do you do about it?

First off forget about the bass sound. You like it remember?

Twiddling allowed here

Change the kick sound. Take out that tom. Or use EQ to roll off a little bass end from each. Tweak or change whatever might interfere with your bass until it shines through.

I know it’s sometimes hard to let go of that part or sound you really love, but do you want your bass to sound amazing or not?

Make sure that the track still works when that huge fat bass sound (that you’ve lovingly done nothing to) isn’t playing. With enough time you’ll be able to find something that doesn’t interfere with the bass and still do it’s job.

When you’re happy record what you’ve done and check it on different speakers. Then and only then go and tweak your bass sound if it needs it. But I bet it doesn’t.

Learn from the master

If you don’t believe me let’s hear it from all round top banana and undisputed king of bass Justin Martin.

Here’s his awesome remix of my album track “Grace”:

So what do we learn from this badboy?

The kick has virtually no low bottom end on it. He makes up for that by either choosing or eq-ing a kick with enough lo-mid thwack (technical term) to do it’s job of keeping your ass wiggling.
Even though he uses 3 or 4 different bass-end sounds none of them play together.
The bass stuff isn’t constant. He brings it in and out a lot. There’s no bass at all until 1m30secs. This creates contrast and makes the bass so much more powerful when it does hit you in your trousers (pants for my North American friends).

Ok, if you insist…

I said I wasn’t going to give you a step by step anything, but I can tell you really want one.

So here’s my 3 step technique for how to make your bass sound fat:

Find a bass sound you like
Give it room to breath
Done

What Everyone Should Know About Compression – # 8 of 100

The music production subject I’m asked most about is compression.

So here’s my number one piece of advice:

Stop using it.

Well at least stop compressing absolutely everything, it’s sucking the life out of your music.

Compression 101

Here’s Wikipedia on compression:

“In simple terms, a compressor is an automatic volume control. Using downward compression, loud sounds over a certain threshold are reduced in level while quiet sounds remain untreated. Upward compression involves making sounds below the threshold louder while the louder passages remain unchanged. Both reduce the dynamic range of an audio signal. This may be done for aesthetic reasons or to deal with technical limitations of audio equipment, which is seldom able to cope with the dynamic range the human ear can tolerate.”

So put even more simply:

dynamic range refers to the difference between the loud and the soft bits
compressors make the loud bits softer and the soft bits louder
compressors reduce the dynamic range of whatever they are applied to

The secret no one tells you

Strictly speaking, if you mainly produce music in a computer (and at the time of writing most reading this will), you don’t need to use a compressor in most situations.

This is because the dynamic range of a VST plugin isn’t anywhere near as great as a vocalist or live instrument.

Plus you can control the volume of a programmed part in a myriad of other ways before you should reach for a compressor.

Dynamics = life

But doesn’t putting something through a compressor make it more powerful?

Well, for various complicated scientific reasons to do with the way the human ear perceives sound, it may appear to be louder, but whether it’s more powerful is debatable, especially if you’re compressing everything.

Dynamics give your music life. Differences in volume will make your music more subtle, expressive, and ultimately stand out. Isn’t that “more powerful”?

When to use compression

I’m not anti-compression persay. I’m just anti- “compressing everything at mixdown to within an inch of it’s life just because you think you should or because everyone else does”.

Compressors are a very necessary and useful tool in music production. But they are also the tool which is most overused and misunderstood.

But here’s some situations where you should consider getting your compressor out (or more likely loading it up).

1.* Live or analogue parts.*
If you’ve got a vocalist, live instrument or an analogue synths in a track, a compressor is often essential. Create contrast between compressed and uncompressed parts. Heavily compress a part or parts to make them stand out from the rest of the track which isn’t.
2. Sound design.
A compressor can be a useful tool for sculpting a sound.
Side-chain compression. Where you set the compressor to affect a part (like a pad), and another part (like a kick) determines when the compressor kicks in. This is how you get that (all too) popular “sucking” sound. It’s also often used to make vocals stand out without having to turn them up.
3. Parallel compression.
Where you send various parts to a compressor (usually at a high setting) and feed the resulting signal back into the mix. I often use this technique as you tend to get a much more “transparent” (ie you don’t notice it so much) result.

So before you reach for that compressor just think about it.

You might be using samples that are already compressed. The VST plugins you’re using may have compressors built in. When you master your track it will be compressed again. And if you get your music onto radio or in a club it will be compressed yet again.

So if you over-compress everything at mixdown stage too it’s going to sound awful.

Ok that’s my rant over. Just promise me you’ll stop it. 🙂

100 Things Every Music Producer Should Know: #3/ Your Tools Define You

You can make music that sounds like anything from an acid house pioneer to a zither player. Isn’t that great?

No. Because when you’re able to sound like anything, it’s too easy to sound like nothing.

A limitless sonic palette is a dangerous thing; the best electronic music artists are masters at limiting themselves to tools, techniques and processes which make them distinctive. And in a saturated market being distinctive is half the battle.

Don’t buy the latest kit just because you’ve heard that it’s amazing or that this hero of yours uses it. These machines are merely your tools; what matters is what you do with them.

Look at what you’ve got now and how you can express yourself with it. There’s already more at your fingertips than the greatest musicians of all time ever had.

Find a synth, vst plugin, sampler, controller or whatever and focus on it exclusively until you know it inside out. Try writing a tune on it alone. Or even an entire album. This will force you to use it creatively and you’ll find your own way of playing it which will be uniquely yours.