Nice 1 fella. Of all the rabbit holes in music production, compression is for me one of the deepest. And as always, the most important tool for using it well is your ears. There's one simple technique you didn't mention. It's super fun, creative and easy to understand and do, and is called parallel compression, sometimes known as New York compression. It's basically an uncompressed track mixed with a compressed one. That means you can get that edgy, dirty vibe and punchy attack from compressing the hell out of a mix, but not lose the thump, the meat of it, as you're getting that in the uncompressed track.
It’s funny. Ive tried parallel compression so many times and almost always prefer the full compressed signal haha! But yes that’s a GREAT technique to try that can be both creative and corrective. Thanks for sharing it Jim
@@RickyTinez Well done. I think New York compression works best with Multi-band compression, like the OTT preset in Ableton. Perhaps that's next week's topic ?? !!!
To grab the first transients from the kick and snare you mention on creative compression section you can use the lookahead function of the compressor to process the signal faster by 3 or 10 ms and this should do the trick! Some really useful tips in this video!!
Great timing, I used the free time of my last week to dive deep into compression (especially on the drum bus). I've been trying to train my ears to really hear the different settings of ratio, attack and release, yet I still find it difficult especially when adjusting the release. I tried to recreate the Drum Bus plugin's compressor with the Glue compressor to get more control. I found that a very short attack increases the sustain of the kick, resulting in a boomy kick because the transients are compressed more than with a longer attack. A longer attack, on the other hand, emphasizes the transient, so the sustain gets quieter and the kick loses a bit of low end. However, my main takeaway from last week is how important it is to get the metering right for A/B-ing. I found a free metering plug-in (youlean) that measures LUFS, which, compared to Ableton's peak meter, reflects how loud the human ear perceives the sound. With this plug-in, it's much easier to set the meters correctly for proper A/B-ing, so you're not misled by the difference in volume.
Wow! I’ll have to check out that free plug-in! There’s also a really good tip to make compressor adjustments with the volume really low because that’s when it’s really apparent as to what is shining through. And I know if you look for a gain compensator for Max 4 live there is a pretty good one as well. I just cannot remember the name of it :/
dude all i can say is that you so much for this kinda stuff. Iv been making beats on elektrons for a few years and just now trying to learn how to make them sound good in a daw and take it to the next level I love trying out all the things you suggest and tweaking it to work for me
Nicely done. You're right about the vibe. With the processing, it gets that hard driving, bumping Norm Talley feel. Which suits the deep bass, loopy key sound and string line. What can be cool is to let some of the sound of the real life soundworld into the synthetic. A dusting of things like stereo samples, ambience, voice, spoken word, talking or just tiny vocalization snippets. (Moodymann records are classic examples). Because when it's constrasts with synthetic sounds, which if left all on their own, it can sound a little airless. Or maybe if you got your hands on a real rhodes, like the Vintage Vibe one. edit: Ah, but there right at the end you pull out the Jazzmaster. That's what I was thinking, just a sprinkle of the real. Subtle little hums, string swipes, buzz, pickup noise, mic noise or vinyl sample crackle help. Even just getting a shaker and dusting with that.
totally, I love those types of sounds and that's what draws me to using the Nord for the organic piano sounds. I wish I could afford the Vintage Vibe.. That thing is nuts! I love the pumping compressor too because it helps the "loopyness" feel a bit different depending on what elements are present :) I appreciate you Compucorder64! Thanks for making it to the deep end of the video too
@@RickyTinezDefinitely agree on the compression. Running my old Jomox xbase 09 through a DBX 160X was a bit of an AHA moment on how to get _that_ sound; good drum sounds are only part of the picture, they do need to breathe for it to be cohesive and more danceable. And yeah, getting my mittens on a Vintage Vibe or vintage Rhodes is just a dream for me. Maybe someone can build a MIDI controlled one with Rotary and mic'd up through a Fender Twin. So we can send MIDI files, and get a WAV out from ;)
@@RickyTinezBetter sound, you could remove the highs only when the shaker hits, snd let the rest of the signal intact, multiband compression can work in similar ways.
Appreciate this vid bro. Just getting into tracking out work with overbridge and wrapping my mind around losing the built in fx of the RYTM. That analog sound was a big part of why I made the purchase so I may end up tracking things out individually using overbridge for clock. Seeing how you replace the fx though is making me think that may not even be necessary. Cheers! 👊
shifting the clap with track delay removes the transient from the kick transient. There is a bpm reverb time calculator aswell, maybe have a look into it. In digitackt, using micro timing does the same thing, (assuming step 5 and 13 are used.)
Its fun how sometimes you're very serious about working for electron but them not sponsoring, but sometimes you're like sigh gotta say it so here it goes as fast as possible
That 6k-7k, that's (some of) the most beautiful sound of speakers and often over-crowded. Good to attenuate it and soften in mixing or individual tracks. Mixing mistake definitely to over-crowd 3k-8k or w/e, not attenuating enough to make room Basically 12-15 min is correct or proper in controlling the volume and attenuating the harsh, making things even
I don't know anything about this stuff... (I'm a classical musician) but have you worked with Overstayer? From what I've seen it's a scary machine on another level...
can you please tell elektron to add eq tweaking in the digitakt/digitone internal mixer for external inputs please.. It would really help minimalist dawless elektron tracks with other gear sound more polished rather than muddy
Do you actually mix and master on the AIAIA's? Al lovely as they are, they are so off, that without the SoundID it would be impossible (for me) to mix, EQ and master.
ok so that weird, to me, low cut on the kick, I tried that on a track I'm sending to another producer dj and it did wonders. It's weird how it worked. the sub just flows with a little sidechain and the kick is taking up like no space lol. it's a....errrr riddimmy dubstep type of track and the basses are just huge. drums came off my digitakt. I used pigments to synthesize the bass.
I always put every thing before comp cause all the control it does gonna be changing after even something like eq is there a reason for putting them after it? like cause it's electronic and everything have already more control or like it's gonna make it more alive after a pre control? is there a reason for it?
This track is a vibe. Great video man. That guitar did come out of nowhere lol. Not sure what your amp/fx chain is for the guitar but would be interested to learn how you go about playing that into your interface. Just ableton plugins to simulate an amp or what? Cheers man.
Great content! One question, I see that you are using your DAW more to finish tracks. I think you mentioned that you like to test them out at the club after doing a rough mix. Does that mean that you are doing less DAWless performances in favor of spinning more polished tracks?
Yea I love DJ'ing because it 98/100 times sounds better than a dawless live set haha. of course compressors and limited on your end of chain live set help a TON but nothing sounds as polished as just playing some carefully mixed and mastered tracks! I'm down for live gigs, but I won't do a live gig at some dive bar in k-town to nobody who cares about where the music is coming from lol
So, here's the thing I always find difficult: You mix all your sounds to perfect relative levels. As soon as you start adding compression and saturation to a group of tracks these relative levels are out the door, right? No idea how much each individual element gets affected by the saturation. So yeah, ears, sure, but I am simply not trained enough to trust them to help me make a mix that works in the club. (I often find my percussion slamming WAY to hard in a club setting). So question: how do you check individual/relative levels after you've done group effects?
it is tricky. I notice a lot of times when I add a group compression that my clap becomes WAY "louder" than I originally heard it. especially when the kick isn't present in the pattern. I like to think of it like rolling pizza dough.. you're stretching one volume up and other things start shifting around. Eventually you get into a nice area. I only started to recognize habits my sounds would do after doing it for awhile. Another fun trick I used to do to check tricky percussion sounds was to turn my monitor waaayyy down. then turn the percussion tracks ALL the way down.. and slowly raise them with my eyes closed until I could barely hear them at a quiet monitor level. usually helped me get it in a decent ball park. Most times with monitors set to low my percussion would be sticking out like a sore thumb haha!
The attack and the release (with gain reduction) manages the pump of the tails and the details, the rhythm - groove - excitement. the bounce of the loop or drums