Looks like Steve Duda is at the root of the Deadmau5 Kick Rant - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-5Bzu8xNp5X4.html Shoutout to Pyramind & Marcell Kovacs for sparking this whole video! Full 3hr Duda Video - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-MOUkI5hH2HY.html
if you want to know why staying big picture makes you more creative rather then focusing on something specific look up diffused mode in psychology and you can see this is actually a part of how the human brain works
back in th' 80's before genres you have an idea about what you want your song, your creation, to be like, maybe how it fits into ambient memetics, but not to fit into a generic application. if you let people tell you how to do something, to define your vision by trust, you are open to all manner of poisons. sustaining, humming kicks are fun as fuck to ride on, to bounce up and down on, pending actually having decent acoustics, but this one tale can trap you into a practice that can rob you of your finest years of creativity and impulse. in the early 90s nobody was ignoring gabber because the kicks were too long... boingboingboing that's good stuff.
yeah that was the biggest take away for me, make the kick a reference point for the listener so they think its big, and then, go BIGGER with the bass haha, cool tip
Deadmau5 and Duda are real good because they're some of the few dance producers to put "you can't have loud without quiet" into practice. In an age of dance music that's all brick walls sausage limited, it's nice to hear their stuff.
Watch the whole Pyramind talk! Duda is so insightful and you'll remember his tips years down the track! One that stuck with me is, when you introduce a new instrument or sound, automate the volume (e.g using Utility in Ableton) instead of the Gain for the entire track. This lets you bring that instrument track into focus for a moment, and then back down once its had its moment (and automate it back down to clear space in your mix)
As a wise man once said: Production is *reduction.* I'm an amateur but I am starting to think about my mixes in this way too. Typically I find when I start getting a general vibe going I start muting various elements - and per what I learned in another Sol State vid, if you don't miss the element you just paused, don't bring it back! Think of kicks this way too, in the context of your mix if you shorten it and it works better, don't elongate it again because it sounds good on its own. Think about preserving the core of your idea as much as possible.
All good tips. Side note, learning to effectively simplify takes time, so don't get discouraged. I think this is the video Winterlogical mentioned - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-QZf8mzMD0Oo.html
This is so odd to read because I came to this exact conclusion last night while working on something. After 8 years of producing lol. Twisting my melon man.
margix the same rules apply to an orchestra, you don't want your kettle drums banging away when your tuba or bassoon is trying to play a melody. There's a difference between playing and composition and this video is primarily about composition not playing. But it was nice of you to stop by.
Steve Duda is the one who came up with so many of the clever tricks deadmau5 uses and its unreal how well together they work. They were made for each other
12 years of making music and I still get a tiny tip from Steve almost every time I hear him talk... Also I've played about 40 of my own productions on "big systems"... you don't want muddy low end, for sure.
@@margix1172 I can play 8 different "real" instruments proficiently and I still enjoy both listening to and producing electronic music, but go off I guess.
Thanks for letting me know your opinion, I'm trying to find the balance. Got many comments asking for summary style videos too. Feel free up to upvote Plag Mag's comment if you agree.
Creativity and editing are mutually exclusive. A good workflow I've developed over the years is to first add all the ingredients without judgement or editing). I then come back to edit and remove what's not adding to the core of the track to make it stronger/better. Following this I'll come back to review prior to mixing to make sure nothing is overlooked like wonky programming. After taking a break I'll come back to mix with fresh ears. And then finally come back to master with fresh ears. This separation is more about the headspace required to do each task properly, because it actively requires different parts of the brain and to do it effectively requires preparation and the proper mindset.
I don't think creativity and editing are fully mutually exclusive, but i know this workflow helps MANY people. I think it's just nice to know what hat your wearing - creator/editor - and not stray too far. A big part of what you're saying is about taking breaks - which works wonders for me too!
Recently, I've found this to be true. Shorter kicks really makes a difference when aiming to create more space. Your channel is my favorite for music production and I won't get tired of saying it. Those edits of the kicks graphically showing what Steve was explaining was spot on. Big fan.
@@margix1172 So bitter. At least I already play the piano. Though, thanks to all this technology we can create extremely complex sounds that not many instruments allow us to express.
@@margix1172 learn to chill, these are different pursuits. do you yell the same thing to people doing talk radio or people painting or building furniture?
@@cornoc For sure LOTS of "modern art" (read CRAP) have the same value compared to a Michelangelo or Leonardo paint like a piece of shit in front to the Gioconda . And so is for "music" made with dumb machines, more humans use computers and more DUMB they become.
this next tip is also very useful in arrangements: there's a psychoacoustic effect that states that the listener gets completely used to the constant bass/sub bass in about _40 seconds_ (or even less). so by that time, huge kicks won't sound huge, constant basses won't be as good. that's why Duda talks about _excitement:_ if you make breakdowns or just parts without kick/bass relatively often, you preserve the punch and the excitement, the listener doesn't get bored/used to it (if you don't want to remove your sub, you can also change its pitch, btw!) also, if you are making techno with huge quarter note humming and rumbling kicks, try making the sample of the kick fall in volume (doesn't have to be to -inf db), this will 1) preserve the punch and the excitement 2) allow for much more headroom in general, not just in the low end hope this helps! :p
I'm a passionate producer and musician for over 40 years now. (I created this account just to comment, I don't want to reveal my artist name), Quincy Jones is a close friend of mine. I remember when he asked me: "Who do you make your music for?" ... I answered "for no one but myself!".... And Quincy laughed and said, "Right answer! Only for you! Not for the others, not for any events, and not for the clubs! Just for YOU!" ... Then I said "but of course it means the world to me if others like it and I make money with my music!" Quincy laughed again and said "Of course! And it's the best feeling in the world to become successful with something you made just for you!". I would never mix music like that to have the poor acoustics of a club in mind. If a great track that was mixed in an acoustically perfect room is terrible booming in a club, then the problem is the acoustics of the club, not the track. The video just made me shake my head, because there are tracks with long 808 kick drums, with a fat sub bass underneath, and in an acoustically good club it sounds incredible! So my advice to any real producer: Make music for YOU, not to please others. Mix your track the way YOU like it, but still keep certain basic rules in mind. Don't ask yourself if your track sounds good in a stupid club, if it sounds great on a reference system, on your kitchen radio, on a hi-fi system and in the car, then you've done everything right! Deadmau is a cool guy, but his music and methods are not to be taken as a reference. END OF STORY.
That's a great story, but the reality of the music business is that the trailblazers get to live that what Q said and then the endless clones make music to please others. And I don't know that in and of itself that's a bad thing, but it is quite often. However, I have made music to please others many times in my life. Who hasn't written a song to impress a girl? I've made dance tracks when the pleasure I get isn't from the song, but seeing the effect it has on people in the club, and most musicians will agree that seeing the effect on others is the true rush of being onstage. I like Deadmau5 a lot, but I think his music is trash. He makes fun of Skrillex for being a moron, but the complexity of Equinox blows away anything mau5 has ever done. Funny isn't it?
Imagine being a sound engineer working in a venue and not caring about the acoustic of the place. "Hey, it sounds good in theory, but the venue sounds bad..." That would make for a very short career :)
I couldn't manage to explain this effect in English on my own, but I was asking about his take on this in an earlier stream. I think the key here to have the ability to go for bow tie or standing waves, depending what you're trying to achieve.
@@funb1te Exactly. This is the best example of how you should take every lesson but you don't need to follow every one of them all the time because not every project is the same. If you want more pump then go for bow tie but if you want this sharp ebm style sidechain then you should do opposite.
Seems like Steve likes more space than Fox, but I think it's a bit more nuanced and genre dependant. Standing waves (especially in clubs) are more about frequency build up toward the end of a sound, whereas the bowtie is more about phase cancellation in the middle.
I love how this somehat contradicts what Fox Stevenson always says. Fox is obsessed about not loosing bass. I say yes you do want to loose bass sometime cause bass rhythm is groovier than wall of bass that happens all the time
@@SolStateMusic some kind of dynamics is important though for sure, I have a tune I heard on a system recently that had the same problem as the deadmau5 one; not enough sub dynamics and it’s just a big swimming pool of bass and it loses impact, where as the stuff that I think I have lopped too much out of hits way better! Even just pitch movement in the sub will help you defeat this. I think the emphasis on movement (Steve: wat it dooooo) is super important, wether it comes from gain reduction or freq is dependent on song/style
This long kick "debate" wouldn't be a thing if people took in consideration where a music genre is suppose to be play. Big room for exemple is a festival genre (like big room techno or hardstyle), so the kick have that space to live and stay punchy because festival happens outside or in really big space, but playing big room stuff in club doesn't make sense. DJing culture is progressively being replace by "producer culture" where producer play as DJ without having the knowledge of what DJing is all about (they just play their own track in their own niche genre because it's easier/cheaper than doing a live show), and new producer/DJ see those big name that are great producer, but not all great DJ, but they took them as reference for DJing, and so they don't see why a genre can't be play anywhere and don't apply this knowledge to their production. I know it's a theory that sound like non sense, but it's a slow thing I notice that happen over a long time period, not just in 2 or 3 years.
i def see where youre coming from, since production is coming more available to people, its the main entry point for new musicians, certainly was for me, and you see the largest 'DJs' who are really producers using large festivals as a circuit to share their music, whereas the art of DJing to a crowd has been left behind. Still, theres something to be said how one skill can be learnt quicker than the other
this makes so much sense and was really interesting to read. I completely see what you mean. Do you think all the producers producing electronic music should work on live performance ? I love both of them to be honest. I think a good FOH monitor Ingeneer can go a long way in making the music being played fit the sound system, for a dj & a live show
@@christiand8243 This isn't really about music theory, it's more a thing of (practical) experience/the context in which somebody makes the music - knowing scales won't help with these kind of things, and lists with all the common settings regarding db's, hz's for each genre and the like won't either
I have so many sample packs but always have to make my own kicks, kicks drive me up the wall in sample packs, you can always tell a kick that is made from a kick generator like Big kick, or kick 2, because there is always a gap between the hit and the sub layer, they’re always so boomy and long, I’ve always found using shorter kicks are so much cleaner for mixes, oliver is good with this too.
just use good headphones for 2000$ and more and everything be good go for FOSTEX TH900 OR ABBYS OR AUDEZE and u dont care about creating kicks. Fuck people with shitty system
I’ve never heard music explained like this. “Feels like water after being in the desert” when talking about deprecation of bass. Love the commentary and short form video. Thank you!!!
I wish I had someone to help me out like this, Joel is really lucky to have met him, I strongly believe without Steve there would be no Deadmau5 or at least we would have a very different Mau5 lol. I have been doing music production for quite sometime all by myself and just starting to get noticed a bit now only years later. It's a tough life but alright, I really do manage by myself, but it gets tough at times and I wish I had someone to share the passion with in my studio. I learn everything myself. I would die to have a friend this cool to geek out with at the very least, magic is meant to happen when people make such cool and strong connections. Cheers and thank you immensely for sharing that!
Flashcore producers clearly were 20years ahead (almost 30 even, look up Cybermouse - Adrenalin Structure) of everyone else. The concept of sounds being as short as possible is basically the idea behind its inception as La Peste notes in the Flashcore Manifesto. However its not only kicks its literally sonic manipulation at atomic level. IMO the ultimate in electronic music.
I didn't know I was using the same deadmau5 method for searching right kick 😂 But years ago I was getting lost in searching or synthesizing the right one. Now if it sounds good it is the right one, and I go to the next part. 💁♂️😁
I come from rock music, where traditionally nothing is played in clubs, and the kick and bass are eq’ed out of each other’s way. So when they say genre matters, it makes me laugh, cos in rock you can have much longer kicks. In fact, the short transient kicks in dance music really surprised me when I started listening to EDM stuff
@@notnoaintno5134 That’s very true, although for different reasons, right? Because those metal kicks have to be a sixteenth note long or shorter because the next hit comes a sixteenth note later. It might be interesting to note that the fast metal tends to use samples for their kicks, which is less common in other rock and metal genres.
As for the club systems, everyone has to gauge what their demographic is going to be, if you know you're not making music for the clubs, your mixing philosophy has to shift a little bit.
That's actually kind of similar to what Ian Kirkpatrick said in a stream once: If you want a sound to be huge and hit bigger, turn down all other sounds in relation to that to make it stand out. And also leave enough headroom on all tracks so you can have space to expand into when you want to go louder. If everything is loud, then in relation to each other everything will be the same loudness and that's the same as everything being quiet. That was really an eyeopener for me. It matters, what the sounds do in relation to each other, not what they do in solo.
I used to love “Hey Baby” back then…I always loved those dirty distorted saw wave bass lines in like 2006. I remember I saw deadmau5 playing a club way back before he was as famous, and I asked him to play that song and he just shook his head. Now I know why lol
I have a question: What happens if the style you are producing, the kick is simply the most important part of the song and is simply fastest ? I'm talking about hardcore or even fastest genres like french or terror. How do you make space for this?
It depends on the kick you're making even outside of specific sub genres. Pretty much 99% hardcore kicks go like this Tik - A very short part at the start of the kick that sounds like a "click" or quick "t". Basically, it's the transient that makes the kick pop out. Tok - This is the first sound that a normal listener will first hear. It's essentially the punch that makes the kick standout. Most mainstream hardcore kicks have a woodblock type of sound. For uptempo, its common to hear a "piep" sound. Tail - This is the "last" part the listener will hear. For simplicity, it's the "oomph" or bass of the kick. They are either sidechained in or exists in the kick overall (older hardcore kicks did the latter) These three elements are very important in making a kick. Some kicks might be long and tonal (like an 808 kick) while others might be more bouncy (frenchcore). It depends on what you're aiming for. I'd suggest on getting a kick sample pack (Laur Hardcore Kicks is one) and analyze them. Personally, I think making the tok is the hardest process.
this is so weird to me, how people always think so analytically about everything, like for me I'll just produce shit that sounds good to my ears, and then when I'm done with the song, I'll mix it (that part with a more analytical mindset) and master it and send it off. I'm not trying to solve math equations, I'm just expressing myself through music. I dont spend time working on a kick because the first one that sounds okay to my ears is already the right one. obviously, doing it this way I end up in a loooooot of creative ruts, but, when I finally come back from one, the stuff I make is 10x better than the last time. No idea why, but it happens every time so far
Scorb & divination do a really good vid on kicks.. it's half advertising their Kick2 presets. but great info.. they produce Psytrance. think its on future phonic...
haha i fly through samples like that also in fl studio.. when im looking for a certain sound indeed. think when youre producing for a while you become faster in searching for samples
I had a horrible experience with low end reverb with Capriatti at ADE Awekenings 2016. It was just a rumble, there was no groove to move to. Just contant low end rumble.
When the credit grabbers act like they invented everything 🤦🏾♂️ Dance music wasn't invented by the credit grabbers, especially bass music and how to control it sonically. 🖕🏿 Show us something that hasn't been mastered already, since the 60's, 70's and 80's. 😏 Reggae/Dub. Hip Hop. House. etc etc etc
nice, but if i have to think about creating music this way i,d rather go for knittin in the end, less stress. i hear this guy talking but.......... imo music is all about feeling... capture the moment so if talking about the kick takes this long i wouldn't go talk about bass and melody man.... you would lose me.... but hey thats my opinion no disrespect here because this guys are giants (i Know) but i am glad music to me is not that difficult PEACE
Disagree . I like big kicks, the most logical trick is only instead of sidechain, to only cut the first harmonic if the first note only. (Rolling base) That way there is 0 overlapping
actually this somewhat even applys to hard dance music when u think of the punch as the kick and the tail of the kick as the bass considering that punches in rawstyle got shorter over time and well in uptempo hardcore u barely have a punch nowadays lmao
FYI, deadmau5 wasn't looking for a particular sound of kick drum, he was looking for one that was in the same key as his song. Once he has that, he can process it later
Do people actually go to clubs anymore? All these producer tricks about how to make club music, I reckon about 0.001% of tracks actually end up getting played in an actual club.
Really... deadmau5 kicks almost always over power his bass soo iunno wtf he is talking about... when your kick over powers your moog... you got a problem
The company Balance Mastering has free club soundsystem impulse responses. This could help to approximate the sound of club speakers on studio monitoring / headphone systems.
Studio monitors and acoustic treatment are the best ways to get the "truth" out of the mix, reference it on different systems like PC speakers, car speakers and headphones. If it's a good mix, call it good but if it needs work then back to the studio.
This advice is bad. Long kicks can work well if the other elements of the song are mostly thin. What these people are talking about is making one style of music that was popular years ago.
