@@darz_k. This is especially important for the low end. Make sure to pick a key where the lowest note of your bass line is in a sweet spot between to muddy and deep enough by changing the pitch by half steps. You can do this with all other instruments too. For acoustic instruments, the way they are played also matters.
But the thing is these aren't even kept as "secrets". These things are really just naturally adapted through years of experience and one wouldn't even think about explaining this to a beginner because they wouldn't even notice themselves that this is their thought process. It's amazing really how he can teach us small things that makes a huge difference
Everything is about context. If you mean the meme of "cheesy music", then the context is what you do with that perception. Do you make a meta joke about your cheesy bass line? Do you lean into the concept fully and make an absurdly loud 4 bar loop that hits really loud? Do you invert the concept, and use it as a way to shock the audience before the "real music" kicks in? Or do you just avoid the perception entirely, and then you know what it is that you do not want to create as music?
Great advice. I don't make music anymore but i remember learning lessons like this the hard way through 1000s of hours of experimenting, listening to my tracks in actual clubs and stuff. Some great advice that i can give is to try to copy your favourite music, you will hit roadblocks quite quickly and it will show you what you don't know yet, so you can then search for the information more directly
+1 This is what I do all the time. The only negative I can think of is that we have to be able to rub away the sound of the artists' we were 'studying' when the time finally comes for us to create something original. Otherwise, that's just copying.
id say the higher octave sounds more cheesy but thats maybe just me, but i agree with you that the change in octave is actually a sweet development if used together
another tip for aspiring prodeucers who don't want cheesiness: start out making songs in minor keys... major is arguably the hardest key to work with, after locrian. it's not easy to make something non-cheesy with it. it's also very easy to make something really happy with minor, contrary to how minor is usually described. try making a VI-VII-v-i progression, for example. in A minor, that would be F-G-Em-Am. seriously, it's a great, happy-sounding progression. try throwing in a #VII (G#CD# here)in there, too, it can add some spice to the progression, the sky's the limit here
I love simple tricks that you never think of despite seeming obvious. I'm on board too, sometimes when I say "finishing touches" on a project, that means I'm sitting in my editor incrementing a value in the default window then running it from the top. I know I like what I created, it just doesn't sound good yet lol Great video! The overlay information you add like "|----| subbass would sit here" is so helpful and entertaining to boot.
I love these short to the point videos covering the problem and the solution in a few minutes, rather than the 30 minute videos one comes across from other RU-vidrs where they have to try to sell you something at least 3 times in the video and you feel like they could have covered the same thing in a third of the time.
I think you shoulda started this video with your definition of cheesy. That concept seems subjective. I absolutely love both, for what it's worth. I think having it at the lower octave sounds... More solemn, nervous, or mournful. In shock. Processing. Lots of uncertainty. But version two sounds only triumphant, with no possibility that anything has gone poorly. It's almost a shame to waste the version that is that line on that octave. Is this full track anywhere online? I would love to scribble on it for funsies. Anyway I'll finish watching the video. Only halfway through... 😃
this is incomprehensible. 6 minutes of... what, noting the concept of register? your initial example didn't sound "cheesy" it just had a lot of arbitrary emptiness. this isn't "why your tracks sound cheesy" its just a video of you making decisions for specific sounds in a specific track based near exclusively on vibes.
That was pretty cool, thanks for sharing your knowledge about how changing just the octaves makes it’s a sweet and very uplifting feeling, more brighter
This is what I was thinking of lately ! It's amazing how this video was suggested to me at the right moment ! Great content, thank you ! And your music sounds so good !
I think that's the first thing you realise when you start making music. How to place instruments in "space" and "time". Like in classical music:-). (chord breakdown, layering)
I did a track a cpl nights ago(for my wife as a valentines gift- it will premier on valentines on my channel rofl) where I took an 808, made one pattern, then copied it and all the mixing plugins(compressor for sidechain, util for stereo widening, and a cpl other things) and the pattern, but i pitched it down an octave for the sub, aand i put an eq 8 on the main where i made room for the sub. I also made the sub super wide comparatively.
I could definitely tell there was something more going on in the high end in the one-two comparison at the beginning. I didn't realise that moving whole parts up or down an octave could sound so similar. I guess with the synths there's a lot of overtones so it wouldn't be as noticeable as on an acoustic instrument.
Under ~30 hz, you stop hearing that sound and start feeling it and typically you're only going to see those kinds of subwoofers capable of outputting those frequencies at festival grounds.
My basses always sound like absolute crap, i seriously don't know what to do at this point, even with the tip from this video it just sounds awful. :'(
