I see the light!!!!

[Hardnox]

Another DUC thread that started out as a great post, exchanging great techniques, ideas and philosophies, now it's turned ito a shouting match. Fellas, compare **** sizes later. In the meantime, can we get back to making music now? This was a great thread about recording and mixing hip-hop. Let's attempt to get back to it. Thank you.

[threesixty]

. Let's attempt to get back to it. Thank you.[/QB]

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">cool ..

question 1)

I appreciate SSL's responses and its all good.
At the moment I have an mpc with 8 outs but I also have a TLA fat 2 (single channel pre/amp compressor thing).

Is it worth tracking each drum sound (8 bars) through the fat 2 instead of doing all 8 tracks at once. Is it worth turning on the compressor for each track or will the valve thing on its own improve the sound of the drums? (bare in my I have the sound in the mpc ok anyway).

question 2)
Do a lot of beat makers put sine waves under their kicks to get that low frequency boom sound, or is that just eq'd in. Or is it layerd with an 808 bass sound??

question 3)
are they putting gates on all the drum channels (or using strip silence?) to keep the noise build up down to a minimum when its in tools?

question 4)
When you pan sounds do you try to balance it in the mix with an opposite sound? I've been experimenting with duplicating for e.g. a shaker track. panning one hard left, the other hard right and delay one of the tracks a couple of samples. (maybe eq'ing it a bit).

I've noticed that even though theres alot of panning on commercial tracks they all seem to sound good in mono. I was wondering how they managed that without off setting each sound with something else?

anyone on this forum making any commercial r'n'b / hip hop releases???

[DrTone]

Is it worth tracking each drum sound (8 bars) through the fat 2 instead of doing all 8 tracks at once.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Yep, better track each sound separat. Several reasons: firstly, the BD-energy pushes the compressor so that for the release-time evrything else vanishes, esp. high-frequency content starts to pump. This is not something you desire while tracking. Secondly the attack/release times vary from instrument to instrument to make it sound good. Eg. a Snare might use a slower attack for the snap but a HH might sound better with a fast attack, to avoid harshness. There are some more reasons... but I think thats already enough.

Do a lot of beat makers put sine waves under their kicks to get that low frequency boom sound, or is that just eq'd in.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Dunno a lot of beat makers, but layering with a sine wave is very common. For simplicity do it already within the sampler or within the synth.

are they putting gates on all the drum channels (or using strip silence?) to keep the noise build up down to a minimum when its in tools?

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Speaking for me I hate gates. Either I mute channels manually or I use an expander but never a gate. I just dislike the sound. Mostly the "noise" is not much of a problem because its the natural ringing an rattling of a drum kit. As for headphone bleeding this is something else. Get a proof headphone.

When you pan sounds do you try to balance it in the mix with an opposite sound?

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Not really. Hard panning can be used for catching the attention of the listener or for creating ambience.

Dan

[Still No SSL Yet]

Good we are finally back to real posts.

In response to 360’s ?

1 When 360 asked about laying 2 sounds through his processor or all 8 at the same time. I really don’t think he meant on the same track. So to answer question one of your post, If you find that your outboard gets the sound you want then process it on the way end. It’s all about the sound and only you can judge. If you don’t hear a benefit then dump all 8 at once. I don't know much about your outboard piece so it's hard to say what I would do

2 Layer the sine wave in the MP before ptools. Not that it is much better, but I just like to hear my stuff as good as possible while sequencing

3 As far as gates, you shouldn’t have a tremendous amount of noise from your MP just edit the samples real well

4 As far as the shaker thing I sometimes track the same one twice (or simply duplicate the track and nudge it forward a bit. It gives a bigger sound and stretches the sound between speakers(when you pan them in opposite directions like 11 and one oclock. But try to keep your question in mind when sequencing. Think about the mix from the moment you start sampling new sounds. Start coming up with layers from square one. (there is a reason why the MP lets one pad trigger other sounds). Listen to the shaker patterns in records. It seems they were thinking left right placement and balance from the beginning. So should you. Never instinctively say “this is a shaker I will pan hard left” Listen to the mix and try several positions. I personally use more than one shaker or pan the shaker and the hat in different directions to get things rolling.

Man 360 send me an email and I will give you a few secrets on how to have quality hip hop sounds without ever having to buy another keyboard module again. I have been doing this for some time. I am a student of the game and I have picked up a few low budget secrets that work really well.

Man I don’t know if it’s your cup of Tea, but I was on the last Mystikal record.

[planet X]

Man I just realized we have been giving real suggestions and this x person is going to meet MM for coffee. Could that be Mixer Man?

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Certainly Not Because I said:

I really want to be proved wrong. as a PT user and a happy one beleive it or not......I would like to get rid of the cumbersome console. Until I hear something 'Hot' its staying. Pt's is a marvelous tool.with some minor flaws. No Big deal, I just fail to see why so many in here wont, cant accept this.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Anyway MM is muchh to intelligent to debate in this thread..

Ok fellas this is my last response to this internet clown. I'm sure by now from the exchange of posts it is clear who has no sense here. I believe my degree in marketing and my MBA give me the right to talk any bit of slang I choose.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">But at least im no internent clone. So your MBA gives you the right to talk slang. Of course you have the right to talk any way you wish. The fact that you even said that had me rolling around laughing. I hope you are being sarcastic....

The original poster 'threesixty' started this thread and initially I was fooled into beleiving he needed some help or advice. I ask you all to read his first 3 posts and look at his replies carefully.

The replies he has agreed with are in his mission statements. My point being, why start saying you can get the 'sound' and then in the very next post you 'Cant' get the sound.

Could it be you just dont know what you want. Or is there some other agenda. I'm at aloss now.

I suspect fully you just wanted 'Yes' men.

You have come to the right place.

I'm off for dinner with MM now

For a less confrontational forum try............

[ejsongs]

to threesixty:

I really think that you are thinking about this too hard. Most hip hop guys I know just make whatever they have work. I don't write that much hip hop myself but I do alot of r&b and I do a lot of sessions for both R&B and hip hop(Ja Rule, 3rd storee, etc) and happen to be there for a lot of the tracking process and mixing.

Both the 3rd storee and Ja rule records were recorded on ssl either 4000 G+ or the 9K. Most of the time the kick and snares were running though DBX 160 comp or just using the eq and comps on the board before they hit PT. Kick and snare are almost always layered.

For the bottom end on kick a lot of guys layer the kick with 808's or 909's or just use bottom heavy kicks. Many mixer such as dave Pensado or dexter simmons actualy replace kicks or add sub harmonics to kicks and or bass during the mix..

Many times the kicks and snare that you hear on records did not sound that way when the came out of the MPC or SP1200 but were tweaked. Trust me, you would be suprised. You have to remember that a lot of producers that you like have the budgets to just sit in a ssl or euphonics room to just write and almost always have an engineer to track it for them.

Having said all that do you have to have an ssl or an engineer to make it bump...of course not!!! I've herad some of the tracks when they were just rough ideas and they still bumped. A lot of it comes down to sound selection. everybody gets most of their kicks and snare from records and as you know they are already compressed and eq'd. As far as plug ins are concerned, I've found that the drawmer comp hits the hardest for kicks and snares and 2nd place goes to channel strip. You can get great results with them. You just have to experiment to get the sound that you like but a alot of it realy does comes down to the sounds that you start with.

The accoustics of the room that you are working in plays a big roll as well. It is hard to tell if your kicks and snares have enough punch and/or low end if your room and monitors don't accurately depict what is going on. I learned that one the hard way. I quess what I'm trying to say is that it makes life a lot easier if you can hear what is going on in the first place so that you can choose the right sounds in the begining instead of trying to fix them after the fact.

If you need to fix the later then there are a few plug that go above and beyond what eqing and compressing can do. Lo fi is ok but Logic has 2 plugs that completely saved my !@#@ on a few occasions namely bit crusher and enveloper. Bit crusher can really make kicks and basses sound dirty while enveloper adds attack. You also always have the choice of using sound replacer to add or layer som stuff as well.

One more thing tracking only 2 tracks from an MPC at a time can be a bad idea. MPC's drift and it drives me crazy. Although you may get the sound that you want you may completey screw up the groove. the feel of the track is more important than the sounds. If you decide to go that route then remember to put a blank bar at the top of the sequence. I also find that midi beat clock works better than smpte for MPCs. what some people do is to print a stereo track of the drums and then print individual tracks and then line up corresponding parts to the sample with in the first few bars. I find it easier to print as many things at once as I can and just deal with it. thats how it is done in the bigg studios

I hope this helps and I hope that this isn't too basic for you. I just was reading the post and really just wanted to say to you that most of the guys that you like don't think about that hard. they just do it and bump it loud until it feels good. they do have some help in getting the sounds that they use but it is nothing that you can't do yourself. Just listn and do what feels right.

ej

P.s. You can get some amazing results if you put master x followed by L2 and the stereo buss as well.

[dsd_studios]

Crazy man!!!!!! for hip-hop and R&B drums i'll use Reason with Digital Performer and sequence through there. Reason has a killer drum module that you can patch out individually to any channel in Dig Performer. Up to 64 channels out. And if i wanna get more analog, ill load the samples into my triton, and run it out one of my focusrite pre's and into the 888. Gotta layer them drums to get the phat sounds. Reason's drum machine has pitch, velocity, and other parameters so you can really dirty up drum samples and alter there sounds. After my sequences are built and sounds are laid down, ill transfer it into protool for the final showdown. Everything stays 24bit 44.1k from start to finish. I'm lookin around for a analog 8trk recorder to add to my set-up.

[Still No SSL Yet]

Thank you ej songs

As usual your post made sense and was right to the point.

Out of what he said there a few things I'd like to emphasize.
1 Your thinking about it too hard
2 Most major artists usually just track throught the board's onboard processing
If you break this down to your level You'lll see why I was saying you should buy 2 channels of quality processing and run everything through it. Though he did raise a good point about the MPC's drift. My point was that If you get 2 high quality channel strips. Then it will mean all of your stuff was tracked through the same quality board as any major act.

Ånd when I refered to layering I was talking about the process of soundreplacing and adding subharmonics tha Dave and KD often do to sounds. If you learn to layer your stuff correctly straight from the MPC you will be ahead of the game because many of the hottest producers simply have someone else do it

Make it happen with what you have. Experiment with all the tools around you. It will work

[threesixty]

Hi ej,
did you record "get with me" for 3rd storee?
I love the mix on that track. There something on the vocals in the chorus that sound like a vocoder or some PT effect on the vox, what is that??

I'm really into that "are we cuttin" beat by Pastor Troy and the Petey Pablo beat for "I" that Timabaland done. I find it hard to get a great low bass sound that is loud but doesnt distort.

Is anyone using an SE 1 for their bass sound?
or is it just samples???

Thanks for the info btw, not many people talk about hip hop/r'n'b on these forums yet 50% record sales is probably urban music, thats so strange ... ;-)

[threesixty]

Originally posted by Still No SSL Yet:
[QB]Thank you ej songs

1 Your thinking about it too hard
2 Most major artists usually just track throught the board's onboard processing
If you break this down to your level You'lll see why I was saying you should buy 2 channels of quality processing and run everything through it. Though he did raise a good point about the MPC's drift. My point was that If you get 2 high quality channel strips. Then it will mean all of your stuff was tracked through the same quality board as any major act.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Cool .. I have to think hard cos they're arent many where I am (UK) who know what they're doing for hip hop/r'n'b. So I think I need to learn how everyone stateside is doing there sh*t cos I need my sh*t to compete. And I have to produce and engineer everything just to get on (until I get some more dough!!!).

Anyway, What channel strips are you talking about?
IS the channel strip plugin a worthy substitute?

Thanks for the advice btw, I will be emailing you soon...