Just wondering what your musical background is, i have never touched an instrument in my life untill recently and just started looking into piano lessons. Is there any fundamental music theory you like to follow when creating solid, bass lines?
thanks for all the inspiration!

I was lucky and I learned guitar at a very young age (about 8) and then played the trumpet in middle school. I come from a musical family, and that coupled with some musical training at a young age helped me to have a great start with it. The hardest thing was when I moved to college and decided that even if i was a virtuoso guitarist, I could probably never really make money with it and ppl wouldn't really care. At that point, I decided to look into making electronic music and got into FL studio and reason and simple programs like that. The hardest part for me was learning how to play piano, but now I would say thats one of my strongest points. I have a lot of theoretical training in music so it just was a matter of building up the muscles in my hands.

For a beginner, I would definitely look into piano lessons, but I was self taught so if you have some determination you could definitely do it on your own. I think that a grasp of melodic changes and traditional music theory is almost more important the physical skill of being able to play, but that will help you out in the end

This could be very useful information too me but I'm a little bit confused...

I took an Ill Gates workshop, and I don't know if it was a personal habit of his, but he boosted almost every track a little bit in the 250-350hz range... I started doing this and noticed the mids in my tracks started to fill in a little more and not sound so empty... but it still sounds really empty in that range... So my ears are not very sensitive to mid range frequencies, is there anything I'm not doing that you are?

My question is if you only cut those freqs on the bass? I just seem to have heavy lows with crackling highs in most of my tracks, it's getting better, but I still listen to other tracks such as yours that are so thick across the entire spectrum, and I question what I'm missing... you think you could you shed some on this?

some of my friends say it's ableton's sound engine, and that i should use logic or reason if I want good sound... but I think that's a bunch of crap, so maybe you could clear this up for me...

and thanks in advance for doing this... I was really hoping they'd do a QA for you on here! : )

Can you explain your bass sequencing process a little bit? do you have pre-made bass patches and lazer sounds that you load onto a controller and tinker/experiment with? how do you keep a fluid workflow? when I sit down to write, i get bogged down in tweaking massive/circle/whatever just right, and then I hit another sticking point because haven't developed a way to play my new patches/notes with other patches/notes, or to press random buttons (MPC style) until ive written a groove that I like. If you're going thru hundreds of bass sequences, how do you streamline the creation and selection process?

Can't say thank you enough. Freshness is already sounding better.

Big ups Samples, ur shit is the bomb


Question, could you give us a run through of how you make the hard/grinding/fuzzy basslines like in Montauk Point? vst/effects/eq'ing? been having trouble getting a good fuzzyness to my basslines, please shed some light

mad thanks

The idea of cutting out your mid-low frequencies in that range is that most instruments have a presence in that range so it gets really muddy in the mix really quickly. If you solo the instrument and boost that range, it will sound better and warmer, but when you keep the rest of the instruments turned on and listen to the mix as a whole, it will sound much better if you cut back those frequencies on the mid-bass and bass channel.

A lot of the process of mixing and mastering is about the mix to sound even and full before you go to master stages, and then fix the minor problems in the master stage. Mids are really easy to fix by using a light boost on your master channel EQ at about 250hz (which i almost always do) and then giving some harmonic excitement or something like tube warmth. This will fill in those ranges without the muddy sound you hear in a lot of beginners production

I start all my bass sound design with a simple initial patch that I made on massive. Its just a saw, but i have some EQ applied and distortion so that I don't have to repeat those pretty basic steps every time i make a sound. I usually like to start with sounds that are pretty simple, usually one or 2 oscillators and then maybe a filter. From there, I will write a few different riffs and keep anything that i like. I do a lot of pitch bending and re-editing midi sequencing, so here is where I start getting creative. After messing up the riff so it sounds cool, i usually revisit the bass sound and tweak things to make it sound nastier.

As far as streamlining and being able to do it fast, its really just a matter of practice and developing a method that you're good at. If I was using some synth that I've never used before, it would take me a lot longer to get a cool sound than using somehting like massive that I'm really comfortable with. Again tho, practice is the most important thing for doing it fast, if I hadn't made 400+ massive patches than it would take me way longer to make even a simple patch today

Montauk Point was a few different Massive patches, and its really easy to experiment with different saw/square combinations in Massive. Those are typically gonna be your nastier sounds because harmonically a saw wave is the only full wave. Another cool way to make the dirty bass sounds really active is to mess around and put some modulation in the oscillators wavetable so they can feel like they're moving or at least active. A plain bass with no movement usually is just kinda boring, like something from the 80s. I've been having a lot of success using izotope Trash for adding some dirt to bass leads, but I find it sounds a lot better when you keep your synths a little simpler. I also tend to not use any compression or limiting on the bass, and this way you have a little more to work with on the master channel to make it stand out more

"THE MOST IMPORTANT EQ PARAMETER is to cut the frequencies around 250hz as this will just create a lot of mud in your kick that makes it sound bland in the mix."
Sorry to be the noob here but how do you go about eq-ing the kick drum proper but still cutting out the 250hz range in the kick? With the High, mid, and low kick, do i cut off the mid kick where the low kick ends so they kind of connect?like if i had a low kick @ 30-49hz, mid kick @49-1khz and the high @ 1khz-2khz, is this right or do i want them to over lap in thier frequency range? hope this makes some sence...lol
:/

How do you juggle being Pimp Punany Slayer of the Year, and Pimp Production Slayer of the Future?
And on a typical day how many liters of Vodka do you drink, and what is currently your favorite brand of Vodka?

The low part of your kick should have a pitch envelope associated with it, because without that sound its pretty much impossible to get a regular sounding kick drum. Because of this, eqing the 250hz range out makes it so you aren't sweeping across all the frequencies with the attack of the kick drum. This way you achieve a much higher level of clarity in your drum, because anything with a pitch envelope associated with it will typically sound generic without cuts in the EQ. Hope this helps, basically what I'm saying is there will be overlap as most of your samples will be having pitch envelopes. Usually its easiest to not let your mid range sample go all the way to 50hz too, I usually high pass filter it from 150hz up to 300hz

When it comes to Juggling women, its easier to let them think you don't care about them at all. That way when they call and you blow them off for another girl they'll just be upset with you for a day or 2, but then they come back. And of course, I never cook girls breakfast, so its easier to get my Production Slaying done when i tell them to leave.

Typically 1 liter of vodka per day, and my fave is Svedka. And at least 6 PBRs a day, all after I make 6 tunes that I will never release or even let ppl listen to

Awesome sauce Cleared it right up

How much do you charge for workshops and are you gonna be in the bay over the next couple of months?

I've never done a workshop but I would probably only ask for $30 a person. We can try to set one up sometime, but it wouldn't be til April

Well if it's in Cali... I'm there!!! : )

I have another question that I've been meaning to ask.... but i'll keep it brief

When it comes to production on a professional level... would you say you've learned more on your own or more from other more knowledgeable people? I'm curious because I've seen great producers mostly self-taught and others who just had an already good producer walk them through it.... basically what or who got you from being just another mediocre producer to the awesome 'samples' that you are today

I'm basically self taught but there have been a lot of people that I've worked with and that have helped me out over the years. I think the key to my success has kinda been based around getting lucky here and there, but i also have worked really hard non-stop for a few years to get this place. A big part of how I make money and get my name out there is playing a lot of shows, so I use that as a publicity thing and network a lot. I used to do way too many free gigs just to get my name out there but now I'm lucky enough that I don't have to do it. With music just like anything else you end up getting out what you put in, so if you're trying to make it as a musician than you just have to put the time in. I even lost a girlfriend because I would constantly go out and network, and it caused a lot of problems with us, but I'd rather be here with my career than where I was with something worse (like a kid lol)

words of wisdom ^

Is there anyway of finding a video of that workshop you did at that Laptop Battle in Colorado?

:[/quote]

The classical listener used to expect certain changes in music and todays listener is content with listening to one tempo with one key for an hour. I'd like to change that[/quote]

That sir, is what's up. Tempo changes and key changes are good, fo sho.

Thank you very much Samples.