KSHMR Production Techniques & Advice

4/20/2015

KSHMR: Production Techniques & Advice

KSHMR PRODUCTION TECHNIQUES & ADVICE

Mid-Side EQ "Not a lot of people, including myself, knows their way around mid-side EQing. It's supposed to be a great trick to get a full & wide sound. Have you used this technique? If so, what do you think of it? And would you be able to explain it any further? Thanks!" -Rachel McGrath Sure I'll talk about this. I'm new to it, but basics: 1) You don't need wide audio in your low end. so take a high pass, set it to sides, and drag up the frequency spectrum until you can hear it affecting the song. 2) A lot of synths presets are very wide these days, so in the final stages of mixing you can use the side EQ to pin point frequencies where synths are rubbing with more precision. You typically won't be affecting the drums — which is great — because those are generally centered. http://welcometokshmr.com/

1/8

4/20/2015


3) Similarly, if you do want to color your drums in mastering, using the mid EQ to boost your kick works well without adding mess to the side information in that range. Lastly: What's most important is that you've got power in the middle as well as the sides. It's easy to lose power in the center. Making a wide synth mono doesn't work. If you want a wide synth to punch in the center, but when you check it in mono it sounds bad, you have two options: a) Experiment with adjusting the oscillators of the synth so that they do not phase (check their detune and voices.) b) Try using Center by WAVES. It allows you to easily remove the side information, and solo what power the synth has driving down the middle (if any.) Hope that helps. -KSHMR

How To Tell When A Drop Is Full " When do you know when you have created and layered a sound well enough to use for a drop or lead melody?" -Michael Liedtke I think with experience you eventually get familiar with the point at which things sound and it's best not to add any more. My best advice would be this: - Decide on a main synth that catches your ear and build around that. - Adjust your main synth and lower the volume or remove anything that doesn't sound good. For instance, sometimes there will be a white noise OSC that gets ugly http://welcometokshmr.com/

2/8

4/20/2015


after you apply distortion, multiband compression, etc. to the synth as a whole. - Add layers to your main synth that fill up the mids and make it warmer. Use an EQ, ad infinitum, to carve out any parts of the supporting synth that are competing with your main synth. - Add layers to brighten your main synth. Ideally, only one synth will be adding white noise in your drop. And better yet, if none of your synths are noisy, you can be in full control of what your white noise is doing by having it on a separate synth or audio track. - Ideally your main synth sounds good in mono. You can then use the higher-frequency supporting synths to achieve greater wideness. - Generally speaking, for all your synths, remove the reverb and delay they come with. It's usually better to have these effects on a bus, and for all of your synths to have the same reverb, delay, etc.

Kashmir-Style Rolling Bass "How to make that rolling bass in songs like Kashmir or Let Me Feel by Vicetone and Nicky Romero?" -Baber Parweez To do this, layer a sub with a few bass synths. EQ any low end out of the bass synths which may interfere with the sub. They should all be playing the root of each chord in your chord progression. For instance, in Kashmir the chord progression on the drop is: F minor -> C# major -> D# major -> F minor, with each chord playing one bar each. So the bass synths are playing: http://welcometokshmr.com/

3/8

4/20/2015


F -> C# -> D# -> F, also one bar each. On Kashmir, all the bass synths pitch bend down (try -5 or -12) on the last beat of every bar, creating the effect of sliding into the next note. Note that although every bass synth is playing the same notes, each synth can be playing the notes at different octaves. For instance, they might be like this: Sub: F1 -> C#2 -> D#1 -> F1 Bass 1: F2 -> C#2 -> D#2 -> F2 Bass 2: F2 -> C#2 -> D#3 -> F3 And so forth. Sidechain is really important here as well. The image below is roughly the sidechain I would apply to the sub using LFOTool. Other bass synths should be sidechained the same, but with slightly less overall reduction if you see fit.

Kicks & Low-End http://welcometokshmr.com/

4/8

4/20/2015


"How do you get such a full low end in your mixdowns? What do you do to make kicks so loud and such a tight bass? Thanks KSHMR!" -Morgan Carmont Here are some of the techniques I use for kicks and bass. Hope they help. General Low-End and Kicks - Using the notes between D# and G# will inevitably sound the most powerful in your sub and bass synths. - Transient designers can bring more focus to your kick but be careful you don't lose the mid / low end. - Use the high-pass on your EQ to cut as much low end from your leads as you can without sacrificing their power. Do the same for their reverb if on a separate channel. - Kicks and sub should be mono. There is a plug-in by Brainworx called Control that can help. Center by WAVES also. - Mixes usually end up with a lot of wide information: audio that is not exactly centered and mono. This is a good thing, but it shouldn't be happening in your low end and plug-ins like Pro-Q can do this for you if you turn on their Mid-Side feature.

Page is safe

Total Security 2015

Big Room Low-End and Kicks - For Big Room, there are a lot of packs available with great, huge kicks for every key (e.g. Cr2 and Sounds To Sample). I recommend starting with those. - Try using an EQ to make 3 or 4 dips where the kick doesn't seem to be making a difference helping your mix when played all together. - Often times I'll take the first few milliseconds from a short, punchy kick and quickly fade it into a big tonal kick. It can help your kick stick through the mix and you avoid http://welcometokshmr.com/

5/8

4/20/2015


the potential phase cancellation of simply layering two kicks. - The melody of your lead will determine your sidechain setting but generally I keep it quick for big room, allowing a little attack for the transient of the lead to come through. Progressive Low-End and Kicks - Use a punchy kick, preferably in key with the root of your song - The sub bass should be low-passed, cutting off about two-thirds of the spectrum, so that certain frequencies do not interfere with your leads and other bass synths. The sub bass should be covering only the lowest parts of your spectrum. - The sub bass should be sidechained such that it ducks completely when the kick plays, then fills up the low end as the kick fades. Essentially, their waveforms should be the inverse of one another. LFOTool is what I use for this. - Printing your bass to audio and using fades to duck its volume when the kick plays is another option. - Lower-mid bass: I usually include one or two more basses with "fuzz" that creates a buzzsaw type effect. The should be sidechained like the sub, but slightly less extreme. - Lower-mid bass should have saturation, OTT, widening, whatever it needs applied so that it buzzes nicely. - Generally speaking, try not to make your bass pattern complicated. Simply playing the root of each chord with the right amount of sidechain often works fine. I did this on my song Kashmir. - Recently I've been using an arp on the bass, triggering 1/16th notes like in my remix for Galantis - Runaway. This also an option. It adds a lot of energy. - Making the bass strong for every note is important. This can be hard depending on the key. For instance, if you need your sub-bass to play a C, you'll find it hard to pick an octave: the high C will feel weak, the low C will feel lost. http://welcometokshmr.com/

6/8

4/20/2015


This is where layering your sub with mid-range basses will help. They will fill out the more difficult notes, whereas a sub alone can not. In my track Secrets with Tiesto, the first note of the bass on the drop is C. The sub plays the low C, generally thought of as too low, but the other bass synths help to fill it out. Thus, the low-end survived without losing presence. - Your bass synths will inevitably play different notes at different volumes. Try compression and limiting. Another option is bouncing your bass to audio so you can see which notes are too soft or loud and adjust their volume accordingly.

Making mixes sound full The best to make things sound full, in my opinion, is to keep adding synths and figure out which ones are best filling each area of the spectrum Basics - Very high: should be white noise, or a synth that has white noise like a super saw - Upper middle: main synth - Middle: main synth and other synths that support the main synth and give it body - Lower middle: some kind of mid bass supporting the main synth (or in the case of melodic progressive house tracks, supporting the chords) without getting in the way of the sub - Low: this area belongs to the kick and the sub, make sure you eq the lows out of all of the synths I listed above so that they do not interfere with this area. The relationship between your kick and sub depends greatly on your http://welcometokshmr.com/

7/8

4/20/2015


sidechaining so learn this technique well Misc - The kick should have a nice attack on the top end as well as the low. It may help to add a clap (with the lows and mids cut out and a fair amount of reverb) on top of every kick - Putting groups of the synths on a bus (e.g. main synths, bass synths, etc), or a simply grouping them as with ableton, and then compressing and eq'ing that group helps as well - There are plug ins such as OTT and FabFilter's Pro G which can help to make synths sound bigger using upward compression Hope that helps -KSHMR

http://welcometokshmr.com/

8/8

KSHMR Production Techniques & Advice

Recommend Documents