theguywiththehoodie asked:

Hey man first nice work on Crispus Sonus, and thanks for you answer and your motivation, I do have a question about the basslines, I mainly use Operator and Analog of Ableton for bass line but i don't get the result I want I'm looking for a fat smooth bassline like the one you used in this track so if you can help me with that will be awesome, and about Drums and Percussion, how can I separate between them, sometimes I use some perc in the drum loop I don't know why I feel it's wrong ..

Answer:

Thanks for the compliments!! =D I think I might be able to help you out a bit.

Basslines:
When putting down a bassline you can’t just expect the program to come equipped with the sounds you’re looking for, unless you get your hands on some preset sounds (I do not recommend this). It’s designed for you to use the tools it has within it. Ableton has a pretty descent equalizer (located in the audio effects folder), so you should try putting it on your bassline’s track. Make sure you use Equalizer Eight not Three. Mess around with it until you get the sound you’re looking for. You should check your volume levels on it as well. Throwing a limiter on it and raising the gain might do some good too. The limiter is located in the audio effects folder as well.

It also depends on the actual sound you’re using. Some are designed for fat bass while others are designed for something entirely different. Try searching for bass in the library associated under the key words sub woofer. Usually this gives off more of a deep, and fat feel.

You should also look into compression. Using compressors and routing them is essential in getting out that punchy bass people are subconsciously used to hearing. I won’t dwell into it long, but you can easily research it online . It’s one of the most important factors. The compressor is also located in the audio effects folder.

Percussion:

Now this is a little easier to deal with. When using percussion I’ve learned that it’s always wise to create your own percussion sounds from scratch, rather than using the sounds within a program and expecting them to sound how you’d like them to. This is fairly simple… Sort of. It’s good to experiment and find what sounds good with what. You should start learning how to layer sounds. This is basically taking 2 or more sounds and combing them to make one hybrid sound. You can even take some of the percussion sounds from ableton itself to create your very own. Simply record one sound over another and export the mixdown just as you would if you were exporting a full song that you finished. If it all sounds too daunting research Layering to get a better understanding.

You also need to record all of your percussion sounds on different tracks so that you can edit and manipulate them all individually. It isn’t good to limit yourself by having all your percussion sounds on one track. Especially within electronic music.

In a nutshell it’s always better to put your full focus on every element of your track. Whether it be your bassline, your percussion, synth, etc. Never just settle for those cheap and sci-fy sounding sounds every program gives you. Try creating your own sounds and use the effects and program tools your digital audio workstation offers you. Hope this helps dude =)