In the Studio with... Lee Coombs

Today's production feature comes from our highly skilled Prime Loops' signing, team member & music producer Lee Coombs!

A seasoned veteran, Coombs first hit the DJ slopes in 1989, bathing himself in the acid house scene at parties all across the UK. Crucial in shaping his all-encompassing approach to DJing and production, this boundary-less approach would become Coombs' trademark, mixing up breaks, house, electro, techno and acid with dexterous assurance.

Coombs is also the author and engineer behind Prime Loops' best selling sample pack releases "Tech Funk Vol 1" and "Tech Funk Vol 2", so there's a high possibility you have come across his work already!

Introduction:

"My name is Lee Coombs and in this article I'll take you through the production process of my track 'Detox' which is one of the singles from my 'Light and Dark' album. It's a classic piece of Lee Coombs Acid House. The main element of most acid tracks is the Bassline. On this track I wrote the Bassline on a Moog Voyager. It makes a beautiful Saw tooth wave and the low frequencies are thundering. I am a huge Moog fan, and recently bought the VX-351 CV expander for the Voyager, effectively turning it into a modular synth. I love the way they make all their stuff so it will interact with each other."

"The other acid sounds come from my Studio Electronics ATC1, It has the changeable filter cartridges in the back and at the moment I have the SEM2600 filter cartridge fitted which makes the sound really boxy and very squelchy. I do have a Roland TB-303 but I didn't use it on this track. Many people associate Acid sounding tracks with the TB-303 but to be honest all you need is a really good Analogue Mono Synth like the ATC1 or a Moog Voyager, well you don't need to go as far as a Voyager, something like the Moog Little Phatty will do equally as well for these types of sounds. All these are recorded into the computer with an RME Fireface 800 sound card. It's very important to have a top quality soundcard for obvious reasons."

The Bassline:

"I start by writing the Bassline and other parts in the sequencer. I use a PC with Cubase 4, I know Cubase 5 is out but I'm doing fine with version 4 at the moment. On this track the bassline has Glide making the notes all bend into each other. It's easy to over do this effect so make sure you have the drum track to play along with as this will have a say on how much glide you're going to use. It's all about the groove and the swing of the track. Everything in the track must fit the groove to make it sound fluid and tight. Then I record a 4 or 8 bar loop into the computer so I have something to work with and build around. Make sure you save your settings on the Bassline synth as you will need to go back later to record longer parts with the filter sweeping up and down as you like to work with building the arrangement of the track."

"Now you have it in the computer I normalize the volume to 0db. I don't tend to use much compression or limiting on parts recorded from Analogue synths too much as all this does is flatten the wave form and although it gets it loud is looses the life and energy it had. I do like to put a sidechain compressor on with the kick drum controlling the threshold. This gives it a bit of bounce with it pumping a little with the drums. Not too much though. If there are fast moving notes in your bassline then only a little sidechain will work. If you have long simple notes you can crank up the threshold and really get a nice effect on the bass, but that's for a different type of track to this one."

"If the main part of the track is the bassline then some of the higher frequencies will probably need to be turned up. But wait until you have all the other parts written before you commit to any of this. Sometimes I like to use a sub bass under the bassline sound. So I cut the top bassline from about 150db and lay the sub underneath it, making sure that it is cut from about 150db up. These 2 tracks must be identical in their construction of the midi part. This will make them blend into each other creating one big sound once they have been mixed."

The Drums:

"There are millions of drum sounds available now a days. I have to be honest I don't use drum machines. I am happy with using good quality samples and playing them with a decent sample player such as Native Instruments Kontakt. I always seem to head towards the old school Roland sounds such as 606, 707, 808, and 909. They just seem to work so well with dance music."

"Detox has very techno sounding drums, I used 909 hihats and built up the energy through the arrangement by programming the Open hat to come in more often and in some parts take the place of the closed hat. By changing the hihats throughout the track it will make it sound a lot more interesting and way more exciting. But the key is to keep the same groove all the way through the track. This is the most important thing."

"If you can bring in more drums and make it busier while building on the same groove you are on to a winner. Don't have too many sounds though as everything still needs it's own space. Kick Drums are a very important element as they can determine the whole sound and even the vibe of the track. I have a bank of favorite kicks that I always seem to head for. It all personal taste really."

"The middle section of Detox slows down the tempo from 126bpm to about 100bpm and then speeds it back up again after the breakdown. This section has live sounding drums which I sourced from Spectrasonics Stylus. I love this application for its versatility and the ability to audition every loop at any tempo instantly. Then you drag the midi part over to your arrangement and then you can go in and edit the loop and even quantize it to fit perfectly with your track and groove. Its all about the groove remember. Because this track has tempo changes Stylus is great because you are playing the sounds without timestretching them, same as triggering a sampler. As each different drum sound and part of the loop is triggered by the midi part in the arrangement."

"When you are happy with the arrangement of the parts render each part down to audio. Then you can start to process it. I always feel that I want to see the waveform on the screen as I do each process, such as compression, EQ, Reverb etc. This lets me see if I am doing too much or not enough to the sound. I like to normalize everything and then compress, EQ, apply Reverb to give them space. I don't tend to put much reverb on the main drum sounds as they loose energy and get a bit washed out. But I love to add lots of Big room reverb to things like Rimshots and Claves. This can make your drum track sound huge on its own. Then work up from the bottom and pan out left or right so the higher frequency sounding drums are panned out furthest although I like to keep Hi Hats fairly in the middle as they are so integral to the groove."

Main parts:

"In a track like 'Detox' when you have a large sounding Bassline that pretty much fills the frequency range there isn't much room left for other Main lead sounds. So to make the track more interesting I have another acid sounding Analogue sound in the breakdown sections. This time it's more concentrated in the higher frequencies with not much bass. Pretty much cut completely from about 150Hz down. This gives a great contrast to the bass and keeps the energy flowing through the track."

"I made parts with lots of busy notes kind of like writing an arpeggio. I didn't use to much glide on these as again it made a nice contrast to the bassline. Delay works very well on the high notes and you can create a new sounding riff if you get the delay time to swing nicely with the track. Again its completely personal preference and there are no real rules. The only thing you have to ask yourself is does it sound good?"

Effects:

"I use the Voyager to make most of my sound effects. It's so versatile that I can pretty much get what I want within a matter of seconds, record it in the computer and then move on to the next sound. I make white noise sounds and then filter them up and down with the track and then after they have been recorded and EQed (cut everything below about 1000Hz on these noise effects as they fill the whole frequency range) I like to Sidechain them similar to the bassline but more intensely. This is a very popular production technique at the moment."

"White noise sounds good when it's turned on straight away along with the rest of the track, such as after a breakdown etc. It's good to be as creative as possible with this. The Voyager has a space effect which will pan the two different sounding filters and so giving a much more interesting sound to the effect. Generally effects only need to be on when there is nothing else filling that space as much of the time 'less is more' with these tracks. Also the less you use them the bigger effect they will have when they come on."

"If you are using sounds from big keyboards such as a voyager then you will not need to do much processing to the sound at all. Maybe a little EQ to shape it into your track. Because it's a live machine every note is different to the last one which gives it a life all of its own. This is something that not many Soft Synths can do because they are all thinking in One's and Zero's digitally which means they ending up sounding the same a lot of the time."

"I love to come back out of the Fireface and send my effects and other Lead sounds into one of my collection of Pedal boxes. I have the Moogerfooger Anolog Delay, Ring Modulator, Phaser and the MURF. I use the external input on the Voyager quite often as that is one hell of a filter, sounds great on percussion loops and Break Beats. Also I have a pedal called the Crowther Audio 'Prunes and Custard' (from New Zealand, I picked it up while touring once in Australia) which is a 'Harmonic Generator Intermodulator'. This gives a distorted craziness to your sound that is great for lying over the top of the original sound such as a lead stab or arpeggio."

"My favorite effect is by far the Analog Delay. This creates a beautiful sound and fills gaps in just the right way. As it's live, you can really ride the feedback and listen to your sound get churned inside out while it evolves. It's a great replacement for white noise and sounds a whole lot more exciting. There are plugins that will do this well such as the Softube 'Tube Delay' but there's something about the sound of the Moog that no plugin can beat."

Vocals:

"One effect that has been working very well on my vocals is to duplicate the track, lay them on top of each other and then pitch down by 2 or 3 semitones (or more even) the second track; this fattens up your vocals massively and makes them sound a lot more vibey in the mix of the track. You may need to EQ the second track to get it to sit correctly. Obviously this wont work on full songs or some types of voice but for one or two word vocal stabs it's great. Also the analog delays come in very useful on these parts. Not on all of them but generally the vocals that are used in breakdowns or parts leading up to a breakdown where you want to achieve more tension in the track."

Arrangement:

"As all the parts of the track are created I place them in a rough arrangement. Then as more things are added I can generally hear what else needs to be made to make the track work. As most of my sounds are recorded live there isn't too much automation, only getting the delays to tail off correctly. But when I have done my basic arrangement and I am happy with the structure of the track I then do the final automating of any effects that might be from a plugin. My favourites are the Softube - Tube Delay and the Ohm Force - Hematohm, these are very versatile units that will give you all the delay and pitching effects plus more that you could ever need creating huge build ups and great tension in the track."

Main outs:

"I generally group tracks together, basically Kick, Snare, Percussion, Drum Subgroup, Bassline, Top Bassline sound (if there are two parts to the Bassline sound layered on top of each other) Lead sounds, FX, and Vocals they all go out the Main Outputs where I have a compressor just jelling the top frequencies together. Roughly -2db on the Threshold with a good mixdown setting. Something like 10ms attack, 40ms release, 3:1 ratio, Auto gain on etc. Then I have the Sony Oxford Inflator, threshold set at 0db, using it as a limiter to stop the levels flying into the red when things get busy. It gives great warmth and fattens the sound with its Effect level setting. I like to have this at about 28% most times."

"Then when I'm happy with the track it should be good to render down for mastering. If I want to play the track out in the club I make a new arrangement and then use the Waves L3 Multimaximizer. This has amazing abilities of getting your track very loud whilst keeping most of the dynamics all there. I usually get about another 3-5db out of my track with this Limiter. I wouldn't send this limited version to be mastered as you definitely loose some dynamics but for a road test it's great!"

Check out all of Lee's creations for Prime Loops here!