Introduction to Phaser and Flanger

It's time to set your mixes to stun!   The Phaser and Flanger effects are used to produce a range of interesting sounds on anything from guitars to synths to vocals!

But what are they and how do they work?   Let's take a look...


What is a Phaser?

To understand what a Phaser is, it's probably a good idea to understand what phase is in the first place!   Phase refers to a point on a cycle of a waveform, measured in degrees.   Don't get put off just yet, it'll become clear as I explain about what a Phaser is.

A Phaser is an effects unit that splits the signal into two paths, delays one of the paths very slightly, then mixes them back together.   It doesn't do this across all frequency bands equally - a high frequency might be delayed more than a lower frequency, depending on the sound.

The effect caused when the delayed sound cancels certain parts of the source sound out due to being slightly "out of phase" with it creates an otherworldly effect.

This is typically modulated with an LFO (Low frequency oscillator) in order to make it move consistently and give a sweeping kind of effect.

Another cool thing to note - when the two signals on a constant wave are 180 degrees out of phase, you hear no sound whatsoever.


What is a Flanger?

Now, a Flanger is a specific type of Phaser.   Whereas the Phaser delays things differently depending on the frequency, a Flanger is all for equal rights and delays all frequencies equally.   This makes a more harmonic and - dare I say it - natural sound.


What does a Phaser / Flanger contain?

Rate - This is the speed at which the LFO modulates the delay time of the slightly out of phase signal.

Depth - This is the intensity of the effect

Mode / Type - Some Phasers / Flangers have different algorithms they use to calculate how to produce the effect.   This allows you to switch between them.

Feedback / Resonance - Defines how much of the effect signal is fed back to the input - this can make some crazy resonant sounds.

Wet/Dry - This controls what percentage of the output from the unit has the effect applied and what percentage is the original source sound.


Some useful techniques

1. Jet Plane!

Turn the LFO down and the depth up on a Flanger and put it through anything to achieve the sound of a Jet Engine taking off!

2. Subtle funky wah

Add a little bit of phase with a decent amount of depth to a clean, compressed guitar signal and voila!   Instant space-funk!

3. Lush Synth Pads

Add some phase to your pads, heavy on the depth and a little bit of resonance (if you have it) to get a nice high pitched overtone and they'll be lusher than ever before!

In the Ring - Drum and Bass vs Hardstyle

It's a battle of the High-Energy titans!

Two intense genres of electronic music that agree the focus should be on power and pace will go head to head in this face-off!

In the Red Corner we have Hardstyle; the pumping, noisy genre that loves its soaring, detuned saw leads and bass drums that sound like they have been attacked with a rusty chainsaw.

In the Blue Corner we have Drum & Bass; the fast-paced, intense genre, unsurprisingly with the focus on gut-wrenching basslines and syncopated percussion.

Let the battle commence!

Roots

This battle begins in the mid '90s, where Drum n Bass evolved from Breakbeat, Rave and Dub music deep in the concrete jungle of London town.

Broken beats and sped up loops, Ragga-style vocals and strong, synth basslines defined the earliest permutations of the style, but it wasn't long until new sub-genres evolved as producers realised the intense percussion and deep basses could be used as the groundwork for a plethora of other interpretations of Drum and Bass.

Sub-genres such as Techstep (A dark, clinical take on drum and bass that maintains the heavy bass drops), Neurofunk (a more Jazz-influenced version with an emphasized backbeat and stabs over the music) and Liquid Drum and Bass (A laid back, ambient feel on top of the intense percussion) evolved as the late '90s turned into the early '00s.

The commercialisation of the genre led to producers striving for higher and higher production values and pushing it further until it has become the polished, streamlined genre it is today.

Enter Hardstyle

And it was around the early to mid '00s that Hardstyle crept out of the woodwork, combining Hard Trance, Gabber, UK Hard House and Jumpstyle into a new and intense genre.

The style really caught on in a lot of European countries, especially the Netherlands, where it originated.   The crowd had already been conditioned by the genres that influenced Hardstyle into appreciating the pounding, heavy bass drums and so this was just the next progression of that scene, with massive, adrenaline-inducing melodies accompanying the beats and bass.

What's Next?

Well, while Hardstyle has continued in its relatively mainstream popularity, hosting massive raves such as “Qlimax” and “Black” (Where all attendees must wear black) that pump out the genres with accompaniment by massive laser displays and large amounts of alcohol.

Drum and Bass has gone from strength to strength, especially in the UK, where artists such as Pendulum and Chase and Status regularly hit the mainstream charts.

Many DnB artists play live performances with acoustic drum kits, basses and other instruments accompanying the sampled and synthesized elements.   World tours and festival appearances cement DnB as a massively recognised and critically successful genre that shows no sign of slowing down in the future.


Similarities and Differences

Both genres put the focus on the intensity of the percussion and bass.   The differences begin when we see how they do it.   While Hardstyle has very little variety in the percussion (big, painfully heavy kick, 4 on the floor beat, rinse and repeat.), Drum and Bass thrives off interesting syncopations and as such provides much more variety whilst still retaining the intensity and power.

Perhaps that is why Drum and Bass is more successful than Hardstyle (plus the fact it has been going for longer) - Hardstyle is a very limited genre in terms of variety, whereas Drum and Bass can explore so many different avenues.

As a general rule, Hardstyle brings more of a focus on melody where Drum and Bass does not - most DnB songs you'll hear at your average rave are focused on the low end, not the high end and as such they can be more difficult to remember than the catchy, prominent lead synths found in most Hardstyle.

So who wins?   The pacey, varied Drum and Bass or the crushing, adrenaline-inducing Hardstyle?

Well, which genre do you want to go and listen to now?

An Introduction to Reverb

Synths are like a good meal - no matter how well made they are, if they're too dry then they won't be quite as satisfying.

So how do you stop your synths from violently poking out of the mix?   Reverb is the answer!   Let's delve into it and find out why...


What is Reverb?

Reverb is caused when a sound is made in an enclosed space - for example, hitting a snare drum in a room.   The sound will echo around the room and the combination of a large number of echoes results in the sound appearing to tail off over time rather than stop abruptly.

Thanks to computers, reverb has become a vital part of the song-making process with digital reverb plug-ins.   There are several different types, but they all emulate the above effect.

What can you do with reverb?

Depending on the characteristics of the room, reverb has different qualities.   Digital reverb plug-ins and hardware emulate this with a variety of parameters - the most common parameters include...

Decay Time / Reverberation time - this is the time it takes for the reverb to decay to 60dB below the volume of the original source sound.

Diffusion - This controls the number of echoes that combine to make the reverb - more echoes make for a constant decaying noise, whereas less echoes result in a more sparse decay of close-together echoes.

Pre delay - This is the length of time before the reverb kicks in.

Room size - This is the size of the virtual room that the sound is in (I know, I was surprised too.)   This should generally be proportional to the decay time, but can create some unusual effects if you vary it.

Dry/Wet - This controls what percentage of the output from the reverb unit has the reverb effect applied and what percentage is the original source sound.

Some useful techniques

1. Ghostly vocals

Add in some reverb with a large decay time to the first word of a vocal line.   Freeze it down, reverse it and put it leading up to the vocal - voila!   A seriously cool effect.

2. Extending a hit

Sometimes sampled hits end that bit too soon - a little bit of reverb with a high diffusion will allow you to use the decay time to define how long it takes to end, even after the original source sample has finished.

3. Big Snares - Gated Reverb

Fancy going back to the 80s?   Just add a massive decay time and a huge room to the reverb on a snare, then use a gate plug in to cut it off after a short-ish time - Big, epic sounding drums are within your grasp!

Top 5 bits of hardware to improve your mixes

Okay, so "everyone" says that hardware is redundant - plug-ins are the way to go, hardware is just extra money for stuff that looks nice, but you could emulate just as well with a computer, right?   Wrong.   Well, sort of.

You see, hardware often has side-effects.   A little bit of extra warmth, excitation or (the word to use where you can't quite tell what it's done, but it sounds better) character.   Digital plug-ins don't generally have the same happy accidents when recording with them.

So, without further ado, I present the top 5 pieces of hardware to add that all important character to your sounds...

5. EQ

Extremely expensive example: Sontec 432

There are two types of EQ (in the comparison I am about to make) - Ones that are clean, clinical and no-nonsense, and ones that ladle character onto a sound like an over-enthusiastic chef.

These can be better at manipulating certain frequencies and worse at others, making them not so good for precision, but for adding harmonic content, they can be gold.

4. Compressor

Extremely expensive example: Daking FET III stereo compressor

Squashing peaks on hardware can often give unparalleled warmth to the sound that gear experts crave and even newbies can notice.   A lot of professional Drum and Bass producers run their beats into outboard hardware gear to get what they define as "that" sound, for example.

3. Reverb

Extremely expensive example: Lexicon PCM96

Emulating reverb accurately on a computer can be a processor-intensive thing, so this is one of those hardware units that still have a common place in studios.   If you really want to get those sound reflections sounding as smooth and realistic as possible, hardware might be the way to go for you!

2. Preamp

Extremely expensive example: Neve 1081 Pre-amp

Pre-amps are those things that boost the gain of an input signal before it goes into the computer (assuming you are recording with a computer!) to "line level"; the conventional volume of an audio signal for 99% of recorded music.

You'd be forgiven for thinking that this is an arbitrary job that any old bit of kit can do, but some pre-amps use vacuum tubes as components which add warmth and a (to some) pleasant sounding distortion.

1. Monitors

Extremely expensive example: Genelec 8040A Active Monitors

As any weathered mixing engineer will tell you, the most important part of your set up is your ears!   If your set-up is feeding your ears the wrong information, you'll make the wrong decisions for your mix.

Therefore, the most important thing is to be able to hear your mix with as flat a response as possible - Flat response speakers, shockingly enough, help to do this by reproducing each frequency evenly, without boosting or cutting any frequencies due to the build quality.

The DnB Hydra - 7 Subgenres of Drum and Bass

Drum and Bass is a wild, unpredictable beast.

Just when you think it is dead and gone, it rises up again with more subgenres attacking you from all sides with obscure melodic interpretations on top of the driving percussion.   There is no stopping the DnB Hydra.

Let's take a look at 7 of its most prominent sub-genre heads...

1. Darkcore / Darkstep

Artists of note: Noisia, Spor

Between 150bpm and 160bpm lies the Darkcore, or Darkstep head - this one is a terrifying sight, using samples from old horror films and chromatic scales to create a chilling, dark atmosphere.

2. Drumstep

Artists of note: Crissy Criss, Taxman

An unpredictable offshoot of the DnB Hydra is Drumstep, with beats around 170-180bpm, but generally dabbling in half-time percussion, making it seem like dubstep at times!

3. Jazzstep / Intelligent Drum and Bass

Artists of note: LTJ Bukem, Photek

This head clearly thinks it is musically above the others with a name inferring that the other sub-genres aren't capable of matching its IQ.   Obscure chord progressions and Jazz, Lounge and Ambient influences bring together a mellower, but still dancefloor-friendly take on the Drum and Bass vibe.

4. Liquid / Liquid Funk

Artists of note: High Contrast, Mistabishi, Chase and Status

This head will often be found in a chilled-out daze; Liquid DnB is a much more chilled take on the genre, with heavy usage of authentic instrumentation to accompany the electronic percussive undertone.

5. NeuroFunk / Techstep

Artists of note: Ed Rush, Optical, Noisia

A harder, funkier take on DnB, this head brings together heavily synthesized percussion with positively demented basslines - This often overlaps with the Darkstep sub-genre to bring a crushing, industrial overtone to the drops and a driving backbeat to the builds.

6. Breakcore

Artists of note: Venetian Snares, Bong-Ra

Brain-meltingly high BPMs have pushed this head over the edge into positive insanity.   Breakcore mashes practically anything together, from complex classical to heavy metal, all over some of the most complex and intricate drum programming imaginable.

7. Jump Up

Artists of note: DJ Zinc, Hazard

A light hearted head that is probably too busy bopping away to cause any real damage, at least intentionally, Jump Up is a simple genre with big, clean basslines and hip hop samples to give it that catchy edge.

Prime Loops Remix Competition with MJ Cole, Crissy Criss & D. Ramirez

Premium sample pack creators Prime Loops team up with renowned music download store Trackitdown.net to present you Remix Addict! An exclusive free sample pack download and remix competition that will see a winning track chosen by none other than MJ Cole, D. Ramirez and Crissy Criss. The winner of this prestigious competition will also walk away with an enviable prize pack containing music production software, magazine subscription, digital music distribution plus a ton of sample packs and music downloads.


Prime Loops are the creators of the award winning Addict Trilogy series of sample packs consisting of Drum Addict, Synth Addict & Bass Addict. These sample packs offer the user a vast selection of professionally produced cutting edge loops including heavily processed beats, tearing killer leads, and bang up to date basslines. These are sold as download files direct to producers all over the world via Trackitdown.net

The exclusive free Remix Addict download pack gives you 15 carefully selected loops from the Addict Trilogy series that are completely royalty free, and can be used in all your projects and releases. We are giving you the opportunity to submit your own tracks that you have created using any of the samples and loops from this pack. Entries will be judged by our expert panel consisting of scene legends; MJ Cole, D. Ramirez and Crissy Criss. Whether you produce House or Dubstep, Trance to Electronica, DnB, Progressive and Tech, we want to hear your tracks so don't delay in downloading now and start creating!

To enter the competition & download the free sample pack click here!

Not only are you in with the chance of having your productions handed directly into the hands of MJ Cole, D. Ramirez and Crissy Criss there is a huge prize package up for grabs!

1 x Reason 4 & Record Music Software from Propellerhead (Mac and Windows)
1 x IK Multimedia T-Racks Deluxe Mastering Bundle (Mac and Windows)
1 x 10 free Sample Packs from Prime Loops
1 x £100 Download Voucher from Trackitdown
1 x 12 Month Subscription for Computer Music Magazine
1 x Digital Music Distribution Package for 1 Track by Zimbalam & Believe Digital

The judges will be looking out for: No clashing keys and notes, perfect beat syncing, good track structure, the appearance of a hook line (either lead synth, bass or vocals), clean and well balanced mix down, intelligent editing of loops and of course, something that represents your production style - whatever the genre! Additional use of royalty free samples and original sounds are encouraged but we cannot accept submissions featuring uncleared copyrighted material.

This is your chance to get judged by the following dance music legends!

Our "Remix Addict" Judges:

MJ Cole - Regarded as one of the innovators of the 2Step and UK Garage sound, MJ Cole has led a diverse and inspirational career including the seminal Mercury Music Prize nominated album “Sincere” released on Talkin' Loud in 2000. Currently MJ Cole's DJ sets are more in demand than ever before, appearing regularly at the worlds hottest Dubstep, Garage, House, Funky and Bassline parties. His own Prolific label continues to draw huge praise from the underground with brand new release “Riddim EP” from MJ Cole dropping in April while Nero's Dubstep remix of “Sincere” continues to devastate dance floors every time it's dropped.

http://www.myspace.com/mjcole100

http://www.prolificrecordings.com


D. Ramirez - D. Ramirez has been traversing the globe delivering the exciting sounds of deep house and techno to unassuming dance floors through his meticulous DJ sets where loops, tricks and FX are intricately laced with exceptional accuracy. He's achieved five top 20 hits, played on every continent picking up various prestigious awards along the way. His studio boasts an enviable amount of synthesizers and classic outboard gear D. Ramirez is truly a master craftsman. Currently working on exciting new projects with Underworld & Mark Knight and planning to launch his brand new label Made In Sheffield.

http://www.myspace.com/dramirezmusic

http://www.dramirez.co.uk/


Crissy Criss - To say Crissy Criss started out young is an understatement. On the decks at the age of 9, a festival gig in Essex a year later, playing Kiss FM at 11, messing around with productions at 13 and securing a coveted slot on Radio 1's The Residency when he was just 17 years old, it's fair to say few DJs and Producers have achieved this much in their entire careers. In 2007 he secured a weekly slot on 1Xtra where he has been a regular fixture ever since. In addition to his widely supported Drum & Bass productions and remixes Crissy Criss was responsible for the 2009 Dubstep anthem “Kick Snare” with Youngman on V Recordings. Catch his show every week Thursday 0100 – 0400 1Xtra.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/1xtra/crissycriss/profile/

http://www.myspace.com/djcrissycriss


Rules and How to Enter:

Visit www.trackitdown.net/remixaddict to download the free sample pack

1. Competition is open to registered Trackitdown members only. If you're not a member yet simply sign up.

2. Send a link to your entry in 320k MP3 format to remixaddict@trackitdown.net. Please do not use any links that may timeout. Rapidshare links will not be accepted. Do NOT email the MP3 itself!

3. Your MP3 track must include your contact email either in title name or ID tags

4. Additional use of royalty free samples and original sounds are encouraged but we cannot accept submissions featuring uncleared copyrighted material.

5. Deadline for entries is 1st June 2010

6. The judges' decision is final!

Top 5 Dubstep producers in 2010

It is now into double figures of this milennium, meaning that Dubstep is almost a decade old. It's time to look at who is pushing the genre to its limits with high production quality, original ideas and internal-organ-destroying basslines.

It's the top 5 Dubstep producers here in 2010...

5. Nero

Sub-Destroyer of choice: Act Like You Know (Dubstep mix)

Their myspace "sounds like" sums it up nicely: "Classically trained musicians writing f***ing horrible music". They love their vocal repetition and they love their buildups. Ocassionaly you'll catch a bit of a melody in the drops too, which makes them seriously catchy.

4. Liquid Stranger

Sub-Destroyer of choice: GOTO80 Breakfast remix

A distinctive blend of dirty bass with... even dirtier bass. This is one of those producers that knows how to work dark atmospheres and regularly writes things that wouldn't sound out of place in hell... In a good way.

3. Mt Eden

Sub-Destroyer of choice: Beautiful Lies

Gorgeous Dubstep. Like being in a rainforest clearing with a waterfall running into a stream, a rainbow in the distance, birds chirping and an earthquake vibrating it in a non-destructive manner somehow. It just has to be listened to. Proves that the power of Dubstep can be used for good as well as evil.

2. Excision

Sub-Destroyer of choice: Swagga (with Datsik)

This is what Dubstep from outer space would sound like. Positively monolithic basslines and immense beats. Sounds like a spaceship is transforming into something that eats planets. A spaceship with a modulating filter cutoff.

1. Datsik

Sub-Destroyer of choice: Firepower

Insane production quality that show off some brilliantly dirty basslines describes this Canadian Dubstep producer. Unrelenting assaults from more bass synths than you can mentally process turn Datsik's drops into something seriously special.