Funk Up Your Bass!

If you're making tunes, you'll be well aware of the need for a good bassline. They shore up the foundations of your beats, they add much-needed weight on a sound system, and can bring the funk to your track in a way that nothing else really can. But how do you come up with a decent bassline? And what should you use? Let's take a look at some of the options...

It can be hard to know where to start with a bassline in an electronic track - since production and composition are so inextricably bound together, the sound you use might dictate what sort of line you can write. But there are a few basics that we can consider first.

For example, take the key that your track is in. The root note of the scale (if you're in a scale of C, then the root note is the C) will always sound "right", and a solid place for the bassline to be. Other strong notes would be the fifth (G), or the minor third (E flat). A straightforward but effective option is to simply follow the movement of the chords in your track with the bassline. It's worked for trance, punk, and house for years, and there's no reason why it wouldn't work for you too.

A similar option is to move the bassline around under a static chord or leadline. This gives your track the impression of movement, even when most of it doesn't move at all. The classic examples (and possibly overused, but try them anyway because they always sound great) are the minor chord (i.e. go from C to E flat to G) and the even more popular alternative where you go to F instead of the G. Try either of these against a simple lead line and you'll realise why everyone from the Chemical Brothers to Calvin Harris use these progressions time after time.
You can also eschew all this "key" nonsense and go for the good old fashioned one-noter. It's been a staple of dubstep and techno since way back when and there's a good reason for that - when you need sheer guttural heaviness, there's not much else that can cut it. But be careful; a one-note bassline can be difficult to pull off successfully. You need to make sure that it's tuned to complement the pitch of your kick drum. It needs to be rhythmically interesting too; a sustained single note can get very boring, so you'll need to get some funk in there to compensate for the lack of musical interest.

Which brings us round to the rhythm of your bassline; how complex does it need to be? Straight tracks tend to have a pretty straight bassline; hard-house has its ubiquitous off-beat bass, psy-trance generally has semiquaver patterns, some tracks simply have a sustained line that runs across a whole bar. There are two points to make here; the main one is that music should be all about contrast. What that means is that if you've got a complex track otherwise, you can afford to have a simple bassline; trance, with all its soaring arpeggios and busy lead lines, sounds fine with a basic bass rhythm. Stripped back dubstep, on the other hand, may need a busier bassline to contrast with the space in the usual halfstep beat. It's also about energy; a sub line with distinct hits can really add a lot to a track - just check any 90's jungle to see the effect of a simple 808 sub. Or indeed a recent Julio Bashmore track to see how it can work in current house music.

The other maxim to remember is the old catchphrase about how it's not the notes you play, but the notes you don't play that bring the funk. Dance music is so maximal these days that it's easy to forget that you don't need to fill every beat with noise to make it stand out. A lot of classic house and funk might just have one or two short bass notes per bar, but the fact that you have to wait for it only heightens the anticipation. It also gives each note more impact - instead of getting lost in a flurry of bass hits.

No discussion of basslines in 2011 would be complete without mentioning "filth"; that staple of dubstep and electro music the world over. The screeching distortion that we all know so well actually has very little to do with real bass, however, since it occupies the frequency spectrum from about 200Hz and upwards. It is, thus, essentially a lead. However if you want to write a "filth" track then the same rules apply - you need a huge, twisting, turning sound (or several alternating sounds) in the lead area, and so your sub line can be relatively simple so as not to confuse the listener.

Basses are a real make-or-break area in a track, and deserve at least as much consideration as your drums. But with a bit of practise you can get into the swing of writing the biggest, funkiest basslines this side of Funkadelic. So load up that sampler, fire up the sub, and get grooving!

Cool it Down in the Digital Realm!

Redlining, turning it up to eleven, cranking it up. It all sounds very cool, very rock and roll. But does it actually sound any good? Let's take a look at the details of going into the red and what it can mean for your tunes...

Back in the day, this was a pretty straightforward equation. When you're working with hardware, if you go into the red, it's simple - things will distort. This wasn't always a bad thing, however; the classic example of distortion sounding good is the electric guitar. It fizzes, squeals, and has zero dynamic range, but still sounds great.

People also still talk about the "warmth" from overdriving a piece of valve kit, and there are any number of plugins available now that claim to emulate the sound of overdriving a channel on a classic SSL desk or tape saturation. But once we get into this world of digital emulation, it starts getting a lot less clear.

The buzzwords here are "digital clipping" and you'll no doubt have heard about how terrible it is. Generally, it is indeed terrible. Cold, harsh, it doesn't really add anything to your tracks, and it's the sound of what happens when a digital environment can't cope any more and goes over zero. Fortunately, most DAWs are so well coded these days, and now we're up to 64-bit programs, they can take a lot in their stride. What does this mean? You might have heard about floating point calculations and whatnot; the upshot is that you can have an individual channel going way into the red and it still won't clip - until it gets to the master output, of course. Problem solved? Unfortunately not.

What a modern DAW can't compensate for is what you're doing with the plugins. While you might have your audio channel peaking above zero and sounding OK, if you then feed that signal into an EQ, compressor, or other processor, it may not be able to handle the amplitude, and will clip, distort, and generally mess up your sound. Although it might be a plugin that's designed to emulate classic hardware, you can bet that the input stage of it doesn't work in quite the same way; after all, a 1970's valve EQ never had to deal with a digital signal at +11dB. So it's important to make sure that the plugin receives its signal at a sensible level, and equally, that the output gain is set appropriately so that the next plugin isn't sabotaged either.

It's increasingly common to find mixdowns where the drums or bass sound unpleasant and squashed, but the problem isn't in the processing as such, but in the links where one plugin feeds into another. If you have a chain of plugins, and one in the middle is outputting a huge signal, it will just overload the next plugin. And it might not be visible once you get to the end of the chain, as a third plugin may have reduced the volume so that you're back below zero. The result, however, will be a mixdown that looks right - your EQ and compression settings may be perfect - but sounds bad, as one of the plugins is wiping out all your transients.

Fortunately, as well as a good DAW being able to handle large signals these days, they also have enough bit depth to handle smaller signals without adding noise. So you can afford to have everything turned down pretty quiet, especially your plugin outputs; it won't hurt your mix but it might save it! It's always better to have things arriving at your master output on the quiet side; you can turn it up at the end. Easier than going back through the mix to figure out what's causing (or killing) all these peaks.

As mentioned earlier though; hardware? Well, that's another matter entirely. If you have a keyboard it's always worth trying to run it hard through your line mixer, pre-amp or whatever else you have lying around, just to see what happens - but again, as we're talking about going into a DAW here, make sure it's back below zero before it hits your soundcard! Hardware distortion can sound very different; it will add harmonics, it may cut certain frequencies at the top or bottom, it can sound great, or (often) crappy. Sometimes crappy is what you want for a given sound, but in general you'll find that you need to try everything in your studio to find the one item that sounds cool being overdriven. When you find it, it's useful for lead sounds to give a ripping presence at the top end; overdriving a bass sound (especially subs) will introduce harmonics that make the sound come through more clearly in the mix; crunching those drums a bit may give you a compression sound that's a bit more rugged than an actual compresssor would.

This topic is one that can get very technical, very quickly; but that's not what we're all about here. So in summary, the best practice is to make sure that within your DAW, everything is running at nice low levels - not only will this avoid any plugin related distortion, but it will also make your mixdowns much easier; so you're not having to turn down one thing to make room for something else. Do this, and you'll suddenly find that worries about clipping or distortion are a thing of the past - and overdriving only happens when you really want it to!

Mixing Made Easy!

Struggling with your mixdown? Do you find yourself getting lost in the million possibilities for changing the balance, levels, and sound of your beats? There is another way! Read on for some tips on how to make things much more straightforward as we delve into one of the trickiest topics in production - the mixdown.

This blog often returns to the idea of keeping things simple and straightforward in your work, and mixdowns need be no exception. Modern production capabilities mean that even with a relatively basic laptop and a DAW, you can still end up with dozens of channels - drums, extra percussion, FX, layers of synths and more. This is something that didn't happen so much 10 years back - people just didn't have enough hardware to cope with all that stuff. A 50-channel mixdown was solely in the realm of mega-money studios. Now we're all trying to keep up!

So what can you do? The obvious suggestion is to use less channels - and that's exactly what you should be considering. A 'stem mixdown' involves bouncing down some of your myriad channels into groups, then opening a new project file, loading them up and taking it on from there. Ideally, you should be looking to work with a selection of channels that strikes the right balance between flexibility and efficiency. Ten to twelve is usually a sensible amount.

There are a number of reasons as to why this is a good idea. As mentioned, the most obvious is to simplify the mixing process - working with groups can be much simpler than many individual channels. On top of that, there's a psychological aspect too. You might have heard the old producer's mantra that you should never spend more than 20 minutes working on a sound (if you've got a sound in the right ballpark in that time then move on and come back to it later, to keep the creative flow going; if you haven't, then bin it because it'll probably never work) - well, this applies here too. By bouncing your stems and setting them in stone, you're moving on to the next stage. You're less likely to get bogged down in trivial details, and you'll find that many issues will be easily solved by treating the whole stem. Also, by narrowing down your options you'll be less likely to suffer the classic paralysis induced by too much choice.

So how should you go about it? Well, precedence should be given to anything that needs to be a major feature of your mix - vocals, leads, basslines. These things can be given their own stems. Drums can largely be grouped together, although it's often useful to bounce the kick separately to the rest of the percussion, to make subsequent side-chaining easier, for instance. Similarly, it is wise to treat the bassline and sub bass as two different entities - for side-chaining again, and also for reverb and other effects which may want to be on the top section but not the sub.

Anything that involves several instruments playing the same thing (for instance when you have synth parts doubled up for a bigger sound) can be bounced down to a single stem, and with vocals you can perhaps have a lead vocal stem, and one stem for adlibs, backing vocals, and so on. Incidental effects too - make sure that you've got the panning sorted first (but even this can be expanded or contracted later on), and then bounce to one stem.

Reverbs and group compression should be left off until you're mixing down - it doesn't matter so much with background FX, but drums and featured elements should be kept fairly clean so that you can process them more effectively in mixdown.

Once you've done all this, and loaded it into a clean project, it's a lot easier to hear what is going on. You're less likely to be distracted by things you've already done - for instance, sometimes when you think a part needs a treble boost, and you see that there's already an EQ with a treble boost on it, you can be inclined to just leave it - as it's an issue you've clearly already addressed. When you've bounced everything, however, it becomes much more straightforward - if a part needs a treble boost then you simply apply one without worrying about it.

Of course, nothing is ever set in stone - and if you really need to go back a stage and bounce two elements separately then it will only take a few minutes to go and do so - but the hassle factor of that means that you'll most probably try and solve the issue without breaking up the stems. And in most cases, you'll usually be able to do so.

So, as we know, mixing down can be a complex and tricky process. But by narrowing your options, you can find that the choices you need to make can be reduced, without having to compromise on sound quality. So next time you're facing a big, multi-channel affair, try bouncing down to stem level and starting again. You may be surprised how much difference it can make!

Producing the Cash!

Most budding producers have a fairly straightforward idea of how they'll eventually make their living from music - write a selection of irresistible 12" releases, set the world afire with some choice DJ mixes, and then rake in the cash from the inevitable Ibiza residency. It's a nice dream... But in 2011, with sales falling through the floor and ever-increasing competition for DJ gigs, many producers are finding that they need to revise their expectations somewhat. However, it's still possible to make a living as a producer - if you look around for some other revenue streams. Here are a few ideas that you may want to consider, if you're going to pay your rent out of this.

Mixdowns: If you're a good producer, you'll no doubt find plenty of novices with decent tunes but poor engineering skills who need someone to put some polish onto their beats. You can look for work on forums, and use Soundcloud to show "before & after" clips to demonstrate your skills. If you can be diligent and turn a mixdown around in 2 or 3 hours, you should be able to charge a good hourly rate.

Tutorials: On a related note, there are many novice producers around who are happy to pay for production lessons. In general, they often don't need high-level advice, but more pointing in the right direction as regards getting started, composition, arrangement and basic production techniques. Again, hourly rates can be quite high, and so one or two lessons a week can make quite a difference to your balance sheet.

Selling beats: You don't need to sign up with a label to make money from selling your tracks - you can sell them directly to people who need need them for a flat fee. There are always plenty of MC's looking for beats for their singles, demos and mixtapes, and a good producer can make a decent three-figure sum for a beat that a rapper wants to chat over. Some producers make a living from this alone, and while a flat fee means you won't get that Ferrari in the unlikely event that your beat gets into the charts, it will guarantee a lot more work!

Advertising: It's the new music model - everything is supported by advertising, from Spotify to Youtube to Last.fm. So why not get in on the act? You could try starting a website that gives away what you have to offer - free music, or tutorials in how to produce, news and reviews of the latest tunes - and charge for advertising space. In general, the more populist you can go, the more likely you'll be to get some decent numbers; to make this worthwhile you'll be needing at least 30,000 unique visitors a month. That won't make you enough to live off, but it will certainly be a handy contribution to your earnings. The downside is that it's quite a commitment - you'll need to update your site regularly to keep people coming back for more.

Starting a label: If you have a good ear for what's hot and what will sell, it might be worth considering starting a label. This can be advantageous for several reasons - in addition to being a business that could make money, the contacts you build up while running the label will help when you want to promote and work your own music. Proceed with caution however - running a successful label is a huge amount of work, and many labels make only small profits at best. The work is also mainly managing, networking, marketing and accounting - not really using your hard-won musical skills!

DJ-ing: This may sound like it's contradicting the first paragraph, but have you considered DJ-ing beyond what you normally produce? As a music lover, it's likely you'll have a fairly solid musical knowledge and collection. It may be worth asking around some local bars if you can do a hip-hop night, or maybe a Sunday night reggae or funk session - whatever you can specialise in. These nights will generally require you to play for 3 or 4 hours at a stretch, and are poorly paid compared to that Ibiza residency - but if you can do a couple per month, it starts to stack up quite quickly. They'll also have the additional benefit of broadening your DJ skills beyond the standard of playing your normal tunes to your normal kind of demographic.

Making a living from music is harder than ever these days, and sadly it's no longer possible to just release a single every few weeks like it was back in the day. But by working hard and combining some of the above options, you can use the breadth of your talent to bring in enough money to pay the bills, and kiss goodbye to the day-job forever! It's tough, but then the best things are - and if you can manage it, it's immensely satisfying...