I saw a few people interested in making dubstep here so I'm going to drop a bunch of knowledge cause absolutely nothing is happening at work right now.
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Tempo is typically 140 bpm - 160 if you're going for a Zomboy style, and 174 (half time drums) if you're going for a Figure style
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Kick on the first beat, snare on the third
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Drums are the most important part of the tune, you may not believe me now but one day you will.
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At the end of every 8 bars you normally will have some sort of fill/transition
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If your bass sounds like shit try dropping a few db around 400hz then compress
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In my opinion the coolest sounds come from adding the fx on first, and then building a patch into the fx. (For example a blank patch then say you have a flanger with 30% wetness and then an overdrive after the flanger. The reason I love doing this is because all the stuff you are doing inside of the synth will now sound completely different/unique and most times more interesting then building from a blank synth and adding the fx chain after.)
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32 bar intro - 32 bar drop - 16 bar break/bridge - 32 bar drop - 16 bar outro
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hi hat/cymbal speed is important for the energy of the tune
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Use a band reject filter (or just use an eq and drop the notch all the way down as low as it goes then tighten up the Q a tiny bit.) and then add distortion after the filter. Crank the distortion and now modulate the volume/frequency filter up and down [left and right for people new to the terminology] the spectrum and it yields interesting results.
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Careful with the high end in your bass sounds. Need to leave room for the cymbals
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Layer a punchy snare with no reverb with a clap that is drenched in reverb and turned down a few db
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Learn some simple music theory. Don't just put notes in. It's so easy to even just google around and find a chord or two that you like and just stick to those notes!
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If you listen to your song and anything sticks out, turn it down. The tune should sound flat
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Not sure what else to add but if you guys have any questions I'm happy to help you guys out :)
"absolutely nothing happening at work right now"....... shhhh your secret is safe with me...
http://i.imgur.com/F1iKPrA.jpg
But seriously
https://soundcloud.com/obsologic
OK so I know this is off topic possibly but I hear trap basically came from dubstep you got any tips for trap by chance? I'm almost there but not quite.
trap originated from south american rap i believe and is now a huge thing the edm sector..
look up artist like Frenchman "tomsize" who in my opinion is the king of trap..
have a soundcloud link of one of tomsizes goodies below maybe this will help get you familiar with what traps all about ?
@Obsologic if you have any tips on how to create similar synths to the song i have provided in the soundcloud link through caustics internals i would appreciate it very much i also am trying to prod a bit of trap at the moment.. also great tips on dubstep creation dude i'm trying some of your techniques out at the moment that snare/clap layering sounds awesome cheers...
wow dude thanks so much for that layering tip ! so much more wow !
Why are you running XP?!
My latest track on show and tell
My Soundcloud page
160-174 bpm is too much. It'd sound more like drum and bass. But thanks for the tips. Anyway, i've been listening to drumstep recently and found out that shifting instruments isn't at all necessary to get a groove on. There's this track... Here With You Now by Grabbitz. The second verse of it was trappy, too.
Follow me on Soundcloud! @Markkus More Official
I doubt that the demo track posted here was made in Caustic. The effects and reverb tone is not consistant with the sonic character of the app. If so, the wobble sounds are samples from an outside source, tuned to a single pitch and tempo.... But let's see what he says, next time he pops in.
The modular synth seems to be the best tool to create these sounds..... I've made a few of the myself, but my lack of experience of that type of music has prevented me from really diving in there with design.
In the end, some of.you guys got me beat on the DubStep department.
Here's my pathetic attempt quick trial at dubstep modular-synth generated in Caustic 3.1
Work computer. As in i work at a small private airport. I have no control over the software mate
https://soundcloud.com/obsologic
Trap: 140 bpm, synths have lots of portamento/pitch sliding going on while being played in em, hi hats going fast, write in triplets
https://soundcloud.com/obsologic
Oi mate want me to send you a caustic file with some crazy shit in it?
I mastered it in Ableton 9 by the way. Also I make a lot of samples on my PC and import them into the phone to use em. The drums inside of caustic are pretty basic so I added my own. Also only the drop was made inside of caustic. Bounced it out as a .wav then did the rest inside of my DAW. Caustic isn't that powerful as of now :)
https://soundcloud.com/obsologic
The wobbles are not synced. The are triggered by a tastefully adjusted attack/release knob so every time a note is hit, the attack obviously restarts. Made a few copies of the same synth and wa-lah.
Also most of the sonic power comes from effects
https://soundcloud.com/obsologic
I have a trick that makes the clap and snare combo work perfectly! Select the snare hit(s) that go with a clap, turn quantize off, and drag it (them) slightly before the clap. It makes it sound a lot more realistic, as if the snare is that one person in the crowd/group that doesn't clap on beat. It adds a "humanization" to the mix. You can also try throwing in a reversed cymbal/snare (drawn out) before every second clap. This makes a brutal drop... well, brutal! I also like to mess around with the Comb Filter to give it a slight reverb. Then increase the bass (still watch out for red lines, I prefer a limiter on my beatboxes.)
YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/endvisible
Soundcloud:
https://soundcloud.com/endvisible
Instagram & Twitter - @endvisible
"Caustic isn't that powerful"???? You sure about that? How long have you used the app? Sure I'll take a peek at the SongFile..... I'll dig out a few of mine I'll share with you..... Caustic can do alot more than you realize....
Here's a modelling exercise I tested out a few months back....
Caustic Song file (optional):
could i get a peek at that file there man ? always looking for some pro qual examples of dubstep creation using caustic.. cheers