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Hey, guys. Matthew Weiss, www.Weiss-Sound.com, www.TheProAudioFiles.com and
now, www.MixingRapVocals.com. Yes, I've released a tutorial. I encourage
you to check it out because it is awesome, but you know what else is
awesome? 808's. Everyone loves 808's. 808's can be a little tricky. Why?
Because they're sinusoidal things that you don't really hear because
they're too low to show up on your laptop speakers. Okay, so how do you
make an 808 sound big?
Well, I've got a demonstration on that and, as a very special treat, I will
be demonstrating on a record that I recently mixed for the multiple-
platinum-awarded, multiple Grammy-Award-winning rap group, Arrested
Development. Yes, I hit up Speech, and he said, "Yeah man, go for it, you
can use this song." And thank you very much. Rock on you guys, Arrested
Development. All right, let's give a listen to the track.
[music 00:01:04]
Good low-end. Okay, so what's the deal with the low-end? Well, when I got
the record it didn't have that low-end, so I hit up Speech and I said, hey
man, I'm going to redesign this low-end which is why there's so many
plugins in this session because I was doing sound-designy, kind of
productionish work while I was mixing. He said, go for it and I did it and
he loved it, so it worked out. I'm going to show you what I did.
First of all, the components of the low-end are four fold mainly. There is
this bass. There is a punchy kick. There is an 808. There is also this
percussion overdub. The first and most important thing is selecting an 808
sample that you like. If it's not an 808 sample that you like, then why use
it? That's silly. Here's what the 808 sounded like to begin with.
Okay, so let's play that with the bass. That is grossly out of tune, and
also, it's too high-pitched. I want a monstrous, beefy sub. So, I'm going
to pitch this thing way down and, you know, I could sit here showing you
how I pitched it and what it sounded like, but basically I ended up down at
like, two doubles, like six notes down or something crazy.
Now, the other thing is, anytime you're mixing two bass elements together,
always check the polarity, which means the phase. That's usually marked
with a Omega. So I'm going to flip the polarity. That sounds better. Also,
I don't really need that click at the front of the 808, because I have a
punchy kick that's in there. So, let's just get rid of that. Let's keep it
cleaner.
Cool, sounds good. All right, so now I've got plenty of sub. It's really
cushioning the bottom end. I know it's going to make the speakers in a car
explode, but it's lacking something. What it's lacking is tone. This mix is
dense. There's a lot of stuff going on. There's some synthesizers. There's
vocals. There's snares. There's percussions. There's kicks. There's also
some crazy stuff happening, so I need to give it some overtone. I am going
to use my favorite plug-in, Decapitator, and give it some buzz.
Now, it's going to show up on laptop speakers, and also, it has a nice
character to it, which it didn't have it before, and I'm going to enhance
that a little bit with some EQ. I'm going to take off the distortion. I'm
going to take off the EQ, and then I'm going to switch them on.
[music 00:04:34]
So, the song is called "Bio." It's by Arrested Development. It is currently
unreleased, but hopefully it will be coming out as a B-side single soon,
ArrestedDevelopmentMusic.com. That is... I hope that inspires you to make
some awesome 808 sounds. All right guys, 'til next time.