Hey folks! I am frustrated with the lack of my audio engineering skills, again.

Situation: Me, making a beat, a simple one, FL Studio (standard soft clipper on the master), guitar, kick, rimshot, some hihats and the 808. Decided to make a broomy 808. Did some distortion, did some saturation, not bad but it only got to be broomy when I turned it up. Loved the sound, now comes the tricky part: How do I get that broomy sound without the overcranked volume?

Tried to turn it down and adjust the saturation/distortion but it sounded very different. Then decided to bounce it. Thought I did it, the broomy sound was still there, but after turning the volume of the bounced one down, that broomy sound was gone again (even though it was a little different). So question No 1 is:

1. How can I get my broomy 808 sound, which is having its nice broomy sound of being too loud, back into a mix with headroom?

There are tons of example sounds, so here go just two of them:

Trippie Red ( I chose this, as it also has that simple guitar & 808 combination)

Roddie Rhicch ( this one is also my second question from the title)

Quesion No2.:
2. How to get that 808 tight again, even that it sits in a region that (to my usual taste) would be considered too low, where it loses its power. What is applied here to get it powered up, even though it is too low?

 

Sound example of your track would help the most.

 

the guys who are making these beats aren't designing the 808 they just have the cool ones. i've always wondered who are the master minds behind certain 808s.

the roddy rich 808 is definitely one of the two I've attached. Roddys one has some highs removed. maybe you can listen to it and try to match it

 

cheers for the shadowban audiosex. preeshiate it!

 

I really would like to help but I have such a fucking hard time processing what you say

 

By accident I marked your reply as best answer ;)
Is that because you are pro and my words seem like noob-nonsense to you, or because you are not pro, and my uneducated way of expression is trying too much to go beyond simple beat making. (pardon me, hit making

Thanks, I received your gift. Will try that out. Yes, it's correct that I came from synthed 808 and processed it myself to get broomy, and it worked but now I have headache because I don't understand how to "lock in that sound" before turning the volume down to fit that beast into the mix but remain broomy, arrrrghhh.

When I try to think of the solution, I see the waveform in my head, broomy because that sine explodes out the ceiling, then it's clear why turning that thing down makes it lose the broom broom. But if I take a broom broom sample, then I can turn that down while the character remains. So why tf can't I transfer that to my 808 line???

 

http://www.mediafire.com/file/qvktx6jmqx17y9u/Caramel.rar/file this drumkit have good ones for you're asking

 

If you want to make a hard hitting 808 that will hit low and distort high to come through in the higher ranges then try this.
Make a duplicate copy of the 808. On the first one do a low pass filter to about 100hz or where most of the meat is for the 808. On the 2nd do a high pass filter so you have none of the 100hz or below coming through.
On the high pass 808, use whatever you like for distortion to get your sound. Then you eq to taste, blend the low pass and high pass 808’s until it sounds good to you. That way you’ll have an 808 that hits low and cuts through the mix on the highs.

Personally what I do on the low 808 is I use acustica audio diamond 3 and diamond lift to add more weight to the lows. Then throw a limiter so I’m not peaking then I’m good to go.

and on the mixbus I would use a mid side eq like bx v3 and make sure my sides is high passed and my mono signal is in the mono frequency range. And with whatever instruments you have just eq what isn’t needed and fighting with other elements. Important thing is do not solo each instrument and eq out frequencies. Listen to how it sounds as a whole so you can hear what you’re really taking out or adding.

oh and also I high pass around 20-30hz to take out the real low end rumble that takes away the energy of the track.

Hope I helped out in some way.

 

Last edited: Jun 6, 2020

Well when i was designing the 808 I Just started with a raw regular zay 808, designed a new transients so that it would hit harder without being louder, then i adjusted the actual body the 808 using distortion, saturation, etc, and then i finally made sure it was'nt clipping with keeps it from being way louder than it needs to be.

 

Had to change the guitar to not run into copyright issues, but here we go:
https://www.file-upload.net/download-14124513/MikeWithHeartonthewayToThatBroomBroom.wav.html
Thanks for taking part in my quest!

Thank you! will try them. Still want to get that nut cracked, in this individual one.

Yes, I get you. So the question could be, why did I not get my 808 to sound right without the clipping/overloudness. Or is it possible to go the overloud route, lock that sound, but fix it afterwards for the mix. Any ideas?

 

That has always been a question for me.
How do these guys get that hard hitting fat transient? I do fast pitch envelope + Transient designer but I have noticed the transient is still thin( It hits but the frequency content of transient is not the same as pro tracks)
How can I get that fucking low hitting transient or how can I get that crazy knocking transient? ( The answer is not transient shaper !!!)

 

Your situation is the actual problem. Read it again and if you don't get it mate, then definitely gonna help. (Hope you have aha moment).

 

MikeWithHeartonthewayToThatBroomBroom.wav if you put a mix like that in a club , they gonna kill the PA in order to hear the music behind the 808. In the Trippie Red example the 808 shares a room with the rest of the music. In yours the 808 it's the whole building. It's too loud and you will not get away with it.

 

Thanks for taking part. Well, no, didn't get it after reading again my whole story. Maybe it's because I lack in audio engineering knowledge. I try to analyze: the sound is broomy aka fat because it's too loud aka clipping (but not really clipping, maybe because of the soft clipper on the master). Sure, the sound is supposed to be fat before it gets too loud. Is that what you are trying to say? That I will have no chance of "locking that sound", because by turning it down it will lose its character?

Help much appreciated.

Thanks for listening and your opinion. Yes, def a good description of my problem. When I turn that 808 down, the 808 loses its character (gets a much cleaner sound). Is there a way for me to preserve the exact same sound even though it will be more quite?

Maybe I am totally wrong, but my thinking is like this: when I bounce the sound, it still has that exact character (even if i turn the volume of my speakers down = everything gets more quite). When I turn that down "in the mix" the character fades.

Why is that different to other samples? When I load up a fat/saturated/broomy 808 which was normalized, and turn that down in my mix, that thing does not lose its character of sound, just becomes more quite.

What is the difference between "my sample" and "other samples"?

Edit: am I wrong, that my sample is not clipping? is it clipping actually? and why don't i get it? I usually know the sound of clipping audio (is the soft clipper tricking me?), Dang I feel really audio-stupid ;)

 

Ok, just took another look, I am clipping. My Master is set +6db to leave me headroom for the finalization. When I turn that down, the broomy character goes equally down. So there is no possibility of "turning clipped sound character down and preserving the character"? Is that correct? Gotta achieve that sound before it clips, correct?

Edit: my mistake, it's the standard fruity limiter (not the soft clipper) on the master... my bad

 

Bro you just typed out the solution yourself. Soft clipper has gentle curve, it gives you that rumble. You have your soft clipper set on your master chain. I recommend you never putting anything on master chain, if you are still in mixing, sound design stage. Just put soft clipper on your sub chain or channel, then after the clipping part turn down the gain. Cheers.

 

Wait, what?
Master fader always at 0.

 

Am I wrong with the approach, that when my masterfader is at +6 in the creative mode (where I usually tend to have EVERYTHING to loud first), then I do some adjustments to see the master maximum peak at -0,1 db. And then, I can - in finalization - just reset the master fader to zero and almost magically I get the "desired" 6 db of headroom?

I don't remember where I have this from, but I remember things like "processors are designed for specific levels" so if you come in too quiet or too loud, that would be something rather to avoid. I understand that if I would give a mix to a mastering engineer, the peak limiting (or equal) has to be off. But in reality, artist want to hear beats "ready" so usually beats are very often "quick-mastered", which will/can be taken off for the mastering engineer who really understands that job. I believe the term "headroom" originates in leaving some db of room in loudness. Wrong? Appreciate your comment.

 

Interesting. Computer processors or external a/d mic pres? One would push a pre to get a more coloured sound on the way in.
But unlike the analogue days when I started, in the digital domain we work in the negative on all faders whilst still gain-staging all the way.
Even with your Master levels hitting at +6 when the Master fader is still at 0 is not a good thing imo. I never have any need to push my Master fader up.
A finished mixdown can still be quiet and dealt with later.
If you start a project with all MIDI instruments at -18 when you are tracking, then you already have the headroom prior to any further treatment on those tracks.
I see what you are saying, about how you choose to work, but it's a bit convoluted and I've never seen this in a pro environment.
But if it works for you, don't even worry about it!
Just don't saturate your entire mix with digital clipping, obvs.

 

Very interesting. In addition to your input I read an article from a mastering engineer stating that the -6db "thing" is really from the beginning of the digital days and had its origin in AD/DA converters (and their weaknesses). And that nowadays it is even no problem to have a mix peaking even above zero, as we can just export a 32bit (or higher) floating point wav file for mastering and usually all the clipping there is gone, they will handle the rest.

I will try your advice. I came from recording in Cubase and never really got warm with creating beats in Cubase. After MPC Software/Hardware I come back to FL Studio (in times before youtube I left Fruity Loops for Cubase, because of recording). I like to have a good template to save some time and give myself a good framework so I don't have to think of all the tech in the creative mode.

The +6db template is 3 weeks old, so I am still very open for other approaches. It breaks my creativity when I have to adjust volumes and such in times I just want to input and compose / arrange. And when I come to a point where I kind of like what I did, and then notice that I had major mistakes (as for the clipping 808 in this thread), that's a real turn-off. The 808 this whole thread is about, got in my eye when I had to level it down (as everything else), and then it lost its character (the rest was fine).

So one final question to this and I hope for your good advice:

A) Turn down the fader for the instrument channel in the mixer -18db OR B) turn down the output of the instrument (by around) 18db?

I think maybe it's better to have a -18db singal coming into the mixer while the fader is still at zero (so this would be a hint to the latter), but then I can not have it integrated in my template. Would this be any / noticable / or even significant difference? Because if not, than my template could have this done for me and that would be a bonus for the creativity mode. Do the processors that I put on the channel (or a later bus, where all my channels route to) react different for situation A) and B)?

Of course I appreciate everybody else's input, too on this one.