Hello everybody, I start asking sorry for my bad English, i'm new in the forum, and pretty new in the use of sequencers and similar stuff.
I'm looking around and find just one threads to answer a bit to one of my questions.
I start to using Logic X, more or less 1 month ago. I listening many kind of music and different genres and styles but I'm more oriented on electronic and dance... hard dance, maybe.

There are several "little sounds" that I would like to be able to recreate with Logic and the tools it provides, without having to spend an arm and a leg for this or that synth. I'm not talking about samples, but the two paths I intend to follow are the following:
- Modify with effects or in other ways the loops present in Logic X
- Start from scratch and do everything with MIDI, using ES1&2, Ultrabeat, Alchemy and the other tools.

One of the first is the bass drum/bassline (my terms are limited) that was heard in the productions of the early 2000s in the Hardtrance, Hardstyle, Hardhouse field. That "woooz woooz" (I discovered that often the onomatopoeias change based on the language, excuse me) that accompanies the kick drum and is often heard in productions like those of Scot Project, Hennes & Cold (First Step, Second step) or Megaphone (There is a Bassdrum).

(I don't remember was so fast)

Another sound, a bit similar is the one that accompanies the Hardtechno box to Boris S., Sven Wittekind or Robert Natus. Some time ago I saw a tutorial on YouTube to create it in MIDI, also quite simple, but not having programs at the time I couldn't even try. I made some attempts, I'm getting close but something is missing.

Acid sounds. I've already seen a discussion about acid and the 303, but the sound I'm looking for is the scratchy and explosive one. The one you hear in certain works by Chris Liberator or D.A.V.E. The Drummer, but more specifically in the works of ASYS or Warmduscher (10 kleine bassdrum)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xl_KUF9XV7Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUNlrtIClxA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwiszZ-Va_Q

Finally, a small step towards Trance. Here maybe it's not a question of instruments but of knowing how to play... I'd like to recreate those typical melodies that you hear in Quench - Dreams and Angel of Death - Angel of Death

To be honest I have many other questions but I think this is already too much for only one thread. Thank you for helps

 

oké, im not an expert but ive been turning and twisint knobs for 10 years now. I'm not sure how new ur to music production but these sinds in the beginning u speak off which acompany the kick. To me they sound just like the sounds ur getting from a 303 but with distortion over it.

And never the less u could similar sounds like those with a bass synthesizer and indeed distort and hence u could even make better sounds so to speak since we're living in a day and age with better tools.

The rest u asked I dont know.

Angel of death melodie, against, sounds like just a simpel wave, maybe it's a square wave, i'm not sure. Im sure someone here soon is gonne comment exactly what wave it is. But it just sounds like a simpel synths to me with the right kind of distortion. I know this because ive been using stock ableton plugins and they might not be what ur looking for. Maybe the new ableton 12 plugins can help u further.

Also many times the sounds sound so nice because theyve gone through many ways of processing. For example by the creators themselfs and afterwards when going to a masterering.

 

nice selection of tunes.. quench, rexanthony...
my honest advice to you would be just start making music. remember that no song is ever going to be perfect, so it's completely understandable if the first things you make are horrible to your ears and you wish you had never done them. truth is, those little "bad apples" are what's going to make you better.

what i said here is mostly for the 90s trance/hard trance part but i think it can apply to everything..

active listening/sketching
there are many ways to go about it btw. an idea could be: drop the track into your daw, set the tempo right (be careful, some tracks from the 90s vary slightly in tempo like if a track is 160 you're gonna see 159.2 then at another point 159.8.. this is because of the hardware/whatever i assume); then start sketching out the elements and the arrangement. do a proper, active listening. imagine you slap dreams by quench (original mix) on your daw. what do you see? how many elements can you count? is there a lot of automation? fx? how does it start? how does it end? what's the point of maximum energy? is there a change every X bars, or did the author decide to have more freedom? sound characteristics: does it feel "vintage/old"? is there some element that's always in the front? is there tension and release in form of melody, elements, arrangement, automation, filters? etc. etc. active listening, understand what you're listening to, not only enjoy it.. (although very hard not to dance when 'dreams' is playing)
once you have your sketch, your notes with what you observed and what you properly heard (or what you THINK you heard), create a track from scratch by using those notes and following "these rules".

melodies, notes?
but backtired i dont want to copy!!
well yes, you're doing this to learn, not to make a hit.. this is for "ideas/arrangement/track management". sounds and the rest, that's another matter. melodies and chords another different one as well. for melodies and chords, i wouldn't worry too much if you're doing this kind of music, but having a basic idea of the relationships between notes, what a scale is, etc. definitely helps. the truth is it takes time, patience, and a lot of mistakes and oversights. slowly, patterns will emerge, you will realise more about arps, specific rhythms, etc. no shortcut. i would also suggest a small midi controller or keyboard (i have a small keyboard with 8 knobs, it's fun to bash some keys and come up with something.. but again, in this kind of music, a lot of lines are made on arps or sequencers). consider yourself lucky you're not trying making jazz or something... :D if you study those tracks properly, u will notice that a lot of melodies or arps are extremely simple, most of the times they are drenched in fxs, automation, layers, etc. also you gotta ask yourself: what's the role of this element in the track? forget about any "secret sauce/secret techniques" about melodies. don't waste time watching tutorials about this kind of stuff.

sounds/vsts
you asked about "explosive" acid sounds. that's really all about the distortion used and the processing. plus playing with the filters, etc, etc. again, it's highly dependant on the kind of track and what's around the acid sound. there are many vsts for acid. i use phoscyon2 and roland. if what you're trying to recreate is not a full sequence of acid, remember.. you don't have to use a 303. many synths are equally capable of making a similar sound: low cutoff and high resonance. imagine you're making a bass, a trick would be to sample the sound and then use it in a sampler, like tal-sampler (or use tal-dac on it?), to give it a bit of a more "analogue" feeling (i wouldn't worry too much about this).
also remember that even though these tracks are old and a lot of guys were young when making them, they were still tracks mixed and mastered by a proper engineer. do not compare your Work In Progress sound with a final polished track.
other sounds really you don't need a lot of plugins. if you're looking for something that gets close to that era, TAL has some nice emulations; KORG m1 and triton for some good sounds.. but again i repeat myself here: you can easily use nexus or omnisphere to achieve similar sounds if you know what you're doing. the bass you describe in your first part is the infamous picotto's bass (not sure if he was the first one to use it). it's just a reverse bass: long attack/play with envelope and filter. im pretty sure many people have explained how it's made, but again, try to use your head and try to make it from scratch.. then, if you can't get it, check someone else. if you're talking about the distorted kick drum, that's a little bit more complicated, like in hardstyle.. you have to separate the kick from the tail (if you want to later change the bass melody) so that the tail has a distinct note/tone..

in any case, i'm no expert and i'm just a hobbyist. long story short, make music. listen to it again, and try to figure out: "what can i do to make this better next time?"

cheers

edit- i forgot to say, there are quite some helpful people around here if you ask the right questions and read the right posts by the right users

 

Last edited: Jun 17, 2025 at 10:03 AM