there's this track on soundcloud where this guy hellion has this huge 808 and loud master. I have little to no ideas on how to mix my 808 like him and the track loud as his track. It sounds like stereoization and distortion but i wouldn't know how to eq it and eq the track for that matter.

 

Last edited: May 18, 2016

That mix is horrible. All the dynamics from every sound are on the same level. The vocals sound like they are mixed right, yet the eqing and dynamic processing is so bad, you can barely make out what the rapper is saying. He literally has almost no room in the frequency spectrum to resonate through. Loud can also mean bad, and IMO this song is a prime example of that

 

Oh okay. sorry it just seemed kind of cool. but either way, what do you think he did to the 808? And how can i get my track that loud without destroying the dynamics?

 

You pretty much don't. Try a lot of saturation/distortion. Most likely use less low end and really get the area around 100hz balanced. Easy to go overboard in that area.

A great learning experience will be to take this track into one of your own mixes. Turn it down and A/B it with your current mix. If you have a plugin that can do EQ matching then do that as well to actually see what areas in your mix will be cut and boosted to match a track like THUGGER. Then adjust from there.

 

I been asking myself this question. Alot of the hipster trap music on soundcloud has that super powerful 808. I suspect that beyond all that distortion and saturation they clip the 808's

 

Saturators, distortion, cranking the preamp to change perceived loudness of the drums, etc etc. Not an easy trick either because if you don't understand mixing or mastering, can't do it.

 

just make the 808 bass hit the the master-bus compressor a little louder,
so that reduction is following the bass

 

ez steps for high amounts of loudness on master track:

Upwards Compressor - Saturation - Multiband Compressor - Limiter

The trick is how you use it along with the quality of tools that you have and how well you understand the quality.

Trust me it's not hard to make a track loud...you just have to know a few things about compression and limiters and realize the effect of saturation and how it can clip the sound while adding some warmth and giving you headroom blah blah fuck I havent touched music making in months...

 

Kiddo, if you don't know what this is, keep on making music with a humanly-decent dynamic range.

 

Koen does a great job explaining one of the tricks here. Which wil give you really loud kicks and or low end in some situations without carving and squashing, uplimiting the crap out of it.
@DARKh the Hellion mix though is squashed beyond recognition though.

 

Yeah he overdid it. It's oversaturated, he didn't high pass it so it's muddy as hell (if hell is muddy who knows...), it ends up squashing the whole dynamic of the mix, we don't hear anything but the 808. No way it was mastered properly this is home made mixing (and poorly).
First high pass your 808 and clear your mud (it must be an excellent quality sample or made with a good synth, it's easy with a sine wave to make a good 808) then use the waves R Bass on your sub (always at the fundamental frequency, same for the saturator if it's multi band one band at the fundamental) to make the low end pop out and loud, and finally any saturator will do the trick : I use Maul by fxpansion (multiband or single band saturator), you can use the Fabfilter saturn (same as Maul it's a multi or single, Maul has more saturation or distortion shape provided) thingy also, one which is excellent and yet rarely quoted for that is Trash (also multi or single, but hungry on CPU) by Isotop : you can design your own shape of saturation and you have modulated eqs available on top (or bottom) and a convolution unit with a lot of nice IRs, decapitator by soundtoys, etc, but multiband saturation/distortion tool is better you can give movment to your sub, follow the falling pitch of the 808, etc, etc...also be carefull when you change pitch of the 808 (and thus frequency) to follow along with your RBass and saturation thing in order to have an equal loudness across different pitches. Oh and he has two kicks : the kick of the 808 that comes at the beginning of the hit sometimes and another kick that hits in between. It's often the case.
Good luck !

 

Last edited: May 18, 2016

ADSR Sounds 808 and Sub Bass Masterclass


I'll watch the above to distract myself, and comeback and say what they teach, look at @jaxflash's stereo imaging thingie (I'm uncertain which plugin that is, but I'll use a few and may see that one again). I thought given bass is supposed to be mono and in the center, it's interesting, given your graph, it's spread way more than normal. If it's iZotope's I have bad intentions to that group cause it reminds me of iApple. And @( . ) ( . ) got to put those away, or cover them up.

The max loudness at least as explained to me is a series of compressors and limiters on different busses, usually 3 different times one into the other to get max loudness then into the Master but, I haven't heard so much muddiness and digital distortion with the examples I've heard like the example track you posted. Usually, the pro mastering guys over compress(expand), add it back in parallel AND eq their mess while maintaining the FX they wanted. That would also require CPU powa, if you don't bounce everything to wavs...and make your latency 1024 or whatever your DAW allows for slow as fk. If you have synths running in your mix instead of bouncing them to wavs, you need a real computer.

In the track, I hear clipping and digital distortion. Seems like an over pushed taped saturation but, I have virgin ears. There's saturation plugins that run the gamut from SoundToys Decapitator (my fave) to Saturn by FabFilter Waves has a few, but idk I'm retarded or I just don't like the sounds of the tube and the Saphira, but love the tape ones... Saturation plugins are usually only put on near last, because I can quickly cause clipping just breathing on it.

Now, if you only want to drive around in the hood shaking everyone's windows, this song would work. Just use a saturation plugin first something like fabfilter's Pro-MB (if that's the multicompressor, I forgot) and raise the lows, and add a limiter and drive it until after she crying cause of too much pleasure. Not like audiophiles will be analyzing the thump.

 

Awesome responses guys. Thanks for the help.

 

Dude, I'm up to that the 808 was from the Roland 808 before the time of the DAW, in the 1980s. To me, it sounds like shitte but, you can't argue with Kanye, he has a whole album, and BAMAATA or something made some really cool sounding tracks with shitte...I mean the 808!

 

you don't want loud first, you want balanced first, then maybe loud

 

Well now, I'm a little concerned, because 808s have a sub (20-60hz) a kick (60-150hz) and then usually saturation to mess with the higher frequencies to cut thru the mix...

...some 808s are just sub...I know if I'm not high passing just at <20hz but way higher (<60hz) with a 12-24 db slope, I'm good for having enough energy for everything else in the mix but, if I have to not do that but only cut <20hz idk how that will affect everything...I'll probably shoot my load with all the energy with the low frequencies...now I have to try it out.

...for the bass, you have to notch the 808 at 60-75hz to give it some space to live...

I know trap has a very aggressive 808 so, I wonder how they balance the total energy. I'm gonna listen to that track again and then some trap. The example you gave us first song, the guy has a sub bass 808 acting like a bass (has a bass line) and the "kick tick" 808 and the snare or I forgot the name of the noise generated drum sound is called. Sounds like the distortion is intentional, because it comes and goes thru the track.

Now I'm tired and really need to exercise or smack someone. Trap is way too aggressive for me unless I'm going into the ring.

So "getting the loudest sound" requires: sound design first (picking the best sound you want for that specific track), processing that sound second, mixing 3rd, and mastering (loudness) last. Given my vast experience of 2 hrs, with heartburn cause I dared to eat meatloaf...

 

Last edited: May 19, 2016

It's trap music. Real, dirty, authentic, modern, urban trap. Not that Singomakers trap. There's damn near no dynamics in music today, much less real trap music. Not a rule, but reality. I can name so many ways to get that sound, but what's really interesting (and sounds good to me) is that his 808 bass is wide as hell. How will it translate to the club (mono)? Who knows. The kick and snare sounds relatively up the middle, but that 808 bass is spread eagle.

 

I like trap music, I like it loud, dirty, urban (?), and all that. Loud doesn't mean no dynamic. Loud doesn't mean oversaturated and loud doesn't mean you can't hear anything in the mix because you didn't leave any space for any other thing than your 808 in the frequency spectrum. There's plenty of good urban (?) trap with dynamic, plenty of good modern urban (?) music with dynamic, in fact it's the ones that have some that people appreciate because you can't nod you head if there is no dynamic. And people still listen to music to nod their head around...
If you have an album with only tracks of this kind on it no way anyone listens to it all the way through, or their ears would be bleeding and they'll be screaming in agony. Our brain doesn't process well oversaturated signal, it begs to be unplugged when that happens.
Dynamic has nothing to do with music style. It's through dynamic variation that you create tension, any style needs tension to hook the listener. You need dynamic.

 

Sounds like he put a chorus on the sub. Maybe cut the lows on the side channel a bit. But def added a chorus.. try the TAL Chorus II on your 808 and add some distortion.. good luck.

 

Update on 808 sound design/processing/mixing/mastering.

The "key" of the sub bass line if it goes below ~28hz becomes almost inaudible to us and the track "loses powa" so on top of everything else, if you have a sub bass and/or an 808 kick/tick that does more than play one note every 2 measures, checking w[here]tf it goes, cause if it goes too low, you are wasting overall energy that could be used for the rest of the RMS perceived loudness, to below audible range (if something is at 20 hz, half of the energy is below that, check it out on your favorite meter(s)).

So if your 808 has a bass line, you have to make sure it stays within the ~28-60(75)hz range...to maximize RMS and perceived loudness.

So, I'll check out the track somehow, if I can download it now, idk, I've been using soundcloud for 2 weeks (3x's maybe) it seems to be my imgur for my sounds! Hey, I can't in any obvious way just download the track, I won't stream record it...I wouldn't do anything like that. Or is there an obvious way?

 

Last edited: May 19, 2016