Hi,

I need your guys' help breaking this down. The track is is G Maj.

1. My biggest question is how did the artist manage to make his kick drum and bass sit together, and be so powerful at 1:00. I separated the kick drum to find its key, it sits somewhere around G# but it doesn't make sense. Here's it if you wanna do your own analysis on it:

​

2. Also, how is it that his track is so damn wide!? my first though was it it must have been creative mid/side EQ, but the sounds are so glued together, I'm not sure. I also thought it would be a doubler effect on the synths and drums (like Soundtoys Microshifter), but their music is way too clean sounding to have been that.​

3. Percussion sound in 00:37. What type of a percussion sound is that? How do you make drums sit like that in a drum sounding so natural? I think for the width of it, he must have used a doubler plugin, as with those you can hear a portion of the sound coming from the middle, but correct me if I'm wrong.

4. Another thing, is the synth hook at 1:15; I automatically associate this type of dirty cool sounds with serum but I'm not sure. (@Baxter, mate, I have seen you around being associated as Sound Design genius; hence, why I would use your help)​

I honestly am going around circles any help would be appreciated. Please make sure the playback is in HD (click on SD on top right corner of the ZippyPlayer).

 

Last edited: Sep 23, 2018

My 2 cents:
The main elements are panned mid left and mid right. This a track that appears to made on heaphones. The main elements exist copied on both sides, probably with some delay between them (chorus) to avoid phase issues. The lower freq elements are centered if you pay attention!

Love,
D.

 

1) There is a sine sub under the filtered distorted bass. The sine sub bass is most likely ducked to the kick.
2) Sometimes the bass is single and mid, while having panning automation. Other times it has has another oscillator which are then spread/counter-panned, making it wide. So there are several synths/sounds, basically, that is alternating (or even layered at some points).
3) Sounds like a small snare that is double-tracked and counter-panned. Room-ish recording or added reverb. The cut lows makes it psyco-acoustically sound evenfarther backin the room. Snare hits seems to have fade-ins on each (or transient designer atenuating the transients), except for the last one (with layered reverbed noise), making them softer/less snappy and you hear the room/ambience.
There's a lot more going on which makes it fun to listen to.
4) This is pretty easy to create in a multiband distortion like Ohmicide or Fabfilter Saturn. Basically it's using distortion and bandpass filtering (cutting lows and highs).
Nice track and great sound design.

 

Thats correct lower frequencies are always mono, however, It seems as if the bass is rotating if it makes sense.

 

I tried your recommendation for #4. I used massive, and put together a mono legato synth, with a low-pass filter LFO, and followed your instructions in Saturn, and I was very far off. I tried various styles of saturation available on Saturn, though I don't know where I'm going off.

Also, #3, I was able to find an almost identical sample to it in a pack, though that was a helpful tip mate.

for the other ones, I have been very busy lately, I will try them and give you feedback.