Since kids brought back boom bap and called it lofi 
Looks like a great vst, but I‘m not sure how much I would use it. For 80% off it would have been a nobrainer
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rc-20 for $19 is an instant buy if you don’t have it already. it’s pretty flexible and can be used for more than just adding vinyl simulation and noise. some of my recent stuff involves drums played in via addictive drums with rc-20 on top to make them sound like samples, much like the barry’s beats series.
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thanks. the drum loop is a little noisy by itself. i used eq8 to roll off the bass at 30hz (pretty much my default), drum buss with 20% drive, “medium” compression, and 25% boom, then into arturia’s tape mello-fi with the “drum warmer” preset, then into the beat repeat plugin with automation to flip it on at the breaks (1/16th grid, 1/4 note intervals), into glue compressor (which isn’t really doing anything except maybe providing some soft clipping, and i should just remove this plugin from the buss), into modnetic with the “era 501 7” preset. the phasing is probably from a combination of modnetic’s light chorus effect in this preset and beat repeat. that’s my guess, at least. that extra snare is just my laziness. it ended up in whatever loop, and i didn’t cut it or eq it out. it didn’t sound bad to my ear but isn’t some genius move, either. putting this together took like an hour on the couch, so i was not going to be too picky.
the bass in this is just a second track of the main 1 bar loop from the end of the song when things got quieter, but with all the highs rolled off and a sharp boost around 100hz. then it goes into the amp sim on bass mode with highs and mids dropped low and becomes mono. it might be too much. dunno…
rc-20 sits on top of all the tracks in a buss. i usually start with either vinyl 1 or 2, then tweak from there, bringing the vinyl noise way down and the wobbles and fluctuations up. i also usually remove the filtering to bring back some of the lows and highs, then mess with the overall balance with ozone 9 on the master buss.
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Thank you for the detailed info on your process. This got me inspired to step up my game. I never use templates when I start a session in Reaper but I am eager to now build a go to Drum Buss and always have it in sessions. Unfortunately, I get pretty impatient at the mixing stage and usually want to be done with the track by that time but I can see how having a standard chain that just gets tweaked to fit the song could be really beneficial.
Yeah, the phase sound was a nice effect. I tend to overdo chorus effects.
Thanks again for taking the time to go in depth about your process - it really has got me excited to spend some time dialing things in.
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I missed this as well. I’ll keep my eyes peeled if it comes up again. Thanks for the tip.
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no problem! trading production tips is one of the things i hope to see in this thread. as far as i know, nobody in here makes a living making this music. we’re all learning as we go. i look forward to talking shop.
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This one is awesome man!
you just reminded me of a thing that i’ve been using recently but is probably obvious: to simulate a track mute or whatever to drop out drums or anything else on the track, automate the mixer’s “speaker on” setting. in the automation view, it’s super easy to zoom in to drop a square shape toggling the mute on a snare, etc. i imagine it’s even easier with something like a push, where you can map settings to automate and drive it with the pads.
Nice. I spend way to much time automating mutes so any workaround on that front is appreciated. Which DAW are you using?
Just to keep the production tips spirit going I will mention this about recording synths and getting more vibe. I may have mentioned this before but it stands repeating. Synths and especially synths with a mono output sound amazing with Soundtoys’ Microshift plug in. It won’t necessarily get synths to sound like they were sampled off an old LP but it without fail will help synths sound lush and sit in a mix incredibly well. It’s also one of the most set it and forget it plug-ins I have ever used. It also sound quite good on clean guitars and vocals. I ended up buying the Eventide Pitchfactor pedal because I loved the Microshift plug-in so much.
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nice one. i’m on ableton but almost wish i’d started with logic. so it goes…
microshift is pretty sweet on vocals, too.
Whatsup man! I was just thinking some of the original elektronauts hiphop heads were yet missing in action in this thread, and then I saw you posted here haha, still going strong? Also, @blaize: are still on this forum? Been missing your DT beats.
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Not really. I come time to time to check news but that’s all.
I didn’t make music since long time. My DT take dust gently. I have no time for music now. Maybe later in my life I will have time to switch on again this future retro classic and make beats.
I listen yours beats sometime and still very impressed by the quality 
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Good to hear from you, and it’s a shame you don’t have time to make music. You single handedly kept the Hiphop made on the DT thread alive for a while!
There’s things way more important than to make music, but I hope we’ll hear some more of those bangers sometime in the future!
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came across these two nuggets recently and felt like folks might appreciate them.
this one feels like a best case scenario of sampling (and clearing):
then this week i’ve been listening to a bunch of pete rock and grap luva in the background for work and found this gem of going through some old beats on disk:
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Fantastic mixtape here. So much good stuff. I just listened through the Sp404 mk2 and had to stop it every couple of minutes and call up Skip Back to sample what I just heard.
damn, some more gold in here for inspiration. damu goes full drum professor. such a humble guy, too.
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yep, and there isn’t any mpc model that can’t do what an mpc was really made for.
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inspired by listening to some classic breaks videos today, here’s a thing with melvin bliss’s “synthetic substitution” break behind some brazilian flavor. i think the mix is too loud.
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anyone have any tips on getting a nice, solid kick sound that kinda sucks the air out of a room? sidechain compression triggered by the kick can get me some space, but with mixed results. what do you do if you’re not using individual drum tracks, like if your drums are a loop? i’m thinking stuff like this, which may not be a great example.
sounds to me like a slow release on the compressor? dunno…
here’s another very obvious example. it can definitely be overused, but i’m interested in the mechanics of the production technique here. kount’s stuff often features this really full kick dynamic.
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Yeah thats sidechain compression on the kick for sure… it literally does sound like air being sucked out of the room. Both tracks seem to have quite a slow release on the comp as you said.
There’s a few tricks to mimic this without actually using sidechain compression, which also work on a drumloop without separate tracks:
- you can set an envelope with a long attack on the samples which you chop exactly on the kick. This way, it will sound like the kick is pushing down the samples without it actually happening.
- on elektron machines (or in any daw) you can use trigless trigs (or automation) to duck the sound of other tracks on the place where the kick is, even if you have no compression going on, by locking/automating low volume on those places.
- another trick if you do want to use real sidechain compression is use a ‘ghost’ kick which you layer under the loop, and use that one to sidechain.
Hope this helps you!
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