New Track Posted - "Stuff You Don't Hear in the Clubs"

FroBot - Stuff You Don't Hear In The Club (Original Mix) by FroBot

I released a new track today!!!

This is dubstep sounding house track with some funky wobbly basslines, and and spashy hits. With the classic line "Stuff you dont hear in the club". There's tons of stuff you dont hear in the clubs, and this a track dedicated to all those tracks! Look out for this track & remixes of this by DJ Vivid and others coming out on Beatport soon!

Released by: AfroBotic
Release date: Oct 7, 2010

Reverse Snare in House Music Tutorial

Today, I will talk about something I have come to love when making house music, or any music with a nice forward swing. The reverse snare (or any resonating percussion sound really). This old fashioned technique has been applied to countless songs, and has become more or less a STANDARD rather than an effect. This application of the reverse snare pre-leading a snare or clap...can give your song the total groove you were looking for. It helps put an extra little punch in the groove, and lets to have some massive control over how you want your song to swing. Using this technique with other concepts of moving high hats, snares, percussion...forward and backward in time...can give your song a totally unique swing. You can spend hours upon hours just playing with these ideas, and watch your groove transform from a robotic drum machine, to the groove of heaven. Ha.

As you can see, I find these concepts very important. But again, today, we will just talk about the reverse snare.

Now, in house music, there are multiple places you can put a reverse snare within your drums. Lets talk about some key places...and how I feel about them.

1. (my favorite) On the 2nd snare sound of a 4 bar house loop. (just before 1.4). When making house music, you usually have your snares on the 2nd and 4th bars. Adding a reverse snare as a sort of small build up on the 2nd snare sound will help swing it more than the swing you already have applied to your snares.

2. Same concept as 1, but instead of being on the 2nd snare, you put it on the first.

3. Another cool option is to put it at the very end up the loop, so the reverse snare pre-leads the first kick in the loop. (Somewhere just before 1.4.4). This will give a swing at the very end as it comes around and hits the kick. Caution must be applied here so that your reverse snare length does not hit with the peak of the coming kick.

4. Same concept as 3, but on ANY kick within the loop.

5. Another weird one I hear recently, is right AFTER the 2nd snare. So it swells just after the snare. I dont know what the thinking is behind this, but it does add an interesting swing in the right conditions.

6. Also, adding a reverse snare on any stab element which is standing at the foreground of the song can really swing the stab without actually moving it in time.

Of course there are other reasons to use this...but the main reason is to give a MINI build up to one of your swinging percussion elements. It can be applied at high db levels, or low db levels, each having their own distinct effect on the groove of the track.

Lets begin with how to do it. First off, you are going to need....obviously....kick, snares or claps, an extra snare for reversing, and possibly other 1/16th note elements so you can feel a little more swing of the groove. Its hard to tell a swing with ONLY the elements you are making...and it is best to work on the swing once you really have your sounds chosen already for shakers, and other fast percussive elements. You will feel the TOTAL groove, and not just the groove of the kick, snare, and reverse HH.

So, I am using my elements sections, but you can see, I have added an EXTRA AUDIO TRACK, and an EXTRA midi track (in green) beside my snare to do this reverse snare.

Now, for those of you who are familiar with my elements section, this wont look new. For all of you who dont know what this is, its basically all the pink and red tracks...which make up my drums section. I have other blogs about it. Basically, we will just be using the SIMPLERS within the RED tracks to launch my snares and kick.

So now, pick out a snare and a kick to use. You can put a swing on the snare if you like to really get a nice house groove going. Here is what I got.


My snare is in clip view. If you look closely at the next picture, the snare is not ON the line, its a little forward in time. This is the swing I put on my snares.

Ok. Now that I have a kick and snare going, lets get the reverse snare going. I am going to do this example like my 1. explanation. Just before the 2nd snare sound. So what you will need to do is find a nice resonating snare sound. One that has a little bit of a reverb or at least length to its sound. When we reverse it, we want the sucking sound of that length. If it has a hard attack sound, that is fine too, we will be cutting it off.

Now, take that sound and put it into your BLANK AUDIO TRACK like this.

Now what we want to do is reverse it. It is as easy as pushing the little REV button in the sample box beside the clip editor. This will reverse your sample.

Now. We dont want to use this in audio, we want a little more hands on control of the sound. So we will move it into a simpler, which is within my blank midi track. You can delete your audio track after this. I renamed my simpler midi track to REVERSE SNARE.


Now, you can either draw in a note, or play this with the keyboard or midi controller. Its nice to be able to change the transpose just by pushing buttons at this point so you can make sure your reverse snare and your actual snare are within the same key. Yes, they do have keys. You should even have to use the detune to get these just right. You can even toss on a spectrum to analyze the frequencies and move them closer together if you like...I usually use my ears.

Now, obviously, we just shorten the start point of this sample because of the silence at the beginning. We must also CHOP OFF the attack sound of the snare which is now at the end of the sample. This requires some playing around, but play with the start and stop points until you get a nice sound to work with. You will DEF be changing these in a minute once we put in the midi notes for it, because when heard in contrast with the kick and snare, it will need changed. For now, just get a nice short swooshing sound.

Something else to keep in mind. As you transpose a sample up by semitones, the sample will be played faster (normal science of pitch and speed). So, as you slow it down, the sample will be played back slower. So try whole octave differences even, even double octaves, then shorten the LENGTH of the start and end markers. There are infinite possibilities for swooshing sounds at this point.

Now its time to put a midi note in for you to adjust the timing of. You can either draw it within your midi editor in simpler or play it in. Mine looks like this -

Something else to keep in mind, c3 in the midi editor is the sample being unaffected by pitch...so my note is not in that spot because I played it in. If you DRAW it in, just draw it in at c3 and then use the transpose within the midi clip view to change it manually.

As you can see, it is JUST BEFORE the 1.4 marker because it will be leading into the 2nd snare. Now, we need to move that puppy around with the grid off to get the exact sound we are looking for. Shut your grid off and start moving it forward and backward in time until you hear it sound right. You can adjust the note length also at this point. It would be best to adjust it so it ENDS just as the snare hits....however, sometimes, other cool effects can be made by making it end BEFORE or even AFTER the snare transient hits.

After toying around with those parameters, I came up with this. It ends JUST after the 4th bar because my snares are already SWINGING a little forward in time, so I wanted it to end just as they hit to accentuate the snares swing.

Now, the last little thing is to play with the attack (or other parameters, but attack is important). Because you have jumped forward with your start marker in your reverse snare, there should be a small audio JUMP as it comes in. You want this swoosh to be as smooth as possible leading into your snare (unless artistically you dont, but its a good habit). So adjust your volume attack parameter within simpler. It also doesnt hurt trying your filters attack also if you had a rather "tin like" snare sound and would like to filter out some of the high end, or you had a really deep snare, and you would like to use a higher WHOOSH sound, use a HP to filter it out. You can even just filter it OUT OF THE the attack with the filter envelope. But for now, I will just use the volume attack envelope -

Now, you have a nice little swoosh leading into your snare. Finally, play with the volume. This is arguably the most important step. The volume in which that swoosh is applied, can drastically effect the groove, or more exactly...that little PUSH at the end of the loop. Even a very very small amount can add a lot to your loop. I find myself using this 90% of the time in very SMALL amounts. Even if you put it in some of your track, and then not in others, it can drastically change the groove in different parts of the track, without moving any elements in time. Its a trick on your brain....and to an untrained ear...it just makes their hips move more!

Hope this helped! Keep makin tunes!!!

FroBot

Off Hit High Hats & Ghost Notes in Ableton Live

Today, I am going to talk about the importance of OFF HIT high hats, and ghost notes to make a major difference in the swing over all in drum loop. High hats can be the "make or break" element in a track, and help to define its swing and overall feel. Just as a drummer helps use it to keep time, we need to use it to keep time. But you will also notice that when a real drummer is playing the high hats, you will sometimes see them dance or swing their arms in a funky way with the rhythm of the HH's. This is crucial to music that involves a swing...and this gives you a lot better control than just using grooves from your groove pool. Lets begin.

As always, I am using my drum elements section to make my drum loops. Here we will look at the 1/4 note HHs on the off hit. I will also be running a kick in the background so I can feel the swing a little more. Open simpler. Place 2 or 4 midi notes to activate a HH sample (or any other off hit sample of your choice).

As you can see, I have 4 midi notes, but for the time being, I am only going to use 2 of them. When you play this back, it can sound really drum machine like. Sometimes this works, but for house, it almost never works. Now lets do some simple adjustments to make it swing a little. This may go without saying to a lot of people, but I know there are always new users who find this information useful.

Lets shut off your grid (right click and select OFF from fixed grid) (you can use shortcuts if you like too).

Now that the grid is off, select the notes and move them to the left or right. Usually, for your MAIN hard hits, its better to move them to the RIGHT as to make it swing a little slower. This will make the girls hips shake a little more in the club...and we all like that!

As you can see, I shifted both of them to the right a bit. The swing of the beat is really starting to show through. This is nice for getting your house beat made. Now, another key is to change your velocity a bit so it doesnt sound so robotic. This can be done using the little bars below the notes....and is really important once we get into ghost notes. Now, before you go any further, you want to make sure the velocity setting in your simpler is set up to a desired level. I use 100% most of the time...but if you want a less drastic change, you can change it to a setting you like. It is the button in the bottom right of your simpler.

Now go back into your midi note view, and change some of the note velocities. You will notice a definite change.

Now lets talk about ghost notes. These are notes with a very SMALL velocity setting that can barely be heard, but def add dynamics to your HHs. What I am going to do is draw a couple notes in front and back of my louder HH sounds. Its best to keep the grid off at this point because you usually dont want to put these in time (on the grid markers).

As you can see. I added 2 small notes just before and after my first note. The velocity is VERY small, but this really adds to the sound. It sounds more like a real drummer is playing it rather than a drum machine. These are key to getting right. Move them from left to right to get them to sound just right. Sometimes, you may even have to change these a little as the song progresses if you add other percussion elements to the track.

Something else I didnt mention is the LENGTH of your actually midi note. As you can see, mine are pretty long. I didnt clean them up yet. One even falls past the loop marker. You should clean those up. Depending on how long your sample is, they should be ending where you want them to.


Now, another way to get a totally different sound out of your high hats is to actually control the note length within simpler. I almost always do this, because I tend to like sharp sounding HHs. Just my preference, it all depends on the person. I know tons of people of like long resonating HHs, but I usually like sharp ones. As you can see in this picture, I moved my end marker and shortened up the HH.

Now here is a little trick I dont hear to many people talking about, but I like to use. I like to use filter envelopes within my clip to change some of the filter parameters of 1 or 2 of the notes. The way you do this, first, you need to activate the filter button (turns yellow) and then also the other filter button in the bottom left (also turns yellow). Also, the ENV button in the bottom middle left should be turned up a little bit so that the envelope activates.


Now you need to go back into your midi notes editor, and click the envelopes button (little button in the bottom left that looks like an "e"). This will open up your envelopes. Then from your envelopes selector, your filter options should be within it since you turned on your filters in simpler. I am going to select the ATTACK parameter and change it a little bit.



I drew in some automation of the attack over the first ghost note.


Now...no change should be taking effect because I did not change my filter setting. Go back to your simpler and set the filter to your liking. Also, keep in mind that the automation within clip view doesnt work the same as normal automation. You wont see the black the knob moving on the attack parameter like you would if you would have made changes in the compose view...but rather the little orange bar around the attack should be moving. Make sure you have the attack parameter set up if you want it to take place. It only takes place UP to where you have the BLACK line pointing on the parameter.


You can do this with other parameters within simpler too, and it gives you a lot of possibilities when changing up your HH sound. There are many unrealistic sounding things you can do too, like turning on an LFO, and then automating it to speed up VERY QUICKLY over one of the snare hits. Whatever your mind can come up with, it is all possible.

These are just a few of the ideas. Hopefully you can get your HHs sounding just the right way. Making sure your OFF HIT high hats are just right, will ultimately give your sound the groove you are looking for.

Keep makin tunes!

Peace!

FroBot

VIDEO (4 Part) Making a House Track in Ableton Live Tutorial

I have been getting a few request to make a video detailing how I make a track in ableton live. This is a 4 part youtube video (20 mins) explaining the process. Comment if you have questions. Part 4 shows a little bit of my new track. Sorry for the low video quality. My digital camcorder has been broken for a while so I used an old one.







t>