Sunday, October 30, 2011

A little trick I used to make a few of my Hard Techno tracks sound oldschool...


I use this to get that oldschool percussive feel on most of my tracks. Now most new sample packs contain hits and samples a little too crisp and pristine, overly processed and they dont really do it for hard tech or hardgroove beats. but there is a trick to make your tracks sound oldschool.
1. Make loop of toms, percussive hits, quantize on 16ths and 8ths.
2. Tune down a few of them, this will give you the lowend you want. Tuning toms is what that retro feel is all about
3. Take that loop (no kickdrum yet) and render it to wav (also render it as loop if that option is available)
4. Open that loop in your favorite MP3 encoder
5. Render at either64kbps or 96kbps. This will kinda smoosh the sounds together and create a nice sounding downsampled sound (make sure its renderd in stereo)
6. Bring it back into the DAW and EQ boost the bottom and high end.
7. Compress it a bit and use an imager8. Finish and master the track as you usually would

This is a technique i figured out on my own, adds something extra to the processing. I know it goes against every rule but whatever.

Check out examples here:

http://www.beatport.com/label/sdk-hard/19241
http://www.beatport.com/label/retro-future-techno-sdk-rekords/22124