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filthy, dirty, gritty, grainy dubstep beats.
what effect do i use to make them?
i'm brand new at this, just starting with making beats before i move into other stuff, but they sound so flat. I'm looking for that sound that makes me screw up my face and stab into the air with my fingers, bow my head and say, "fuuuuuuck yeah."
what effect do i use to make them?
i'm brand new at this, just starting with making beats before i move into other stuff, but they sound so flat. I'm looking for that sound that makes me screw up my face and stab into the air with my fingers, bow my head and say, "fuuuuuuck yeah."
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Seattle
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Re: what makes beats dirty?
Sun, February 22, 2009 - 6:43 AMinitially you have to start with good sounds that have some of the properties you're looking for already and then try these:
1.compression (to make them bigger)
2. distortion/overdrive/saturation -- variations on the same theme (to "dirty them up")
3. eq (to fine tune the effect.)
my suggestion is to look for youtube/web tutorials -- you can probably just put in "making dubstep beats" since that sound is so popular now. remember that the mother of that sound is uk garage and its father is d&b, so anything applying to either of those will probably help too. and computer music and future music (if you happen to see either of these magazines) is probably some of the best dollars/pounds/euros you'll spend to learn -- other than going to audio engineering school.
linx: www.computermusic.co.uk/
www.futuremusic.co.uk/ -
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lookee what i found!
Sun, February 22, 2009 - 6:51 AMsomething to dirty stuff up: www.futuremusic.co.uk/page/futuremusic
still, only an element in what i was mentioning before, but cool nonetheless... check this before it gets changed!
btw, it's pc-only right now -- check the comments to see if there are recommendations for a mac alternative.
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Re: what makes beats dirty?
Mon, February 23, 2009 - 12:09 PMhere's another tip: distortion (or waveshaping or saturation) through a clean reverb tends to sound very clean despite the distortion; a clean reverb through a distortion unit sounds dirty as hell (while maintaining the sense of space). so if you want clean, put your reverb after the distortion, and vice versa.
also may i recommend ohm force's ohmicide distortion plug-in : multi-band, multi-algorithm distortion with a huge bank of presets, including many (many) for drums. -
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Re: what makes beats dirty?
Mon, February 23, 2009 - 12:15 PMfor software distortion, I like izotope trash, logics distortion or bitcrusher, camel phat, and ohmicide
for hardware distortion I use the sherman filterbank II as well as a pedal called Malekko B:assmaster. I would love to get my hands on the thermionic culture vulture.
But "dirty" doesn't necessarily mean distortion. This is a subjective term which could be related to a number of factors. You can make some pretty grimey sounds at the source if you know how to properly use your synths, eqs, and compressors. -
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Re: what makes beats dirty?
Mon, February 23, 2009 - 1:52 PM
Try the saturation control on Live's built-in "analog warmth" plugin.
-troy -
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Re: what makes beats dirty?
Mon, February 23, 2009 - 4:51 PMawesome. thanks for all the suggestions.
i'm trying them all, one at a time. I am using a Mac, however, so that plug-in is not available to me.
i haven't figured out if it's possible to put an effect on just one drum in a kit like you can in Reason (by toggling to the back of the devices and manually plugging in), but that is what i'd like to do. Anyone know if there's a way to do this in Ableton? I know i can change the controls for each drum in Impulse by clicking on the individual drum, but can you (for example) add an audio effect to just the kick drum? -
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Re: what makes beats dirty?
Mon, February 23, 2009 - 10:14 PMOne more thing you might try.
If you are adding distortion to a kick or bass with a lot of low frequency content, it is helpful to add distortion only to frequencies above a certain amount. For example, have the same bassline in two tracks, cut one below a certain amount say 200hz, and the other above 200hz. Then only apply distortion to the high frequency content. This will keep the power of the subs while adding grit to the more audible part of the sound. -
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Re: what makes beats dirty?
Sat, April 18, 2009 - 6:51 AMYou know what's funny is I wasn't that crazy about the sound I was getting out of Reason (rewired into Ableton) until I started throwning Scream in on my drum tracks....very nice and Scream offers a lot of variety and tone.
www.reverbnation.com/mortalengines
www.myspace.com/mortal_engines
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Re: what makes beats dirty?
Sat, April 18, 2009 - 12:21 PMPlay around with really fat bassy synths, deep down in da hertz. I little bit of distortion to taste, not too much, you can add more later. Fatten 'em up with some compression till they're tick and juicy. Now pan 'em gently back an fort for some lubbly bubbly wobble...
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Re: what makes beats dirty?
Mon, April 20, 2009 - 8:13 AMdon't forget to re-amp your drum tracks i.e. send them out of the computer (oh my!) and into a guitar amp and mic that amp and send that back into the track. many classic drums sounds were made this way.
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Re: what makes beats dirty?
Sat, May 16, 2009 - 5:04 AMTHose heavy dubstep tracks have a lot of saturated and compressed beats to them. Compress the hell out of the bass and snare hits (I don't often recommend compressing the hell out of anything but that's the dubstep/grime way of life.). A bit of tube giving a good amount of drive and you should have what you're looking for. Distortion is great and all, but it colors the sound so much. If you can get your distortion plug (has to be a high quality one - many just fall far short of desired effect) to do what you really want, great, have fun. But for me, distortion over a beat is very rudimentary and usually sounds squaky if you want my 2 pennies.
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Re: what makes beats dirty?
Fri, October 23, 2009 - 6:27 AMA nice little effect chain to add dirt to a clean drum track is Reverb -> Gate -> Distortion. -
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Re: what makes beats dirty?
Sat, October 31, 2009 - 11:51 AMI've used bit crunching (the mda Degrade plugin is one; I also use Logic which has its own bit-crunching FX) on drum loops before (lowers bit depth, adds distortion); also, in Live's own FX, you can play around with the parameters in the Erosion FX, as well as some of the FX listed under Performance & DJ.
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