Hi all,

Last year I bought Drumazon 2 vst because it is such a good sounding 909 clone (and more). The thing is that I barely use it in my projects because I find it easier to just load up a bunch of samples. Recently I discovered you can assign each sound (ie. kick, snare, clap etc.) to its own mixer channel in Ableton Live so that opens up some new possibilities for processing the drums outside Drumazon But still I am not sure what is the most usefull / best way to incorporate drummachines like Drumazon into my projects. I could create a template project in which the machine loads up assigned to individual channels, or do you have other / better ways to implement such vsts?

Hi guys,

How do you make your sine wave bleeps less boring?

I've been mostly playing with reverb decay time, echo or delay. Not sure if distorting the signal is a good idea as I feel like it destroys the whole "plucky" vibe.

What's your go to method?

Hello fine techno afficianados.

I had previously moved from Detroit to Phoenix to discover a pretty sweet techno scene in Phoenix.

Recently I have relocated from Phoenix to Dallas and I am not finding a whole lot of techno shows out here. Chris Liebing came through a month or so ago but for the rest of electronic music I am seeing mostly house.

I just got myself the Undredog course and I am also considering getting either Ableton Standard of Bitwig Producer as a Black Friday deal.

I played around with both, and being not competent in any DAW I find Bitwig much more clear, pleasant, easy to use, modern etc. Overall it feels like a DAW I would want to transition to as soon as I get core/transferrable music production skills.

The course is taught in Ableton and Oscar from Underdog claims that the concepts taught are applicable in any DAW. I believe that this is very much true, however I am afraid that for a beginner the small differences in workflow/controls might be getting in a way at every step, and thus slow down the progress and take away from motivation.

How hard would that be for a beginner like me to follow the course, but using Bitwig instead of Ableton?

Thanks Everyone!

Hey friends! Not sure why but as much as Im absolutely in love with producing and djing techno, I realize I've sacrificed a lot of friendships and relationships to get to where I am. I feel like I'm just getting started even though I've become one of the hardest working techno djs in my city. Techno is a lonely pursuit, at least thats how it feels. Has anyone else felt this way about the music production grind? It may be that Techno is not really big in my city yet, but its getting there fast.

Hey everyone I am thinking of getting the MacBook Air M3 16GB Ram 256GB SSD for Black Friday. Its a good deal and the versions with more storage space are too expensive for me so I would be running it with an external SSD. I mostly produce techno and house music in Ableton. My projects don't get too big but I usually use a few CPU intensive plugins like U-He Diva. On my current laptop sometimes my projects start lagging due to CPU overload or CPU overheating (currently using a Windows with AMD Ryzen 5 4500U/16GB Ram)

Do you think the MacBook is adequate for my usage? Does anyone have experiences using a MacBook with an external SSD? Would you recommend it or should I buy a better Windows laptop instead?

Looking to take advantage of some Black Friday deals. Do y’all have any plug ins that are game changers/essentials to producing/mixing techno/trance/acid?

Hi all,

I've been looking at Reaktor for a while (my synth selection is pretty drab) and now for BF it's 50% off. Is the standalone worthwhile or do you need expansions to get it to produce at a high level? I don't know much about it, but I know many of the artists I love swear by it

I’m looking for a drum machine/sampler that I can use both for live sets as well as production at home. Does anyone here have the DJS-1000? How would it compare to something like a TR-8S? What other options would be good for someone wanting to do an even split between live sets and home production?

Please use this thread to ask about a specific sound you are trying to create.

Guidelines for asking:

​

• Make sure you have a clear example of the sound u want to recreate, don't just say the stab in this track, try to describe when it actually appears.
• Ask for help with one sound at a time.
• If you know how to help others with a sound, please do so.
• Try to use technical and musical language in your explanation of a sound as much as you are able.
• Soundcloud links are the most ideal solution.
• Keep it friendly!

The intention behind this thread is to help others improve their music by participating in the community. People who continually spam this thread without helping other members may be banned.

just felt like popping in and mentioning that most of the clubs I've been playing have stereo systems. I'm a big mono nerd when it comes to producing - still am even after learning this. But just thought it was interesting because I feel like, I don't know, 5, 6, 7 years or more ago it seemed like I was seeing a lot of stuff about how clubs are mono. I even played a decently big festival stage (tunel at ritvales) that was stereo. tbh that doesn't make sense to me, but is what the sound person told me. Yeah, thought that was interesting and would drop it in here in case anyone cares

Do people normally always wait to EQ each element once the arrangement is completed?

I'm just learning about the details of this but it feels like for me I might prefer to EQ as I built the sections from the beginning as getting used to the change in the sound at the end feels strange (even if it's minor/ an improvement in the overall clarity of the sound).

What does your workflow look like with regards to EQing?

I feel like I've heard these exact same string sounds a hundred times, but I have no clue where they're from. Any specific machine or preset or sample pack or ?? Thanks!

https://youtu.be/WDm2y7FPKms?si=wrZwXpKk5kz5orw1&t=473

Hi I’m looking to take advantage of Black Friday and purchase a decent reverb plugin. I’m looking for something like the Waves R Verb, ie a good digital algorithmic reverb which can model rooms chambers plates halls etc. Do you guys know of anything? Thanks.

I'm looking to re-amp and record synths / samplers with a guitar amp that has lots of sound / time shaping options to send back to the computer to add to the rest of a mix / track. Would the Positive Grid Spark 2 amp be a good choice? I understand having at 4" drivers it's not going to give much bass but I don't think I'll be doing this to bass heavy sounds anyway. My main concern is that it's stereo and the drivers point away by 10°. I was planning on using a traditional mono mic such as Shure SM57 or Lewitt LCT 240 so not sure if I should go with a stereo mic or go with a different amp or ditch this idea entirely… Any advice? Thanks!

Hello Techno Fam - I wanted to know what do you guys think of mixing using studio headphones like beyerdynamic vs regular earphones like SONY XM5s or ANKER or any equivalent daily casual products.

I am in a bit of a pickle because on FLAT studio headphones, I really cannot decipher the bass and the low ends. Which resulted in me cranking it up until I can hear it. But then, I realised after that the low-end is too much. How do you navigate hearing the sub/low frequencies during your mixing stage? Let's just assume that I don't have studio monitors and/or a well-treated room.

Most headphones outside of studio headphones, give a good bass response and I can mix the low-end nicely. I will usually use a reference track and SPAN to make sure I am going in the right direction.

Hi everyone,

We’re conducting research to better understand the needs of beginner and intermediate techno producers, specifically in the hard techno genre. To do this, we’d really appreciate your help!

If you have a few minutes to spare, we’d love it if you could fill out this short survey: https://forms.gle/Kj3YpLuDww5wSxNc8

Your feedback will help us understand what producers are looking for and how we can better support the community. All responses are anonymous and will only be used for this research.

Thank you so much for your time and input!

If there’s anything that needs adjustment, please let me know! 🙌

Hey y'all,

Another user looking for headphone/in-ear recommendation, but I think with a twist. I'm not looking for good "mixing" solutions, but prefer the listening experience.

I make techno using modular synthesizers and mostly use my 15 year old AKG K240 (or something like that). To make a good mix I trust them and know what sounds good, but when I'm trying to jam I'm missing a lot of low-end which doesn't help to get really in the flow.

I've got some JBL Everest Elite headphones, which are way to bass-heavy to make a reliable mix, but makes it way easier to really get in to it. Unfortunately these headphones are getting old and broken, and it's time to replace them.

I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one with this wish, so really interesting to hear what others are using.

Yep, 909/808, boring I know - but I can't find any sample packs which have pairs of the normal and accented sounds at various settings. Most seem to just chuck a couple of random accents at the end. Thanks!

There’s a certain quality that some bigger tracks have that I’m trying to pin down. When I say “bigger,” I don’t mean popularity, I’m more pointing to the scale of the song where the implied space of the track is pretty large. Those tracks that are clearly meant to resemble large warehouses or festival grounds.

These tracks have a really beautiful means of using reverb to create that space, which I call atmosphere. But I’m wondering how they do it? I know of creating a couple of return channels where you create variations of a reverb to emulate the space; the variations can make the sends sound like they’re coming from the front, middle, or the back of the space. I’m pretty new, so there are heavy odds I’m not doing it right.

I feel like the key is in rumble kicks and the consonance in reverb tails of upper sounds. It almost sounds like they’ll also add filtered noise with fully wet reverb in the back of the mix, but idk how you get that effect without mud.

Some tracks for example:

Luca Eck, Nur Jaber - Fall to Pieces

https://youtu.be/uZMIw0Oq6iA?si=gD9IckpBrAFporrB

U25 - Derive Sur Le Spleen

https://youtu.be/FQwnvY0CH8I?si=0t8eGR95DBf-YkJI

These two tracks do it wonderfully. Rich, audible atmosphere at scale without mud in the mix. Anyone have any ideas?

Started making music a few months ago as a hobby with no clear route in mind. Kinda thought if like a year down the line I could release some stuff out on Spotify or Soundcloud (assuming my stuff isn't terrible lol).

But I'm curious because I see talking about submitting to labels. What is the benefit of doing this? Having a larger promotional mechanism to boost your music? Better pay? Lock you into a contract to release music?

So i have been hearing alot of variations of this pretty specific style of super fast kicks/basslines from many of my favourite artists latley. Hard for me to explain it but it almost makes me think of a machine gun or something.
I really can't explain it well, nor can i seem to recreate it, therefore i will share some examples of what i mean below(sure theese might be made differently and they differ in variations, but i think you get the gist of what i am looking for):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVubjZGByvQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdzBJ4eOmOI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDOUHXVelok (from ca 00.48)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m00ogQAa-Xc

Does this have aname/term? Anyone who has any idea how this i made? I'm sure it's some super simple and obvious way but i just can't figure it out..

Please use this thread to post your tracks for feedback.

Guidelines for posting/feedback:

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• When you post a track you should leave feedback on at least one other members track.
• Please submit only 1 track per thread.
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• Ask questions specific to issues you may be having with your track.
• When leaving feedback it is helpful use timestamps to refer to specific parts in the tracks
• Try to use technical and musical language in your feedback as much as you are able.
• Soundcloud links are the most ideal solution.

The intention behind this thread is to help others improve their music by participating in the community. People who continually spam this thread without leaving feedback for other members may be banned.

As a reminder, any feedback posts made outside of this thread will be deleted by a moderator.