Tracking Tips 1 written by sublyme (mkrnic@jagor.srce.hr) 1) NEVER, i mean, *N*E*V*E*R* over-amplify the samples. digital distortion that happens as a result of breaking the 96 dB barrier is BAD. if you need "stronger" samples, double them to another channel. if you need distortion, distort the samples externally in a wave editor. 2) panning is your friend: songs in mono are boring. remember that the bass sounds and the kicks always go in the middle, the percussion and the hihats should be somewhere nearby, and you can pan the rest of the samples around. just don't overdo it with fast pans. 3) put some groove on the kicks/percussion/hihats/... bum-tss-clap-tss-bum-tss-clap-tss sounds too minimal. add variations to the hihats and put some percussion instruments in the song too. also, make sure that the kick follows the overall "groove" in the song. add some variations to it on the end of the 2nd upbeat in one bar (a bar is 4 patterns with 16 kicks, downbeat-upbeat-downbeat-upbeat, if i'm not mistaken ;) the 1st upbeat usually has three kicks at the end (you know what i mean, right?). 4) tempo of 6 and 64 row patterns are NOT suitable for techno music. switch to tempo=3 and 128 rows - that way you'll have control of 1/16 notes - techno is based on 1/16's. you can also use the tempo of 4, but then you'll never know what exact bpm you're at ;) 5) don't overdo it with the snarerolls. also, never put snarerolls of different volume inside one song (e.g. one time you have it in one channel, one time you put it in two channels, doubling their volume - that's wrong). snarerolls are used to lift the people up and kick their energy reserves. more than one or two snarerolls per song is a bad idea, unless you're planning on hitting the viva top 20 chart ;)))) 6) find a balance between different frequencies. shorty_1.xi is not very suitable for a bass sound... :) 7) volume & panning envelopes aren't decorations... USE THEM! e.g. you can get an interesting effect on shakers etc. if you use the following panning envelope: | 2 | /\ | | \ +-|---\----/----- | | \ / |/ \/ | 1 (sorry, drawing in ascii sux..) you need to move point 2 close to point 1, and you'll get the initial sample attack panned to one side, and the fadeout/reverb on the other. experiment with the default panning and move it left or right for different effects. also, try making a sinewave-like panning envelope (watch the "amplitude" - keep it VERY small!) on the string instruments. when making chords, pan each note differently. with this kind of envelope, you'll get a rather nice panorama. you can also try triggering each note with a different position in the panning envelope (in ft2, that's Lxx). 8) if you can't find a suitable chord, you can probably find two suitable notes (like C+G, E+B) - then transform that into a false chord (like C4+G4+C5). and while we're at it, try inverting the chords (like E4+A4+C5, C4+E4+A4, etc.) ... also, try bass inversion - when a string goes up in pitch, lower the bass down. 9) when "adding" instruments into a pattern, try adding at least two different instruments at the same time. for example, add the hihats and the percussion at the same time. note, however, that this is not usually advisable with bass sounds - they should be accompanied with some efx. listen to some real songs (not mods ;) to see how differents instruments kick in. 10) if a song sounds bad without vocals or some specific sample, then it IS bad. focus on other aspects of the song, and use the vocals only as a sweet addition (like champagne with strawberries & cream ;) 11) if you sing in your modules or have a singer, remember that the straight melody will sound dull - that's why people have background singers, you know ;) if you can't have background vocals, make the singer sing parts of the melody at different pitches so that they form a chord - then add those vocals panned to left/right (main vocals go in the middle) and with a lower volume. if you didn't figure out what i'm talking about, try playing with the "vocal cut" option in your favourite wave editor. for a nice example of this technique, try lene marlin's "sitting down here" (awwww, isn't she cute? ;) 12) when playing with cutoffs, lower the cutoff of one instrument while raising the other. do one of it twice as slow, so one instrument makes one complete "circle" while the other makes two. 13) back to panning: you can make an interesting surrounding effect with the following (works best on noise-like atmospheric samples, such as wind): C-5 00 880 | | 01 | | 02 | C-5 00 810 | 03 | 01 | 04 | 01 | C-5 00 8F0 05 | 02 | 01 ...... | 02 | 01 40 | 03 | 01 | ...... | 02 | 20 | 02 | | ...... | | 18 the manual volume slides can be replaced with a slowly-raising volume envelope (BETTER CHOICE!), in which case you have _ C-5 40 880 | | | /.\ | | | / . \_ | C-5 20 810 | | / . \_ | | |/ . \__ | | C-5 18 8F0 +------------- vol. envelope dots=sustain 14) keep in mind that the volume envelope acts on the sample volume and is far more precise than pure volume slides, since you can enter 64 different volume levels while the volume envelope has more levels. take notice of the volume envelope above - it does NOT end at the bottom, which is a rather nice trick. there's a "fadeout" setting in ft2's instrument editor which controls the time until the sample fades out after releasing. the higher the number, the faster it will fade. with proper envelope/fadeout settings, you can get fadeouts which last for a LOT of time (kinda neat, eh? :) 15) if you hear a cool trick in someone else's music, you shouldn't be ashamed to copy the way it's done into your own (by this i don't mean to *literally* copy the samples/patterns - see how it's done, and learn to do it yourself). plur, ___ ___ / / / / ___ ___ _ / /_ / /__ __ _______ ______ /' __) / / )/ / / / . . ) __ ) :subliminaltransmissionflying (__ / / / ' / / / / / / / /___/ :throughwhiteholesandsubspace (___.(__.__(__(__.(__(__ .(__(__(__(______/ :causingfloatingfluffdisorder mkrnic@jagor.srce.hr (__./ [604love/ABK/MS] =========================================================================== tracking tips 1: errata Umm... I hate to say it, but sublyme's math is way off. 64 bars @ speed 6 is just fine to do quarter notes, hence the generic 4/4 kick sequence being: C-5 ... ... ... C-5 ... ... ... C-5 ... ... ... C-5 ... ... ... for 1 bar. If each kick is a quarter, and you have 4 slots per quarter.. SIXTEENTHS OHMYGOD! Reading the doc's for IT (tracking tips) will go into depth on why this really isn't a good idea for the most part. I hate to be picky, but somebody needed to point this out. (Amy ahmebah@hotmail.com)