IRON TIP: Quick Beats

[Iron Keys]

Made a cool beat?

Use the same project to start a fresh beat with all the same sounds.

Once you've played about and found your key idea, the rest should fall into place like that *clicks fingers*

 

[2GooD Productions]

I have a template that I start with, all my busses are routed, it has reverb and delay already set up, drums too. The sidechain from the kick bus to the bass bus is setup going to a dynamic eq on the bass bus. This ducks the clashing frequencies on the bass while allowing the non clashing frequencies to remain, its more transparent than just compressing the whole bass bus. But you know this.
I have an eq, tape saturation, L2 Ultramaximizer, SPAN on the master bus. I turn them off until I need them though.
I dont have any instruments in my template, its my choices with those that pave the way for where the beat ends up, which I never usually know anyway, beats just make themselves, I help them along the way.

 

[Iron Keys]

I have a template that I start with, all my busses are routed, it has reverb and delay already set up, drums too. The sidechain from the kick bus to the bass bus is setup going to a dynamic eq on the bass bus. This ducks the clashing frequencies on the bass while allowing the non clashing frequencies to remain, its more transparent than just compressing the whole bass bus. But you know this.
I have an eq, tape saturation, L2 Ultramaximizer, SPAN on the master bus. I turn them off until I need them though.
I dont have any instruments in my template, its my choices with those that pave the way for where the beat ends up, which I never usually know anyway, beats just make themselves, I help them along the way.

I used to have templates like that set up when I was working in Sonar.
When I moved to Studio One it was so quick to use and adapt to I didn't bother setting up any.

Tempted to save my Master Bus chain as an FX chain just to save me time loading them. Really you should mix into them, but, meh I've been finding my way with it so far.

With my original post/idea, I find it enables me to make beats/compositions that just sit well together and I can work quickly, I'll do it for several beats or if I want a similar one, then start again with another. Producing 'em in series, like my 'Bag of Chips pt1, pt2, thru to pt5'.

The beats can actually sound very different. Like you might expect them to sound too samey, but they don't, but could all fit together if you wanted them to. Often I'll play one sound, add another, then maybe the rest of the sounds don't go for this one, so I'll bring in new sounds. But it's really quick and organic.

 

[2GooD Productions]

The beats can actually sound very different. Like you might expect them to sound too samey, but they don't, but could all fit together if you wanted them to. Often I'll play one sound, add another, then maybe the rest of the sounds don't go for this one, so I'll bring in new sounds. But it's really quick and organic.

Ive been noticing a sound/patch in 3 of the last beats Ive heard from you. 2 of them really worked for me, one didnt. But I have noticed it.

 

[Iron Keys]

I do the same with my Drum Kits as well, if I piece together a bunch of drums and they seem to work well, I'll save them as a kit for another time I might want that kind of vibe with drums ready that glue.

 

[Iron Keys]

Ive been noticing a sound/patch in 3 of the last beats Ive heard from you. 2 of them really worked for me, one didnt. But I have noticed it.

Yeah, I had two kind of sounds I made. Both quite distinctive. One of them I didn't use in my 'series' of beats, but made fair use of it. And yeah sometimes I've used it I go 'hmm, just ain't sitting right', even tho in my mind I can hear how it would/could.

 

[DPrezd Beggar]

This also helps to keep a certain atmosphere when creating an album with a specific theme.