Open Shut Them | Super Simple Songs - How to Mix 808's with Layered Kick Drums

Open Shut Them | Super Simple Songs





Open, shut them
Open, shut them
Give a little clap, clap, clap
Open, shut them
Open, shut them
Put them in your lap, lap, lap
Big and small
Big and small
Big and small
Big, big, big, big
Small, small, small
Big and small
Big and small
Big, big, big, big
Small, small, small
Please
No, thank you
Please
No, thank you
Please
No, thank you
Please, please, please, please
No, thank you
Please
No, thank you
<br><br>
Please
No, thank you
Please, please, please, please
No, thank you
Fast and slow
Fast and slow
Fast and slow
Fast, fast, fast, fast
Slow, slow, slow
Fast and slow
Fast and slow
Fast, fast, fast, fast
Slow, slow, slow
Loud and quiet
Loud and quiet
Loud and quiet
Loud, loud, loud, loud
Shh... Quiet
Loud and quiet
Loud and quiet
Loud, loud, loud, loud
Shh... Quiet
Peek-a-boo
Peek-a-boo
Peek-a-boo
Peek-a, peek-a, peek-a-boo
Peek-a-boo
Peek-a-boo
Peek-a, peek-a, peek-a-boo



How to Mix 808's with Layered Kick Drums




Hey, guys. Matthew Weiss, www.Weiss-Sound.com,
www.TheProAudioFiles.com and
now, www.MixingRapVocals.com. Yes, I've released
a tutorial. I encourage
you to check it out because it is awesome,
but you know what else is
awesome? 808's. Everyone loves 808's. 808's
can be a little tricky. Why?
Because they're sinusoidal things that you
don't really hear because
they're too low to show up on your laptop
speakers. Okay, so how do you
make an 808 sound big?
Well, I've got a demonstration on that and,
as a very special treat, I will
be demonstrating on a record that I recently
mixed for the multiple-
platinum-awarded, multiple Grammy-Award-winning
rap group, Arrested
Development. Yes, I hit up Speech, and he
said, &quot;Yeah man, go for it, you
can use this song.&quot; And thank you very much.
Rock on you guys, Arrested
Development. All right, let's give a listen
to the track.
[music 00:01:04]
Good low-end. Okay, so what's the deal with
the low-end? Well, when I got
the record it didn't have that low-end, so
I hit up Speech and I said, hey
man, I'm going to redesign this low-end which
is why there's so many
plugins in this session because I was doing
sound-designy, kind of
productionish work while I was mixing. He
said, go for it and I did it and
he loved it, so it worked out. I'm going to
show you what I did.
First of all, the components of the low-end
are four fold mainly. There is
this bass. There is a punchy kick. There is
an 808. There is also this
percussion overdub. The first and most important
thing is selecting an 808
sample that you like. If it's not an 808 sample
that you like, then why use
it? That's silly. Here's what the 808 sounded
like to begin with.
Okay, so let's play that with the bass. That
is grossly out of tune, and
also, it's too high-pitched. I want a monstrous,
beefy sub. So, I'm going
to pitch this thing way down and, you know,
I could sit here showing you
how I pitched it and what it sounded like,
but basically I ended up down at
like, two doubles, like six notes down or
something crazy.
Now, the other thing is, anytime you're mixing
two bass elements together,
always check the polarity, which means the
phase. That's usually marked
with a Omega. So I'm going to flip the polarity.
That sounds better. Also,
I don't really need that click at the front
of the 808, because I have a
punchy kick that's in there. So, let's just
get rid of that. Let's keep it
cleaner.
Cool, sounds good. All right, so now I've
got plenty of sub. It's really
cushioning the bottom end. I know it's going
to make the speakers in a car
explode, but it's lacking something. What
it's lacking is tone. This mix is
dense. There's a lot of stuff going on. There's
some synthesizers. There's
vocals. There's snares. There's percussions.
There's kicks. There's also
some crazy stuff happening, so I need to give
it some overtone. I am going
to use my favorite plug-in, Decapitator, and
give it some buzz.
Now, it's going to show up on laptop speakers,
and also, it has a nice
character to it, which it didn't have it before,
and I'm going to enhance
that a little bit with some EQ. I'm going
to take off the distortion. I'm
going to take off the EQ, and then I'm going
to switch them on.
<br><br>
[music 00:04:34]
So, the song is called &quot;Bio.&quot; It's by Arrested
Development. It is currently
unreleased, but hopefully it will be coming
out as a B-side single soon,
ArrestedDevelopmentMusic.com. That is... I
hope that inspires you to make
some awesome 808 sounds. All right guys, 'til
next time.