How To Make - Uplifting Trance 2019 with James Dymond / 804

@Ootje98 & @Tekalight

First of all, Tekalight - thank you for commenting on multiple posts on here, helping to answer and explain other user’s questions. Looks like you know your production stuff for sure!!

Secondly, apologies for the delay in responding, but it seems like you have sorted out your issue already.

But just to add my bit of input…

I have added Low Pass and High Pass filters on the: kick & bass bus, HP on the kick, LP & HP on the bass, LP & resonance automation on the Perc Bus… And then multiple LP & HP on the rest of the elements.

The low pass will remove frequencies starting from the high end down to the low - vice versa, the high pass will remove frequencies starting from the low end up to the high.

I used both these filters throughout the project to control either the low or high in certain areas. For example, building up to a main transition I wanted to take the low end out of the kick/bass/sub. So I automated the ‘cut off’ on the high pass filter. Therefore, as the cut off moves upwards it ‘cuts off’ the low end.

Vice versa - I wanted to reduce the amount of high end you hear in the Percussion. So I used the ‘low pass filter’, and brought down the ‘cut off’. Therefore, as the cut off moves down it ‘cuts off’ the high end of the perc.

Hope that helps!
James.

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Amazing, great to hear! Good luck!

Thanks for the kind words as well as explaining your filters setup in detail, it really makes sense and it’s a very neat way to bring that Club performance feel to tracks. Was just lost in FL studio and didn’t grab it at first, really need to spend more time with this DAW. Will certainly check some of your other tutorials here on S.A as well. Thanks again :wink:

Amazing course and it’s really helped me with my processing of sounds.

Hey,

are the presets part of the resources?
Am in a facebook group which is about producing a guy told me this H2M Uplfiting Trance is great so i wanted to buy it. Another guy told me he doesnt have the presets for the synths and he cant recover it from the .flp. Is that true that the presets arent included?

Hey @James_Dymond , absolutely loving this tutorial series! It’s really given me awareness as to how much I was overcomplicating my workflow and the struggle to finish tracks fast!

I just wanted to confirm if you remove Reverb/Delay on all of your sounds in the respective synth (specifically leads/plucks/mid bass) prior to bus processing?

The presets are easy to get. All one needs is Sylenth, Spire and ANA-2, and the trial version of FL Studio 20…I had to get this as Logic Pro X is my primary DAW. I wouldn’t know if it doesn’t work on earlier versions of FL…but it DOES work with the trial version of the one downloadable from Image-Line.

All you do, is go to each instrument channel, bring up the GUI of each synth, then go to their menu > save preset as. To make them easier to find…don’t save them in the default directory. Instead make a new folder on the Desktop, and save each preset with the name of the channel “Lead 1” “Intro Pluck 1”, etc. The ANA 2 presets don’t need to be saved, its much faster just to search for the names within its Browser. – To go even further, one could save all of the 3rd party presets, provided they have the respective Waves, ArtsAcoustic… the FabFilter Q1 ones, as long as one owns Q2 or Q3, they can get a free license for version 1 (I had to do this also). For those using cracks…can’t help ya there, I bought mine.

– It took me less than 10 minutes to do, and I hadn’t even touched FL Studio since…whenever it was still called Fruityloops.

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James out of curiousity what filter slope are you using for these? I have the Sonalksis filter. I figure its either 12 or 24 but just wanted to check. Thanks again.

I have cubase, does your stuff work with any DAW?

I have Cubase, but I’m pretty sure that I can use the plugins that I have!

Hey there @mrdjcosmo

Yes in general it’s always possible to follow a tutorial in a different DAW than the tutor’s one. 3rd party plugins can be load in major DAWs ( a bit more tricky for people using Logic Pro and therefore restricted to AU plugins format though ), stock plugins used innside the tutor’s DAW can be replaced by your own DAW stock plugins counterparts, most DAWs have similar effects & tools nowadays.

IMO, though it can be a bit more difficult than using the same DAW as in the course, it’s a very good learning path & exercise to reproduce the tutorial inside your own DAW, very beneficial for learning as opposed to just copy/paste settings if using the same DAW.

great!

Great tutorial, but to be honest, when you’re processing the kick + bass bus with those expensive compressors and analog emulations, there is no noticeable difference in the sound at all. I don’t know if it is because of the audio quality of the video stream or not, but I have been producing long enough to know that those settings didn’t do anything noticeable to the sound.

Just my opinion on this, that’s often the case when producers really nail the use of those expensive analog emulation plugins, you should not really hear a big difference at all unless you’re aiming at getting drastic changes in the audio for sound design purpose.

Those tools when use wisely should only introduce very subtle & almost inaudible changes, it’s more about getting suttle saturation, color & compression to make the kick siting more in the all track than pushing it hard & getting very audible changes ( unless that’s what your aiming at of course ).

I do agree that hose plugins are expensive, but because of their design after real analog gears & all the engineering behind it, they are also valuable tools. There’s a lot of excellent cheaper or even free plugins that are also great but IMO smaller companies don’t always have the technology & expertise to model real analog gears & put them into high performances DSP using very good algorithms, and unfortunately, that cost money too. So yes, high end plugins are expensive for the user in the end.

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This is just my two cents, but in music, of you can’t hear it, it doesn’t matter. The Ssl comp did a lot, but the API and the tape saturator did absolutely nothing. Don’t believe me? Play the video again where he bypasses the API. Oh wait, he bypasses the WRONG PLUGIN and claims the API is making a huge difference. Even James can’t tell the difference. This is a classic case of “I spent so much money on this I will force myself to like it and use it”.

This is just my two cents as well, but I’m able to hear it. In fact, I did a check right before writing this. Woke up an hour ago, didn’t do any audio work yesterday so ears are fresh.

In short, most of the difference I can hear is in the upper mids to highs, as far as just the API 2500 bypassed off and on.

Also FYI, the saturators he uses on the Kick/Bass Buss have nothing to do with tape. The Waves (Nevo) setting is emulating the The Neve 5116 console.

This is not an entirely accurate statement.
Watch and listen between 7m40s and 8m20s on video 06. Within that 40 second time frame he is bypassing the correct plugin while setting the 2500’s threshold.

I am going to guess you have no idea how expensive all this used to be before the software existed.

Waves is probably the cheapest developer out of all of them in terms of cost. The API 2500? The hardware unit of that currently costs $3,388 (including sales tax). The Waves version currently cost $70 and that’s when it is not on sale. When I bought it, I got the API collection including the EQs for $70. – That is a steal compared to what most other developers would charge, likely $300-400.

– In a way, I slightly envy James for being 25 years old, and having all of this available. Back when I was still 25? FL Studio was called FruityLoops, and none of the software instruments used in this tutorial existed…and neither did computers fast enough to run them without crashing… you wanted decent sounding plucks, leads and pads? You needed the hardware, the rack space for the modules, studio space for the 49+ keyboards and hardware mixer, the cables to interconnect and of course the budget. – Wanted the sound of an SSL 4000? One needed an actual SSL 4000. – Count your blessings.

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Thanks for a very good tutorial. Been back and forth many times now. Love your track Mandalore, would love to see a tutorial about the creation of the Breakdown Vocals, and how you get that really nice snap to the transients as the lead filters in. Cheers from Norway - keep up the good work

Hey @James_Dymond
On Tutorial 4, what if i’m planning to make a song that starts with C? But the current sub bass that i used as per resources given which is Activa_Sub, its originally E2. How do change it to C note since its C on default, but they key is actually E? Please advice, thanks!

Hi @James_Dymond ,

A great tutorial! Thank you so much for sharing your skills and experience; you’ve debunked a lot of myths that never worked, and the track sounds great using Logic Pro. Looking forward to more tutorials like this. Thanks!

Hi @James_Dymond, Just to understand I use Abelton Live Suite and I always fail to gain stage during the setup phase. when you said you always mix low, do you mix at -6 ?