It’s been a while but he’s is back! Techno legend Vince Watson gives us an epic 5 hour tutorial - ‘How To Make Detroit Techno’. In this massive start to finish course he recreates his track ‘Second Wave’ taken from his album DNA.
This mind-blowing track is constantly evolving with different randomised loop lengths, lush ethereal pads and the beautiful sounding DX7 synths, along with a flowing percussive groove to get that signature ‘Detroit’ sound.
An enormous sounding work of art that uses very little in the way of plugins proving Vince is still top of his game when it comes to creative skill and production techniques. Massive amounts of creative learning in this course!
Another winner from Sonic Academy! Vince is one of the few producers uniquely qualified to present this material. His music is admired by many here in Detroit and his genuine passion for the genre is unmatched.
Im enjoying watching this finally being presented with the love and care this music truly deserves.
Well done Vince & Sonic Academy!!
Ah sir your too kind man…blessed to have supporters of the stature like yourself. Im only sorry that Brother From Another Planet didnt quite make the cut as I took the decision to not do any harder techno references…but man I could have used 1.3 million tracks of yours. Big Love X
Brother Vince, this is a truly inspiring video. As a fan of your work I’m just enjoying watching how you get down in the studio. I’ve picked up a few tips watching this. I’m almost finished. Just at the end of the arrangement section. Taking a break then I’ll watch the rest. You always have a home in the D if you come out for a visit, be good to see you again!
Continued success mate!!!
Vince, are you tapping in those drum patterns in 07 drums part 2 with a keyboard, or is the 808 vst doing something to help create patterns? you mentioned ‘randomising’ stuff, and wasn’t sure what you mean. Cheers mate, enjoyin the tutorial.
Hi Vince, I have one question regarding your approach to mono compatibility. I saw you only narrowed the low frequencies on the bass. What I am often struggling with when using wide pad sounds is to make the pads cut through when the track is played mono. Would you for a track like this normally switch to mono during the mixdown? In my experience the level of a wide pad usually needs to be brought up when yo listen to it in mono. I would be interested to see how you would approach the pads in this track (and what your recommended approach is to make a pad really wide but still have it cut through nicely in mono). Thanks!
Those presets are included in the course resources download with the project.
Obviously if you’re using Ableton Live, you should be able to load the entire Project File and find the DX7 presets used in the course, then save them onto your own Arturia’s DX7 preset library. You’ll only find the presets used for this track of course ( 3 if I recall well ), not the full pack.
For the all pack itself, I think it’s a personal one made by @vincewatson himself among time, don’t think that it’s a 3thrd party Presets Pack that you can purchase, that’s what I recall after watching some parts of the tutorial.
@riffmatrix Thanks…Yes the DX7 patches are ones that I created for the DnA LP. @Debitae I dont have a religious process of always mixing everything in Mono, however I do it for establishing certain sound placement in the mix. For pads though, Im a sucker for really dynamic wide stereo pads so use my ears to place it rather than mixing those in mono. Luckily ive never had any issue with my mixes regarding that end of the spectrum.
Hi Mr Watson, thx for this highly inspiring tutorial, one of the best I’ve seen actually.
I wanted to ask you about one specific chord.
The second chord FAA#D from the pad seems to contain 2 notes (A and D) out of key (F min) Maybe I’m wrong I don’t know.
It sounds beautifully with all the rest, why does it not clash with any other notes ?
I saw your other tutorials and I understand how you move some notes around but here I cannot figure what it is. Is it a major chord from another scale to create tension, a sus chord, a chord without rules ???
I’m not overthinking about it because tension and slight dissonance is part of the beauty of this genre but I’d like to understand how to use “out of scale” notes the way you do !
Love and respect DnA is a fantastic piece of work
This tutorial made me subscribe to SA. Vince Watson is an amazing artist and I’m looking forward to more tutorials from him. Also would really like to see more tutorials from underground artists. Some suggestions: Derek Carr, Marquis Hawkes, Stephen Lopkin etc
Really enjoyed this tutorial. It was both informative and inspiring…thank you! The way you explained the reasons for your choice of sounds, your workflow including the mixing process etc, was really helpful. Highly recommend this to others…and yes I love Detroit techno even more!
Sorry for late answer. As a general rule, you should of course always check your mix in Mono anyway, but wide pads can be an issue sometimes…its just a matter of finding a balance between gain and width that your happy with in both Mono and Stereo…whatever you do, dont use compression on it, youll just kill the dynamics and that lush warm stereo image will die, so be careful but use your ears.
Thanks Mundelator, i think I need to do another tutorial with just the nuances and accidental harmonincs haha…but to answer your question, sometimes I myself do not overthink it and just play it without consideration of the note structure. Its only afterwards when I analyse I realise what I did, and thats absolutely the best way to go about finding these harmony’s…following the rules too much wont help you discover them too easily unless you are an extremely skilled player…which i’m not, but what I am good at is finding melancholy between harmony’s. Best advice I can give you is to just keep playing and playing and experimenting with roots v augmentation.
