Quick Tip: The "secret" to punchy kicks in any DAW

First things first! Make sure to select a "punchy" sounding kick in the first place. Once you have a kick you like, it's time to play around with the adsr envelope. In Fl studio you can get to the ADSR envelope by going to the INS and volume tab in the channel sampler.

Next, you want to turn down all of the knobs, except for the the decay knob.

Lasty, turn down the decay knob until the kick loses it's excess sound, but still retains the "punchy" transient. In Fl studio I recommend right clicking the decay knob, choosing set, and click 1 step.

So, that's pretty much it. Nothing to crazy, but this simple trick should allow your kicks to stand out a lot more in the mix.

6 tips to make better beats

A lot of new producers ask the question of how to go about making "better beats." so here's 6 simple tips that might help you make some better beats.

1.  Listen and recreate. This is definitely a must to get better at making beats. Study all of your favorite tracks by people and try to recreate them. You don't have to recreate each track perfectly. Just recreate the general sound of the track. This will help you get a better understanding of how to put tracks together. Analyze how the drum patterns were programed. Analyze which instruments were picked and how they were used. You really want to pick apart songs and get an understanding of the thought process behind it. Before you know it, you'll  be picking up all kinds of new skills, just by breaking down tracks.
2. Upgrade your sound library. I hear a lot of new producers using stock sounds from their daw. It's not necessarily bad to use stock sounds, but they often need to be tweaked or layered for a more professional sound. I recommend new producers to google free high quality drum samples. There are plenty of resources for great free drum sounds. Also, download free vst instrument plugins. Again, a simple google search of free vst instruments will yield a vast amount of great resources for instrument sounds.
3. Learn basic music theory. This is something that music producers tend to shy away from. It seems like something that takes too long to learn, but it's well worth it. The most important things to learn in my opinion are musical scales and chords. Learning scales allow you to know what key you're playing in plus keeps everything in tune and learning chords allows you to start forming chord progressions to have a solid foundation for a track. Just learning those two things can take your musicality to a whole new level. 
4. Learn basic mixing/mastering techniques. Mixing is one of those things I think all producers struggle with, but learning the fundamentals will go a long way. The most important fundamental thing to learn is proper volume balance of sounds in a mix. Listen to a lot of producer instrumentals you like the most and try to mimic the way their sounds sit in a mix. How loud is the kick? How loud is the snare in relation to the kick? How loud are the instruments? Once you learn how to get a good volume balance then you can focus on learning eq, reverb, delay, and compression. As for mastering, research lots videos on mastering in your daw and videos on using free plugins to master. Whatever you do, make sure to keep you mastering subtle. Getting your mix to sound proper before mastering will make mastering a ton easier.
5. Collaborate with other producers. Never forget to look to your peers. Align yourself with other producers who you can learn from and collaborate. Look for producers who can fill those gaps in your own productions and vice versa. If you're great at melodies but your drums aren't as great as you'd like them to be, find a producer who's drums stand out but they need help with melodies. Collaborate as much as you can and you'll be strengthening your weak spots in no time.
6. Put in the work. Always keep producing! No matter what. That's truly the best way to get better. Even learning or doing everything on this list won't matter unless you keep at it and practice as much as possible. Practice makes perfect! 

Creating bass slides using Fl Studio's Arpeggiator

Today, I'm going to share a cool different way to do slides and tricks with your sub bass. First things first, you need to load up a bass sample and set it up so that you have complete control over the sample. You can do this by slightly moving the CRF knob so that it uses loop points, or you can go into the INS tab and set the envelope to do the same thing.

Ok, now you want to go to the FUNC tab in the sampler and mess around with the arpeggiator settings.

I recommend turning the slide setting on, so you get a smoother sound out of the arpeggiator and set the gat knob to the middle or all the way to the left.

You can now play around with the arpeggiator's time knob, up and down options, range/repeat values, and chord options. 

If you right click the time knob and go to set, the knob has preset values to help keep things on tempo too.

So, that's pretty much it! Have fun playing around with this and hopefully you come up with some interested slides and sounds. Also, here is a link to a mini pack of slides I came up with - http://www.mediafire.com/download/wk32ao9gx9m7y2f/free_bass_slides.7z

How To Fine Tune Music Samples

Oddly enough, there's not much about fine tuning music samples on the internet, so I decided to share how I go about fine tuning samples in Fl Studio. This should apply to all other DAWs, since they should all have a fine tuning option.

First, you have to figure out if the sample is actually out of tune and obviously you have to add other sounds to hear that. I suggest to start with a piano sound and try to play along with the sample. Pianos have a nice strong sound and make it easier to hear if the sample is out of tune. If the sample is out of tune, you want to go to the misc tab in the Fl channel sampler.

Once you're in the misc tab, there will be a fine tune knob at the bottom right hand corner.

Then you can adjust the the fine tune knob to what you hear is best. This is where your ears come into play. There really is no correct value to set it at, but I recommend to start adjusting the knob between 0 -50 cents down or 0 +50 cents up. That's usually a good range to find the proper tune to match up with other sounds. It usually never ends up a 100% in tune, but it'll be good enough to not clash with other sounds. Also, if you're wondering where to look to see how many cents you're tuning the sample to, it should show up right above the Fl browser.

You could also do the opposite and fine tune your instruments to the sample. Most vst plugins have a fine tune knob, so that might help if you're still having problems with the sample's tune.













In the end, fine tuning samples really comes down to using your ears. If you aren't comfortable trusting your ears, it never hurts to do a little ear training. There are plenty of online free resources that can help with ear training.


Hope that has helped some of you guys out and I'll be sharing some more tips soon!

5 Tips To Keep Your Beats Interesting

A lot of times I hear solid beats made by producers, but after 30 seconds the beat fails to keep me interested enough to listen to it for any longer. So, today I'm going to share 5 tips that have helped me maintain relatively interesting beats.

1. Change those drums. This is probably the simplest tip on this list, but it's one of the most overlooked when making a beat. Repeating the same 4 bar drum loop for 4 minutes will get boring quick. Add drum variation throughout the beat. Take things out to build tension or add drum fills/snare rolls to transition into different sections of a beat. A really easy trick is to copy your existing drum pattern and change around the kicks, snare, ect. Keep doing that over and over and you'll end up with a bunch of different drum variations.

2. Copy. Paste. Change. Usually, when us producers are arranging a beat, we'll simply copy and paste whole chorus and verse sections. Too many producers will just stop there leaving each chorus and verse to be the exact same. Doing that is obviously going to make things too predictable, so take the extra time to add, remove, and rearrange things for additional verses and chorus sections.

3. Transition effects...use them. It surprises me how many producers don't use transitions in their beats. No cymbal swells to build into a crash. No synth effects to transition into the chorus. Just nothing. Transition effects are a great way to let the listener know a new section is coming in and keep things feeling fresh. Of course not all beat needs transitions, but the next time a beat is feeling a little stale try adding some in.

4. The power of Low pass filters,  High pass filters, phasers, flangers, ect. Using a filter can turn a regular old beat into something amazing if used properly. I've noticed a lot of people have gotten hip to filters, but only use them in an intro or outro. Think of filters as another way to build tension and create release at parts of a beat. Using a filter right before a chorus can cause it to hit harder or using a filter on a sound can cause a nice contrast between the verse and chorus sections. Phasers, flangers, and chorus effects are also great things to play around with. Adding them on certain sounds at different times in a beat can make things sound new or even adding them on the overall beat at times can beat a good way to transition into different parts of a song.

5. Expand your musicality. This tip takes a lot of effort. Especially, for me. I'm lazy at times...I must admit. Anyhow, really focusing on changing up musical elements in a beat is truly one of the best ways to keep a beat interesting. We'll often settle for a 4 to 8 bar musical loop and just omit things at parts to change things up. Sometimes, it's best to take things a step further by adding a unique intro, prechorus, bridge, and outro. Doing that, adds a sense of realism and keeps the listener on their toes.

Well, I hope my half decent written tips has helped somebody out there and if anybody has more tips to keep a beat interesting be sure to let me know and I might to a part two to this.