MPC 1000 for pro Trance????

[waketek]

I am a fan Paul Van Dyk tracks. Good choice to model your sounds by. Almost all of his tracks have been processed and fine tuned. The secret to the sound you are after can be created with any of the drum machines you have mentioned. The secret to His kicks and bass sounds lie first in very and I mean very detailing EQing. Try using a analyzer to see what Freqs your kicks and basslines are at and make note of where they roll off or where thay may clash. If the kick rolls off to early or clashes with your bassline it will be mud. If the freqs are not spot on they will never sound like Van Dyk's. Once you EQ every detail of each Kick and Bassline then you can move on to Compression Which is what makes that Perfect Kick and Perfect bassline sound so frickin amazing. Remix mag did an interview with him once and he talked about the physics of speakers and how to EQ and Compress down to every last freq. I think it was in the October issue back in 2003 or something like that He was on the cover. Hope this sheds some light on things for you. Now you can buy sample cds where the construction kits have been EQed and processed in large amounts but usually that specific construction kit has been EQed and processed for a specific track, Which means once you star adding your own bassline and other instrumnets you may run into problems with the mix and the entire kit will sound like crap. I suggest learning all you can about EQ and Compression and the rage of freqs that you wil be dealing with. Then and only then will you be able to get Kicks and Basslines that sound like his. This is not really a big secret in fact it is well known that 99.9% of all the producers that you and I admire for their productions say that this is the single most inportant aspect of any production. From Rock,Rap and Dance to Jazz, and beyond it is all about the EQ, Compression, Reverb ect. Sorry to go on about this.... My day Job is an RF Engineer so I deal with Freqs and crazy new Harmonics generated by intermodualtion everyday.

[Hollowcell]

Originally Posted by waketek

Now you can buy sample cds where the construction kits have been EQed and processed in large amounts

Waketek makes a good point here. There are some very popular sample packages which are so processed that getting them to sit well in a complex mix can really suck. This is one reason I asked about trying drum machines.

Get your hands on some good drum boxes before outlaying the cash on a MPC, and of course reading up about compression and EQ is a must no matter what genre you're into.

[TeenGirlLust]

waketek, very informative posting indeed. And Hollowcell, I have tried many drum machines as I stated earlier........The more I hear about it thou The Novation drumstation seems like it might be the way to go......I mean I hear it does a wicked emulation of the TR 909..(which is the basis for the majority of dance music.....not all but alot of it) so if eq'd right maybe that would solve my problem........I don't know? I know that there has to be a good construction kit sampling cd for club drums thou.......does any one know of one (because as I stated earlier I have no use for other peoples loop's........I find that to be cheating and very unoriginal........and it seems that alot of these sampling cd are loop based)......well let me know.SEEYA!!!!

[waketek]

Save some $$$ instead of a sample CD Try sampling a single kick from a Van Dyk tune if that is the sound you are after and try and tweak it to fit your track. All the drum machines including the Novation are using affects unless turned off. You want a Raw kick... I have some old sample cd's with some individual kicks. I will listen to them and see if any would make for a good start to try and emulate a van dyk kick. I will post back if I find something.

[Gopal]

Take a long boomy kick, apply a pitch envelop to it so it goes deeper and deeper as it rings out. Time stretch to shorten it to a short kick sound. apply compression and eq to taste. Voila PVD kick