Create Better Music, One Plugin at a Time
Getting the low end of a mix right can be one of the hardest parts of music production. You want the kick to hit hard. You want the 808 to feel huge. You want the bass to have weight. But the moment you start boosting low frequencies, your mix can quickly become muddy, boomy, or … Read more
Infiltrator 2 Advanced Techniques: Sequencing, Modulation & Macros Once you understand the basics of Devious Machines Infiltrator 2, something interesting happens. You stop thinking of it as a collection of effects. Instead, you start thinking about movement. You aren’t simply adding distortion to a melody. You’re deciding when that distortion appears. You aren’t simply filtering … Read more
A great beat doesn’t need something new happening every four bars. But it does need movement. One of the biggest differences between a loop and a finished production is what happens when the music moves from one section to another. Filters sweep, drums disappear, reverbs bloom, delays repeat, melodies become distorted, and tiny effects signal … Read more
Remember When Producers Used to Laugh at Fruity Loops? There was a time when telling another producer you made beats in FruityLoops could get you laughed out of the conversation. I’m serious. Today, FL Studio is one of the most recognizable DAWs in Hip Hop and beatmaking. Open YouTube, watch producer streams, browse tutorials, or … Read more
Infiltrator 2 Sound Design: How To Transform Any Sound Great sound design doesn’t always start with a complicated synthesizer. Sometimes it starts with an ordinary sound and the right effects. A simple piano note can become an atmospheric texture. A basic synth can turn into a rhythmic sequence. A vocal chop can become an ambient … Read more
One of the easiest ways to make a Hip Hop or R&B beat sound more professional isn’t necessarily adding another instrument. Sometimes, you need to make the sounds you already have move. A Rhodes progression can evolve. A melody can become darker during the verse. A vocal chop can turn into atmospheric ear candy. Drums … Read more
Devious Machines Infiltrator 2 can look intimidating the first time you open it. There are effect slots, sequencers, envelopes, modulation controls, macros, filters, distortion, delay, reverb, spectral effects, and dozens of other tools packed into one interface. But you don’t need to understand everything inside Infiltrator 2 to start getting great results. At its core, … Read more
Devious Machines Infiltrator 2 Review: Is It Worth It? Devious Machines Infiltrator 2 is the kind of plugin that can completely change the way you think about effects. Instead of loading separate distortion, filter, delay, reverb, modulation, and glitch plugins across several insert slots, Infiltrator 2 puts a huge collection of effects inside one creative … Read more
Roland JD-800 VST Advanced Techniques: Take Your Sound Design Further Once you understand the basics of the Roland JD-800 VST, the instrument becomes much more interesting. At first, you might use it like any other software synthesizer: load a preset, adjust the filter, add some effects, and start playing. But the JD-800’s real strength lies … Read more
Roland JD-800 VST Sound Design Tips: Create Better Patches From Scratch The Roland JD-800 VST is easy to approach as a preset machine. Load a patch, play a few chords, add it to the beat, and move on. But that barely scratches the surface of what makes the JD-800 interesting. The real power of this … Read more