Some of the compressors I go to are the CLA-2A, the Renaissance Compressor and sometimes the dynamic section of the SSL E-Channel.īut I would be remiss if I didn’t share my most important piece of advice: After you’ve spent the time crafting the perfect 808, you will realize that the moment you add a kick into the mix, everything changes. Remember that compression is your best friend when it comes to 808s. When the 808 lacks in top-end attack and is too round with too little definition, I’ll use Smack Attack to shape the initial transients and sometimes even exaggerate the tails. When it lacks in sub power and just sounds flat, I’ll use Vitamin or Renaissance Bass to bring the low frequencies up to a level that feels right. But when an 808 is in bad shape I need to use several plugs. In the case of starting with a nice, clean sine, it may be as simple as inserting a Waves SSL E-Channel or G-Channel and simply boosting a little 40 Hz and maybe a bit of compression. So, the tools I use depend on which 808s I get. I know, I know – you're saying, how is that possible? But if you have a high workload, you will come across all types of 808s, from a simple, clean, beautiful sine wave, to an 808 sampled from an mp3 that was time stretched and processed to sleep. I have found in my experience that 808s vary in character almost as much as vocals. There are various ways to get your 808s sounding big and powerful. Multiband transient tools can also be used to lift the 100 Hz punch zone. The 100 Hz part of the waveform gives the 808 its punch, so sometimes adding more cycles of 100 Hz can give you the punch you need while allowing the rest of the duration of the sound to remain clean of EQ/transient modulators. If you want to shape the sound of a kick drum or 808 in even more detail, you can zoom in a wave editor and cut-and-copy individual frequency cycles. If you do this, make sure that you join the transient to the body at a zero crossing and in context with the pitch movement of the body at the join. When distorting the body, you also get unwanted high harmonics, which the filter automation can tame to taste. Often it’s good to distort and add harmonics, and then use a filter such as OneKnob Filter and automate it so that a steep low-pass filter cuts the high frequencies and deadens them in the first 15-20 milliseconds after the transient hits.
I usually process the body and transient separately, then fade them into each other and compress. Another plugin that can help you add harmonics and shape the tone is Renaissance Bass. You can create or exaggerate these harmonics using distortion but a more precise way to do it is to use the Cobalt Saphira harmonics shaping plugin to enhance odd and even harmonics, which can help shape the tone of the body of an 808. Tracks that sound heavy in a studio or club can sound empty on the radio, so sometimes it’s necessary to add 3 rd- or even higher-order harmonics using these techniques, to give the listener the impression of bass and help cement the key of the track.Ģ nd- and 3 rd-order harmonics are what give the 808 presence. I then compress this using a CLA-2A compressor, especially when using the 808 as a kick drum.Ĩ08 mixing is particularly important for the radio.
I often replace the transient audio with a piece of pink noise I’ve made in a synth. Harmonics in 808s are really important, as are the pitch envelope and transients. They’re great for everything from straight up pop to hip hop, trap, drum & bass, even house music. I love 808s, both as kick drums and for creating bass lines.
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