TASK: get two koan sound albums! Haven't done yet.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------
DONE THEORETICALLY:
We always try and use real snare samples, at least for the high end layer.
The 200 hz punch (or wherever the punch in the lower frequencies is) comes from
either acoustic or synthetic sounds. If they are synthetic we’ll take them from any
sample pack we have, but for the more acoustic high end we’ll usually use Superior
Drummer or Addictive Drums, which we do also use for the low end punch too
sometimes.
We’ll bounce a really compressed and punchy snare for the low end, not thinking
too much about the overall sound but more just about the transient. Then we’ll add
an acoustic snare with a nice tail. Something we’ve done a lot is use the vocoder
in Ableton (with modulator carrier and lowering the depth a lot) on acoustic drums
to compress them… and not sure how to describe it but it makes it a little more
synthetic while retaining some acoustic qualities, but only if putting the depth
down (on the ableton vocoder). We’ve made more snares from these by exported them,
and then using just the transient of the sample (by fading the volume of the clip
so just the tiny short punch plays) to layer with a clean, less processed snare on
top of it, often slightly side chaining the higher layer to the punchier lower
sample so the punchy sample really cuts through. Its quite a balance so that the
punchiness doesn’t overpower everything and I think we may have gone overboard with
the punchiness in the early days of koan lol. Recently we’ve been trying to dial
down and control the punchiness more, utilising the transients of acoustic samples
and generally not boosting the eqs quite so much. We started our drum processing in
the beginning with a more extreme approach, as I guess is natural when first
figuring out how everything works and affects everything else. Now we try to take a
more subtle approach and use a balance of really processed sounds and natural
sounding drums. For a lot of our more foley sounding tracks we take these punchier
snares and low pass filter them to combine with much lighter high pitched snares
and foley on top.

We do love some moistness. That type of sound comes from separating the frequency
bands of a reese and having quite a big gap between the low mids and high end and
automating the frequency movement for each band. So in Ableton we’ll put a basic
detuned phasey reese with some movement (like detuned saw waves and using notch
filters with a little bit of distortion so its still fairly clean) into a sampler,
then create a group with three channels for a low pass, band pass and high pass
filter. Its all about carefully getting the ratios right and subtly moving the
frequency of each filter. Automating the volume of each channel really helps too so
it gets even more of that movement, with the high end layer being moved the most.
We’ll compress and add some subtle distortion too after the filtering group to glue
it together a bit. Then we might resample whatever comes out of that and repeat the
filtering process or just add more effects and do crazy pitch bending.
still compatible in mono? In a track like hydroplane there's some sounds that seem
way out to the sides but then still sound perfect in the centre.
p.s. Your set at shambhala in 2015 literally changed the way I perceive sound, and
had a big influence on how my music taste developed after that, so thanks for doing
what you do!

We think about this a lot. On the master channel in Ableton we always have Utility
to quickly turn it on and listen in mono. Its something we've always thought about
a lot when making something super stereo and over time we've learnt what works and
what doesn't. There are a few go to things we use for making something stereo like
the ping pong delay in Ableton, Uhbik G by U-he (AMAZING granular pitch shifter
which we use a lot on foley sounds), Valhalla vintage verb. But all of these have
to be carefully mixed. We always separate highs, mids and lows within a channel and
add the stereo effects to the higher layers.

Most artists tend to use exported basses to accent other elements, but in tracks
like Prism Pulse, the bass actually follows along with the track. Do you guys make
neuro basses with a bassline in mind? At what point does MIDI become audio and how
do you go about writing actual musical basslines with heavily modulated sounds?

We export a long, single note reese in F or something then put it into a sampler so
we can use it melodically and process it more. We try to make it sound as clean but
fat as possible. There is then a large effect chain with A LOT of automation to
create interesting movement for each melodic phrase.

EQUING - This was our most memorable thing we learnt that can make the biggest
difference, and we’re still learning just how important it is. EQing is the most
powerful sound shaping tool. Mixing a track is managing frequency content so there
are no unnecessary frequencies and everything gels together comfortably. Its also
learning what not to take away and what to boost. For example boosting subs in a
Reese a bit and taking away the lows in percussion. But its also about controlling
these layers. So if you boost the subs in a bass sound, compressing or multi band
compressing the whole sound so the highs stay level with the sub when pitch bending
will make the whole sound easier to control.

PLAYFULNESS AND MUSICALITY - Often overlooked , people get bogged down with how to
do something. You can’t do something wrong. Everything is possible. Mangle,
distort, make sweet love to your synths, they’re not going care. Its all
experimentation and fun. The mindset of making music is a HUGE aspect of it.
Learning production techniques is very important for sure. But its more important
to learn ONE technique and learn to use it and have fun and be creative with it.
It’s why we use relatively few vsts. Learning the ones we have and being creative
with them is so much more valuable than have a million and not knowing quite how to
use them.

FREQUENCY SPLITTING - Thinking of every component of a track as highs, mids and

lows really helped. This came from learning neuro bass sound techniques. It took a
while for us to realise we could apply this to every aspect of music making. It’s
more obvious with bass, at least it was for us, because the movement of each
frequency band is more obvious. But learning to apply this to every sound was huge.
So instead of just separating highs and lows for bass filtering, it’s separating
highs and lows for specific effects. We always use an effect rack in the Ableton
effect chain for any effect we use. If we use reverb, its in an effect within the
effect rack with a dry chain then another chain in the same effect rack with the
reverb set to full, so we can automate the volume of the wet chain as we please,
this serves as the wet/dry automation and we do this with any effect. Its fun doing
extreme things like adding distortions before a rack like this with reverb to add
moments of intense reverbed stereo distortion.

PROCESSING DISTORTION AND THE POSITION OF EFFECTS IN THE CHAIN - This was mainly a
game changer for bass sounds but also applies to other sounds. When making bass
sounds with interesting movement, a great thing to do is apply EQing before the
distortion. Using an eq to boost lower frequencies and moving the frequency around
creates great harmonics when combined with a distortion unit. This can be applied
to a fresh Reese straight out of a synth and/or on a resampled reese. But not just
for movement, EQuing before and after any effect to add character is an important
thing.

DRUM LEVEL and MIX - Recognising the loudest layer of a mix and working from there
is super important. This isn’t always drums. But it often is for electronic dance
music. Drums are the thing that punches through the most and are often the loudest.
They might not sound the loudest but a kick will have a lot of low end that needs
space to breath. To give another example the percussion in the intro and throughout
of Jongmyo was a sample of a crushing plastic bottle. We chopped up the transients
from that and made a percussion layer. It was really clean and groovy so we based
the whole tune around that and made it the focus of every sound around it. Its not
necessarily the loudest but the mix was based around that being the cleanest layer.
Its a case of tuning the ear to each fragment of a song and realising what grabs
you sonically
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------
DONE IN PRACTICE THROUGH REFERENCE: none

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------
WONT DO FOR NOW SINCE TOO GENRE SPECIFIC:

Hey guys! Here's a big fun.

How do you get that shuffle in your percussion/hihats? Like in viridian dream,
starlite...
Maybe a "Koan Sound in the studio" video in YOUTUBE this 2019?

To get that shuffle and smooth progression with hits it’s a case of spending the
time to make each hit make sense with the last and the groove as a whole. Playing
drums is an understanding of accents and which part of the groove needs to be
ghosts. With funk drumming its easier to pick out and understand. For example a
small light snare roll before each kick on the first of a bar gives a satisfying
punch. Hi hats can be used to accent each 8th note but there can be a softer sound
in between to carry each of them. It goes back to thinking about each bass sound
being highs, middles and lows. With percussion the highs make the mid hits stand
out (like ghost snares or mid foley percussion), and they make the larger punchier
hits really stand out if used with the right groove. It has got to a point where we
think of every part of a track as the same thing in terms of frequencies, whether
used at the same moment or one after the other. For percussion sounds though we
really like superior drummer, especially for hi hats and cymbals, being able to
control the overhead mic volume is so great! Also using recorded foley sounds is
something we are doing a lot more for percussion and ghost hits. Using filtering
and effects on them as the groove is playing to create more transitional movement
can be great too. Like using an effect rack on a percussion loop in ableton, we
will have a chain with something like the Uhbik G plugin and an empty dry chain on
the other, then we'll automate the wet Uhbik G volume up and down between heavier
hits to add more variation and flow for each phrase. Could filter in the same way
or whatever. Using effects on top of the dry signal to add interesting progression
can be super useful.

Reply from a spectator

I maybe an old fart but back in the day when the only place you could read about
tweaking neuro bass was The Grid this, ie splitting bline into sub, lower mids and
eventually higher mids, was the step zero, everyone knew it.

Obviously those early techstep/neuro heads like Ed&Op, Stakka&Skynet and C4C all
had Emu zplane filters to toy with.

But it didn't take long for the likes of Noisia, BSE and Concord Dawn to figure out
how to emulate it with automating insert flangers/phasers, comb filters in DAWs, in
Kontakt, people also used Maelstrom in Reason as a filter etc.

But it's basically, split bands, add some comb/alpass, distort, automate, send
higher ups to some reverb, anchor the sub one to mono, compress and then it's just
tweaking and toying with it until its turning your face inside out.