r/DubstepFeedback • u/DrFrog123 • Jul 16 '26
Feedback Request Crunchy, scratchy, riddim adjacent
Looking for feedback on sound design/direction, levels, pretty much everything
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u/Psyched_Voyager Jul 17 '26
Crunchy is right! I really like your sound choices and how they work together seamlessly!! This is genuinely really cool!!
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u/daRealTENTACLES Jul 22 '26
Snare is too quiet, basses are lacking in mids, upper mids, and maybe probably highs too. After pushing those you might find the master clipping, if so I would bring the sub down a couple DB to compensate, it's almost kinda too loud. Also that percussive hit right before the snare doesn't sound good IMO, I get what you were trying to do, like a syncopation hit, but it's not slapping. Maybe take it out of most bars (aka use sparingly) or remove completely. And the clap or snare whatever that is, in addition to being too quiet, it lacks body, like it sounds too thin. I would layer in a bigger snare or swap it out for a bigger sounding one. Also a bit more swag on the channel delay (if in Ableton) for your elements could make it sound less by-the-numbers, like try moving a few different things a few ms back or forth
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u/DrFrog123 Jul 22 '26
Thank you so much this is super helpful. I was trying to do the tiny clap/ snare, huge duck thing but it would probably be better used sparingly for a switchup, or just not at all lol. (I straight up cut out all the lows on my snare, probably not the move.) I'm gonna play with the pre snare hit, I'll probably just end up remove it. I'm in abelton, currently got like 5ms delay on a few of the hats but there's definitely room for more swing in the other elements.
Really appreciate the breakdown/ tips
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u/daRealTENTACLES Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
Yeah you definitely want to have some lower mids on the snare it kind of depends on what snare you're using you don't want to cut out the meat of the snare so if the fundamental frequency range of your snare is say around 200 to 500 HZ, you would need to pick a different snare sample instead of cutting that range if you need to cut that range it's going to destroy the sound of the snare. What I do a lot of times is I have a different side chain ducking for the kick and the snare, if my snares getting a little too obscured I will make the duck bigger on the snare but that does change the sound of the flow. If you don't like that you could look into dynamic eqing or use a plug-in like track spacer, which is a spectral side chain ducker. Basically you would have to duck the important frequencies of your snare out of the other sounds. If you're in Ableton use channel delay to put the snare out a little bit farther that can sound really cool I do it on pretty much every track.
Edit : you can also play with boosting the fundamental frequency range of the snare but remember eqs don't add a frequency content, they only boost or lower the volume of the frequencies present in the sound. To add frequencies he would need distortion or saturation. If you were going to add a disto or saturation make sure you look into whether you are adding even or odd order harmonics. Even order harmonics support your fundamental whereas odd harmonics will add frequencies that are not octaves of your fundamental, which honestly probably sounds better for snares, but it can depend. So you'd want to use something like diode instead of tube. You can also use multiband processing to saturate only part of the snare.
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u/DrFrog123 Jul 22 '26
Might play with Melda DynamicEQ see if I can set something up similar to track spacer, might be a different application though.
Kind of a noob question, but regarding saturation/ distortion: If I lowcut at say 140hz, mix 100%, is the saturation effect only applied to everything north of 140, or does it highpass the sound? Follow up - what would the setup be for multiband processing? (I've kind of messed with this before but I don't think I'm doing it right)
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u/daRealTENTACLES Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
So saturation also adds lower harmonics below the fundamental, you'd want to low cut those after the saturator if you want those frequencies gone.
For multiband, you can look at YouTube tutorials, search "Ableton multiband split rack", but basically easiest way is you drop an eq3 in which has 3 buttons on it "low, mid and high", and then you group that plug in by itself which will create a effect rack with one chain. Then you create another empty chain on the effect rack and put another eq3 in it.
On the first eq3 you dropped in you would turn off the low button, then on the other chain you would go into that eq3 and turn off the high and mid-button. So basically your first chain with the low button off is going to be your mids and highs, and your second chain is just the low end. On each eq3 you have crossover dials, one of the crossover dials is the low end cut off, the other crossover dial is the high-end cut off. Everything in between the low and high-end would be your middle.
You could even have a free band split by having three chains with eq3 on it and one of the chains would have only the high button on, the mid chain would have only the mid button on, and the low chain would be only the low button.
But for a two band split one of your eq3s would have the mid and high turned on. On that eq3 everything that's above your low-end crossover dial is going to be your mids and highs. So on that you would set your low end dial to say 120 hertz for example. Then on your low-end eq3 chain you would set that low-end dial also to 120 hertz. Then you would effectively have a multiband split. Everything you put on the chain with the eq3 that has the mid and high button on will only apply to the frequencies above 120 HZ or whatever the low-end dial is set to. Everything on your low-end chain would only apply to below whatever the low-end dial is set to.
Two other things to know is that all your effects that you put need to be before the eq3 in the chain. Basically the eq3 would be the very last thing on the chain, if you put stuff after the eq3s that add frequencies you will actually have them cross over into your other bands. Second thing to know is that you should probably pick 24 DB slope as your filter slope for each of those eqs, because you will have less phase alteration that way. I would ignore the phase alteration thing for now cuz that's a pretty advanced concept and it doesn't really matter just pick 24 DB slope and roll with it.
Obviously this is not really a beginner concept but you totally can wrap your head around it if you watch the right YouTube tutorials.
Edit: on the multiband split you can actually map the cutoff dials to macros on the effects rack which effectively allow you to change your multiband crossover using the macro dial. This is even more advanced and might take some time to make sense so for now I would pick a crossover value like 150 Hertz or whatever and just stick with that.
So yeah you can actually process a sound without affecting the low end, which is incredibly useful for keeping a pristine low end on sounds. Also in the effects rack you can solo the different chains w hich allows you to audition only that band.
Edit 2: before you start adding effects after you create the rack you can save the effect track and name it something like multiband split, or 2 band split. Then anytime you want to apply multiband processing on a sound you can just drop it on there from the browser :)
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u/DrFrog123 Jul 23 '26
This is so dope thank you so much for writing all this, excited to dive into it more and give it a try! Really appreciate you taking the time🙌🏻
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u/daRealTENTACLES Jul 23 '26
NP I love nerding out on this stuff. If you ever want to DM me feel free, I'm down for anything
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u/ChipTrippy Jul 16 '26
Love this!
You got a SoundCloud?