Producing Berghain techno?

[Atheory]

@JonasEdenbrandt

i do use it sometimes, just haven't really been using it a lot cause i prefare to keep the dynamics as they are when they are written. i'm not saying that its bad to use, just a personal preferance. i don't often find the need for it (no vocals, live instruments)

although, i'm moving towards recording just live instruments into an 8 track so i might buy a compressor. or try to make a good one, but we'll see about that.

[tone-def]

in techno its used more for sound design, so i absolutely think compression is essentiell for making techno.

Richie Hawtin never used compression.
If your happy with the sound from your drum machine or synth, why change the sound with a compressor? it's far from essential, i'd say about a quarter of the tracks i've made i've used a compressor to shape a sound. the only essential things in techno are drum machine or samples, synth and sequencer. anything else is a bonus.

[gowans]

i use a little compression when necessary but in all opinion i steer clear of it as much as possible unless im sidechaining something, although it can be used creatively to get experimental sounds.

if i had a tape track recorder i think id bounce some sounds to tape then back to the computer to see what the results are like when the levels are pushed, i usually use a lot of eq, filter and layering to get a more dubby sound, also ive got some samples i recorded myself, handclaps, finger clicks, tapping on a guitar body and it adds a different dynamic to the track, you get this bedroom recorded feeling and warmth, they sit in the mix really nicely as well, also putting my samples in soundforge and converting them to 8/12bit samples and completely screwing them up gives an interesting effect i've tried mic'ing my monitors up before and it does give a nice effect as well

[NewSc2]

resample much.

Loads of EQ to take off the air on the sounds. let the headroom you leave become the "air" to your tracks.

big verbs chained to soft bitcrushing then sent to other clean verbs.

delay, delay, and delay again.

Minimal sound source, much fx.

This can all be done in ableton very easily. Use EQ and filtering to create the space, then fill it up with reverb, subtle phaser, delay.

Use long fx chains. These are all Basic Channel tricks.

Thanks for the tip. Listened to some of your tracks and you pretty much nailed the textures I'm trying to get.

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but what kind of sound do you try to start with before running it through all the delays and reverbs?

[Smear]

Best trick is to forget everything you know about the history of techno, and even the fact you're even producing techno. All the most exciting stuff sounds like it's a coincidence that it's techno-esque.

[coldfuture]

resample much.

Loads of EQ to take off the air on the sounds. let the headroom you leave become the "air" to your tracks.

big verbs chained to soft bitcrushing then sent to other clean verbs.

delay, delay, and delay again.

Minimal sound source, much fx.

This can all be done in ableton very easily. Use EQ and filtering to create the space, then fill it up with reverb, subtle phaser, delay.

Use long fx chains. These are all Basic Channel tricks.

Thanks for the tip. Listened to some of your tracks and you pretty much nailed the textures I'm trying to get.

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but what kind of sound do you try to start with before running it through all the delays and reverbs?

Hey thanks! Yeah tonally I try to stay there, but I think even my past stuff was a bit over-arranged. Been going even MORE BC minimal lately, but haven't posted much that I have done recently.

As to the sound I try to start with... I am very naive in my approach really. I use an all hardware studio, so I try to create sequences that have a pleasing rhythm and fit those together. I like square waves a lot on synthesizers and love to modulate or play with PWM for my synth sounds, then I filter out the excess.

I use all sorts of distortion as well, anything from Boss guitar pedals to nicer Electro-Harmonix stuff. I then either resample the sound or EQ it heavily on my mixer to get out all the stuff that might muddy the mix.

Guitar pedals are a very cheap piece of kit that can really lend your recordings a lot of character.

Sometimes things are pure accident for me tho. In my song "Stupid Argument" for example, that lead blip was something that happened to a Virus patch that I shortened the envelope on and made more percussive. I then was messing with the Virus' bit crusher/digital distortion effect and got this tone that only worked at like 2 specific settings.

It sounded so cool I transposed the rest of the tune up to meet it and kinda reworked the groove I had going around this new sound.

I then was forced to do like literally 30 live takes to get it to do what its doing because I keep screwing up trying to turn a knob between the 2 settings and then use delay and verb on it.

I hope thats helpful in some way. Thanks for asking.

[coldfuture]

Best trick is to forget everything you know about the history of techno, and even the fact you're even producing techno. All the most exciting stuff sounds like it's a coincidence that it's techno-esque.

Great point!

[coldfuture]

Richie Hawtin never used compression.

Yeah, he lets guys like Tim Xavier (who mixes everything that comes out on Minus) use compression for him.