Arts & Entertainment, Science & Tech, Music

Shaping Sounds With Effects And Processing

Lesson time 19:25 min

Learn how deadmau5 puts life back into tired presets, builds big stereo images and fattens up his basses using plug-ins and effects processors.

Students give MasterClass an average rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars

Topics include: Think Outside the Preset Box • Use Effects to Create Original Sounds • The Secret to Fat Bass • Reverbs • Adding Space and Depth • Processing Shit Into Gold

Preview

This is a cardinal sin of EDM right here. This is what I hate about dance music. I know I'm going to get some hate for this, but fuck them. I have it. Trust me. I don't use it all the time, but I do have it. Then, that's just life. But you get stuff like this. And I'm not saying it's evil and don't get it. I find some use for it. But it's this thing called Nexus, right, by sound. And then, all it is is like this instrument where you can-- You know? And you go to town or-- oh, and I'm just going to click my mouse twice there, and-- You know? It's cool, for what it is. But I mean, that, and then put a kick drum under it, it's like you could almost pass that it off as a tune, you know? And a lot of dudes do that. Sure. I don't blame them. And that's good for learning. It's good for using stuff, but to sit there and, I don't know, like fucking-- let's see what else this things got. I'm not going to use it that much. Dance pattern two. And this brings up a really important point. The point is that guys, sign artists like me and other dudes-- and they're also producers too. I just so happen to be a label manager as well. But I can tell when someone's using a preset, because I've used that synth before. I've heard it a million times. I know what it does, and know what it sounds like. So you know, when I'm hearing it, it's like I hear this preset. And I'm like, well, OK, well obviously, didn't put a lot of effort into that. And it's not very creative and stuff like that. And while it might sound great [? fidelically, ?] and that's all that, it's just I'm like, OK, well, if I know how it's done, everyone else is going to know how it's done. I know that kids today aren't stupid, you know? They know the software. A lot of them do. The addition of effects can happen right at the earliest stage, where it's like, I want a kick, or like this bass drum here, it's like, I don't know, it would sound really cool if I slammed it with some kind of distortion unit or something. So it would be like, I don't know, just crazy-- UAD distortion plug-in. So now, I've got this-- [DRUM BEAT] You know-- [DRUM BEAT] Like, that's how I want my kick to sound. So that's like a really over-the-top kind of distortion. But I mean, actually, it's funny that this is illustrated the way that it is, because more often than not, I will go into-- like I collect a lot of boutique distortion pedals, which were meant for guitar and stuff like that. Well, I can physically route the output into a distortion pedal like this, but one that's not DSP, an actual distortion pedal, and then out of the distortion pedal back into the computer, to give it that sound, but done with a guitar pedal. And that's something you could do really early on, because a guitar pedal's like, what? $30 at a garage sale? Some kids band that...

About the Instructor

Before he was deadmau5, all Joel Zimmerman wanted for Christmas was old toasters to take apart. Now, you can watch him take his music apart. In his first-ever online class, Joel teaches you how he approaches melodies, mixing and mastering to make unique sounds you can't find in a cookie cutter sample pack. You'll not only get his lessons, you'll learn how to create your own music without spending money on million dollar gear.

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deadmau5

6 hours of instructions, 23 video lessons, and a downloadable course workbook.

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