The Secret to the Skrillex Sound

when people think of electronic dance music one of the biggest artists that spring to mind is scrx in this video I uncover five of Skrillex's biggest production secrets to make this track smoke up Das in the BL free up the guys and Di out the ends jump in the ride burn out the rims don't stop don't the Bo on my in every on the Block up for events skin kept closed cuz youting on them with a t on 10 Bing the back that's on tap ready to go and jump in as usual you can download this project file completely free below but whilst you watch through this video I really want you to write down in the comments each secret as and when you see it happen this will really cement the concept in your mind so you can use them in your music I want to say a huge shout out to our accelerator student Jesse AKA 9 world who recently did an official remix for elenium I've link to it below if you want to check it out now the track we're working on today is based on the collaboration between Skrillex Fred again and flen and their killer track Rumble so without further Ado let's hop into the door and get it done ah it's good to be back right first thing we need need to do is set the tempo for this dub step kind of tempo we are going to set 140 BPM and I've got two magic lists today which is nice I've got some tips and I've got some secrets so first thing we are going to do is rather than put the kick in which is the standard thing I wanted to get straight to the rumble base because this is such an important part of this track that I want to touch upon it soon for anyone that's going to click away anyway but I recommend you stay to the end so first let's get a simp plot on there and we're going to create that pulsing low end using a kick drum first of all so let's find a kick drum that's got some nice texture that one sounds pretty cool so I'm just GNA use that and let's program it in in MIDI and we want them to be on every 16th just like this after the first beat because that's where our growl base is going to go so it sounds dodgy at the moment but we are going to make it better don't you worry don't you worry son so let's bring it down to a good level and that's going to determine the kind of key of the track as [Music] well I mean it all works really doesn't it now what we're going to do is take out the high end of this I'm going to choose a different frequency so we can add some drive a different filter type I mean so we're already getting that cool sound now locking in your low-end transients is even more important than the high-end transients cuz the lowend causes such big waves that it can really sound muddy if we don't lock it in so first thing I'm going to do is change the voices to one because we don't want these base hits overlapping each other and then I'm going to take down the sustain and make it a bit more Punchy something like that that's already sounding cool let's open it up a tiny bit and then what I'm going to do is add one of these drum buses to just add some extra grit some more drive and then I'm I'm going to use this boom control to add some lowend harmonics as [Music] well now we can just dial back the Decay on that and listen to the difference it makes and we'll take the transients down now we'll leave those how they were so this is where we were and this is where we are now so just a bit more room next thing I want to do is double this up so I'm going to create a second Rumble base and again I'm going to use a kick but instead of having the low end I'm going to use the midrange of the kick I'm going to use a different kick as well just to add some more texture I want a nice kind [Music] of yeah like that like an acoustic sounding kick so let's get rid of this drum bus now and let's listen to this so that's going to give us that mid knock so I'm going to take out the lowend so it doesn't fight with our low end sub kind of kick that Rumble there cuz we're just looking for that mid-range texture something like that again I'll add a little bit of [Music] saturation tighten it up okay cool next thing I want to do add a little bit more stereo width so this is the only tool I'm going to use but it is a free tool the only tool outside of the Ableton stop plugin I mean so it's the ozone imager and I'm just going to use this to really spread this [Music] wider o so there we go we've got this really nice textured base now ooh and that's what a Skrillex that's what a Skrillex what does that mean that's what Skrillex is an absolute master of careful layering and complicated ideas that just deliver one simple wait complicated techniques to deliver one simple idea so that's what I call Simplicity on the other side of complexity so next thing we want to do is get some of these drums in so first let's get a nice big fat meaty kick oh we need to name this bad boy don't we Skrillex and Fred again and I can't remember the other guy's name but what are we going to call this Skrillex crazy Sprites and stuff we are going to call this pixels and bit maps in to his Sprites and pixes or whatever it was called can't remember pixels and bit Maps that's what we're going to call it it's too late it's done right now let's get a big fat Kick I'll go to my favorite kicks I think we'll go to the EDM tips kick pack which is updated for accelerator students on the regular okay that's cool that's got a nice acoustic kind of sound so now we actually need to use the kick drum in the normal way that you would use a kick drum to make the beat rather than just the bass so we're only going to use one big kick and then we are going to have another kick creating more texture as well I think this one so we're going to layer these up like this [Music] and all the fun happens on these 16ths with the metronome no that's that's not the Rhythm I wanted but it's almost [Music] there yeah I think that's that's the right place and we could find a different kick for this we want something with character so it's going to complement that main kick so so that's pretty much it for the kick now we need to get the the rim shot and the other drum samples in there so let's look in my favorite packs I prepared one earlier called I think the Skrillex Rim snare so we're going to use that now listen you can actually hear there's a few different sounds layered in this there's like a rim shot and a tambourine and maybe a snare as well so that's going to be our main snare so we can just put [Music] it on every other down beat like [Music] that so it's all about this Simplicity let's just take these both down so we're not running into any clipping [Music] issues okay let's just double that up as well just duplicate that and next thing we want to do is create some real interest and kind of really sparkly nice crisp clear drums using just very few elements and it's all about what you don't include as much as what you do include so we don't want anything really fighting with this but what we are going to do is add some interest with some Rim shots and we're going to make a little roll now which is in the track that we're actually referencing so the easiest way to do it is just search my samples I'll go rim and see what we've got I like this one just bring that in and we're going to create this little roll like so now at the moment with this roll you just cannot hear for some reason why is that not playing H probably because I programmed it in on the wrong place there so this Rim shot at the moment is all the same volume so what we can do is if we've got the velocity assigned to the volume that means if we draw a lower velocity on some of these notes like so we're actually going to have a volume change rolling up to the louder one like this like so [Music] it's already heavy blood okay now we need to get some high hats in there and once again I'm going to use careful layering and that's to create this really cool Skrillex stereo width that he's amazing at as well just creating these incredible stereo width in his tracks so for instance we could actually bring in another Rim shot like this program it in exactly the same place and then we can have one pan left and one pound right a bit it's going to create the stereo [Music] WID the next thing I want to show you how to do is create more interest in the drums without actually adding extra drums and that's by sending out certain hits to an auxiliary channel to add things like Reverb And Delay so we're going to do that with this main snare as well I'm going to open up this routing I'm going to go create return TR chain and I'm going to use the second auxiliary Channel I've got here which is a whole Reverb so a nice long Reverb we can now dial this back and we can see here now we've got the send control showing so for the main clap I'm going to show Automation in new Lane and what I'm going to do is just every other snare in fact I'll do it for the first snare I'm just going to feed out this snare to the auxiliary Channel just every other snare there though so it doesn't happen on everyone so now with our Reverb it sounds like this instant [Music] yes so we can dial that back a bit but here how much crispier and fresh those drum sound already that's cool anyway let's get those trap drums in there oh now I'm getting excited see slow start get excited right what's the other thing that he always does he pushes the tools so he brings the energy and he pushes the tools he uses what he's got he gets the most from it through experimentation of using parameters that you wouldn't expect to use especially when it comes to synth sound design which we're going to get to soon so let's just program in these 16th hats I'll have a little roll at the beginning I think but I'm going to have it on triplet mode to make it really trappy like so just a little short Roll Just For the first beat like so and then we'll continue as [Music] normal I think we'll just use eight actually so we just have that beat on every eighth because we don't want those 16th hats kind of fighting with our nice 16th sub Rumble base so we'll just do [Music] this and we're going to tighten this up as [Music] well so I don't want to play this whole sample I'm just going to find the bit that I want and tighten it up exactly the same as we did with that kick Rumble [Music] base [Music] excellent now let's get a normal I think 808 high hat closed hat let's just put 808 perfect and again we are just going to layer this so then we've got two drums doing exactly the same thing one layer left one layed [Music] right and we can actually change the velocity of some of these as well to add more movement and interest and this is really important way to just get your drums really Dynamic and moving with relatively few instruments and having it sound simple but actually it's a little bit more complex than that see as this one Fades out the other one the other high hat becomes by default more prominent because this one is quieter so there's just more movement in the whole [Music] sequence and we'll just repeat that pattern as well I [Music] think excellent sounding cool already okay magic list magic list what do you say to me you say to me that we need another layer on the main snare and that's what we're going to do so this is again something that Skrillex is really cool at just using little sounds that aren't really drum sounds they could be anything like that but it just adds extra depth so I think we'll use that somewhere that little click just every now and again though so we could use it here and then just have it come in slightly before the other [Music] John so it's just that tiny little glitch that comes in your left ear there so to speak and let's just copy [Music] that and there's one more layer I want here and it's that it's like a drip so let's plop that in like a trip and just turn it down and having a sample pack like this this is a Vengeance sample pack by the way but going on to splice and just looking for little effects are really cool little one shots and things like [Music] that cool this is kind of a future base Vibe as well there [Music] excellent loving how that's sounding already last thing I want to do is add a tonal percussion so this doesn't actually have to be a percussion we can have a synth but it's going to be doing the job of a percussion and it's going to not only add to the Rhythm Section but it's going to nail down what key this track is it's going to mark that for people um because at the moment it's it's hard to tell what key this track is in so I'm going to just create a synth from scratch SC we're going to use an operator I want to do everything using the stock plugins today apart from that one ozone thing which is free and I've link to it [Music] below I think that sounds pretty cool so that's like a c sh so I think this track is going to be in c minor and we're going to add some vocals soon and they're going to be trap vocals so it doesn't really matter if it's they'll be wrapped so it doesn't matter which key it's in so let's make this little tonal I want something that sounds a bit like a boom a sonar [Music] beat so first we are going to get the shape of it correct let's add another texture let's experiment with that that's cool maybe we choose a different second [Music] wave maybe a triangle let's just extend that as well and now what I want to do is add a little bit of wobble on this to give it a bit of character so the way we that we can do that is increase the amount and then increase the release of that LFO affecting the pitch so that's obviously too much sounds wobbly but we just want a touch of [Music] that and then the next thing we want to do is add a Reverb to push it back in the mix and just have that be like a yeah like a submarine beep that's cool let's take out some of those low [Music] frequencies that's cool just that even so now we can put that on every other kick and it's going to once again just add that really interesting texture where is it where is it there we go we might have to bump that up in volume a bit [Music] turn the wobble down a [Music] touch excellent so the last thing I want to do with that base is add the kind of screechy top end to it ah there's something else I could try with this I want this to sound a bit more reverse I'm going to try this as with a reverse base and this low-end work is so important just to cuz this carries a whole track if you seen the video and they're just dropping it in the club and yeah this track is all about the rumble I mean that sounds pretty cool but let's just have a little experiment let's change this from a simpler to a sampler and then use reverse to have this second mid kick kind of be reversed like this it's a bit hard to hear at the moment I need to increase the attack it's really hard to dial in now it sounds reversed right but it's not going to be in time with this kick so what I might do is open up this delay button and because we've got a bit of an attack on this reverse kick that's hard to hear I'm just going to extend this kick so we can hear what's going on let's just extend it so we can hear so it's actually going zo instead of Boom so to allow us to get that in time I'm going to take this delayed signal here if you open this D button what it's going to do is push the entire track over by this amount of milliseconds and actually play it slightly before everything else and that's the way that we can bring that slightly longer attack into sync with the rest of the track so let's just try and dial that in get it the right place so it's and it gives it that cool sucking [Music] feeling which again just adds more interest so let's listen to it now [Music] just so much interest and like ear candy in there already and you know we've barely got anything going on it's just about choosing the right sounds and then using them in a clever way so now we want to look at the next thing which is the growl the Skrillex grow but this is a simple one we're going to do in this track so again we will just use the FM synth that comes with Ableton frequency modulator synth which is the operator and our track is in c minor so we're just going to hit the C sh the track is in C minus sorry so we just need to hit the [Music] C and it's just going to play before the rumble cuz we don't want it fighting with the rumble you could just like have it hitting that sub sign that sounds sick [Music] already but I don't want to do that I want to have a slight growl so let's work on this I'm going to change the first oscillator to be a S Wave so it's going to sound quite [Music] grungy and then we are going to use a second oscillator and I'm going to choose a different waveform let's use a a square and when we bring this level up it's going to start affecting our a oscillator which we can hear got that squelchy sound so we want to change the attack so the attack of that second oscillator opens up and kind of goes [Music] wow sounds weird why does it sound so weird okay that's the sore wave now I want this to be a square wave maybe if I do it octave up it's going to be easier to hear I think it's just too low maybe so let's bring it up [Music] okay we need Zero release that's for [Music] sure let's bring this so we can hear getting that interesting effect where this oscillator is modulating the first oscillator let's put it [Music] there nice okay getting there getting there next thing we want to do is work on the top kind of screechy sound that would go over the base and again it's all layering in to this one sound that w but it's actually at least three layers cuz we've got the rumble base we got the mid base and now we're going to do this top screechy sound and I think for this we will also use a an operator just to keep things all in the Ableton stop plugins and then we're going to create kind of tonal bell sound almost like in that Rumble track so we'll just program the 16th rhythm in on the key of the track which is the c like so I want these to be quite short though like so and let's just repeat those in exactly the same place as the rumble Bay and I want to add a pitch Bend here so we're going to go mixer and I'm going to go pitchbend and if you're wondering which headphones I'm using they're brand new actually they're the HD 490 Pros I got them from Sennheiser and they're amazing they sound fantastic and they're very comfortable now I'm not sponsored by them but I love sennheisers for anyone who watches this channel that you know I've been using them for 20 years or 15 20 years something like that so yeah these ones are brand new and they're really comfortable I think they've just come out this month so you can check them out using the link below so something like [Music] that right now let's tweak this sound and make it really something special cuz it sounds really cheap at the moment again we're going to use two [Music] oscillators uh I think we'll try starting with a swaave [Music] again and now we starting to get that grittiness that kind of Skrillex grittiness straight away that's already sounding cool [Music] okay let's just tweak that that pitch bend a little bit um Medi control pitch Bend I just wanted to be a bit little bit smoother so I'll just use this curve [Music] effect now let's tweak it up a bit tighten it and then what we're going to use is this wicked spread control which is going to make it stereo [Music] ised makes it sound really [Music] cool so it's gone from that which is very mono to that which has got some stereo interest okay let's take down some of those top ends with the filter add some drive so we're getting some some of that scret grit now which is what we want okay next thing we want to do is tighten this up even further I mean we can add some saturator first to squelch it up it's getting a bit loud now so there's some movement and interest in that sound already and now we want to really tighten this sound up first thing we're going to do is smooth it using I think chorus let's use some chorus that's going to smooth it out a little bit make it a bit wider as [Music] well we can actually add some Redux which is bit Crusher uh where would that be here we go driving color let's add a little little bit of [Music] that which gives it that really nice kind of Skrillex character add a tiny bit of Reverb straight on there just because we are yeah just trying to smooth it down a little [Music] bit you could use the room Reverb on an auxiliary Channel but this works fine and then the last thing I want to do actually second to last thing I want to do is just get rid of some of those frequencies make it really [Music] thin and then the very last thing that we want to do is add some tremol Lo to this now the easiest and that's basically where the volume goes up and down with an LFO and it's just a fancy word for it so what we're going to use for that is the auto pan because what you can do is you can set it to 16 so let's set it to 16 turn it up but instead of using it to actually autopan left and right like this which actually sounds really cool so I might just leave it doing that actually but what I was going to show is that you can put the phase to zero and it's just going to make the volume go up and down and this is going to add a little bit of a tack back to each 16th note because at the moment it's going D whereas this if you look you can see if we reduce the rate you can see it's sine wave so every hit is going to be starting here so it's going to be going yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah instead of D D D D D so again it's just these small controls of the shape of the sound that's making all the difference so this is where it was and now it's here so when we add it to the rest of the sounds that like initial base is rubbish so I'm going to redo the growl but before we do that I want to add the vocals now Skrillex again is a master of collaboration so he's collaborated with Diplo he's collaborated with Justin Bieber he's collaborated with loads of people like for this track Fred again being able to tap into other people's networks could just get fresh fresh inspiration from other artists you respect is something that SRX does you know he's worked with the doors I think they're one of his favorite bands you know for breaking a sweat he's worked with oh that Marley bloke can't remember his first name either but yeah so many collaborations and it just means that he's always coming up with fresh new material always inspired as well so with that in mind let's find some vocals now for this I'm just going to use splice but you could use Loop cloud and I've got a link to both those below and if you do use them using my link thank you cuz it does help support the channel but all I'm going to do for here is write trap vocals in and look for mail trap vocals and let's listen to [Music] some flashback you got mad he crack that what that yes I'm having you son get in that was an unexpected delight and this one here smoke up Das in the BL fre up the guys yeah I'll have that so so we can see here it's 146 BPM this vocal stem oh it's in c minor that's what the tracks in that was handy it wouldn't really matter cuz it's WRA so there's no particular pitch it's more tonal but let's go in there and make sure it's warped correctly so we're going to unwarp it we're going to warp it and then we're going to write in 140 6 and that should well it definitely will make sure it's now in sync with our track I'm going to change it to complex Pro cuz that's the best warp algorithm for vocals and let's have a listen to it smoke the endp the ride burn out the rims don't stop don't the bo smoke up in the BL fre the guys jump the ride burn out the rims don't stop don't cut the Bo on in the block up for rev skin kept closed cuz youting on them with a K on yes so next thing I want to do is grab the other vocal sound I got where was it that's amazing I love it so we're going to find a place for that just fits so well in the BL free up the guys and dip out the ends jump in the ride and burn out the rims don't stop don't cut the Bo in the up for skin with a back on ready to go and jump in boom there you have it guys I'm going to do a little bit more work on this before you download it for free below this video but did you get those five secrets of Skrillex's success let's go through them one he brought the aggressive energy from his background in metal bands into the EDM space the drive in the vision was kind of similar in some ways but it was just the medium that changed so think about that what could you bring from other genres into electronic dance music two he pushes the tools to the Limit how does he do that three by experimentation if you can use creative sounds in ways that you wouldn't usually expect like instead of a snare can you replace that with the sound of someone kicking a ball or can you apply lfos and envelopes to parameters on a syn or sampler that you wouldn't usually expect and then how can you use effects change to bring all that together the experimentation is one of the most fun parts of music production number four he goes for Simplicity on the other side of complexity even if you listen to his older music there's always one very simple or strong core idea rhythmic pattern or Melody and then through careful sound manipulation programming composition and layering he brings just one or two simple ideas per track to life and that is one of the key Hallmarks of a professional sounding producer Simplicity on the other side of complexity and number five Skrillex has had some incredible collaborations with other EDM Artists pop artists rap artists which not only expand his listener base but also keeps inspiration fresh and allows new ideas to percolate in a creative environment and one of those huge collaborations like with a track we've been looking at today has been with Fred again one of the biggest artists of the last couple of years and I've created a video right there where I uncover some of Fred's production secrets that I haven't shared in any other video If you enjoyed this please consider subscribing to my channel I really appreciate it and don't forget to download the project file for free below thanks for watching and I'll catch you over at that next video

Channel: EDM Tips

Views: 17,947

Keywords: how skrillex makes his bass lines, how to skrillex, how to make skrillex, how to skrillex type beat, how to sound like skrillex, how skrillex made a song, how to make progressive house like skrillex, how to skrillex beat, how to make a build up like skrillex, how to make track like skrillex 2023, how to make a beat like skrillex, how to make skrillex in ableton live, skrillex ableton live, how to sound like skrillex ableton, ableton live tutorial, EDM Tips

Id: dYPkeEOW7jU

Length: 36min 16sec (2176 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 02 2024