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Comment by commotionfever | Hacker News Reader

regarding the pumping, I'm not sure if sidechain compression is what most producers are doing. I'd describe it as a gallop rather than a bump.

so with 16ths, you'd typically see 1/16 & 2/16 have zero to little amplitude, 3/16 & 4/16 have most of the energy. 4 maybe even a little less so.

which can't be done by sidechaining. also phase alignment with the kick is important

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These days in my experience most people don't use a sidechain signal, just chop out, or filter, enough of the first base note so that it doesn't clash with the kick. People still refer to it as "sidechain" just because historically that's what it was. Most popular plugin to achieve this is LFOTool but also Shaperbox is used now too which is nice as it lets you cut in frequency ranges in different amounts. Its all about making it gel with the kick. You want your bass to be powerful but in the modern sound you always want the kick to win.

Yes phase alignment is important too. There's always a sweet spot where it just sounds "right". Plus staring endlessly at an oscilloscope to check they aren't interfering. Then doing it for hours and hours and wondering at the end if it sounded better before you started mucking around with it actually but your ears are so tired of it you can't tell anymore.

This stuff is such a rabbit hole. Lots of fun though.

Are there any resources out there that you would recommend to learn about this stuff?

Underdog Music School on Youtube is fantastic. Also check out Polarity Music, Andrew Huang, AlexReidStudios, and TachesTeaches.

Basic song writing is a good place to start (and should cover the dynamics/loudness of notes and sounds as per the parent post to introduce groove). Then combine with sound engineering.

There is a lot of resources all over the web, and tutors and courses that you can do.

If you want to start off with an easy introduction then maybe Oscar @ Underdog can help: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAJz4-YZdio&t=8s

If you want to product Psytrance - then you are lucky because IMHO it's perhaps the easiest most formulaic genre.

https://youtu.be/jQWfzlg9x_4?t=598

Kickstart VST is the ez button.

There’s a few ways to skin a cat. The more I research, the less popular side-chaining seems in general. What’s more common is side-chaining with ghost notes or manually ducking by drawing envelopes in automation lanes.

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