Thread by @miqbalxd, Howdy folks On today's episode of Mo failing being helpful to [...]

Howdy folks

On today's episode of Mo failing being helpful to society we have...

HOW TO MAKE YOUR 808 GO BOOM BETTER

This thread was sponsored by pain and agony and suffering

Essentially I am going to go through multiple different methods for you to improve upon your existing 808. Now before we start I would like to state that if your 808 is not in the right key, MAKE SURE THAT IT IS (pitch shift it etc.) ...

and also make sure that if you are using midi or some sort of synth, that the sound resets every time a new note is played. This will help with your 808 sounding less muddy and hit more in the song.

I will first go through what can be done to the 808 itself to improve on it, then move on to what can be done to the 808 and other instruments to make it go boom harder in the mix.

If you would like, I will even extend this thread / make a new thread, on how to make an 808 from scratch... If i have the time to, my exams are pretty damn close as it is. I won't go through how to actually make the 808 because cba

For this first tip I am going to assume the following: you have a good 808 pattern with a juicy amount of sub bass on it but it is struggling to be heard on smaller speakers and you are very sad :(

The 808 in most cases of this, is lacking higher frequency content. A simple method to get past this is to apply distortion to the 808 (DO NOT OVERDO THIS). In general this adds rich harmonics, extending the frequency range of the 808.

Saturation distortion enriches the 808 with more pleasant harmonics than other distortion types. Get a saturation plugin because they're useful for more than just the 808s. Overdrive is also good choice. If you want an old nintendo game sounding ass 808 you can use a bitcrusher.

Clipping is caused when your signal is amplified beyond the accepted limit of your DAW, so the waveform is distorted as shown with the sine wave being clipped below. Hard clipping sound harsh and soft clipping sounds nicer. You wanna soft clip so throw a soft clipper on it.

If you have a multi band distortion plugin use it on higher frequencies more than the lower ones because too much distortion on the lows can cause the 808 to sound muddy which means LESS BIG BOOTY BASS CONTENT. Also throw a limiter on the master.

Leaving the distortion stuff, if you're using a synth make sure that you're not using your cutoff too low. In your DAW you can EQ boost/reduce frequencies to your mixing needs. I'm probably forgetting a lot but I will move on anyways

.

So what if it is the bass you are lacking with in the first place? Well the solution is pretty simple

BASS BOOST THE FUCKER

But how?

Well for starters there are a shitton of bass boost plugins to use. Get some. Synths will likely have a resonance filter that you can apply to the desired frequency to boost and you can use an EQ for the same thing.

Use your ears all cases! 40 to 60ish Hz is a good range to boost but your ears are the final judge of which frequency is right. The higher you go the thinner the bass so think about what you want from the 808.

Oh and it's not always the case that the bass is actually too weak.

In some cases you have too much bass in the inaudible frequencies of 20 Hz and below. These might take up too much energy and need a high pass filter to be lowered. DO NOT OVERDO THIS. Your subwoofer will not be happy if you do so as these frequencies still need to be felt.

Speaking of subwoofers, club speakers tend to be in mono so if you give a fuck about your stuff being played in clubs, make your 808 sub region mono for maximum BOOM. Also you can always add reverb after to the 808 to make it sound more spacious.

If things are still not going your way (which they should by now... i think) there is a trick called parallel compression, which I barely use it so here is a video.

For more punchier 808 sounds you can use a transient controller to boost the transient of the 808 (the pic below is for a kick drum but it's easier to show like this). DO NOT OVERDO THIS as you don't want pointless clipping.

Ok so at this point I am now going to consider other tracks that the 808 needs to work with.

First things first, the pattern of the 808 and the rest of track has a great influence on how the 808 will stand out in the final product, especially with its relation to the kick.

The kick and the 808 are at constant war over the bass region. So consider what you want. Do you want the 808 to just beef up the kick? Or is the kick just there to add more punch to the 808? Or do you want to be as closed to them being as balanced as possible?

Either way you will have to deal with them clashing. Obviously you can simply turn down the volume of one of them. You can slow the attack of the 808 to allow for the kick to hit first. you can EQ out some of the bass off one of them...

sidechain compress the kick to the 808 so that the 808 will duck when the kick comes in (DO NOT OVERDO THIS)... there is a lot to do and I won't name all of it. Also please make sure your kick and the 808 are in phase and have the same polarity, sort of like these waves here

Speaking of sidechain compression, this can be used, if needed, to have some other instruments duck when the 808/kick hits so that it has even more BOOM when you hear it.

Regular EQ mixing applies thought all of this btw

ALSO ADD A LIMITER ON THE MASTER

Some other things. 808's notes are usually the root note but this can clash with the kick to the point of fucking end me. If so then try the 5th note in the scale or go an octave above/below. MODULATION. Consider the chord progression when you make your 808 pattern too.

Layer whatever sounds you want to the 808 to give it a unique and special sound that works great with the song <3

I'm out of tweets I can add under this thread in one go and I am tired, PLEASE COMMENT OTHER SHIT I HAVE MISSED I BEG.

Thanks for not reading up until this point!

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