808s are a staple of hip hop productions and can be exciting yet challenging to mix. They often do the kick drum and bass line's job to fill out the bottom of your mix and take up their fair share of space. When mixed properly, they can shake the block like an earthquake.
But how do you make them slam on small speakers? How much is too much?
In this puremix.net exclusive, Hip Hop mixing guru, Rich Keller, breaks down his approach to making massive sounding 808s and the low end he is known for. Hip hop moguls like Snoop Dogg, Rick Ross, Nipsey Hussle, Swizz Beats, Jadakiss, Nas, DMX, The Notorious B.I.G. and many many more call on Rich to make sure their tracks have the low-end power they need, and now Rich is here to teach you how to make your mixes thump like his.
See how Rich Keller:
Explains the history of the track
Dissects the low-end elements
Explains his process for dealing with a two-track loop that is slightly diffuse and out of phase
Discusses the issues that come with having multiple instruments occupying the low end
Shows his process for making an 808 that will shake the floor even through tiny speakers
Uses stock logic compressors to extend the length of the 808 to fit the groove of the track
Uses a resonant subfilter to clean up the bottom of the mix, keep the 808 contained, and add some distortion to soak up the transient
Watch Rich Keller mix "Thru The Pain" from Adolf The Assassin. Only on pureMix.net
00:00:07 Hello everyone, welcome back.
Rich Keller here to take you through
the hip hop chronicles.
00:00:12 We're gonna take you back to
an old-school beat today.
00:00:15 This is made by
8-Off The Assassin.
00:00:18 He worked back with
Onyx and had his own label situation,
and his own album deal.
00:00:24 All that, he's still cranking right now.
00:00:26 Angel Aguilar.
00:00:27 And he's my man and
he's allowed us to use this track.
00:00:30 He's an old G producer
from the beautiful 90s in hip-hop.
00:00:35 So this track has some
classic samples in it.
00:00:38 And
more traditional like
808 usage.
00:00:42 For example,
these days the 808s are used now
as basslines essentially, bass sounds.
00:00:50 So you got the 808 function
and the bassline function
in one instrument.
00:00:54 So whereas this is
more of like an old-school style
where we've got
a drum loop
and then we've got just a single
monotone single pitched 808.
00:01:05 Just functioning as the sub 808.
00:01:07 Old-school.
00:01:08 Now this also has,
something that's making
it a little trickier,
it also has a very
sustained synth bass line
and so we've got three elements
in the low frequencies.
00:01:19 We've got the kick drum,
at the bottom of the loop only,
there's no separate kick,
it's just part of the loop
and all that comes with it,
it has a funky drummer,
slowed down,
just for all you hip hop heads out there.
00:01:29 And then we've got the bass
and the next down
is a kind of a synth Moog bass,
it sustains completely through.
00:01:36 And then we've got
a classic old-school 808.
00:01:39 And it
seems pretty natural out of the box,
the 808 is not very effected.
00:01:43 It's just a natural
old-school 808
rather than the overdriven ones
we get today.
00:01:49 Let's give it a listen
and see what the track is about
then we'll take it apart.
00:02:21 It gives us the idea of
what's going on, right?
It's classic stuff there.
00:02:24 It's great!
Let's take a second here
and let me solo the loop
and take a look at that.
00:02:29 Because that's pretty much
the heart of this track right here.
00:02:35 Boom, there we go.
00:02:45 That's post processing.
00:02:47 Now let's bypass
all the processing
and take a listen to what
came in the door.
00:03:00 A very very spread out,
diffuse loop, right?
There's some panning issues
there's some out
of phase issues.
00:03:09 The kick seems to be more
on the right.
00:03:11 Hi-hats over to the left
and the snare
not in the center where
we might like it more.
00:03:17 And the fact that we have
no extra kicks in here,
there's no support kick,
no 909 kick to support
that sample kick,
all the weight has to come
from this loop.
00:03:27 So, what I chose to do,
first of all,
just a little compressor here.
00:03:50 So, this is giving it a little gain
and just giving it a little bit of grit.
00:03:54 I'm not compressing it at all,
there's no gain reduction on it.
00:03:57 It's just running through it
to give it that gain
for lack of a better word there.
00:04:01 But where I am adding something
is here on the Oxford Envolution.
00:04:06 This plug-in I just started
to play with it recently,
in the last 6 months or so.
00:04:10 And it's really great.
00:04:12 The attack
is controlled by this
transient knob here.
00:04:15 So I'm gonna move it around
as a I play it.
00:04:36 So that's pretty easy to
hear what that's doing.
00:04:38 And it's very similar to
the SPL Transient Designer.
00:04:44 Next up,
the real issue
with this loop is the
imaging that's going on.
00:04:49 And I really wanted to focus
the loop and bring it into mono
without killing it completely
because I need the
boom and the beat.
00:04:56 Right? That's the kick and the snare.
00:04:58 I always gotta be clear
and powerful in hip-hop.
00:05:00 And for that
I turned to
the trusty
2098 brainworx.
00:05:06 And what this has on it,
here is the mono maker,
and
the THD here, the distortion,
it's the harmonic distortion,
as well as a band in the EQ,
I used to have this channel module,
it was known as the 9098
not the 2098 but I guess it's
because there's two channels here.
00:05:23 But I had this back in the 90s
and it was great
so I decided to check out the plug-in
and it's actually amazing,
it's a great EQ.
00:05:29 So, let's take a listen how I
summed the loop into mono
using the 'Mono Maker'
all the way up to 1 kHz
and I added a little bit of width
to the highs
and then I just full tilt
on the harmonic distortion,
just get as much grit
out of it as I can.
00:05:45 I'll play with it off
and we add it in
and you hear the difference.
00:05:49 I'll go back and forth a few times.
00:06:08 Yeah. So, it brings it to the center,
it still has some stereo
spectrum at the top.
00:06:13 For those of you who don't know
what the 'Mono Maker' is,
it sums both channels
to mono but it's
frequency selective.
00:06:19 So, what it does
is from 20 Hz to 20 kHz you
can select by sweeping it
where you want the
mono cutoff to be,
so it starts at the bottom
and we're moving up 20
Hz, 50 Hz, 100 Hz, 200 Hz.
00:06:33 Right now everything below 379
is gonna be in mono.
00:06:36 And as I keep going up and up
you'll hear that it's gonna change.
So I stopped at about 2 kHz
because 2 kHz is where everything
is really audible
and the present volume,
the discernible volume
is around that frequency.
00:06:49 So, I'll bring it in and out
so you can hear what this
'Mono Maker' is doing.
00:07:09 Alright, now I'm gonna leave it in
and I'm gonna sweep the frequency
so you can hear how the
different frequencies
change and move around
as I sweep down the spectrum
to a lower frequency.
00:07:40 Right in the place that I stopped it,
around 2 kHz,
all of the sudden everything came
right together in apparent level
and positioning.
00:07:48 And now the stereo width,
this next to it here,
is just for what it isn't
forced into mono.
00:07:54 It's still being hit
by the width processor,
which the center indent,
100% is natural as your image is
and every little bit you push over
is widening it a little bit.
00:08:05 So this is a very subtle effect,
I'll give you a quick test on that.
00:08:24 So basically just affecting the hi-hat
which are the frequencies that aren't
affected by the 'Mono Maker', right?
For this last knob
here we've got the THD
and let's check out what this is doing.
00:08:52 That's giving it that
extra grit and punch.
00:08:54 It's kinda like
it's a little bit of gain,
it's a little bit of saturation,
you know?
And pleasing frequencies.
00:09:03 I don't know if it's the odd
or even frequencies
but
it's filling it up and giving it a punch
in a way that I really like a lot.
00:09:11 And as far as EQ wise,
I'm just hitting it once again
I'm in between 1.5 and 2.5 kHz,
so, around 2 kHz.
00:09:19 I'm giving it a little boost up there.
00:09:21 And also some 60 Hz,
a nice big wide bell yet it's a shelf.
00:09:26 So that's what the
'Glow' button does there.
00:09:29 It opens up the bell a little bit more.
00:09:31 Here on the filters
what I'm doing is I'm
cleaning up the low rumble
that's coming from the turntable
because this is literally a
vinyl, it's an old-school beat.
00:09:39 So, I'm cleaning that up a little bit
and just for cleaning of the top
about 15 kHz or so in case there's any
just kinda of high gristles and little
ticks from record scratches and stuff.
00:09:51 I don't wanna hear that
because normally I
wouldn't mind them
but because this loop was
off a vinyl and it was slowed down
things that were nice
crackly sweetness,
analog sweetness
are pitched down
into and audible range of like
'krrr' from 'tsss' to 'crrr'.
00:10:08 It's really annoying, so,
I just put a light filter on that there.
00:10:11 And on the high-end
I'm pushing up like a 9 kHz shelf
just to brighten up the
whole thing over the top.
00:10:17 I'll A/B the whole thing.
00:10:36 So that gives you a taste.
Now moving on,
let's get to this 808 over here
but I want to dissect
those drums for you first.
00:10:42 Because,
no 808 is and island.
00:10:46 It has to relate to everything
that is going on around it.
00:10:49 And I know, for me,
it took a long time
to come to grips with it
of like when do you mess with it
or when do you leave it alone.
00:10:57 Because in a lot of times, this low-end
records that we have specially now
there's so much low-end
but producers have taken more
to just allow in one low-end piece.
00:11:09 Like just the 808,
pitched 808, bassline/kick,
all in one.
00:11:14 Right?
So that's going on a lot these days
so it actually makes it a lot
easier to mix these days.
00:11:19 So I do with less processing
because we don't have
the layers do deal with.
00:11:23 Because when we get layers
you get phase issues
that can change over the attack.
00:11:29 You got a bassline along with an 808
that can be out of
phase at the beginning
and come into phase as the sounds
move down in time.
00:11:38 And that creates all kinds of
pulsating weirdness,
it's not a lot of fun.
00:11:44 So, the reason I chose this
track as an example,
because of the sustained bassline
and the long 808 and the dirty loop
without a smacking kick.
00:11:52 So, before we hit the 808
let's just solo the bass
and listen to the bassline.
00:11:56 And then we'll solo the 808
and listen to that so we can
hear the other two elements.
00:12:13 That's pretty straight ahead,
I'm gonna turn turn off all
this stuff here.
00:12:17 I've got a little compression on that,
now let's listen to the 808.
00:12:21 This is dry.
00:12:34 So, alone,
it sounds good, it sounds like an 808,
just like we know it.
00:12:40 So let's take a listen to it
along with the bass and the loop.
00:12:55 OK, I mean, I guess that sounds OK.
00:12:58 That's what the producer
gave me, right?
But I'm
feeling as a mixer now,
I need the bass to rumble.
00:13:05 I need to feel this.
00:13:06 I want the floor to shake,
from the 808.
00:13:09 Even through small speakers,
I want it to feel like the
floor is shaking.
00:13:12 What I'm gonna do to achieve that
is to focus the 808, control it,
I'm gonna control the duration of it,
I'm gonna control the attack of it.
00:13:19 I'm gonna control
the resonant frequency
that I hear and that we feel from it.
00:13:25 And I'm gonna set that in a place
in the frequency range
and dynamic range
where it's completely out
of the way of the bass.
00:13:33 With no side-chaining
or anything like that,
this has nothing to do
with anything like that.
00:13:37 That's another story, completely.
00:13:38 So, right now
we have the 808
which is,
as you heard, it's a very natural 808,
it's not hyped up,
it's not compressed or EQed,
there's no distortion on it.
00:13:47 It's not being overdriven.
00:13:49 It's old-school,
right off the 808 drum machine.
00:13:53 And,
the bass to me musically clearly
is holding, it's sustaining,
and want that bass
to sustain with it
and be a river for it to flow on
rather than, well,
the 808 is the riverbed
and the bassline is the river.
00:14:11 Right? One holds the other,
just like that.
00:14:13 So, I'll just pop in the plug-ins,
as I go here,
we'll leave the drums in
because they're relevant as well
to really understand how
the beat fits together.
00:14:46 So now,
we're getting a much
more musical situation
a much more musical
effect happening here.
00:14:52 Because now the bassline and the bass
are singing together
and they're sustaining together
all the way through out,
whereas before
the bass was sustaining nicely,
because it's just a straight sine-wave
kind of sound
with a little filter sweep on it,
and the 808 was tapering off
really quickly.
00:15:10 And just leaving us 'boom, boom'
and disappearing, so we'd have
this nice big fat bass that hits
and halfway through the bar
disappeared.
00:15:17 And now what we have
is a full through bass
that's gonna shake the floor
for us where we want it
but it's not out of control,
it's a controlled bass explosion.
00:15:29 And now I'm gonna
solo it for you and dissect
what the 808 sounds like alone
and why we went there
and how we got there.
00:15:37 OK, so here comes the 808 alone.
00:15:40 First, with all the plug-ins bypassed.
00:15:59 It's not as punchy,
it's very different than what
it was before
but it's working in the mix better.
00:16:07 And what's important here.
00:16:09 The whole team is more important
than any individual instrument.
00:16:13 Mixing sounds like this
individually and really tweaking
the hell out of them
and trying to get them
to do all this stuff,
when you're just working
on each track like if you really
try to make that kick
to handle all the low end
or make the bass
a sub-bass like that, you know.
00:16:29 No sound is an island, they all go
together, they have to work together
so that's the focus of this segment,
is to show that
you have to mix in context.
00:16:39 And sometimes,
the individual sounds may come out
sounding different
or "weaker"
possibly, because there's not...
00:16:49 I've swashed the attack down
with the compressor,
let's take a look at that.
00:16:58 I'm dropping the attack by as about
up to 4 dB, it's getting knocked down.
00:17:02 So, the way I set it to get this 4 dB
gain reduction which is typical for me
is like we saw in the
other part as well,
it's gonna be between the 3 to 1
to a 5 to 1 ratio, somewhere in there.
00:17:14 With a medium attack.
00:17:16 And a medium to fast attack.
00:17:17 No too fast or it will distort
on the rise up
and not too slow
because then it won't catch
any of the front of the sound.
00:17:24 It will catch it much later which
there's not much to the sound later,
it's all in the attack.
00:17:29 And the decay just keeps going,
decaying all the way down.
00:17:32 So, I'll play it and move my threshold
till the desired
sound comes into play.
00:17:54 Clearly it's bringing up the tail
and squashing down the attack.
00:17:58 So now it's more even
and it's gonna match up
and line up
with that nice even bass they have.
00:18:04 And it's not gonna get
in the way of the kick
which doesn't have a whole
lot of low end in it
and certainly no subs,
nothing down there.
00:18:11 So, it's no interfering with that
in anyway either.
00:18:13 Whereas before,
this 808 was so punchy
that was kind of in
the kick land up there,
it was interfering
in that knock of the kick.
00:18:21 We've killed two
birds with one stone.
00:18:24 We smoothed the 808
to match with the bass
and we've taken away it's punch
instead of interfere with the kick
that we beefed up with the EQ.
00:18:31 After the compressor
we've got
something probably that most
people wouldn't expect,
I don't know,
the bx_subfilter.
00:18:37 I love this thing.
00:18:38 This is a great plug-in.
00:18:40 You have so much control
with so few knobs.
00:18:43 You can change the world
with this plug-in right here.
00:18:46 What it does essentially,
it's a resonant sub filter, right?
So you can focus in on a frequency
and you can select from
three types of resonance,
three levels, it's really gain.
So there's low, high and extreme gain
on the resonance.
And the resonance
is the point at which the filter hits.
00:19:03 Where the filter frequency is,
that's the part of the sound
that you're amplifying.
00:19:08 So basically now it's set to 44,
so 44 Hz
got a peak in the EQ curve,
if we put an analyzer here
you would see a peak
at 44 and it would move
as I move the
frequency up and down.
00:19:20 You'd see the resonance of
that singular frequency there.
00:19:22 And can I have it at low gain,
high gain or extreme gain.
00:19:27 And for this I've chosen
the extreme gain
which is gonna a little
bit of distortion on it,
this will get a little bit overdriven.
00:19:33 And I tuned it,
44 is the number that worked
as I closed my eyes
and spin the knob
and the one that resonates
properly and fits into the mix,
that's where it fits,
that's what I came up with,
then I just adjust the gain
to compensate for it.
00:19:47 Let's take a listen with it
and without it.
00:20:06 Now, you're probably gonna say:
'Wait, but it was also
changing the attack!"
Aha, that's right.
00:20:12 The compressor
was changing the attack
and lessing the attack
but this took it to the next level,
which is why I
chose the extreme,
the extreme setting is
more of a saturation
so that's flattening
the attack even more
but it's giving a nice warm sustain
to the entire sound
because the sound itself
is such a pure sine-wave
having a little bit of the extreme
and the harmonic distortion on it
makes it a more complex waveform.
00:20:38 And thus makes it fill out
the speaker a little more.
00:20:41 And then, at the very end of the tail
here, the end of the chain
we have a low-shelf with 2 dB
at 66 Hz
just to fill in the pillow a little bit.
00:20:52 Let's listen here.
00:21:07 That's doing exactly what I want.
00:21:09 I know that some of these
moves are really subtle
so some folks that don't have
great low end, or if you're in
bedroom with the sub-woofer,
something like,
you're gonna feel some of this
but I have the luxury
of having some great
Augspurger speakers
here in my studio.
00:21:24 That go down to the floor
up to Mars.
00:21:28 It's very easy for me to hear this
subtle changes of 1 dB or 2 dB at 66.
00:21:34 For some of you
that might not be.
00:21:36 But I hope these are
translating through,
they're subtle moves
but important moves.
00:21:41 So let's take a listen
again to the whole thing
with the bass, the drum
and the 808.
00:21:45 Let's take a listen to
them with the plug-ins on
and then with the plug-ins off.
00:22:22 And then back in context
for the whole song.
00:22:58 And there you have it.
Once logged in, you will be able to read all the transcripts jump around in the video.
With 4 Grammy Award nominations, 29 Platinum albums, and over 75 million albums sold, it is no surprise that Rich has continued to be a first call mixer and producer for hip hop and R&B royalty like Snoop Dogg, DMX, Jay Z, Nipsey Hussle Alicia Keys, Swizz Beatz, Lil Wayne, Mariah Carey, Method Man, Rick Ross, and many many more.
Rich's career spans the breadth of hip hop since 1992, earning him official "OG" status.
Rich attended North Texas State University and the City College of New York where he studied jazz bass with legendary bassist Ron Carter.
Great video, straight to the point and addressing some real-world problem solving, which is great and not so common around here!
Keep bringing more hip-hop stuff!
And @daniel.wolff, that plugin is an emulation of hardware, so I believe if he let it overload the output its because he liked what it did to the sound! I believe gainstaging is more about being aware of what is happening and finding the sweet spots than necessarily avoiding clipping at all stages. Sometimes the grit is wanted, and it is a big part of hip hop sound.
Cheers!
droalv818
2021 Aug 23
I mess with the bx_subfilter plug -in! It really does so much with just those 4 knobs and selections.
Phantom Studios
2020 Nov 18
Awesome video, straight to the point. Thank you!
saunal
2020 Nov 10
This musical genre is not really my thing, but his explanations/demonstrations are very clear and very interesting.
Star Jee
2020 Nov 08
Thanks ! luv' it. Keep on put in more hip hop tracks. Great song from 8 off.
LucBessette
2020 Nov 07
Great explanations of what the plugins are doing to the waveform and why you are using it. Thanks!
Filipe Costa
2020 Nov 06
Great video!
fabian.ac
2020 Nov 06
Awesome! Love that there is hip hop!
daniel.wolf
2020 Nov 05
Great video. I was just wondering why he didn't take care of the clipping in the drum loop. There was no gainstaging and it clipped in the plugin chain. Is it just me who is too finical or should you take care of it as a mixing engineer? Maybe it is genre related and it fits the track... Dunno
studiosix
2020 Nov 05
Love the explanations and before and afters. Really helps.
