Gabber: dat real hard stuff yo

[Ohffy]

Yea so im starting to get into hardcore/ gabber stuff and really want to expirament tey my hand at it but i have no idea how to start, how do i get my kicks to sound so gabberry? How do i go about making a sweet synth lead i really dont know alot about sound design really and i could use some pointers n stuff

http://lapfox.bandcamp.com/track/gabberse-town

Ive always been into hardcore techno/ gabber but this song by renard really made me want to try it out for myself

Thanks in advance

[vladnuke]

Lots of square kicks. Just make square kicks. And rave synths. Get hoovers. First make really sugary synths, then distort them. Do you have Massive? Any synth with an envelope should let you make stuff like that, but Massive has really nice envelope controls. Just mess around with what you have, try different kinds of distortion, and see if you can shape that sound onto something nice an crunchy.

[Raddons]

http://www.mediafire.com/?lkmbyhmmyjy

[cyrricky]

Also never ever ever ever use sampled kicks.

Synthesize your own.

[Raddons]

Also never ever ever ever use sampled kicks.

Synthesize your own.

...

oh

[XXDarkShadow79XX]

#1 most important VST in gabber: TRIDIRT.

GET

TRIDIRT.

[Ohffy]

Also never ever ever ever use sampled kicks.

Synthesize your own.

Never ever forever?

[Sugarholik]

Gabber? I love you! ^^
/)

Kicks:
Take a regular kick (many like to use 909s) or synthesize your own. Apply just a little bit of distortion (this plugin serves that purpose well enough) but apply huge peaks with EQ, then repeat. It's important to go easy on distortion because if you put the gain to max every time you'll end up with really messy kick which will mess your entire mix as well. Just few decibels of gain on distortion but for EQ you can have +-12 dB peaks. I'd focus on boosting frequencies around 200 - 400 Hz, but boosting different frequencies gives you different sounds so try out yourself and you'll see what's good and what's not.

That's actually hardstyle kick, which is quite similiar to what you'll find in gabber. Just for gabber it's typical to have more fuzzy and buzzy kicks rather than clear kicks in hardstyle. Note that he spent 2 weeks on that kick so take a hint and spend a good amount of time on experimenting and tweaking!

Supersaws & stuff:
One of the most common sounds in hardcore.
You'll need alot of oscillators. I wouldn't try a supersaw with less than 10 oscs, because the more the merrier (I once made supersaw with 100 oscs ^^ that's overkill but I was bored). So take a bunch of saw oscs and detune them. Modulate the amount of detuning with LFOs. Preferrably different LFO for each osc. Set them in different rates or phases if you can so the wobbling can't be heard. When you modulate the detuning quickly you can detune as far as +-100ct without too much dissonance.
Hoover has the same mindset, but the oscs are set on three different octaves. Traditional hoover uses pulse width modulators (often just PWM). You'll need a pulse oscillator and modulate the pulse width with LFO. It already sounds like a supersaw but just to be sure you can have several of them and detune them. Also apply detuned saws, it'll sound a bit better. Then add some more oscs one octave lower and one octave higher. Tweak the detuning so that it's a bit different in each octave, otherwise it sounds boring.
You can pan some of the oscs hard left and right so you'll get a neat stereo spread. Don't abuse panning though.

------------------

So yea, hope that gets you going...

[Ohffy]

@Darkshadow79 ill definently check it out man thanks

@Sugarholik thanks for all the information man this is exactly what i wanted to know. Would you mind if i sent you the kicks and synths i make?

[XXDarkShadow79XX]

@Darkshadow79 ill definently check it out man thanks :D

@Sugarholik thanks for all the information man this is exactly what i wanted to know. Would you mind if i sent you the kicks and synths i make?

U forgot teh Xs...

JK. Hope you find it useful!

Apply just a little bit of distortion

?

Let me fix that:

Apply LUDICROUS amounts of distortion

Seriously! Douse dat shnazz in distortion! Stretch out the kick, run it through a guitar amp, brickwall it, then add a bitcrusher; this is the fun part! Then shape the kick further with A LOT of eq, as your frequencies will, erm... take a look:



So yeah, be kefo with the EQ.

One last tip: slap a (matching length) 808 subkick underneath your main kick for your low end. It sounds awesome. You may also want to bass boost your song to really bring that sub out.

*Cough*Upstereo&XBass4000Ljustmakeanacct.

[cplbradley]

I always saw gabber as basically hardstyle at a hardcore tempo, with an overly distorted kick.

[soup2504]

I always saw gabber as basically hardstyle at a hardcore tempo, with an overly distorted kick.

Cool.

[Pewter Robot]

Just do the process to make a hardstyle kick, but put a lot less effort into it.

[XXDarkShadow79XX]

Just do the process to make a hardstyle kick, but put a lot less effort into it.

Hey! Take that back!

[Pewter Robot]

Hey! Take that back!

Actually, while I was making my hardstyle kick, the main problem was I kept accidentally getting a gabber kick. So there's the amount of difficulty involved in making one.

[XXDarkShadow79XX]

What, because YOU can only make one by accident?

[Pewter Robot]

What, because YOU can only make one by accident?

I wasn't trying. I imagine it's just a square kick run through Ohmicide, and tweaking and EQ from there with compression set to a high attack.

[XXDarkShadow79XX]

I refer to my big ass post with the picture that screwed up the page. And that's the BASICS of creating an interesting kick. You are right in a way, you could make a simple kick like that, but the genre revolves around the kick, so for goodness sake, be creative and original.

[Sugarholik]

Would you mind if i sent you the kicks and synths i make?

Like for critique, tips and swag? Post 'em up here.

things

Maybe I wasn't clear enough. You're supposed to distort, EQ, distort, EQ, distort, EQ etc,etc,etc...
At least I noticed I started getting way better kicks (still not happy with them though ;_; ) when I distorted just little bit each cycle. Putting the gain to max every time caused weird and unwanted noises after a few times.

Don't I understand FL, or do you have just a single instance of distortion?

Also I'm not too sure about this 808 and bass boosting business. The bass is important because that's what gives the sound all the weight, but the characteristics of a hardcore kick lives in the mids and highs. Compared to dupstep or something gabber doesn't have the same amounts of bass in it. However if the kick lacks in lows after all the distortion it may be a better idea to blend in the original kick lowpassed or just EQing the thing. If you add different kick it will likely have a different frequency and will just sound messy. But hey, if it blends go nuts with it.

But thanks for mentioning the bitcrusher! It's good idea to try bitcrushers, waveshapers and all things mayhem and sound destruction as well. Still I think that traditional distortion is the way to go for most of the time as you can't have the same level of control in eg. bitcrusher.

Just do the process to make a hardstyle kick, but put a lot less effort into it.

Putting less effort is usually never a good idea, but you do have a point. It seems that in hardstyle kicks are more controlled and clean. IMO there's no need for feeling elitistic about it though.

[XXDarkShadow79XX]

Don't I understand FL, or do you have just a single instance of distortion

Heh, the reason I did that was to show how easily you can destroy everything in your mix with just one instance of distortion. Usually I would add more, but I only added one for effect. Oh yeah, I forgot to say when I bass boost during mastering, I also boost the treble a bit. I usually just leave the mids down since A. I think it sounds clearer and B. I EQ most of the mids out of my kick. Gabber is a fun and creative genre. It's one of those where you really get to go crazy. I'm just sharing how I do it so you guys can have some inspiration.

[Pewter Robot]

Also I'm not too sure about this 808 and bass boosting business. The bass is important because that's what gives the sound all the weight, but the characteristics of a hardcore kick lives in the mids and highs. Compared to dupstep or something gabber doesn't have the same amounts of bass in it. However if the kick lacks in lows after all the distortion it may be a better idea to blend in the original kick lowpassed or just EQing the thing. If you add different kick it will likely have a different frequency and will just sound messy. But hey, if it blends go nuts with it.

Hard kicks usually have the original kick with some distortion put on it send to three different effect racks, and run through three different distortion and EQ instances entirely. The bass one is lowpassed with bass boosted in the EQs. The middle obviously focuses on the mids, and the higher frequency one is highpassed. All three are tweaked for a few hours (or days) until they sound good. Then they are all sent back into one effect rack for mastering distortion, EQ, and a couple compressors to add punch.
Then the kick is resampled and a few more mastering effects are added, like bass boost and maybe another EQ and stuff. Then that's sampled and you have your kick.

That's how it works for hardstyle, at least. I'm assuming gabber is the same.


Also, for OP and anyone reading: I highly recommend FL Studio for kick synthesis. It is the best DAW for synthesis and effects, in my opinion. I like to make sounds in FL and resample them into Ableton, because Ableton is overall better, but it can't do the same things FL can for sound design, like send a track to multiple different returns, and then send them all to one return; as far as I know, it only has two return tracks. And the native effects, like its EQ, are nowhere close to as good as FL's.

[Omegastick]

Also, for OP and anyone reading: I highly recommend FL Studio for kick synthesis. It is the best DAW for synthesis and effects, in my opinion. I like to make sounds in FL and resample them into Ableton, because Ableton is overall better, but it can't do the same things FL can for sound design, like send a track to multiple different returns, and then send them all to one return; as far as I know, it only has two return tracks. And the native effects, like its EQ, are nowhere close to as good as FL's.

IIRC you can have as many return tracks as you like and you can send them all to one return in Ableton. However, I do agree that it's native effects are a whole lot better. They are more CPU consuming (Ableton's are insanely lightweight) but they are much more practical than the rather obtuse things you get with Ableton. I find myself using vsts more often than the Ableton devices.

[Pewter Robot]

Also, for OP and anyone reading: I highly recommend FL Studio for kick synthesis. It is the best DAW for synthesis and effects, in my opinion. I like to make sounds in FL and resample them into Ableton, because Ableton is overall better, but it can't do the same things FL can for sound design, like send a track to multiple different returns, and then send them all to one return; as far as I know, it only has two return tracks. And the native effects, like its EQ, are nowhere close to as good as FL's.

IIRC you can have as many return tracks as you like and you can send them all to one return in Ableton. However, I do agree that it's native effects are a whole lot better. They are more CPU consuming (Ableton's are insanely lightweight) but they are much more practical than the rather obtuse things you get with Ableton. I find myself using vsts more often than the Ableton devices.

When I'm on Ableton, I have to use FabFilter VSTs to substitute native effects.

[Omegastick]

Yeah, Ableton's natuve effects suck. Fabfilter VSTs look really nice, alas I am a student and thus poor.

[Pewter Robot]

Yeah, Ableton's natuve effects suck. Fabfilter VSTs look really nice, alas I am a student and thus poor.

FabFilter Timeless is one of the best VSTs ever. It can do delay, reverb, chorus, distortion, resonators, and more. It has the most kinds of delay I've ever seen, from interesting rhythms to King Tubby-style dub delays.
And it has so many great presets that you don't even need to mess with the effects.