AXL Beats Gives Tips on Producing Music
AXL Beats is a producer in the UK who is known for his iconic drill sound in music. One of his most popular tunes is “Big Drip” by Fivio Foreign. He’s even worked with Drake on “War,” so he knows a thing or two about producing music. AXL is famous for his drill sound and incorporates it frequently in his music. He is one of the rising stars in the world of music production, and we fully expect to see him at the top within a short while.
We sat down with him to talk about some production tips for creating music. Let’s see what he has to say.
Whatever your level of expertise in the field of home-studio music production, it is important beyond mixing techniques to develop and build, little by little, methods and work habits that will help you to avoid certain errors which you could be confronted with and which could sometimes be, in certain cases, irreversible.
Think about tuning the instruments!
As obvious as it may seem I do not know many musicians for whom the tuning problem has never presented itself to them during a studio or homestudio session … If this tuning operation will not generally require a lot of time, it is nevertheless essential so that each instrument speaks the same language, is tuned to the same tuning fork!
Take the example of 2 guitarists and imagine that you have to record them.
If the tuning of the 2 guitars during the sound recording is not perfect, you will find yourself when mixing with a mixture of the 2 guitars which risks producing a chorus effect of the worst taste … You will then only have 2 solutions available to you;
Being forced to remove the “false” take and keep only one guitar which is a shame because playing on the pan by sending one guitar to the left and another to the right can be very interesting and will create an effect of width.
or
Quite simply re-record the 2nd guitar with all the problems and constraints that this entails. (Waste of time, different context, availability of the musician …)
This example will of course apply to all instruments requiring tuning.
Do not record your sources with too much gain
You probably know that approaching 0 db when miking must immediately put you on alert otherwise your signal may saturate and make your miking unusable and inexorably destined for the trash of your computer.
This is often the case for voice and drum sounds where the variations in dynamics are sometimes very important.
In order to avoid this, use the vu-meter of your sequencer or of your table which will inform you in a fairly precise way about the input gain of your sound. I advise you to record your sources around -18 db, it will always be time to catch up with the general volume of your song a little later.
Use a Compressor
The use of a compressor on your sources can be an effective solution which will allow you to control the dynamics at the input of the sound card but it requires a good knowledge of the latter otherwise you risk not actually doing more. evil than good and thus render your socket unusable.
Record your sources with enough gain
If recording your sources with too little gain will not have irreversible consequences it can generate other problems that are good to be aware of.
First of all you may have some difficulties so that your source can be correctly audible in the middle of the other instruments. Imagine, for example, that the bassist has difficulty hearing the bass drum during the recording session. It may well ask you to correct this problem in order to be able to record comfortably. The bass drum is an important benchmark for the bassist.
You will thus be forced to treat the latter in such a way as to bring it out, which will take time and will also require resources from your processor.
It is therefore better to ensure a sufficient gain when taking around — 18 db which will be, as we have already seen in another article, a good benchmark.
If you are using a tube preamp (Often quite expensive compared to the transistor preamps found in most sound cards) which is supposed to give your take a special color and warmth, keep in mind that to take full advantage of the benefits of lamps it will be necessary that the latter be attacked with sufficient gain. It’s a bit the same principle for a tube guitar amp.