MusicRadar

Those all important hoovers are easy to program in Steinberg's A1 synth

1 of 7 » View in gallery

Click here for all 'Production tips in every style' lessons

01. At the centre of hardcore tracks by the likes of Hixxy and Scott Brown lies the stomping kick drum. It's extremely important to get this element right as it has to be tough enough to make the track hard without overwhelming any melodic parts. The key to this is adding exactly the right amount of overdrive, so start with a subtle effect and gradually add more until it sounds just right. Compression can be used at this stage to tighten things up, or you could try changing the kick drum's release time.

02. If your kick drum is lacking bottom end, or has muddy, undefined bass frequencies, try layering it up with a less processed kick sample. Ideally, you'll want to add plenty of punch in the 100Hz area; judicious use of EQ will help you here. Remember, though, you can't use EQ to add something that's not in the original signal, so if you're having problems, use different samples.

03. Offbeat open hi-hats are often used to add pace and a rolling feel to hard techno kick drums, but if your hats are a little intrusive you can turn them down in the mix. As hi-hats exist predominantly in the high frequency domain, you can get away with cutting the low and mid levels using EQ without destroying the sound too much.

04. Other percussive elements such as claps and snares played on the offbeat of every other kick can add movement to the track, but these need to be quite low in the mix, and should add to the kicks or hats rather than dominate them. To make your claps more techno-like, try running them through quite a big reverb with the dry level turned down a bit - experiment with reverb times and feedback to get a variety of different effects.

05. To add emphasis to your fills you can double your kicks up with a cymbal. Adjust the cymbal sound's sustain level to get the right dynamics.

06. If you're using chopped up breakbeats under your main percussion, be careful with the arrangement - while a junglistic mash-up may sound alright on its own, it's got to work well with the kicks to be of any real use. Should you have trouble programming beats that sound fluid, try starting out with a simple two-step pattern (ie, kick, rest, snare, rest, rest, kick, snare, rest) and then develop it from there.