In this video I'll walk you through a trick I learned from a Reddit AMA that Electric Mantis did in 2018 that totally blew me away! And I'll also share some of the ways I've used this crazy sound design trick in a new song I'm working on. The best part is that you can apply this principle to many different aspects of your productions. This will change your life probably.

Download the sample pack free in the resources!

In this video I'm revealing a really sneaky sidechain compression trick that is so powerful it might be illegal. You probably already know about sidechain compression. But there are a few problems that crop up when using sidechain compression in mixing. This trick solves both problems at once by using phase cancellation on a return track with a gate triggered by the sidechain input. It's not as complicated as it sounds and it will blow your mind.

In this video I'll show you why you should be using Instrument Racks to stack layers of instruments rather than multiple MIDI tracks. Using Instrument Racks will level up you music production in 3 important ways: it will make you more organized, it will make your instruments more flexible and easier to edit, and it will make your mixer happy. And that mixer may be you...so be happy!

In this video I'll show you how to sound design your own hi-hats using a noise sample, the Simpler device, and an arpeggiator MIDI effect. Hi-hats are super annoying to me. I often feel like I'm wrestling them into submission. If you struggle with finding the right hi-hats, try using this noise/simpler/arpeggiator technique.

In this video I'll show you how to level up the sound design of any sound, using any synth, in any genre–by using what I call "3D Sound Design."

3D Sound Design simply means modulating a modulator with another modulator. This will take any sound from 2 dimensions to 3 dimensions. And it's really easy! You can use this trick with presets that just sound a little dull or with your own sound design from scratch.

Once I discovered this technique, it really opened up the world of sound design for me so I hope it helps you too!

In this video I'll show you how to sound design a lo-fi flute from scratch. It's cool, it's weird, it's vibey. It's a lo-fi flute!

It also sounds a bit like the traditional Japanese wind instrument called a Shakuhachi. It also kinda sounds like an ocarina or a pan flute.

Depending on the noise samples you use, you can generate all kinds of different flute sounds! All you need is a Simpler Instrument, some noise samples, and A LOT of resonance on the filter...and you've got yourself a flute instrument in seconds. Let's go!

In this video I show you how to build a drum fill from scratch. Making drum fills can be daunting but they don't need to break your brain. It's all about simple choices with layers.

I'll show you how I build drum fills from scratch using Ableton's Simpler, a snare and a kick on the same instrument chain, an extra sample that I warped to line up with my MIDI fill, a white noise sweep, and a verby clap. We'll also learn how to deal with loud birds.

Feeling hungry? Crack open the freezer and settle in for today's tutorial. In this video I serve up some hot & tasty tips and tricks for using Hot-Swap Mode in @Ableton Live 11. Microwave your production workflow by using Hot-Swap to quickly browse and replace presets, samples, and devices.

In this video, I'll show you three ways to make your song less square (blocky, stale, predictable, repetitive). Patterns and repetition are what gives a song an identity. However too much repetition can cause a listener to go into autopilot mode and get bored.Try using these three techniques to keep the listener engaged and make your song more dynamic and interesting.

In this video, I'll show you how to mix "unmixable" drum samples without using compression or equalization. Sometimes you have to stack drum samples when building a beat. But sometimes it can feel impossible to make the samples blend together. You try EQ and compression but it only makes the problem worse. That's where transient editing comes in.

In this video I'll show you a super cool trick to make anything "lo-fi" without using any plugins. We'll use resampling, time stretching, and warping to reduce the fidelity of an audio sample in a really creative and musical way. And we'll even have some fun trying out this technique in different software outside of the DAW. Plugins like the XLN Audio RC-20, Freakshow Industries Mishby, Klevrgrand Degrader, Izotope Vinyl, etc are a lot of fun and can help you get that woozy, lo-fi sound.

But what if you could get a really cool lofi effect using only the built-in time-stretching algorithms in your DAW? That's what we're going to learn today. I'll show you how to get that retro, lo-fi, warm and wobbly sound on any audio sample by resampling and stretching the audio. I'll be using Ableton Live 11 but the principle is the same for any DAW. Let's go!

In this video I show you 3 levels of complexity in programming MIDI hi-hats.

In this video I'll show you how to extract vocals from any song using this super powerful machine learning platform called LALAL.AI. What is LALAL.AI? From their website: "A next-generation vocal remover and music source separation service for fast, easy and precise stem extraction. Remove vocal, instrumental, drums, bass, piano, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, and synthesizer tracks without quality loss." It's pretty wild. You'll have to try it for yourself!

In this video I'll show you how to make 808s hit HARD by adding a kick layer in Ableton's Sampler and disabling keytracking on the kick sample. Turning off keytracking is useful if you want to use sample layers in your instruments (such as a kick sample with an 808 sample) but you don't want the pitch of that layer to change with the MIDI note. You can toggle key tracking for each layer independently!

In this video I'll show you how to sample in Ableton Live.

In this video, I'll share with you one thing new producers often completely overlook when they are just getting started making music–the LENGTH of the MIDI note is actually super crucial to the percussive feeling of the track! You may have overlooked this when producing music. In fact, you may never have given it a thought! But the LENGTH of a MIDI note has a huge impact on the rhythm and feel of a MIDI part. I'll prove it to you using 6 example MIDI regions with the same bassline but different note lengths.

In this video I'll show you three tricks for creating spooky sound design. ? In the first spooky sound design trick, we'll create a theremin using white noise in a Simpler device. In the second spooky sound design trick, we'll sample a happy song, pitch it way down, and play with the transient loop envelope to create an ominous sampled percussive sound. In the third spooky sound design trick, we'll take a vocal sample and run it through the grain delay and spectral resonance plugins.