Minimal Techno

Whether you’ve been naughty or nice this year it really doesn’t matter, (who are we to judge, that’s Santa’s job). What does matter is that you’ve helped to make 2017 a great year for Mind Flux and, for that, we’re eternally grateful.

How To Beef Up Your Drums Part 2

how to, ableton, tutorial, mixingMichael L PenmanMay 1, 2019how to, drums, drum mixingComment

How To Beef Up Your Drums Part 1

In this tutorial, we are going to look at how to beef up our drum loops and samples using Ableton’s stock audio effects.

ableton, how to, tutorial, mixingMichael L PenmanApril 30, 2019blog, how to, learn, drums, EQComment

Drum Synthesis: Sine Kick

In our last adventures into drum synthesis we looked at using synths to make our drum sound but you can also explore samplers to do the same. All you need is the raw material to get started. So for this kick we are just going to use a sine wave and Ableton’s Sampler.

ableton, drum synthesis series, sound designMichael L PenmanMarch 7, 2019ableton, drums, kick

Drum Synthesis: Self OSC Kick

For old analog synth users a happy accident occurred when increasing the resonance to the max. The cool and crazy result of this left a lot of synth lovers angry and confused, but the adventurous among us saw it as an opportunity to experiment and create weird and wonderful sounds!

In this ‘Drum Synthesis’ series blog post we are going to use this “mistake” to build a kick drum, without even using an oscillator or sample.

ableton, drum synthesis series, sound designMichael L PenmanFebruary 8, 2019drum, drums, kick, ableton, drum synthComment

Drum Synthesis: Snare in Abletons Operator

In this blog post we are going to look at how to make a snare using Ableton’s simply scrumptious FM synth operator. The main advantage of building your own snare apposed to using a sample is you have full control over how the snare sounds. For example does the snare need more body or sizzle?. Does it need to be longer?. Can the pitch bend be deeper?. And that is just a small number of elements that you can change and through out the tutorial we will see the huge array of sound design possibilities that Ableton presents us when making a snare or in fact any drum sound.

ableton, drum synthesis seriesMichael L PenmanJanuary 31, 2019drum synth, drums, snare, how toComment

Dark Techno Mixing Tips

Techno and especially dark techno are synonymous with experimentation and pushing the boundaries of sound. And in this article, we are going to show you 5 ways you can use the stock Ableton audio effects to create raw, edgy dark techno productions.

how to, Dark Techno, tutorial, ableton, mixingMichael L PenmanAugust 15, 2018dark techno, how to, tutorial, learn, techno, drums, audio effect

How to make a Dark Techno Kick

When creating dark techno sounds you can throw the rule book out the window. Most engineering books will say not to use time-based (delay and reverb) effects on low-end sounds but in techno, we say F that. So let's start breaking the rules.

Dark Techno, how to, freebie, tutorial, ableton, productionMichael L PenmanJuly 23, 2018how to, techno, dark techno, drums, kick drum, kick, bass drumComment

How to Make Shuffle Hats

If your trying to inject a sense of pace to your tracks adding in some shuffling hi hats, tambourines or shakers could be the way to go. There are many ways to achieve this but in this tutorial we are going to be using a delay unit to achieve this and specifically Ableton Live’s filter delay which give you the ability to have 3 delay channels.

Freebie, how to, tutorial, ableton, Drums, Techno, Tech House, techno tips, Underground House, work flow tips, mixingMichael L PenmanMarch 11, 2018hi hats, hats, drums, how toComment