Soulful and Sexy Deep House (Blue6)

[soulfulsuspect]

my fellow producers,

some info:
Like most of us, i started producing Hip-Hop. Then i went to house music, but after experimented with that club sound i still wasn't satisfied. So i stopped producing for a while and began a journey trough listening to different genres, started buying loads of oldskool vinyl records (disco, funk, soul, Jazz, bossa nova). After this journey i felt ready to choose a style that fits my passion; Soulful and sexy deep house.

There was this one guy who really got my attention called Jay Denes aka Blue Six (owner of the label Naked Music NY). His production style is, in my opinion, timeless. You can listen to it in the winter with the candles on and some red wine, aswel as beneath a palm three in the sun with a cocktail. So i've analyzed his sound, and i find that the productions have a vibe that keeps you listening. Many atmospheric sounds are used, groovy percussions, rhodes, synth leads etc.. have a listen:





My questions:
I would like to hear your opinions on his production style,
like what kind of kick drum does he use?
How does he make his hi hats sound so 'alive'?
more tips are well appreciated!

 

[Halma]

Let me tell you that as someone you started listening and partying to House music in the early 90s the appearance of the first Naked Music Record Petalpusher "Breakin It Down" was something special in 1999 too. The overall arrangement and the production quality was absolutely top notch and they even raised their skills with each record a tad. No producerteam at that time came up with such a slick production style. Mayebe Blaze, MAW or Mood 2 Swing but even they sounded a little bit more undergound compared to the NM stuff.

Their records mostly cutted through every mix because most other records sounded a little bit weak if played before or after them.

I think JD is just a great producer who always produces with a vision in mind and who perfected it over the years.

Regarding your question about the kick and hihats: I really don´t know if he using samples, a drum synth or even a live drummer but part of some really funky Hihats is perfect timing/programming and postprocessing. If your Hihats do sound a little bit static try a gate or even better an expander. That could breath some life back into them. It´s not about the Hihats but about the gaps between them.

Btw check this one out. Could please your ears and hips too. Not NM. But some serious Deep House.







Cheers
Sebastian

 

[soulfulsuspect]

thanks for the reply sebastian, i think Petalpusher is an alias from Miguel Migs, which i like too. i'm a fan of moodymann aswel, i heard him speak in an interview that al he uses (back in the day) is an mpc and a bass guitar, very creative analog sound.
i agree on you mentioning it's about the gaps between the hi hats. For me al i can use is my ears to analyse the sound, this specific NM production style isn't much spoken on the internet, no tutorials or tips. I think you are right about a production 'team' that is responsible for the labels music. I think its hard to make this kind of sound solo, you need people(musicians), but i would like to get the drum programming skills first. I heard JD speaking i an interview that he is a very good drum programmer (totally agreed) and that he is also the man behind the keys.

About the Gate or Expander technique i have never heard of it. How does it work, is it some sort of side chaining?
The track from petalpusher- break it down, has this deep sub bass what is often used in the NM productions, is it a filtered moog or something?

kind regards

 

[bandcoach]

a gate works by blocking audio below a threshold value
- usually used to eliminate noise and crosstalk from other mics in the same session
- but creatively can be used to apply a rhythm to a sound that was played sloppily or haphazardly
- McCartney is reputed to have used a noise gate triggered by a cowbell to make the guitar playing on Coming Up more accurate

expanders are the opposite of compressors increasing the gain of a signal above the threshold by a ratio similar to that of a compressor


as for the hats, the first one sounds like the real thing played with hot rods (bamboo sticks bundled together as an alternate to wire or plastic brushes)

second one is much harder to identify as it is buried with the shakers

kicks sound like something from the classic drum machines of the late 80's early 90's

 

[Halma]

As an addition to bandcoachs excellent post:

Normally you want to use a noisegate to eliminate "noise" which can be eg some hum in some suboptimal recording or eg if you track a vocalist and the recording environment or gear is not the best.

Lets take a vocalist for this example: without a gate you will hear the whole unaltered stem with all noise and maybe some other unwanted low noise sounds that are constantly in there. They are maybe not a real or big problem while the singer is doing his job but while he is not singing you can hear them.

You can now use a noise gate which "mutes" everytime the singer stops singing. The problem is that gates can do more harm than help if you don´t know exactly what you are doing. Most advanced gates come with some neat features like hysteresis or some very helpful sidechain options. Ideally you will set it up in a way where the singer is clearly audible (maybe with softknee on) while singing but mutes perfectly (not aprubtly) and does not harm the vocal content when he stops singing or breaths. But with some excercise it´s not a big deal.

On the other hand a gate is a perfect shaping tool. Something that automates volume in an interesting way. Most gates come with a attack and release option in ms. Normally you wanna have a fast attack so the gate opens immediately and your audio material plays at the original volume. But humans and other soundsources are not perfect and mostly no singer can keep the same level the whole time. Or if you have some kind of ballad where the singer can perform on another level and act on a broad range you have to adjust eg the release times so the gate does not shut down (aka lowering the volume) immediately but fades out more slowly so the stuff sounds more dynamic but does his job when the singer stops singing.

Gates can be used on percussive stuff pretty good as well. You can put them on your drumbus (but that´s quite complicated) or on single instruments. Eg Toms are pretty suited to be treated with a gate because of their low and mid freq content and quite long release time they could mask some sounds in a bad way. With a gate you can make them appear shorter and give your other drum sounds more space.

And now think about your hihats. At first if you program them use different velocity values. You need strong aka louder or harder played parts and weak ones. This way your patterns will sound way more dynamic. Listen to some early STRICTLY RHYTHM and NERVOUS records. When I think about House Hihats most of the time those both labels are poppin into my mind. They have some special groove. Combine that with some more modern sounding Hihats and you will have a nice pattern. Problem with hihats and gates is that the high frequency content is not the best sound source for a gate to get triggered but if you use it carefully (not as a noise elimination tool) you can give your whole HH pattern the icing on the top. Sometimes expanding can do the same but instead of lowering the volume it raises it on some parts of your material (only a tad) and can breath some more life into them.

Using an EQ is another thing you should consider. Some EQs come with some really great high freq treatment. Eg the Pultec EQs can sound pretty awesome. Or boost them with a highshelf and then lowcut them afterwards to get rid of the harshness. Use gentle slopes (eg 6dB oct or 12db oct) and broad curves.

And don´t highpass everything...better never highpass everything. Only if you have to.

Cheers
Sebastian