The Secrets Of Dance Music Production

The definitive guide to making cutting-edge electronic music.

Featuring 312 colour pages packed with technique, tips, illustrations and hands-on walkthroughs, The Secrets of Dance Music Production pulls together all you need to take a mix from concept to club-ready master, featuring a wealth of exclusive content from Attack’s award-winning team of writers, including:

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Studio fundamentals: Synthesis and sampling; studio setup and monitor placement; EQ, ambience and compression all covered in detailed 101-style guides.

The golden rules of mixing: Learn how the pros get loud, defined and dynamic mixes stacked with interest and energy.

Essential techniques: Layering, frequency bracketing, lo-fi processing, bass splitting, vocal production, mastering… It’s all inside.

Up your writing chops: Compose inspired bass and toplines with kick-starter approaches to voicing, arpeggios, syncopation, killer chord progressions and more. Arrange loops into tracks with analysis of tried-andtested dancefloor structures.

Bigger beats: 50+ pages of rhythm making insight. Masterclasses in drum sound design, transient shaping, swing crafting and ghost placement plus 30+ beats broken down.

Learn from the masters… Pro tips from the world’s finest producers. Huxley, Redlight, Breach, Tricky, Justice, Sigur Rós, Todd Edwards, Kenny Gonzalez and more share their secrets.

Get that sound: From vintage arps to supersize FX; ripping Reese basslines to stacked EDM leads; ethereal soundscapes to deep house keys – dozens of sounds built from the ground up in media-rich walkthroughs.

Paperback, 312 pages. The Secrets of Dance Music Production comes with over 500 audio and project files.

WHAT’S INSIDE

CHAPTER ONE: DRUMS AND BEATS

Drum essentials: tone, transients and tuning

The kick drum: compression and EQ. Myth of the ‘perfect’ kick

The snare drum: compression, EQ, layering and ambience

Hi-hats: sculpting and EQ. Mute groups

Percussion and cymbals

The theory of rhythm: tempo, phrasing, the grid

Breaking timing conventions: Polyrhythms, linear drumming and three as the magic number

Programming and sequencing drums: the three approaches

The fundamentals of beats: velocity, length, transients, hit placement

Quantisation, swing and groove. Faking the funk

Synthesising drum sounds: Analogue kick drum. Analogue snare. White noise hi-hat. Deep house tom

Layering drums: Thinking as one, phase, timing, EQ and bussing

Beat starters: 32+ beat grids dissected for multiple genres including; House and deep house; Garage and 2-step; Techno and tech-house; Chillout and chillwave; Prog and trance; Nu disco and indie dance; D&B and dubstep

The best… drum machines

WALKTHROUGHS:

Tuned toms / Tuning a kick and bass / Tuning and EQ tweaks for better drums / Voice groups in Battery / Choke groups in Ableton / Programming ‘live’ bongos and shakers / Programming ‘live’ hi-hats / Step sequencing a house beat / MIDI to program drums / Adding audio to and refining a MIDI beat / Extracting the snare from a drum loop / Swing in Logic, swing in Ableton / Extracting a groove / Layered clap/snare combo / Layered EDM clap/snare smash / Groove essentials: funky ghost snares

CHAPTER TWO: SYNTHESIS AND SOUND DESIGN

Subtractive synthesis

Signal flow: oscillators, PWM, filters, envelopes and VCAs, modulation, monophony vs polyphony, MIDI and CV/gate

In depth: waveforms, harmonics

Is analogue better than digital?

Sequencers and arpeggiators

The pros and cons of… presets

Essential synths and emulations

Other forms of synthesis: inc. FM, modular and wavetable

Automation and tweak ability

Programming: synth leads and arps

Programming: synth pads

Programming: soundscapes

Programming: synth FX

Programming: deep house keys

Programming: EDM chords

WALKTHROUGHS:

Basic vintage arp / EDM lead / Funky synth brass / Moroder-style arp / Basic ‘string’ pad / Building a soundscape / White noise fall / White noise wind-up / Dub siren / Pitch riser / Deep house keys / Stacked EDM chords

CHAPTER THREE: BASS AND BASSLINES

Bassline archetypes

Bass programming

Bass synthesis

Sub bass: Generation and mixing

Mixing bass: Ground rules and challenges, splitting the bass, distortion for bulk, EQ

WALKTHROUGHS:

Moog bass for starters / Reese-style bass / Talking bass – The Skrillex sound / Whomp robot synth / Nu disco/indie; dance bass / House organ bass / Creating an additional sub pass part / Splitting the bass / Radio-friendly bass / Layered synth bass / Stereo floor-shaker

CHAPTER FOUR: USING SAMPLES

The evolution of sampling: samplers then and now

The right sampler for the job

The old-school sample vibe: how a sampler works, crafting character

Stretch and pitch

Creative sampling and resampling

The art of multi-sampling

Amen to that: the last word on breaks

Mixing samples: prep, mixing, isolation

The rights and wrong of sampling: legal questions answered

WALKTHROUGHS:

The old-school sample vibe / Old-school melodic drum effects / Resampling a filthy Reese bassline / Making a custom multi-sampled instrument / Make your own resampled break / Isolating a bassline / A-cappella extract – isolating a vocal

CHAPTER FIVE: THEORY CRASH COURSE

Intro: keys and chords, relative minors, modes and triads

Beyond the triad: 7ths and 9ths

Sampled chords

Chord progressions: circle of fifths, anticipation and resolution, classic progressions

Taking chords further: voicing and inversions, changing a chord with the bass

More chords and progressions: 11ths and 13ths, added tone chords, suspended chords

Melodies and toplines: contrary motion; anacrusis; arpeggios and arpeggiators; ostinato

Syncopation

CHAPTER SIX: VOCALS

Vocal archetypes

Setting up a recording: prep, right mic for the job, the recording, levels, the ‘perfect take’

Vocal pre-production: comping, edits, pitching and timing

Vocal production: EQ, compression, automation, sibilance, ambient and spatial effects, modulation and character effects, making way for vocals

The best… vocal performances, the pro studio

Vocal treatments: prog lead, gutsy disco, spoken word, pumping chillwave, backing vox, double-tracks, ad-libs, chorus vocal blocks, ear candy and FX

Vocal effects: vocoders, talk-boxes, auto-tune, resampling, reverse reverb, cut-up glitched vocals

WALKTHROUGHS:

Vocal sounds: prog-style lead, gutsy disco and pumping chillwave / Fake double-tracks / The chorus block / Vocal FX: vocal riser, telephone EQ, reverse reverb, vocoded vocals and glitched vocals

CHAPTER SEVEN: THE STUDIO AND ITS TOOLS

What you hear in the studio, improving acoustics, speakers vs headphones, ergonomics.

Processors and effects: routing, groups and signal flow

EQ and tonal enhancers

Compression and limiting, de-essers and expanders

Modulation and pitch effects: chorus, vibrato, flange, phase

Reverb

Echo and delay

Stereo effects: width enhancers and stereo spreaders

Distortion and overdrive effects, tape emulation, amp and speaker simulators, bit-crushers

Lo-fi and found sound production

Ring modulation and frequency shifters, vocoders

WALKTHROUGHS:

Compression – drum bus / Parallel compression – drum bus / Extreme pump compression = master bus / Techno beat using field recordings / Mirror EQ separation / EQ ‘search and destroy’

CHAPTER EIGHT: MIXING AND MASTERING

Great mixdowns: context, response, intention. The best… mixes

The golden rules of mixing, how mixes look, mixing for club systems

Great mixes: dynamics, width and depth, sustained interest.

Arrangement, and why it matters.

The breakdown. Track deconstructions: EDM crossover, underground techno, chillout

Transitions and FX

Loudness and levels: dynamic range and headroom, measuring audio, increasing loudness

Monitoring and knowing your room, mixing on headphones, A/Bing

Mixdown: prep, groups, smart working

Creating an initial balance: headroom, automation, EQ bracketing, panning, wider sounds

Compression in the mix: bus ‘glue’ compression, flavours, the master bus, parallel compression, multi-band compression

EQ in the mix: masking, corrective EQ, tone sculpting, rebalancing the bus, what goes where, generating new frequencies

Mixing kick and bass: complementary sounds, the three models of kick/bass mixing, sidechained kicks, arrangement to solve overlap

Ambient effects in the mix: tone and shape, depth and space, mix coherence, SFX, taming returns

Ear candy, automation and endgame, checking the mix

Common mix problems and how to fix them

Mastering: an introduction, mastering for vinyl

Mastering: the process, EQ, compression, limiting, mono bass and m/s, other tools

Mastering: find duties and edits, stem mixing

WALKTHROUGHS:

Transition FX: ambient bus build, the bomb, full mix FX, vocal riser / Grouping in Ableton / Fader and bus groups in Logic / EQ treatment: hi-hats and bracketing / EQ treatment: bass / Widening a signal – five approaches / Sidechain compression in Logic and Ableton / Parallel compression – drum bus / Distortion to generate new frequencies / Building a tape-style saturator / Kick and bass mixing: low bass, upper kick; low kick, upper bass; side-by-side kick and bass; arrangement to solve the problem / Mastering: a 12 step approach / Edits to the master / The pre-drop fade

APPENDICES:

Bpm to tempo chart

Note to frequency guide: what goes where

Index

WHAT PEOPLE SAY:

“One of the best books for electronic music production we’e come across. Stacked with tips and genre-speciifc techniques to take your tracks from concept to master. 10/10.” Music Tech magazine

“I’ve been in the music biz 28 years and have produced 65 records globally. Some may think I know everything. I don’t. This author does and he’s helped me a lot. 5/5.” BrophyUK