This tutorial was written from /r/makingvaporwave's own VST series! This is VST02 by Hex-A-Decimal of LOST ANGLES Label
Howdy, folks! I'm sure a few of you know me, but for those who don't I'm Hex-A-Decimal. I've been producing electronic music for about 5 years now, and I co-own the vw label Lost Angles.
I'm super critical of my work and a bit of a concept-perfectionist, so very little of my stuff has actually been uploaded or released. As such, I'll explain my method of making vaporwave music using the Fan Tan District demo as the result.
So I personally like to start a lot of my music off with a concept first. I feel like it helps flesh out what elements of the song I want to pop.
I've done retroactive concepts for songs I made in the past but I tend to grasp for straws so its better I know what the story is ahead of time so everything makes more sense. In this track's case, its a sort of noir theme where a cop needs to turn to a mob boss in a seedy district to get some off-the-record assistance on a case.
Knowing this, I have my themes. I wanted to dip into the Eastern aesthetic so I sampled a segment of a tape called "Traditional Chinese Opera". I had gotten this digitally from a huge archive of underground cassettes that was uploaded a few months back, found here. Now, here's where I get a little weird and technical so just bear with me.
https://archive.org/details/noise-arch
View: https://soundcloud.com/hex-a-decimal/fan-tan-district
From here most of the music is done via my Eurorack synth. Just to clarify, eurorack is a format of modular synthesizers, which are essentially deconstructed synthesizers. They are seperated into their basic components (oscillators, filters, amps) to allow for a more in depth ability to explore a very strange sound pallet not normally accessable by regular means. You can downloads VSTs like this, but I'm a total gear nerd so knobs are everything to me.
All my sampling is generally done using a eurorack module called the Phonogene. The Phonogene is sort of a tape looper, in that it records audio and loops it forever while you can adjust the pitch and even reverse it. The phonogene can also make "splices", individual "cuts" into the virtual tape. From here I can sequence and re-arrange those splices and make some bizarre sounds and combinations with them. You can hear the Phonogene in the background.
I wanted to add some drums as well, so I patched in an 808 kick clone, an 808 Snare clone and my Korg volca Beats, since I didn't have any way of making Hi Hats or Clavés at the time. The snare and kick were running in my drum sequencer module (no pics since this one was a junky prototype) which in turn sync'd with the volca Beats and the sequence coming from the Phonogene. At this point I had my chopped and screwed sample and my drums. Now I needed some actual music.
Since I was going for a dark heavy sound, I decided to use my trusty Korg MS-20 mini to produce a fat, low bass drone. Its also right next to me so it generally ends up in every song I make whether or not I want it to. Despite the patch bay (which makes NO SENSE AT ALL) having some interesting sound options, I just went with a patchless meaty bass sound. I think it was 2 squarewave oscillators, one tuned an octave lower than the other, and the Lowpass filter rolled down to 50%, resonance at 70%.
At this point I would record into my DAW, Protools v11.3.1. I would generally not recommend this DAW to anyone on the grounds that it kind of sucks a lot. Its great for mixing, but music creation is a slow arduous process that can break any person's creative drive. Hence why I like to use external gear as much as I can. I have a stereo output/input module so the samples and drums went together. On a normal basis I would strongly urge anyone to record everything into separate tracks to maximize your mixing options. I could have muted each component and recorded them individually, but since this was a demo I wanted to get it along as fast as possible.
PROTIP- When using modular synths, a lot of folks will just go willy-nilly with their clock sources, since it can be anything that is a syncopated sharp sound, like an envelope with fast attack and fast decay on cycle mode.
While I applaud ingenuity, I suggest against making your own master clocks, unless you can actually track the tempo. Otherwise it will be in some lousy decimal point and be impossible, if not very inconvenient, to place to a grid. I use my MIDI beat clock sync to my volca beats, and use that as the master clock since it has a rounded number.
From here its all digital in-the-box stuff. I have my sample n drums recorded, and my bassline recorded. I made the bassline stereo because I wanted to put a phaser on the channel to phase between the L and R. I suggest that folks make basslines mono unless the bass does stereo things. Otherwise it just muddies up the mix and still sounds mono.
The drums needed more fullness, so I layered them with a few drum samples. Can't quite recall which ones, might have been alesis sr-16 samples or 909s. I then sidechained the bassline to dip for every kick in the song. This allowed the kicks to shine but also gave the bassline a more dynamic flow.
The melodies were done with a Protools default AAX plugin, Xpand2. This isn't a very good plugin, mind you, but it serves well as a placeholder and has plenty of fairly corny synth sounds that can come in handy for stuff like this. I used a ping-pong delay on both the harp melody and the Shamisen lead
.
https://airmusictech.com/product/xpand2#.VqvDwFMrKRs
And thats pretty much it! I plan to add more layers and replace the melody instruments with better-sounding ones, but this is generally how I make my vaporwave tracks. This track didn't feature any, but I strongly recommend FM synth sounds to get that 80's sound. FM synths like the Yamaha DX7 were very widely used in that era of electronic music and almost immediately get you that cheesy vaporwave sound, especially with the pads and funky basses.
Thanks for reading!
Howdy, folks! I'm sure a few of you know me, but for those who don't I'm Hex-A-Decimal. I've been producing electronic music for about 5 years now, and I co-own the vw label Lost Angles.
I'm super critical of my work and a bit of a concept-perfectionist, so very little of my stuff has actually been uploaded or released. As such, I'll explain my method of making vaporwave music using the Fan Tan District demo as the result.
So I personally like to start a lot of my music off with a concept first. I feel like it helps flesh out what elements of the song I want to pop.
I've done retroactive concepts for songs I made in the past but I tend to grasp for straws so its better I know what the story is ahead of time so everything makes more sense. In this track's case, its a sort of noir theme where a cop needs to turn to a mob boss in a seedy district to get some off-the-record assistance on a case.
Knowing this, I have my themes. I wanted to dip into the Eastern aesthetic so I sampled a segment of a tape called "Traditional Chinese Opera". I had gotten this digitally from a huge archive of underground cassettes that was uploaded a few months back, found here. Now, here's where I get a little weird and technical so just bear with me.
https://archive.org/details/noise-arch
View: https://soundcloud.com/hex-a-decimal/fan-tan-district
From here most of the music is done via my Eurorack synth. Just to clarify, eurorack is a format of modular synthesizers, which are essentially deconstructed synthesizers. They are seperated into their basic components (oscillators, filters, amps) to allow for a more in depth ability to explore a very strange sound pallet not normally accessable by regular means. You can downloads VSTs like this, but I'm a total gear nerd so knobs are everything to me.
All my sampling is generally done using a eurorack module called the Phonogene. The Phonogene is sort of a tape looper, in that it records audio and loops it forever while you can adjust the pitch and even reverse it. The phonogene can also make "splices", individual "cuts" into the virtual tape. From here I can sequence and re-arrange those splices and make some bizarre sounds and combinations with them. You can hear the Phonogene in the background.
I wanted to add some drums as well, so I patched in an 808 kick clone, an 808 Snare clone and my Korg volca Beats, since I didn't have any way of making Hi Hats or Clavés at the time. The snare and kick were running in my drum sequencer module (no pics since this one was a junky prototype) which in turn sync'd with the volca Beats and the sequence coming from the Phonogene. At this point I had my chopped and screwed sample and my drums. Now I needed some actual music.
Since I was going for a dark heavy sound, I decided to use my trusty Korg MS-20 mini to produce a fat, low bass drone. Its also right next to me so it generally ends up in every song I make whether or not I want it to. Despite the patch bay (which makes NO SENSE AT ALL) having some interesting sound options, I just went with a patchless meaty bass sound. I think it was 2 squarewave oscillators, one tuned an octave lower than the other, and the Lowpass filter rolled down to 50%, resonance at 70%.
At this point I would record into my DAW, Protools v11.3.1. I would generally not recommend this DAW to anyone on the grounds that it kind of sucks a lot. Its great for mixing, but music creation is a slow arduous process that can break any person's creative drive. Hence why I like to use external gear as much as I can. I have a stereo output/input module so the samples and drums went together. On a normal basis I would strongly urge anyone to record everything into separate tracks to maximize your mixing options. I could have muted each component and recorded them individually, but since this was a demo I wanted to get it along as fast as possible.
PROTIP- When using modular synths, a lot of folks will just go willy-nilly with their clock sources, since it can be anything that is a syncopated sharp sound, like an envelope with fast attack and fast decay on cycle mode.
While I applaud ingenuity, I suggest against making your own master clocks, unless you can actually track the tempo. Otherwise it will be in some lousy decimal point and be impossible, if not very inconvenient, to place to a grid. I use my MIDI beat clock sync to my volca beats, and use that as the master clock since it has a rounded number.
From here its all digital in-the-box stuff. I have my sample n drums recorded, and my bassline recorded. I made the bassline stereo because I wanted to put a phaser on the channel to phase between the L and R. I suggest that folks make basslines mono unless the bass does stereo things. Otherwise it just muddies up the mix and still sounds mono.
The drums needed more fullness, so I layered them with a few drum samples. Can't quite recall which ones, might have been alesis sr-16 samples or 909s. I then sidechained the bassline to dip for every kick in the song. This allowed the kicks to shine but also gave the bassline a more dynamic flow.
The melodies were done with a Protools default AAX plugin, Xpand2. This isn't a very good plugin, mind you, but it serves well as a placeholder and has plenty of fairly corny synth sounds that can come in handy for stuff like this. I used a ping-pong delay on both the harp melody and the Shamisen lead
.
https://airmusictech.com/product/xpand2#.VqvDwFMrKRs
And thats pretty much it! I plan to add more layers and replace the melody instruments with better-sounding ones, but this is generally how I make my vaporwave tracks. This track didn't feature any, but I strongly recommend FM synth sounds to get that 80's sound. FM synths like the Yamaha DX7 were very widely used in that era of electronic music and almost immediately get you that cheesy vaporwave sound, especially with the pads and funky basses.
Thanks for reading!