UK DJ/producer SUBSHIFT has crafted a special sound within the realms of Tech House that has earned signings with Insomniac Records, Techne, Hau5trap, and regular support in sets by DJ Snake, Goodboys, Tchami, and others. He’s also been in high demand on the live circuit, performing at Ushuaia Ibiza and Ministry of Sound in London, along with his debut at Tomorrowland Belgium this year.
He recently teamed up with Cave Studio and LexBlaze for a thrilling tech house single in – “Get Loose.” The inspiration behind this project is rooted in their previous success with “Bumpin‘” and a memorable trip to Miami for Miami Music Week. The vibrant atmosphere, superb weather, and the dynamic environment at Retail Records studio inspired them to create a track that embodies the essence of summer.
Let’s unpack this a bit further in the latest iteration of How It Was Made: SUBSHIFT & Cave Studio – “Get Loose (feat. LexBlaze)”
SubBoomBass2
SubBoomBass2 is a dedicated bass synth with a huge amount of presets which possesses that raw, analog feel that you might not get from modern synths. It also has a cool sequencer built into the plugin which you can create some great grooves with.
For ‘Get Loose’, we used SubBoomBass2 for the main knock sounding bassline which drives the whole track. Funnily enough it is actually the default preset that loads up when you first fire up the plugin, but as always if it sounds good, it sounds good. We felt that it had a nice attack whilst also being weighty in the low-end too.
We think for house music producers this is a great all-rounder plugin if you’re looking to quickly make a groove using presets which sound good from the get-go. It has a super easy interface to use and is perfect for those huge low ends.
Sub Ninja
As we are on the topic of low-end, Sub Ninja is a great visual tool to help you nail the mix of your sub/bass and kicks. It helps you by showing you exactly what’s going on in your low-end, showing a filtered waveform below 100 hz which is a great visual to see if there are any phasing issues, and more importantly the volume levels of the kick and bass compared to each other.
In this track we used it like any other time, typically loading a reference track which you know has a great low-end and mixdown, and comparing the waveform to your track. It’s really easy to see with this plugin if your sub is too loud, or your kick could be taking up too much room for example.
Thermal
Thermal is a brilliant multi-band distortion plugin which has hundreds of presets which you can use on vocals, drums, and literally anything in your track. It also includes many FX add-ons so it just isn’t your standard distortion plugin.
We used Thermal on ‘Get Loose’ on the drum bus to give it that extra crunch as well as perceived loudness. The ‘Overhead Slam’ preset in the drums section when used tastefully (3 – 10%) can give your drums some extra oomph whilst also lowering their peaks and increasing their perceived volume. A huge win when going into your final mixdown!
For house music we think just play around with the different presets and have fun really. The possibilities are endless with this plugin. We think you can use it tastefully like we did on the drums, or you can take it further and really mess up vocals, synths and basses with some nasty distortion!
ShaperBox 3
ShaperBox is a great plugin for rhythmic inspiration, time-based FX and more. It includes ten powerful effects that come together in one easy, modern interface.
We used ShaperBox3 for this record in a variety of ways, ranging everywhere from the master channel, to the build up automations and more. For the master channel, we added a tiny bit of top-end using the multiband ‘Drive’ effect and added some slight gain above 10kHz, which gave the top-end some nice ‘sizzle’. This is actually a great tip that we picked up from James Hype’s YouTube channel! So shoutout James the absolute legend. For the builds we added it to the guitar sample as well as Lex’s vocals to create some movement and tension, using the pan, noise, reverb and width modules.
With this plugin there is so much you can do, so have a mess around with the different modules, and flick through the presets and you will be surprised with what you end up with.
Quick Fire Tips For Making Tech House Music
Tip #1: Make sure your kick drums aren’t too long! The bassline groove is so important in Tech House, and if your kick is eating up all the space, it might get lost.
Tip #2: Utilise swing, especially on your drums. It can make the whole track feel less robotic, and give it a more human touch.
Tip #3: Picking good quality samples is key! Using good quality samples will make your life a lot easier, especially mix-wise. They will sound more full, and you will have to layer less to achieve the sound you are wanting. Some nice sample packs are from Toolroom, Noizu, Waves Alchemy, and Sample Market.
Tip #4: Use reference tracks! They can help you start an idea with some inspiration, or even help you to finish a track by comparing mixdowns. We think this is really important. A nice referencing plugin to use is ‘ADPTR MetricAB’ by Plugin Alliance, pictured below.
Tip #5: Your kick, bass and hook are the most important elements of the track! Try to lock these in first and worry less about finer details such as FX and ear-candy.
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