Help with the Disco Sound!

[Mike145]

Hey guys, recently listened to Noisia's Red Heat

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOremOBdrs8

and was inspired. I've always liked the disco sound, so i decided I wanted to do a disco project of my own. Been scouring the web for disco stabs and what not, and looking through old disco tunes for samples (which has been a bitch, cause i haven't been able to find many good hits without drums in the background, and i definitely want to be using my own drums). Anyways I was wondering if anyone has any pointers to get this sort of glitchy disco sound, or if anyone could give any tips on how to synthesize some of those disco sounds like the electric guitar, or funky bass, and disco stabs. Haha this is alot to ask, but Im having alot of trouble and any help in these areas would be useful. Thank guys

PS i have massive, alchemy, razor, sylenth, fm8

[Mike145]

lol hate to bump my own thread, but someone must have some useful advice regarding this sound! help a brother outt!!

[eengler64]

wow... this thread has been around for a while and still no responses. im actually having the same issue. spent a little while trying to re-create my own disco funky guitar chords all in box with ableton and havent had much luck -- i really dont want to use the loops from other people if i dont have to but it looks like this might be the only option..

anyone else know whats up?

[devinschumacher]

SORRY - i posted this under the wrong username (that was my friends who was still logged on this computer) please respond to this one so i can get the notification... thanks

wow... this thread has been around for a while and still no responses. im actually having the same issue. spent a little while trying to re-create my own disco funky guitar chords all in box with ableton and havent had much luck -- i really dont want to use the loops from other people if i dont have to but it looks like this might be the only option..

anyone else know whats up?

[gkar]

there is a good youtube video that shows you how to make them disco drums, awesome gate work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKK_P9aLliM

and a freebee from the folks at macprovideo.com that shows some disco bass tricks

http://www.nedwebserver.com/ned-web/liv ... qpqc5h0s50

The fm 8 is too 80s for the real disco sound, and the razor is additive synthesis; so its out too. alchemy is additive and granular. It is sample based and way off track. However Massive and sylenth are perfect for the job. the synths of that era were analog and subtractive. There is a very basic tutorial at macprovideo on massive that may help you, if you are very new to using subtractive synths. But there are also 2 very deep tutorials by Richard Lainhart, that explain analog synthesis using software and hardware. This will help if you have never gotten lost in an old synth.
good luck, I'll check back to see if this helped at all!

[XSIMan]

KVR forum is very helpfull will all music topics.

[Wbowers]

120-125 bpm
natural sounding drums
strings
wah guitar
4 to floor beat
funk bass


Listen to some donna summers records

[Mr D]

I wouldn't worry about finding disco stabs without drums..... Original disco drums will be very weak and low in volume compared with your modern dance drums, and by the time you've sampled and mangled them a la Noisia they'll be pulverised and beaten into submission anyway.

Me thinks you're over-thinking this somewhat. Just sample some disco, mangle the phuk out of it with FX and play around with the start point of the sample and envelope until you have something kool. Try using long samples, like 30 seconds, then mess around (randomly) with the sample start point until something works......the envelope will also be very important for giving the right contour, plus some nice filtering and usual-suspect FX. I don't mean use 30 second long samples in your track, just use long samples as your raw material to increase the chance of a "happy accident".

Listening to that Noisia track, I think a large part of what you're enjoying is production tricks and programming, not just the choice of samples.

Spotify is a great sample resource, used in conjunction with something like Total Recorder to rip the samples. Not sure about the legalities thereof but once you've nuked the samples with FX & production, no one will recognise them anyway.

Just my 2 escudos and hope this helps.

[numusicmachine]

120-125 bpm
natural sounding drums
strings
wah guitar
4 to floor beat
funk bass

hmm, a bit vague... I think if you want help with "the disco sound" you should go listen to some disco or boogie.

go here: http://beatelectric.com for a ton of proto disco / boogie mp3's ripped directly from actual vinyl. they've been posting since mid-2000's

and if you want more specifics on it, let me know!