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Pro tips
Serving it chilled
How do you get the lazy, downtempo sounds of great chillout productions? Jake Island offers some suggestions...
Beats
The secret to lazy downtempo beats lies mainly in the sounds you choose
and then two key production tools; compression (lots of it) and reverb
(ditto). For the hits themselves, samples of real kits work best
(big-band style drums are ideal). If your samples have reverb on them
already that's great. Give them a boost with an overdrive plugin or a
guitar distortion simulator. Use compression on the individual hits,
and then again across the whole drum mix bus. Lots of downtempo music mixes the drums back, so consider cutting the top end EQ. Play around with predelays and reversed reverbs. A predelay on the snare that fits the rhythm can sound great. Use reverse reverbs to create breathing sounds. To add instant dirt, mix vinyl crackles into the beat too ñ but itís worth timing the pops so that they contribute to the groove, rather than clutter it. Humanise your beats! Play them in yourself - unquantised - or move the notes a little in either direction using your note editor. Alternatively, use the humanising function in your sequencer.
To add the final polish to your loop flow it through an EQ cloning plugin matched against an old jazz or big band record (the dirtier sounding the better). Alter the percentage effected to suit. To add an extra lazy ingredient, try varying the pitch of your snare drum during your drum loop. Pitching up and down by a few cents, and maybe more sometimes, can give some great sounds.
Bass
The most important thing about bass is mixing it in relation to the kick drum (often kick drums in chill don't have too much bite or low-end, allowing you to mix your bass lower in the frequency spectrum). Make sure the two complement each other well by carving a 'hole' with EQ in the bassline, so the low frequencies blend cohesively as one unit. Live bass often sounds nice with a subtle top-end boost to bring out nuances in the playing. Play around with slides and fills to give programmed basslines interest.Dusty Rhodes
Another characteristic sound of the genre is the slightly chorused, filtered shimmering Rhodes sound. Whether you're using samples of live Rhodes or a virtual instrument, you can go far with a few FX. First, add a little overdrive (rather than distortion) to add harmonics and give your Rhodes a more beaten-up sound. Next, add a nice wide chorus to add depth to the sound (be careful not to overcook it or your mix might not work in mono). Finally, choose a filter from your plugin selection. Turn the resonance up and the cutoff down until you start to get a nice warm sound. Now try automating the cutoff around the point youíve set it at ñ try syncing to the bar or, if your filter has an envelope or LFO, play around a bit until you get a sound that adds some movement to the Rhodes.Trombones
Trombones are made to be filtered. Apply the same treatment as above to your trombone samples for instant audio candy. Slap a nice delay or hall reverb on the track (with high frequencies rolled off on the return) and you're away...Jake Island is a house / chillout producer, with his debut album forthcoming on Toolroom records. He is a founding partner of Sample Magic and Sounds/To/Sample and writes music for production libraries including EMI, Boosey & Hawkes and Deep East.