by
Douglas » Tue May 23, 2017 1:28 pm
I'm not at my computer, but I'll help as much as I can.
For trance, if I am not mistaken, there is a lot of echoing and reverb.
For reverb:
- C* Plate 2x2 is really good for reverb, and is probably my favorite, mostly because of how simple it is.
- Calf Reverb has a bit more control than the previous, so you'll probably want to use this a lot.
- TAP Reverberator has many different types of reverb. I usually don't use it, but I usually don't make trance. This one may be useful to you.
- I probably forgot many others.
For echos:
- I really like Vintage Delay Line, or whatever it's called. It has a unique echo sound, and it can control the delay using the tempo, unlike most others which require you to enter the millisecond delay. It also allows panning the echo.
- Feedback Delay Line is a simple echo. You'll probably use this a lot.
- Echo Delay Line is like the previous, except it only repeats the sound once (I think). This is more useful when you're playing faster notes and you don't want things to start sounding muddy.
- I probably forgot many others.
Normally I'd help more, but I'm out of time. I'll try to remember to come back.
EDIT: I remembered to come back!
There are many genres of trance. I you ever want any acidic sounds, use the LB302 instrument. If you can manage to do it well, you could also use TripleOscillator or ZynAddSubFX with a filter envelope for a Lowpass filter.
In case you don't know, a lowpass filter gets rid of the high frequencies of a sound. For an example, go to the ENV/LFO section of a TripleOscillator. At the bottom, you'll see a dropdown list of filters, and Lowpass filter should be selected by default. Turn it on (a small rectangle above it should turn green once you click it, turning it on), and you can mess around with the cutoff frequency to change where the Lowpass Filter starts cutting frequencies. You should hear the difference.
See where it says Bandpass in the image? That's where it should say lowpass, or whatever filter you want to experiment with. The green button above it should be shining. See the second set of tabs (Volume, Cutoff, Reso)? Go to the Cutoff tab. See the little graph thingy right below it? Click on it to turn it on (or you can turn up AMT, the more it's turned up the more it affects it. You'll usually want it up all the way, but not always). Mess around with the knobs below it to see how it changes the graph, and then listen to the sound to see what it does to the sound! You usually want most of the knobs to be at smaller values. You'll also hear more of a difference if you have the Cutoff knob (on the filter from earlier) pretty low.
Want to make a "pluck" sound? Turn all the knobs in that section off (immediately below the graph, not AMT nor anything else), and turn up the "Decay" slowly as you keep playing the sound. Hear what it is doing? Try going to the "Plugin" tab and change some of the shapes (called "waveforms") around. Sawtooths (the shape that looks like a ramp going upward to the right) would be great for this.
Continue to experiment with all the buttons, and see what they do. You may also want to download some projects from lmms.io/lsp to see how they are made.
For drum and bass, I'd just practice. You can find some good sounds in the "drums" folder that comes with LMMS. I like kick01 and snare01. You'll aso want to mess with the different effects (see the "FX" tab) to see what they do.
The more you experiment, the more you'll learn. Have fun!
