Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 11:46 — 10.8MB) | Embed

Subscribe: Spotify | TuneIn | RSS

I recently completed Armin van Buuren’s masterclass at Masterclass.com.  Masterclass creates highly professional courses with top-tier performers in a wide range of fields. In case you’re not familiar with Armin van Buuren, he’s been named one of the top DJs on the planet by DJ Mag five times, has had a Grammy nomination, and has 41 million listeners to his A State of Trance radio show. His record label, Armada Music, is one of the most diverse record labels in electronic music and was voted #7 for “Label of the Decade.” 

What you may not know is that it took him 22 years from buying his first synth to his Grammy nomination, and he’s made a lot of records that didn’t do anything on the charts. It’s about perseverance and loving what you do.  In this episode I’ll be sharing a few of my insights from the class. At the end of the show I’ll share my new trance track that I put together as part of the course, so please listen through to the end.  I’d love to know what you think.

You’ll Learn

• How he starts his tracks
• How he organizes his production
• Some of Armin’s favorite plugins
• Armin’s mixing tips
• How Armin works with vocalists
• Tips for working as a DJ

Resources

• Some of Armin’s favorite plugins from the course:
  • LFO Tool – LFO-based sound-shaping tool. He uses this everywhere.
  • Bark of Dog – free low frequency enhancer
  • Saturn 2 – distortion and saturation
  • Pro-Q 2 – EQ
  • Valhalla Room – true stereo algorithmic reverb he really likes
• Masterclass.com – specific classes I think would be useful to a producer:
  • Armin van Buuren Teaches Dance Music – highly recommended
  • Deadmau5 Teaches Electronic Music Production – also highly recommended
  • Usher Teaches the Art of Performance
  • Timbaland Teaches Producing and Beatmaking
  • Questlove Teaches Music Curation and DJing 
  • Hans Zimmer Teaches Film Scoring and Danny Elfman Teaches Music for Film  – great if you have a cinematic style or are interested in sync licensing. 
  • Alecia Keys Teaches Songwriting and Producing 
  • St. Vincent Teaches Creativity and Song Writing   
  • Ron Howard Teaches Directing – think: music videos
  • Jeff Goodby & Rich Silverstein Teach Advertising and Creativity – this is a business too, after all.  Seems useful if you’re running Facebook or other ad campaigns. 

Transcript

What’s up Heroes, welcome to episode 67.  I recently took Armin van Buuren’s masterclass (Armin van Buuren Teaches Dance Music) over at Masterclass.com.  Masterclass brings in world-class performers in their field and then brings a professional AV recording setup to record them in their workplace. In case you’re not familiar with Armin van Buuren, he’s been named one of the top DJs on the planet by DJ Mag five times, has had a Grammy nomination, and has 41 million listeners to his A State of Trance radio show. His record label, Armada Music, is one of the most diverse record labels in electronic music and was voted #7 for “Label of the Decade.”  What you may not know is that it took him 22 years from buying his first synth to his Grammy nomination, and he’s made a lot of records that didn’t do anything on the charts. It’s about perseverance and loving what you do.  

Armin’s class consisted of 33 videos and about six and half hours of contents as well as a discussion board and a very detailed 49 page workbook.  In this review I’ll be sharing a few of my insights from the class. At the end of the show I’ll share a little of my new trance track that I put together as part of the course, so make sure you listen through to the end. 

But first, cue the intro music!

This is actually my second Masterclass, I took Deadmau5’s several years back when Masterclass was just getting started.  Here are some of the things I learned from Armin’s course: 

First, he uses a wide range of plugins and samples.  I saw samples in his library from the same KSHRM sample pack I’ve used. So, insight number one: he’s using the same synths, plugins, and samples we all use. Some of his favorite plugins are even free. We’ve all got the same tools at our disposal, it’s just a matter of practice and persistence.

He likes to start his music with a melody.  He takes piano lessons every week, something oI found very interesting for a world class DJ.  He admits he’s not much of a pianist and has no interest in performing with a piano, but he’s got a keyboard in the studio connected to his DAW , and he likes to sit down and just mess with chords to start. He pulls a lot of inspiration from classical music, as well as musicians he grew up listening to like Kitaro and Vangelis.  

I was struck by the difference in Armin’s composition process vs. Deadmau5’s. Deadmau5 freely admitted he can’t play an instrument, so he puts everything in with a mouse. Both are incredibly successful musicians, so there isn’t a right or wrong way.   Armin also starts by picking an interesting synth patch which helps him find inspiration as he’s messing around on the keyboard with chords.  He recommends the keys of F, F#, G, and G# for dance music, so I guess if you’re going to learn chords those would be good ones to focus on.  Another interesting comparison between Deadmau5’s Masterclass and Armin’s Masterclass: : Deadmau5’s master class was always him alone in the studio, whereas about a third of this masterclass had Armin collaborating with his friend and fellow producer Benno de Goeij.  Armin seems very collaborative and personable. 

He also must have an amazingly powerful computer, because his projects have a huge number of tracks with tons of plugins.  One song he showed had 104 tracks!!!  Although, many times he will duplicate a track multiple times and apply different processing on the same audio or MIDI, so whereas some producers will simply automate things on/off in the same track, Armin likes to create a new track for each unique processing.   Sometimes this is also layering. He’ll layer a dozen synths on top of one another for the drop and 15 different kick tracks to create exactly the kick sound he wants.   

He’s also using a lot of presets, although creatively and in long chains.   On one bassline, for example, he has eight different plugins:  he starts with a solid sound from the Avenger synth then adds: an EQ, Saturn 2, another EQ, LFO tool, Valhalla Room, ArtsAcoustic reverb, iZotope Ozone Exciter, and another EQ.  

Speaking of LFO Tool: this is one of his favorite plugins and it’s pretty cheap at only $50 over at Xferr Records, I picked up a copy after this class and have been using it a lot.  He uses it on almost every track, and sometimes multiple instances on the same track. For example, on his baseline he used three LFO tools: The first to give a groove to the bassline with some volume automation which is very important in psy-trance, one to make kick punch through with volume ducking, and one for some additional sound shaping.

For mixing he advises trying to mix quietly sometimes. It saves your ears, and if you can hear all the key elements even when it’s quiet, you’ve probably got the mix right.   As you’re adding plugins, always use makeup gain so you can ensure the volume pre and post plugin are the same so you can accurately compare the two. Louder is always going to sound better, so you want to ensure you’re comparing apples to apples… or in this case decibel level to decibel level.

One surprising thing with mixing: he never showed rendering everything to audio for final mixing.  I’m not clear if they just skipped that step, or if he actually doesn’t bother. It was a really thorough six ½ hours, so I’m inclined to think he doesn’t always bounce to audio. 

He offers a lot of advice working with vocalists, from making them comfortable to detailing his processing chain.  Just like his collaborative approach to producing with Beno in the studio, his approach to working with vocalists is very collaborative too. He likes to have the vocalist there when he’s doing his comping so he can get their input about which takes they like and don’t like.    

Once he gets a good comp, or the best pieces from multiple takes, he starts by basic cleanup by editing audio clips directly to get rid of lip smacks which become exaggerated once you add a compressor.  He’s just manually adjusting volume on clips, he’s not using a plugin to manage lip smacks.  He likes to leave some of the breaths for a natural sound, but may turn the volume down on them a little with a gentle fade. After that he adds a de-esser, then adds a high pass filter above 100hz, some compression, and reverb.  That’s his basic chain on every vocal. He will sometimes use autotune, but it depends on the singer. 

The last several modules of the class talked about performing, DJing, and his radio show.  In terms of DJing: he likes to mix in key which makes his mixes super smooth to help keep that audience in that trance-like state.  His goal is for you to never be able to realize when one track is ending and the next is beginning.  For the same reason he’s also careful about using the mic too much.  I also found it really interesting when he said for big festivals, “every track in my set gets an edit.”  Some of these are simple, like cutting a long track to make it shorter and then adding a couple of samples to smooth the new transition. Other times its a mashup to ensure some fan-favorite vocal makes it into the compact 1 hour set.   If you’re playing at a smaller venue, he advised watching the bar. Are people having to shout at the bartender to order drinks? You’re probably too loud. Are they into the music?  Are they tapping their feet or nodding their heads?  These are your best indicators that you’re connecting with the broad audience, and not just the people in the front row.

Overall it was a great course and Armin van Buuren is a very likeable, personable teacher. My one gripe is that his template is built for Logic and I use Ableton, but otherwise 99% of the course wasn’t dependant on any particular DAW.  

Would I recommend this? Absolutely. It’s $180/year for all the classes you care to watch, and Masterclass periodically runs a special where you buy one subscription and can gift the other one…. So you could split the cost with a friend, bringing it down to a steal at $90.  What other classes should you consider?  I’ve taken Deadmau5’s and that was really good.  Some of the others I’d like to take including: Timbaland Teaches Producing and Beatmaking, Questlove Teaches Music Curation and DJing, and Usher Teaches the Art of Performance.  There are several more, I’ll list them all on the show notes page along with some of Armin’s favorite plugins, so head over to ProducerLifePodcast.com, episode 67.  

I’m going to wrap up the show today with part of my new trance track, Reach which just dropped April 9th.  I hope you enjoy it, I’ll have links in the show notes page if you’d like to share it with a friend. Until next week, this is the House Ninja reminding you to be somebody’s Hero today.