Square 'ticking' FX

  • Alright so I can make those square ticking sounds, but I have a hard time trying to make them like the tech trance guys like in Ummet Ozcan's 'The Box' or in Rick Mitchells' 'Sub Zero'.


    This is the sound I'm trying to recreate. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vXjfhgqqeI There is a very good example at 0:39, but it goes through the entire track. What I think it is, is a square/saw patch, little decay, no sustain with reverb all that running through some filter. The hard time I have about this particular sound is how do they make it 'jump' right before the attack? Is it linked to compression with the kick or is it something else?


    Thank you

  • Sounds to me nothing more complicated than a kick or other sound, with high pass filter and maybe with some narrow band eq boost for accentuation.
    He is using the multi layer kick technique which is standard practice for trance/progressive. The sound just seems to be the third layer of the kick he's made, which means it probably is just a filtered sample.

  • I figured out how to make it - Standard square saw, no detuning, add a few voices, long reverb. Recorded it as an audio file, gave it mid range frequency boost treatment and an high pass at around 600hz. To make it 'jump', used compression with -45 threshold and placed the audio file at the 2nd beat of the beat so it 'jumps' along with the kick. It didn't give me the same exact result, but it did come close to it.

  • Nice work. I listened to the track again and I'm sure it is just the top layer of his kick because when the kick filters in and out throughout the track the little click filters along with it. Also the sound never changes - it just clicks away on top of the kick and goes wherever the kick goes dynamics wise.
    By the way it's a great track, first heard it on asot a few weeks back. You must love it if you ended up targeting such a small detail!
    I'm still hoping he will finish his "Genesis Pro" vst synth. I have the original Genesis and it's really fantastic.
    Keep up the good work!

  • On top of what everybody else said, I noticed an increased punch, and a little bit of pitch modulation to make the sound revolve a round the correct tuning.


    You're right flabberbob, but I think that's simply dynamics processing on the kick as a whole, all layers. Compression + transient mods and the high click certainly sounds dusted with bit crush but the bit crush is frozen so thats another reason why I'm so sure it's a sample and not realtime synth.!
    Metrum anyone?? :D

  • Exactly, the tail of the sound is being pitched, I haven't tried doing so with the kick, figuring it would sound bad. There must be some kind of advanced compression/envelope modulation on the attack, I can't get the increased attack to work with my Virus, so I have to use some outside tools to do so. I think it's a synth, but might just be a sample from a bank too. There is still a way to make this effect with the TI, that's for sure.


    As a side note, 'The Box' is amazing, but Markus Schulz's 'Big Room Reconstruction' is better in my opinion. I'm not sure if Armin played it on his radioshow, but he did play the original mix a few times. So many producers play 'The Box' in their sets, really liking his sound. I don't know if you've heard of 'Eclipse', it is still unreleased I think but it's real good. So does his collab with W&W they played at Electric Zoo 2012 in NYC.