love that distortion man what are you using?
Funny enough there is only one instance of Ohmicide on this and it dosent even do that much but yeah for distortion I exclusivly use Ohmicide
nice man its pretty dope
thanks dude I appreciate it hit me up if you got any other questions about it ^^ ! cause you my bruh !
this one is good, care to elaborate?
pretty good dude but there might be some trouble in the high end sounds like white noise (did you layer it ?) try to clean that up a bit and this growl would be dope af
That Bass is fucking good !! So close
Can you share some details pls?
Am i close to barely alive?
One Word : Dope !
Congrats dude ! 90 % of the people on that thread upload and try to replicate some âgenericâ Growl basses (kind of VR,Barely Alive stuff ) but that one sounds really unique,organic and so Skrillexy !
Any Tips nâTricks ?
I was messing with my growl tone even more, what do you guys think?
reminds me a bit of Snails I really like it dude !
A good friend sent me thisâŚ
How to make your own Skrillex Growls
There are many artists with many tracks that feature dark and haunting growls that gives you the shivers! They may sound beefy and horrifying, but few of them sound as clean and balanced as the ones that the sounddesign master Sonny Moore a.k.a. Skrillex crafts.
The reason is simple  he uses a different technique.
While many producers seem to stick to the good oldfashioned FM synthesis to create these types of bass sounds, our dear Skrillex has made his own signature technique, even though he too uses FM synthesis sometimes for his growls.
Before we start âletâs just clarify a few things:
 There are multiple techniques for creating a formant bass sound, in this
tutorial weâll focus on only two (one of them being very brief).
 Skrillex doesnât only use this method as there are multiple approaches in
creating a growl sound, itâs all about what sounds good, but this technique is used in many of his signature growl sounds yet it hasnât been covered that well throughout the years, and many people envy his growls.
 BE AWARE that this is a very complicated form of sounddesign that demands a lot of time being spent on it and incorporates advanced sounddesign techniques.
To understand this method as good as possible, itâs important that youâre aware of how formant shaped sounds works, how vocoding works, and that you have good understanding and habit of very precise frequency editing on Equalizers.
 As the software synth Massive by Native Instruments is very common in producing this kind of music, as well as since Iâve covered it in previous tutorials, Iâll use this synth as examples where suitable. However, the techniques can be implemented on many other software synths (or hardware).
Alright, letâs start then!
A brief overview
The most simple explanation of this method would be that a formant shaped modulator modulates a steady carrier using vocoding.
On the modulator you control the movement of the formant using either an Envelope/ADSR, an LFO, or plain automation (recommended). The similar controls are added to the carrier, but they control the pitch if desired.
ďżźPutting the pieces together
The modulator
The modulator consists of a formant movement, in other words vocaltype sound (a âyeayyâ for example).
This formant sound can be achieved in a few different ways that Iâll point out:
 an FM bass patch. You could create a very basic growl using FM synthesis, and this is probably the most common technique among different musicians to make a growl sound.
But as weâve mentioned before they donât always sound that clean, and sometimes you want something dirty, but sometimes not.
However, if you only use the FM growl as a part of something bigger, then the concept of it changes a lot.
Create a very simple FM growl, one that doesnât have too many extra features to make it dirty and dark  keep it clean and basic. Then instead of using it at a dark octave, pitch it up so itâs more towards the normal vowelÂtype sound, this will make it work better in a vocoded sound.
The advantages of using an FM growl as a vocoder modulator is that itâs evenly spread across the frequency spectrum and can save you a lot of time getting it full enough.
The disadvantage of this approach is that itâs not 100 % there if you want to sound like Skrillex, as you still get some of the dirty and beefy sound from the FM patch and donât get that nice clean sound that you may want. This leads us to the next type of modulator.
 a bitcrushed sinesweep (high difficulty!). If you sweep a sinewave through the spectrum, add a bitcrusher plugin and reduce the samplerate, youâll hear a steady formant sound that is very clean. Using this as the vocoder modulator is probably the best way as you get the closest to a clean growl sound.
So all you have to do is automate the pitch of a sinewave and let it go through a bitcrusher plugin.
Some synths can even do all this in the box and saves you adding extra plugins on the mixerchannel. Though some synths respond a little differently to this, for instance NI Massive. I still havenât managed to make a patch like this to sound good in Massive, but there is an alternate version of this technique if you canât get it right.
In this alternate version you skip a sine oscillator and only use a noise oscillator, you then let it run through a lowpassfilter with a very heavy
ďżźresonance added (turn it up to the maximum for a starter), and you do then control the filtercutoff instead of the oscillator pitch.
You then let it run through the bitcrusher with the reduced samplerate.
However, when using this method with
a bitcrushed sinesweep or filtersweep
you need to keep one thing in mind  itâs
not as simple as it sounds. In fact, this
is the most difficult and time demanding
way to create this vocoder modulator.
Why is that? Well look on a spectrum
analyzer of a vowel of this kind, and
compare it with the FM bass, and youâll
see that the bitcrushed formant has way fewer frequencies, and they are not as tight.
And if you know your vocoders and understand how they work, youâll realize that it could sound like some frequencies are âjumpingâ across the spectrum when you vocode the final sound, as the frequencies start to jump through the different vocoderÂfilters instead of sweeping naturally up or down  because there arenât that many frequencies to begin with. This can muddy up the sound⌠a lot, not to mention that it can give annoying frequency spikes.
This means that you need to spend a lot of time editing the modulator frequencies before it reaches the vocoder so the frequencies run smoother.
Pull up 3-Â5 EQs on the mixerchannel, and notch out individual frequencies with the narrowest QÂvalue/bandwidth possbile.
Donât be too harsh on the cuts of this kind  if you start to remove the bad spots completely other nasty spots will pop up as certain frequnecies disappear completely when they cross your notch cut, and youâll find yourself in a never ending tiresome work of cutting notches and bringing back the body to the sound, only to open up another EQ and do everything a second time because the bad spots got brought up
again with that warming EQ boost.
Start this technique first with the vocoder modulator by itself, and then continue editing when the vocoder is switched on to see how it responds.
ďżźďżź
￟ There are more ways than the two ones already mentioned, but I havenât experimented with these, but I can imagine they can give good results as well. The first one would be recording your own voice and using it as a modulator. The second one would be creating a formant shape by letting a sound run through a dedicated formant filter, such as plain noise or a thick synth sound. Lastly, using a speech synthesizer and make it do growls could create interesting results.
The carrier
Ok, so now we have talked about the modulators, but what carriers should you use? Well it depends on what sound you want, but I usually choose between a few options:
 a static raw patch. There are multiple ways of creating a sound like this, but you could start off by creating some interesting timbres by stacking oscillators at different octaves, play with distortion, stack unison voices without detuning them, add some FM etc, to give a very dense, dark, full, and raw sound  or give a more dark and smooth sound, depends on what sound you want.
The skyâs the limit!
 a reese bass. Using a dark reese bass can give a very sweet character to the final sound, especially if the reese bass behaves in a nasty way. This can give a more moving sound to the growl and a raw timbre.
 a dark supersaw. For a less haunting, and more moderate and solid sound, a lowpitched monophonic supersaw can do a great job. Make it sound as mean as possible!
Thereâs nothing wrong with trying out other patches than these three, you may discover a very powerful option for a vocoder carrier.
One thing that needs to be pointed out though, is that some vocoders can respond badly to detuned carriers. They may suddenly behave as if thereâs some strange detunedÂsounding chorus being applied to them.
And this is mostly not what a Skrillex growl is supposed to sound like, so be very gentle on any detuning in the carrier.
If itâs a reese bass that you use as the carrier, make it move slowly  and if itâs a dark supersaw⌠well⌠you might as well only use a dash of detuning so thereâs only some kind of simple movement.
A thing Iâd definately recommed is stacking multiple carrier synths as they will complement eachother and all contribute with their best parts to give a tremendous final carrier sound.
ďżźI tend to always use a dark and static raw patch as the main carrier, and then maybe blend in either a reese bass or a dark supersaw. And then Iâll EQ the carriers that has detuning on them so their detuning donât affect the vocoded sound too much (do this when the vocoder is turned on).
But again⌠the skyâs the limit!
The workflow
Before the vocoder
Alright, now you may have decided on what modulator type and what carrier synth(s) we want, can we start dive into the vocoder? Not yet.
Thereâs some balancing that needs to be made before the vocoderstage.
You may turn on the vocoder, but wait a little bit with diving into your vocoder setup. Everything may sound very unbalanced, and you may think you just need to tweak this and that in the vocoder and it will be fixed⌠itâs not that simple.
Sure you can tweak the basic concept of the vocoder if you know what youâre going for, but donât go any further, first you must sit down and go through the input sound. This involves experimenting with what part of the frequency spectrum should come from the modulator/carrier.
For instance, if youâre going with a bitcrushed modulator, youâll soon realise that the highend in the growl doesnât sound that pleasant, and therefore it could be good to cut the highend down on an EQ on the modulator, and then either attenuate the highend on the carrier(s) more to compensate, or boost the highend after the vocoder when the carrier has been incorporated with the modulator.
Even though you may not always use the bitcrushed modulator, you should still go through what part of the sound should support the most where on the spectrum. A raw carrier sound can give the final growl the touch it needs with a boost in the highend + a cut on ther highend on the modulator and any additional carrier blended in.
A boost in the lower midrange on the carrier can also be good if the modulator makes the sound a little thin.
Another thing you should take a look at is compressing the modulator to make the shape bigger, as well as distorting it to make it more dense (especially if itâs a bitcrushed modulator).
Lastly, you may need to use some dynamic EQing or set a multiband compressor to control a narrow section of the spectrum, and even out any larger frequency spikes that you couldnât tame with the EQ.
ďżźInside the vocoder
So now we have a modulator and a carrier to our liking, now we will combine them to create this massive growl sound.
Add a vocoder, preferably different ones and experiment and find the one you think sounds the best.
Now⌠you have various tools inside the vocoder at your disposal, such as controlling the number of vocoder filters, as well as the width of the filters.
To my experience, a growl sound needs at least 50 vocoder filters applied, preferably up to 70 or even more as it gives better definition.
The filter width is a matter of taste, but for a true Skrillex growl sound I would say that the vocoder filters should only overlap a smudge if not at all.
Then a vocoder often comes with a formant pitch function, so you can make the final vocoded patch darker or brighter. But this is not the only formant pitch function in the whole sounddesign chain  you also edit the formant pitch of the modulator itself. Since the pitch of the sound is defined by the carrier, what note you set the modulator to be played on doesnât give any change in the pitch of the sound  but it makes the sound darker or brighter.
This means that you have two different formant pitch controls for your sound, and it gives a different sound if you keep the modulator dark and the vocoder bright, or if you keep the modulator bright and the vocoder dark. This gives you endless possibilities. But keep in mind that
changing the note of the modulator can change what bad frequencies that are booming.
One good habit with the formant pitch parameters, especially the one in the vocoder, is the habit of automating this parameter.
This has to be done with care with only minor changes in the automation or it will sound unnatural (sometimes desirable but probably not in this case), but with this you can make every second of the growl sound as good as possible, as different stages of the growl sounds the best with different formant pitch settings.
Likewise can you automate other parameters, such as the vocoder filter width, to once again make the growl sound as good as possible at every stage.
ďżź
ďżźAfter the vocoder
The vocoder is not the end of the sounddesign chain  a lot happens after it, mostly to balance the growl sound as much as possible.
The first thing you should do once youâve set up the vocoder is once again doing notches and similar.
Yes you may have 3Â5 Equalizers taking care of this on the modulator mixerchannel, but thereâs still a lot of EQing that needs to be done after the vocoder as well.
And the same rules apply  donât go too harsh on the cuts, or youâll find yourself in an everlasting loop of notching and bringing back the body only to restart the process. Not only do you need to notch out bad spots, sometimes you may need to make drastic boostes or cuts to balance the growl so it doesnât sound too thin or too harsh, especilly if youâre going with the bitcrushed modulator.
I once found myself doing a very wide boost of many decibels around 300Â500 Hz, because it got so thin from all of the sounddesign stages that took place  but this really saved the sound!
Another vital thing is shaping the dynamics of the sound that comes out of the vocoder.
Even if you compressed the modulator by itself, you may still need to do this step once again on the output from the vocoder.
Likewise you may need to do some Dynamic EQing or narrow multiband compressing to tame any frequency spikes that you once again couldnât handle with the EQs.
Moving on, one thing that is recommended that you do, is removing any subfrequencies from the sound that comes out of the vocoder, as it may sound unstable because of all of the things that takes place before and inside the vocoder. Instead, add a subsynth to reinforce the bass.
If youâre lucky, your audio software gives you the ability to either copy the progression of a certain automation, or you can link an extra parameter to an automation  that way you can quickly add the same pitch automation to the subsynth that you used for the carrier.
Did you know you can use Equalizers to boost the definition on the growl?
If you have a good understanding on how a formant sound is shaped, youâll see the pattern on a frequency analyzer as the growl progresses.
Then you can simply add two slightly more narrow peaks on an EQ, and automate their frequencies so they follow the movement in the frequency spectrum. Then all you have to is gently boost these two peaks and you should instantly hear more definition in the vowel. Automating the gain of these peaks can make this method sound more balanced.
ďżźThough sometimes it can feel as it simply gets âtoo muchâ with this technique applied  then it can be just enough by setting a small number of peaks on the EQ with the same width, and boost them when the formant sweep in the spectrum cross them.
I would say that you can use a higher boost with this technique than if you would let the peaks on the EQ follow the formant sweep across the spectrum.
In the end, itâs all about what makes the sound better.
Another thing that happens after the vocoder that is also very important, is automating the gain of the sound.
The reason why is that even though you have a carrier and a modulator incorporated in the vocoder, the carrier still contain a very differerent dynamic shape than the modulator. This can lead to the growl sounding poor because itâs like there are two different layers of it having their own wills⌠but we want a solid and tight sound.
A simple fix is to automate the volume after the vocoder, and shape it so it somehow follows the shape of the automation on the modulator  for instance, if the growl closes, you can cut the volume in the end, or if the growl modulation stutter, so should the gain  so the carrier follows the shape as well and doesnât lie underneath in the background as some sort of rumble once the growl has ended.
Sometimes this method can sound too obvious, and then it would be good to go very gentle on it, and then also add an EQ where you automate the gain of a highshelf and let it close as well  this could give a more natural result if the first mentioned approach doesnât work that well.
Donât forget to automate the gain of any bass reinforcement as well, or the bass will jump out in an unnatural way.
Letâs not forget about the powerful tool of distortion shall we. Even the softest distortion can make the sound much more solid, without necessarily destroying it.
If you use a preÂtone and a postÂtone EQ with this, you can make your own perfect distortion sound for the growl that really enhances the sound.
For instance, if you do a very narrow and massive boost in the lowend, then distort it, then cut the lowend back to compensate  this could give a very gritty distortion if you set the frequency of the peak right.
You could stop here, but if youâre like me⌠then you love Resampling.
Record the the whole growl sound, and resample it the way you prefer.
I like to resample in the software synth Harmor by ImageÂLine, and I always experiment with a 3rd stage of formant pitching (sometimes automation included) to make a final dark/bright balancing on the sound.
Another thing I can do sometimes is copying the resampled patch and let the copy play the audio an octave lower (= it sounds very, very dark), then slightly blend it in to make the sound fuller. But be careful, or it will only start sounding noisy and undefined instead.
ďżźThese are just two of infinite techniques that you can apply with resampling.
I have stated it before, and here you have it again  the skyâs the limit!
You could even take everything one step further  by resampling the modulator and/or the carrier by themselves and process them to make them perfect before they hit the vocoder.
geat articel dude thanks for sharing to be honest I did not read through all of it but I will someday, but the technique your freind is describing is kind of the same method I use to make my growls altough I most of the time do not use Vocoders, also seems like a lot of stuff to go trough (maybe it is a bit too complicated tbh) I do not think Sonny was going trough so many steps creating his growls but I dont know 100% he may as well did, but anyways still thanks for the article I will read through the whole thing when I have the time
Been trying out some more growls. Sorry about the mix, I havenât had time to listen through monitors.
fuck yeah man thatâs dope
Got to hand it to you man, thatâs freaking awesome