Chillwave

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Sun-washed synths, retro melodiesand glo-fi beats.

SM29 Chillwave draws inspiration from the underground electronica genre that blends the best of 80s synth-pop with often lo-fi production techniques to unleash the trademark sun-tinged and retro-glazed tones.

This collection infuses a number of different sub-genres to achieve the signature chillwave sound: from Italo-disco to ambient, bossa nova to synth-pop.

While chilllwave beats are as wide in scope as the genre’s influences, we felt it necessary to stick to the definitive beat style of the genre: laid-back, four-on-the-floor workouts with an emphasis on heavy snares and full-bodied tops. If you build your own beats we’ve supplied all the tools: 300+ 12-bit raw drum sounds, organically downsampled – often through tape - for that authentic lo-fi vibe.

The synth lines are supplied with little (often no) effects so that you can add your own signature delays, reverbs and sidechain effects. Some lines include variations, different chord progressions, or simply stripped versions for added flexibility. They can be augmented

by using one of the 100 lush effected chord shots.

In place of the usual musical ‘combis’ we’ve added a packed-to-overflowing ‘inspiration kits’ folder – mini song-starters to turn to when inspiration fails or to be mined for new creative ideas. Of course you can use them as they are: just find a suitable beat and roll. But they get more powerful when you treat them as you would sampled vinyl: speed up, slow down, re-tune, reverse, tweak and cut the loops for 1,000s of new progressions. Most of the folders in the ‘inspiration kits’ include broken out synths, music and bass loops for complete arrangement flexibility.

You may notice the lack of a basslines folder: this is deliberate. Chillwave tracks often have such basic basslines that we preferred to give you more musical material instead, allowing you to build your own basslines to complement.

However you decide to use these samples, always remember: let inspiration be a part of your creation.

Israel Medina and John Glenn KunkelProducers

welcome to... /3welcome tothe collection

producer tips01/ Sidechain

One of the defining elements of chillwave production is heavy (ab)use of the sidechain: the process of using one signal to modify some element of a second – typically its volume.

The most common method of sidechaining is to use a compressor driven by a kick track to reduce another track’s volume at the point of the kick signal’s entry: pads, music loops, basslines, leads – even vocals – can all benefit from an obvious kick-sidechain pump.

Many chillwave producers go further than this and use sidechain compression across musical busses – or sometimes even the master bus, with the compressor altering the dynamics of the whole track, bestowing the unmistakable (and sometimes overdone) pumping effect.

An alternative method of achieving the same effect is to use an LFO-type plug-in to shape a track or bus’s volume over time. These plug-ins often come with specific sidechain presets.

It should be said that while many chillwave producers use this effect heavily, its use is by no means imperative.

02/ Granulize

Granulizer plug-ins use so-called granular synthesis technology to split user-loaded Wav samples into many small pieces (or grains), which are then replayed and controlled according to the settings of the respective generator. The length and spacing of the grains can be altered to achieve many different effects.

For the chillwave producer, a granulizer allows for the creation of all kinds of ambient and drone-like sounds.

Even more useful is the granulizer’s ability to stretch a sample without altering its pitch, and vice versa – but with a unique character often unachievable using standard timestretch algorithms.

Using automation to change anything from grain size to stretch percentage, the possibilities for shaping samples are endless.

03/ Re-sample

Although many chillwave tracks are based around manipulated samples, programmed Midi tracks are frequently used to supplement the samples. When using Midi tracks, instead of leaving them to trigger virtual instruments, try bouncing

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the Midi down as a new audio file and then re-sample the newly created sound/s through an old-school sampler or tape player (the older the better), a granulizer or other plug-in of choice. Working with the audio file directly will open up a world of new possibilities: you can reverse, time-stretch, re-tune, re-effect it and so on – essentially treating your own previous Midi track as a new independent sample.

04/ Lo-fi

Chillwave has a lo-fi, often home-made, ethos at its heart; a rejection of the high value production values inherent in almost all other modern musical productions.

The chillwave producer has a host of approaches open to them for introducing the lo-fi vibe.

If you have access to the kit, then try routing a sample out of your DAW and record it into an old cassette tape player, and then track the audio signal back into the DAW using a microphone of choice (or you can go DI). Slap on some reverb and power up the sidechain compression: instant chillwave.

An easier and less time consuming approach is to employ a tape-style plug-in to reduce the fidelity of a sample. You might

also experiment with reducing the bit-rate (8 and 12-bit rates are not unusual), feed signals to a parallel overdrive plug-in or guitar amp simulator, or simply roll away high frequencies on musical elements to mirror the way a casette player reacts.

05/ Reverb

Reverb abounds in chillwave, creating big and often very obvious space around musical and vocal parts. Sometimes its use on vocals is so distinctive that its use becomes a trademark effect of the track.

This said, while it can be tempting to slap reverb on every track, it is often best used on a few signals only. Even in songs that sound particularly reverb-heavy you’ll notice that the elements on which it is employed are carefully chosen: drums, for example, are often mixed (mostly) dry. Remember that even in a genre where the usual production rules are frequently ignored and rewritten, you still want a mix that works; muddying every channel will result in a messy, confusing mix..

If you’re using reverb on vocals, start with a decay of around 3–6ms – then try pushing longer. Roll away the reverb low frequencies at around130hz and then feed the verb return through a kick-triggered sidechain.

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folder setup /9accessingthe files

Chillwavefolder

Drum loops 90bpm 100bpm

Dust & Sound loops 90bpm 100bpm

Synth loops 90bpm 100bpm

Pad loops 90bpm 100bpm

Guitar loops 90bpm 100bpm

Vocal loops 90bpm 100bpm

Inspiration loops

Drum hits & one-shots

Chords

equipment list /10inside the Chillwave studio

Akai X-7000Akai MPC 60 IIAkai MPC 2000Alesis Micron (right)Blue BluebirdDave Smith Poly EvolverEpiphone CasinoEpiphone DotEpiphone Les PaulFender TelecasterFender JazzbassIbanez ArtcoreKorg DW8000Linn Electronics LinnDrumNord Lead 2Roland TR-707SSL Duende ClassicTC Helicon Vocal Doubling & DetuneTascam PortastudioWaldorf XT

KicksSnares & ClapsHats (open and closed)CymbalsPercussionToms

Collection created byIsrael Medina and John Glenn KunkelExecutive productionDavid FeltonAudio formatting by Chevy OneDemos by David Felton and The Producers

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