About This Course

Deconstructing his hit track ‘Colly Wolly’, Jacky starts this session with an insight to his life and how he got to where he is in his career. An inspiring story that everyone should hear.

He then goes into the production aspects of the track, starting out with how to create a template in Ableton, to arranging the project and finally using audio effect racks and saving your preset effects.

You will learn:

• Setting up templates in Ableton
• Return channel functions
• Arrangement tips
• Creating visual cues in your project
• Shaping transients 
• Reworking loops
• Audio effect racks

Lessons:
 

1. Introduction

2. Starting The Track

Jacky looks at his template which he starts every track with. In it he has set up 1 audio track and 1 MIDI track. He then shows us his Return channel template, which consists of 5 return channels, 1 Reverb and 4 Ping Pong Delays.

Arranging the project

Jacky shows us how he organises his projects, stating that organisation is key. He labels various sections of the track (intro, break, ride, etc) so that he can quickly jump to sections within the project.

3. Transient Envelopes

Using Ableton's transient warp feature, Jacky highlights an interesting way to work with loops. By adjusting transient lengths you can change how a loop sounds entirely.

4. Audio Effect Racks 

Grouping audio effects can speed up your workflow, Jacky has his audio effect rack template as his go-to for every channel. It consists of a Compressor, EQ Eight, Auto Filter, Utility and Simple Delay.

5. Live Q&A

Jacky answers questions on the remix competitions, how he got his music to Steve Lawler, releasing music with promo lists. He discusses his favourite VSTs for bass, both from Rob Papen - Sub Boom Bass & Blue. 

• Is any genre excepted for the remix?
• When it comes to ghost writing and engineering, do you know who I should approach for engineering?
• How did you get your track to Steve Lawler?
• How do you get your tracks in the hands of A-list Dj’s ?
• What would be your goto VST or hardware for bass?
• What advice would you give to someone who has tracks ready to share with the world, what are the first steps you would advise to take ?
• How do you put the returns in?
• Can you recommend any sound cards for making the live easier to use on my CPU?
• What are your favourite plug-ins for creating groovy basslines?
• What headphones do you use and why?
• Will you share the ableton template?
• How much do you pan the tracks?
• Any tips for people who use other DAW?
• Is it recommended to use the utility and simple delay effect only on high frequency sounds or is it good for all sounds ?
• Is the ableton suite considered a requirement or is the standard comparable ?
• How do you edit the midi grand piano ?
• If someone sent you demos but they didn’t have much social media presence would you be put off by signing one of their tracks?
• How important is it to have music theory knowledge when making a dance track?
• How did you get into sound design, do you work with presets alot or do you use sounds from scratch?