Mainroom Anthems

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Peaktime melodic house: from progressive to electro

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welcome to...
Over the past decade the biggest dancefloors have resonated to the sound of progressive house: a hedonistic fusion of euphoric melodics, mighty chord progressions and chunky minimal-inspired beats. More recently, the sound has been merged with wonky Dutch-style electro for a new hybrid, embodied by populist purveyours such as Swedish House Mafia. SM26 Mainroom Anthems joins the dots between the various related sub-genres to create a single collection that represents the sound of todays mainroom. Stacks of pared-down beats and minimal-infused beats underpin the collection, each offered with a range of variants (full, stripped, top-only) for unparalleled Sample Magic beat control. A generous serving of nu-perc and kick-free top loops round off the beatmaking armoury. Basslines span the entire spectrum: from subby and techy throbbers through to bin-blitzing portamento slides and overdriven razor-blazers, all built for dancefloor destruction.

welcome to the collection

The variety is also reflected in the melodic folders. Music loops offer ecstasy-injected mixed musical phrases (containing multiple synths, bass and light percussive lines), many provided with alternatives for additional creative control. The stacked synth hooks, euphoric progressions and trancetinted leads aim for hands-in-the-air hysteria. Where the mood felt right we eased them out across 4, 8 sometimes even 16 bars. And as always, weve provided 100s of drum hits for all-original beat-building, plus scores of stadium-sized FX to raise heart rates across the globe. A bonus folder of single-shot synth stabs are ready to be drenched in your reverb of choice. Load into a sampler, pitch and repitch, stretch and reverse for a multitude of all-new ear candy. Some collections demand intricate programming, some rely on 100s of live recordings: SM26 needed just one thing: Big. Big sounds. Big ideas. And big melodies. Enjoy. The Producers

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producer tips
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ideas for innovation

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Layered kicks

Stacked synths

Big, punchy kick drums are the foundation of the mainroom track. Maximim impact is achieved through layering. A common layering technique is to use a different sound to supply three different characteristics: attack, body, and depth (high, mid and low). The attack is invariably delivered by a sample that has a clear, sharp, clicky attack. For the body of the kick try one that has mid-range punch and crunch. For the depth pick a sound that extends well into the low end 808-style sounds are ideal for this. The skill to layering is sculpting the three sounds so they fit effortlessly together. In practice this means cutting the lows of the attack portion and rolling away highs in the deep sample. Tweaking the envelope settings will help to further gel each of the sounds. For the attack sample, use a short decay, while for the low end try a faster attack. When the three samples feel as if theyre kicking as one unified whole, send them to a single kick drum bus for additional (subtle) processing. Wherever possible, keep the layered kick drum in mono.

Layering is also the key to those euphoric Swedish House Mafia-style leads. Copy the lead line across several instrument tracks and choose wildly different sounds for each layer. Try different plug-ins and effects, as well as transposing the layered line an octave or two up or down (fifths and sevenths also sound good). If you have a chord line you can use a similar technique, placing each note of the chord on a different Midi channel with a different sound for each note.
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Stereo field

Take layered synth lines to the next level by maximising their stereo width. Set the most important constituent lead dead centre, with a second fed through a subtle stereo widener and the third through a wide stereo enhancer for a combined super-wide, super-size sound. Send all layers to a single stereo bus for further processing.

ideas for innovation

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All tuned

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Cut the lows

Check the tuning of any percussive hits in beat patterns. 909 toms, for example, have a clear tonality. Try tuning them to the same key as the track, or so that they resonate alongside the bassline. Kicks are also tonal elements experiment with their tuning in relation to the bassline and/or (preferably both!) the pads and synths.
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Keep mixes clean by using EQ to high-pass (or roll away lows on) all channels that dont need high or low-end. This doesnt just apply to synths and pads: in tracks where the kick drum provides most of the low end boom try rolling away the subby lows of the bassline so that theres room for the kick to do its job.
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Pre-claps

Break

Pre-claps rule. Just fire up a light clap sample and trigger it a few ms before the main clap/snare for added impact. Add another clap before the first for a super-fast triple hit. Compress the life out of the preclap to help the drums suck in all the right ways.
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If you mix and master your own material give yourself time for a break between the two. Mix. Rest. Then master. Rushing a track through the mastering process is a surefire way of undoing a lot of good work.
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Export. Re-import

Strip

Sparse mixes always have a bigger impact in the mainroom room. Dont overcrowd your tracks with lots of different elements, particularly rhythmic ones. Keep the production simple, with each finely-honed part delivering maximum impact. Dont be afraid to mute parts that arent contributing enough to the whole.

For greater creative control over your own sounds, export loops, fx and melodies and then re-import them onto new tracks to be sliced and further processed (bit-crushed, gated, re-pitched etc) not only to expand the potential of the loop within the track, but also to generate whole new song ideas. Saving sounds like this as you go along allows you to build your own personal sample library.

folder setup

accessing the files

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128bpm

Drum loops

Mainroom Anthems folder

Top loops

128bpm

Nu-perc loops

128bpm

Bass loops

128bpm

Music loops

128bpm

Synth loops

128bpm Kicks Claps & snares

Drum hits & shots Hi-hats Percussion

FX & FX loops

equipment list
Empirical Labs EL7 Fatso Empirical Labs Distressor Clavia Nord Lead 2 gSSL Stereo Bus compressor Waves SSL compressor Sherman Filterbank 2 TL Audio Tubetracker E-mu E4xt Ultra Access Virus Ti Korg MS-10 Mutron Bi-Phase Mutronics Mutator Roland Juno-60 Roland SH-09 Roland TR-808 x 2 Roland TR-909 Thermionic Culture Vulture

inside the Mainroom Anthems studio

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credits
Collection created by Sami Liuski, Hy2rogen Audio formatting by Chevy One Demos by Sharooz and The Producers Sample Magic online 1GB+ of free sounds, special offers, newsletter, wallpapers, downloads and our online store at: samplemagic.com Sample Magic network > twitter.com/samplemagic > soundcloud.com/samplemagic > youtube.com/user/samplemagic > facebook.com/samplemagic
Artwork by IWANT Design Limited

Mainroom Anthems was created by

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