How were tracks produced in the 90s?

[TW1306]

I know this probably sounds like a dumb question (especially from someone who's been trying to produce for almost a decade now) but how were trance, house, DnB, etc (and other electronic genres) actually produced back in the 90s and early 2000s? How were tracks put together, mixed, and mastered when working with hardware (and the fledgling computer software of the time) in a studio or at home? And to a lesser extent are there still studios like that around today (as in accessible to anyone, not just for personal use)?

[Effectsworks]

DnB generally used HW Samplers (Akai EMU 6400 Ultra) going through a mixing desk (using outboard gear and the driven board's distortion) and then sequenced with Commodore Amiga.

[Unaspected]

No such thing as a dumb question.

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[thecontrolcentre]

In the 90's I used an Atari STe with various software, mixing desk, a couple of analog synths, a drum machine, a sampler and my hifi to make techno and DnB. We would record in real time using a DAT or MiniDisc, often tweaking FX and synths live. Later in the 90's people started using PC's instead of tape to record, but multitracking was virtually impossible. I still have the Atari's and some of the synths & effects I used back then ... this was my "studio" in 1997

tcc_jupiter_studio_1997.jpg

[Azbest]

As for D'n'B, I've read Optical saying he used to record his synths (Sequential Pro 1 was one of them surely) through an (overdriven) mixing desk. The recorded samples were then organised and arranged on a computer or a hardware sampler. Drums were often ripped from records. Also sample CDs were a thing back then.

[legendCNCD]

Mackie desk was used a lot... )

[andymcbain]

[gearwatcher]

Most common workflow in dnb was:

You would record sounds from analog or digital synths/modules, vinyl and sample CDs into usually multiple hardware samplers. As said above, using a mixing desk to saturate sounds was a common technique but things like guitar pedals and line-level effects devices were obviously also used.

The sound of the whole sound design chain was then "bounced" into the sampler. Sometimes as a loop, but mostly simply as a one-shot that would get sequenced and transposed later, maybe tweaked further in the sampler.

You would then arrange the songs in the sampler(s) using a MIDI sequencer running on an Atari, and sometimes on a Mac or PC. People using Amigas were commonly using them as samplers and trackers as sequencers.

Obviously you would spread your samplers' multitimbral outputs on your desk, and of you had MIDI synths and enough channels on the desk for them you would also sequence that gear as well, maybe even run some automation via MIDI CC, and run your Alesis Quadraverb on an aux send.

If you had it, you would use a buss compressor between the desk output and your recording device (I didn't have a DAT it was a cassette deck and later a PC but DATs were the most common destination for this in the 90s really.

The machines weren't sample precise as plugins are today mind you. If you wanted to layer eg kicks it would often mean recording few hits of the two kicks running together and picking the copy that sounds the best, then resampling that and using it as one sound.

it wasn't the lack of polyphony voices (although you had to be mindful of that too) as much as the fact that layered kicks would never sound the same due to sub-millisecond latency between the voices in many of the otherwise completely digital gear and while I didn't own EMUs they were apparently worst offenders in this department.

This was a common workflow well into the 00s. I personally don't miss it one f**king bit and feel like slapping the clueless kids pining about it online tbh.

I'll take ITB's instant recall, endless voices and choice of emulated EQ, saturation and compression over that f**king nightmare any day of the week.

[legendCNCD]

This was a common workflow well into the 00s. I personally don't miss it one f**king bit and feel like slapping the clueless kids pining about it online tbh.

I'll take ITB's instant recall, endless voices and choice of emulated EQ, saturation and compression over that f**king nightmare any day of the week.

Hear ye hear ye! I dont miss it. I have my A1200 next to me if I miss Octamed studio
I dont miss the outboard gear or mixer at all anymore, the less wires the better. I still love to use Protracker from time to time though

[TW1306]

Thank you all for the replies, though admittedly I wasn't really talking about DnB specifically; I just listed it as an example of of a genre prevalent at the time. Personally I'd be more interested in trance and house production, sorry...

[andymcbain]

Thank you all for the replies, though admittedly I wasn't really talking about DnB specifically; I just listed it as an example of of a genre prevalent at the time. Personally I'd be more interested in trance and house production, sorry...

It's basically the same principles though. Usually a computer based MIDI sequencer, your MIDI sound sources (synths, samplers, sound modules, drum machines) a hardware mixer, some outboard FX units and something to record the results on to. And a lot of patience / trial and error

[jamcat]

You would download a dodgy copy of ReBirth or Rubber Duck, export your track to 128kbps mp3 then upload it to your GeoCities page.

[chk071]

Thank you all for the replies, though admittedly I wasn't really talking about DnB specifically; I just listed it as an example of of a genre prevalent at the time. Personally I'd be more interested in trance and house production, sorry...

Don't think there's much of a difference.

[iHartBeats]

I had stuff out in the 90s... here's a similar convo I had a while ago on here.

househoppin09 wrote:
So, I've long speculated that that's what kicked off the beginnings of the transition, but would love to hear from people with first-hand knowledge. I know it's a pretty weird detail to be so hung up on, but it's just one of those things I can't help wondering about.


Fun thread! I had some Techno & House records out back then on German, American and Canadian labels so I can speak from the bedroom producer angle.

808's and 909's were still really expensive back then so lots of people (i.e. most bedroom producers) used samples. Sure the big guys might've all had the real machines but lots of the bedroom guys used samples. 'Zero-G' was probably the best/biggest sample provider back then… they seemed to own the market. I was lucky enough to have a real 909 but sometimes I still just sampled it to use in tracks. I also had a Yamaha TG55 with a 'Dance' card that had some pretty good drum sounds I'd use. The R-8 was also expensive and a pretty exclusive piece of kit, particularly as it was 'just for drums' - I didn't know any producers with one.
househoppin09 wrote:
everything was generally sequenced and mixed live to DAT master without a multitrack recorder in sight. Small, manageable amounts of vocals were sampler-based. I presume tracks with longer, more detailed vocals did use tape and/or DAT multitracking…


You're 100% right. Everyone I knew just went straight to DAT. I was one of the few guys who had a DAT so I was always lending it to buddies so they could record. Once ADAT's came out (they were a BIG deal) that's what we used to record vocal tracks. When Cubase Audio came out (93'ish) I would go to a studio to record vocals onto ADAT then get them put as WAVs onto CD which I would import into Cubase.


househoppin09 wrote:
mono vs. stereo issues. …. "hmm, love the width on this pad patch, definitely worth sacrificing an extra mix channel for that", etc. It would be great if someone could confirm or deny this, and I'd be very interested to know any further details about how such decisions were made. (An additional related aspect I've wondered a lot about is what the standard practice was for insert effects with stereo returns--same deal, make the trade-off based on how much the stereo effect was contributing to the sound, I suppose?)


Yeah, you're right, but stereo width wasn't a big concern back then. Sure, It was nice but we were a lot more basic. I think I had my Juno or 101/202/303 usually just plugged into my mixer as mono so I rarely heard the stereo sound so never got attached to it & had to make a choice
FX were so different back then because you were so limited - you almost had none. I had a couple units so was limited to 1 reverb & 1 delay or some combo. It was *nothing* like today where every track can have 10 reverbs, 5 delays and 12 compressors.


househoppin09 wrote:
when did producers in these genres start getting more proactive about doing mix buss processing (i.e. "loudness war" type stuff and/or fattening up the master with a TC Finalizer or similar)? Or was that never really in the purview of the producer in the pre-DAW days, but more likely to be something that the mastering house would do?


Loudness was never really considered but we *loved* the BBE Sonic Maximizer to brighten things up.

househoppin09 wrote:
gear lists and production or workflow details of any kind! Sound sources, sequencing, FX, mixing, mastering... I'm interested in all of it. .


I went thru lots of equipment back then as I bought/sold stuff. I produced thru most of the 90's - sometimes in spurts.
I didn’t learn how to use my cool analog stuff as good as I should've - especially the MS-20. It wasn't as easy as the 101 or 106 so I mostly just stuck with them. Still have the 106 + MS-20 tho
At my peak I guess I had:
Cubase Audio on PC (started with Cubase on Atari tho)
Kurzweil K2000 + sampler option - a killer & super slept on combination. This was the best digital synth back then, IMO.
Juno 106, 303, 909 (also had an 808, 606, 101 & 202 at times)
Korg MS-20
Yamaha TG55
Yamaha SPX900, some ART fx unit
Mackie 1604
DAT



Feel free to ask any questions.

[kritikon]

As already mentioned - I used Atari to midi sequence everything with hw synths and hw FX via mixer. Pretty well everyone I knew was on Atari. Early on I had an Akai S950 for sampling, which was mostly the way to do 909s etc, although I did have occasional access to a real 909. Drum machines were definitely an option and I know quite a few who used those rather than sampling. Samplers soon became fancier and larger so they got used more and more for other things too, but initially you were very limited for memory in sampling. Akai S1000 was a watershed moment for sampling. Recorded it all live to DAT tape with some automation on the mixer (muting channels etc for noise reduction) but actual tweaking and mixing was done on the fly. Quite a bit of synth editing was done via midi - some synths had enough midi to automate, though I remember making an editor for Juno106 that worked via sysex. A real PITA that I don't remember fondly at all. Stuff like 303s, OSCars etc were all edited by hand live. I did know one or two that had their own 8track tapes but that was a hefty outlay that not many home musos got into. Some would have done their mixes etc in a studio - anyone I knew who did that were already signed. Same with us. You get the advance - buy studio time. But get enough money and you invested in home studio but still not really for actual finalising/mastering etc, not unless you were very successful.

Most of the time I can only remember having 3 FX units running, though I did collect more eventually - so one reverb was pretty well it on a mix, though I could use more. E.g. companies like Digitech came out with affordable dual channel FX units and 4 outs that were very useful.

DAT tape was sent to studio/label for processing & mastering. We didn't do any of that - those kind of processors got pretty expensive. TBH I don't remember anyone I knew at the time who did their own mastering.

That was 90s. By early noughties there were far more options for mixing/mastering your own stuff even if only on digital mixers etc. I dabbled in digital portastudio thingy around then recorded on Zip drive. Can't remember entirely but surely DAWs were starting to flourish then. Can't remember when Cubase 3.5 first came out - but it didn't take long for proper DAWs to make a shitload more home grown stuff possible. EArly on in DAWs it would still be mainly h/w synths though.

EDIT I checked, and Cubase 3.5 on Windows was 97 - VST 2 must have been around then also. From distant memory it would be around 2000 or so before DAWs really took off though.