French Filter/House sound design

[wombat]

Hello All,

I was wondering if anyone knew what kinds of filters are used in French Filter/House to get that retro feel. I know most are based off 70s and 80s disco hit samples, but some effects/filters are applied to these samples to give it the French Filter feel. If anyone can shed light on this, I'd be very grateful. Thank you!

[Ridley]

High pass, low pass, phaser and compression are some of the "effects" that may be used. I believe that they might use two layers of the sample, one that is high passed to get the melody and high frequencies, and one that is low passed to separate the bassline from the rest of the sample. Sometimes they use only the high or the low part of the sample for parts of the song. It is also common to add a low pass filter to parts of the song, to filter out everything but the bass and the beat, and then adjust the low pass filter frequency to fade in and out of this effect.

[theworldisdaft]

These kind of filters, they have to be made in France to give you authentic French/filter house sound, ones made in China won't work I'm afraid.

[Vortico]

There's also a considerable amount of resonance at the ends of the filters. This gives the sweeping sound when the cutoff frequencies are changing rather than just cutting out the frequencies as it passes.

[scutheotaku]

There's also a considerable amount of resonance at the ends of the filters. This gives the sweeping sound when the cutoff frequencies are changing rather than just cutting out the frequencies as it passes.

Yep, a very correct and often overlooked part! It's also important to note that keeping a low pass filter on and activated on the Master constantly and with a higher resonance amount can give you some of that high-end sizzle (when the cutoff is all the way open) that's common in Homework-era Filter House.

Also, try using Flangers on samples too. If your Flanger has a release setting, then make sure to set it pretty low. A great example of a flanger on a sample is Daft Punk's High Life.

You may also want to look up some Daft Punk song/sample remake videos on YouTube, like this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZboBQ6rDrU or this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I85DU...eature=related . Or look at remake videos for other filter house artists, like this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_Sb4...eature=related or this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBtdb...eature=related Watching those will give you a good grasp at both the methods and style of sampling as well as the processing typically done to the samples. You can find more of these here: http://www.youtube.com/user/deeperndeep/videos as well as all over the rest of YouTube

[Berrie]

Yep, a very correct and often overlooked part! It's also important to note that keeping a low pass filter on and activated on the Master constantly and with a higher resonance amount can give you some of that high-end sizzle (when the cutoff is all the way open) that's common in Homework-era Filter House.

Does anyone know how I can get this effect work on an Roland S-760 sampler?

[scutheotaku]

Does anyone know how I can get this effect work on an Roland S-760 sampler?

I don't know much about the S-760. Does it have a low-pass filter with a resonance control? If so, simply open the lp filter all the way up and boost the resonance a little.

If it doesn't, you're best bet would be to get some sort of hardware low pass filter that you would output your S-760 into (or use as an effect on your Master, if you're using a mixer). Let me know if you want some recommendations.

[Berrie]

Yes, the S760 does have these controls. I will play around with the settings soon
But in tracks like: Alan Braxe - Vertigo (Bangalter Remix), and Burns and Fred Falke - YSLM. I hear an typical French house effect, is this also the LPF or is this an flanger?

[ARRam087]

Yes, the S760 does have these controls. I will play around with the settings soon
But in tracks like: Alan Braxe - Vertigo (Bangalter Remix), and Burns and Fred Falke - YSLM. I hear an typical French house effect, is this also the LPF or is this an flanger?

its a flanger/phaser that is used to get those frequency sweeps.

also in that Bangalter track, at the beginning during the slow buildups to a high-pass, the envelope of the filter is set to low with a low attack and a high gain so it acts like an oscillator and quickly sweeps. The resonance is also set high to get those high-pitched short "whistling" sounds on each beat.