Tycho production process

It's all about layers for me. It depends on the particular song you're referring to but most of my stuff is a few layers deep. Generally a drum synth to create a solid base, then vinyl breaks high passed, and finally some live drums distorted and smashed to add a human element that floats over the top frequencies. I'll also add a some delay feedback to the midrange stuff, but hpf the echo so things don't get too muddy. Pitch shift everything to taste, slower is usually better for me. I generally resample any breaks or drum synth stuff back out through Chameleons or the UA 6176 to get some warmth.

I think generally the key is carving out some specific spaces so your synthetic and acoustic material can coexist in the mix without fighting each other. In my opinion drum synths are suited to low-mid and acoustic to the high end sheen type stuff.

Two of my favorite VSTs for drum processing are the Softube CL 1B (has a really nice distortion when you push it) and D16's Devastor. For hardware, Distressors can add some nice tape sat or just smash things into oblivion. If you're wondering about a specific library, I've gotten significant mileage out of the original "Classic Stylus" library by Spectrasonics. It fills that vinyl void in the mix nicely when aggressively EQ'ed and compressed.

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Usually a couple EQs at different points in the chain, one with more color (like the Waves API 550A or PSP Console Q in SAT mode) for additive stuff and character, and then one towards the end for the surgical mixing stuff -- I use Equality and Waves REQ for that.

I take the same approach to compression; something warm with nice distortion (like Softtube FET or CL 1B) that I'll drive pretty hard, open up the tails with fast attack/slow release, and run parallel to blend (which is stock in Reaper via the FX mix parameter). Then I'll do more transparent mix type compression later to wrap up the whole thing.

Here and there in the chain I'll have any combination of distortion, bit reduction, delay, reverb, etc. For drums I typically use D16 Devastor, SP Sonitex, Echoboy, and Lexicon Native Plate. I then bus a lot of it to a master drums bus and do a little more comp/eq to glue it up.

Really the big thing though is layering. 4 snares, 3 kicks, multiple shaker, high hat, breaks; all swirling around timing-wise with a lot of heavy EQ / HPF stuff going on to make it all mesh. Use complementary sounds in combination; if you have a nice airy acoustic kick, scoop a little out of the low end and slip a tape saturated 808 kick in there pitched to taste.

I guess my overall goal with a mix is to saturate the spectrum so that all available frequency ranges are being maximized without stepping on each other's toes and percussion is so dynamic that it can fill in all those gaps your tonal content is leaving resulting in a more dense sound.

Of course you have to be careful as things can get muddy quick. I work with a mix engineer (Count/Mikael Eldridge) who does wonders carving a space out for everything and cleaning my usually pretty messy mixes up.

Hope that helps good luck!

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Sound methodology. This is pretty much how I went about it minus the Gearslutz parts (either it didn't yet exist or I wasn't aware of it at the time).

I think sites like these are important, and just as important are experienced musicians / engineers sharing their accumulated knowledge with a new generation of artists. It should be just like any other trade, everyone working together to further the art form. Not everyone can intern at a studio or has access to education. The internet and the people on it can be a huge resource. I spent so much time learning in a vacuum the technical aspects of recording that it took years to be able to properly express the ideas I had all along. But I guess that's part of the process, like washing the fence in karate kid. For me personally the engineering / recording / production side of things is a big part of the art form, but I'd imagine there are a lot of young people coming up who just want to cut to the chase and make their ideas sound as good as possible without a decade of trial and error.

Also I don't really believe in the whole "if I share my secrets than everyone can do what I do and it will put me out of a job" line of reasoning. If I really believed the value of my work was just the sum total of a bunch of tricks and techniques I had developed or picked up along the way I wouldn't be making music.

I used to lecture a lot on graphic design; I'd talk about process and technique; break down my work and show how I did everything. I noticed that a lot of the students would end up emulating the work very soon after. But the talented ones with vision would soon move on, using the ideas and techniques as a framework for developing their own. I was always amazed to see how they evolved and then outright changed what they had learned to create brand new works that were wholly their own.