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LowFatCannibal posted:This is the first draft of a song I was working on yesterday and today. Just posting the finished version of the tune in this post. http://www.zshare.net/audio/5431581576c665b8/
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Jan 18, 2009 20:30
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Yoozer posted:Thanks a bunch, all of this is very helpful. It seems I'm limited a lot by garageband, which I kinda expected. Hopefully I can afford Logic pretty soon.
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Jan 18, 2009 20:57
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Motorball posted:The DAW I use is FL8. There's the problem  That 1:09 thing needs to be reworked. It's a cool idea for something like that to happen, but it just sounds wonky as it is. I feel like it needs to come in slower or something it just doesn't sit well with me. Maybe more release on it to make it spacier? I'm just throwing out ideas. The track gets a little complicated at 2:30 with both leads playing at once. It feels like they're fighting for the same space. mit_senf posted:Thanks a bunch, all of this is very helpful. It seems I'm limited a lot by garageband, which I kinda expected. Hopefully I can afford Logic pretty soon. Last time I checked, Logic was $150 if you're a student. PRADA SLUT fucked around with this message at 00:28 on Jan 19, 2009 |
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Jan 19, 2009 00:18
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Kai was taken posted:Last time I checked, Logic was $150 if you're a student. A student where? I was looking at the discount for NYU and it's $450.
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Jan 19, 2009 00:53
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Kai was taken posted:That 1:09 thing needs to be reworked. It's a cool idea for something like that to happen, but it just sounds wonky as it is. I feel like it needs to come in slower or something it just doesn't sit well with me. Maybe more release on it to make it spacier? I'm just throwing out ideas.
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Jan 19, 2009 00:55
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Altoidss posted:A student where? I was looking at the discount for NYU and it's $450. He means Logic Express, which is more than enough for most people (it has almost all of Logic's features, minus some of the more complex synths and mainstage etc).
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Jan 19, 2009 01:12
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Is it ok to put a limiter on the master fader?
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Jan 19, 2009 02:42
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A MIRACLE posted:Is it ok to put a limiter on the master fader? It's an invitation to lots of bad habits. Leave the master fader alone and mix everything to about -6dB on the master channel.
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Jan 19, 2009 02:46
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Kai was taken posted:There's the problem If you're in the uk and not in a uni the apple student discount is pretty dire, on a macbook pro and logic 8 I saved about £200 if that. Whats the percent in the US?
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Jan 19, 2009 03:02
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h_double posted:It's an invitation to lots of bad habits. Yeah.. if you're getting it professionally mastered you should do that. If you're like the rest of us who are forced to/like to master our own stuff then a limiter on your master channel is extremely common and useful!
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Jan 19, 2009 04:30
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I Dig Gardening posted:Yeah.. if you're getting it professionally mastered you should do that. If you're like the rest of us who are forced to/like to master our own stuff then a limiter on your master channel is extremely common and useful! How is it "useful"? If you are overdriving your master channel, you are losing punch, depth, detail, space and dynamic range in your track, all in ways you have no direct control over. If your track isn't loud or exciting enough, why not turn up your monitors instead of overdriving your master channel? If the final mix doesn't sound loud enough, that's what mastering is for, even if your "mastering" is just normalizing your final .wav file in Audacity. One of the most important and useful lessons I've learned about mixing and producing music is that less is more. Don't think in terms of what to boost to make a mix better, think in terms of what levels and frequencies you can cut. Learn to use EQ and compression on a case by case basis, don't expect some master limiter plugin to take up the slack. This article expands on this idea with a lot more detail.
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Jan 19, 2009 06:35
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A MIRACLE posted:Is it ok to put a limiter on the master fader? Yes and no. It's okay to use it as a preview-tool to see what your mix will end up sounding like once you've mixed it properly. It's not okay to use it when you're mixing your track, because it gives you an unreal idea of how the track actually sounds. What I do is to use a limiter when I'm working on anything but the mix. Then when I start mixing my tracks I'll turn the limiter off, reset all my levels and turn up the speakers and start mixing. When that's done, the limiter is still off and I either have the choice of getting it professionally mastered or making a master myself, which includes a limiter anyways.
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Jan 19, 2009 07:13
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squidgee posted:He means Logic Express, which is more than enough for most people (it has almost all of Logic's features, minus some of the more complex synths and mainstage etc). Actually, I mean Logic Pro, including everything like Mainstage and Soundtrack Pro 2. For the record, I directly called the rep for San Jose State University.
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Jan 19, 2009 09:29
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A MIRACLE posted:Is it ok to put a limiter on the master fader? By default, my news sets load with one on and engaged. It's a lifesaver when you're trying to sound design or whatever, as often unexpected things will happen, like your drum machine is going to make that crash way, way too loud. Once the mix starts though, the limiter gets shut off. (Although I do engage a mastering chain once the mix is in its final stages. PRADA SLUT fucked around with this message at 09:37 on Jan 19, 2009 |
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Jan 19, 2009 09:31
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h_double posted:How is it "useful"? This. A lot of home recording types love the maximizer on the master fader practice and it's the worst. It's the type of practice that lead to loudness wars to begin with and it destroys dynamics. That as well as the fact that people use the word mastering wrong all of the time. And 9 times out of 10, mastering is best left done to another engineer who has fresh ears. Learning to mix quietly is another lesson I learned to be very useful in order to retain more sonic detail.
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Jan 19, 2009 16:22
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I'm reposting something I wrote on a different forum about this, because it fits here:quote:To get that "loud" sound, you have to balance the mix well (and it doesn't really matter for that at which level you do it, although it makes sense to use something that doesn't clip - I usually mix to a target of -6dB). Having your instruments at a balanced level with nothing breaking out in terms of raw sample value will allow you to turn it up higher later on without going into clipping. This is the part that's absolutely critical to get right. If you want to be scientific about it, do a mixdown of your track at the volume you mixed it, then check the resulting WAV's statistics: what's the highest value in there? If necessary, go back into the mix and change instruments that have peaks that do not correspond to their importance or perceived volume (for instance, if you have a vocal sample which has very loud sibilants that come out of the mix like mountains from a plain in the waveform display, you can turn those sibilants down without much effort, changing nothing in the rest of the mix yet still giving yourself much more headroom to work with later.) I can, before the final mixdown, simply raise the volume by the amount of headroom i had in my untreated mix. That gives me a non-clipping, maxed-out mixdown with the highest dynamic range. The next step is limiting, and that's not as formulaic and very much driven by your preferences so I'll not do a quick tutorial here, sorry. Hope this helps.
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Jan 19, 2009 16:50
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I'd like to buckle down on a softsynth to do all my learning, but I'm not sure which. I want something that'll put everything in front of me, is legible, doesn't hide ridiculous filters behind pages and tabs, and when I finally get enough skill, will be able to produce a decent sound from. Money is no object.
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Jan 20, 2009 03:06
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fret logic posted:I'd like to buckle down on a softsynth to do all my learning, but I'm not sure which. I want something that'll put everything in front of me, is legible, doesn't hide ridiculous filters behind pages and tabs, and when I finally get enough skill, will be able to produce a decent sound from. Money is no object. Rob Papen's Albino 3 is my go-to synth for many of these same reasons. The interface is nicely designed and easy to navigate, while it's still a really capable and pro-sounding synth. It also comes with a large library of high quality presets. h_double fucked around with this message at 04:42 on Jan 20, 2009 |
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Jan 20, 2009 04:38
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Albino 3 is good, and I really like surge too. It's really flexible in that you can modulate basically any parameter. You could create really crazy sounds if you went in depth with it.
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Jan 20, 2009 04:56
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fret logic posted:I'd like to buckle down on a softsynth to do all my learning, but I'm not sure which. Synth1 of course  quote:I want something that'll put everything in front of me, is legible, doesn't hide ridiculous filters behind pages and tabs My vote goes to NI Massive.
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Jan 20, 2009 07:58
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h_double posted:Rob Papen's Albino 3 is my go-to synth for many of these same reasons. The interface is nicely designed and easy to navigate, while it's still a really capable and pro-sounding synth. It also comes with a large library of high quality presets. I have a question about Albino. One of my favourite dnb bands, Noisia, has done a preset bank for Albino, but I don't know what it sounds like. I downloaded the demo but there are no presets explicitly made by Noisia. Would any of you kind Albino-owning souls mind posting mp3s of the sounds in the Noisia soundbank?
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Jan 20, 2009 08:04
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Yoozer posted:Synth1 of course I agree with both of these! Synth1 is very good, because you have everything right in front of you. The ease of use is both a blessing and a curse, because it's a good beginner's synth, but you may have some trouble using the more complex synths from the get go. Massive is very good if you want to dive deep into synthesizers and synthesis because it allows you to route all kinds of stuff to all kinds of places. It sounds awesome, too! So I'd say start off with Synth1 to cover the basics. When you understand how it works (not how to use it) you could switch to Massive. Other good alternatives for complex synthesis are (imho) z3ta+ and Surge.
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Jan 20, 2009 09:28
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nugget of poo posted:I have a question about Albino. One of my favourite dnb bands, Noisia, has done a preset bank for Albino, but I don't know what it sounds like. I downloaded the demo but there are no presets explicitly made by Noisia. Would any of you kind Albino-owning souls mind posting mp3s of the sounds in the Noisia soundbank? There are about 20-30 patches in the Noisia bank and most of them are really good, ranging from pads to basses to tech/industrial type effects. Most of them have interesting modulation wheel effects, and it wouldn't be too helpful to just post a bunch of one-note clips, so here is a little demo track that I just threw together, which is nothing but Noisia presets and a couple of stock drum loops (with no effects or anything added).
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Jan 20, 2009 09:59
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Massive is probably too complicated to try and learn from scratch on. I wish I had my synthesis article still up, I'd link that. I actually learned most by using SubTractor (Reason). It's fairly straightforward. Once you learn one synth, it's really easy to pick up anything else, just a matter of figuring out where all the buttons are. Halo posted:It's the type of practice that lead to loudness wars to begin with and it destroys dynamics. No. Don't try to inject that bullshit argument here. The fact is that if you're mixing with 5db of dynamic range, putting your mix at 0 or -10 isn't going to magically give you more range. The only reason to leave your mix lower than 0 is if you plan on doing another stage down the line (mastering, normalizing) to cinch up the headroom. wayfinder posted:I'm reposting something I wrote on a different forum about this, because it fits here: I'm going to try this on an older mix of mine and A/B it. It sounds interesting. PRADA SLUT fucked around with this message at 13:05 on Jan 20, 2009 |
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Jan 20, 2009 12:59
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fret logic posted:I'd like to buckle down on a softsynth to do all my learning, but I'm not sure which. I want something that'll put everything in front of me, is legible, doesn't hide ridiculous filters behind pages and tabs, and when I finally get enough skill, will be able to produce a decent sound from. Money is no object. Rob Papen instruments. Namely, Predator or Albino. Also, I would recommend something like the Novation V-Station. It is a ridiculously easy to learn subtractive synthesizer and if you get really good with it, you will have that type of synthesis down. I would then say learn Native Instruments FM7 (maybe FM8) to learn about how FM synthesis works. I always say go for the dedicated type of synths, as opposed to all in one kind of synths. It just makes learning a lot easier in learning the fundamentals of the type of synthesis, not just an interface to a bunch of different kinds of synthesis. Kai was taken posted:No. Don't try to inject that bullshit argument here. Well I certainly said none of that, but it's a good point none the less. Of course, if you are advocating slamming tracks with a maximizer then ok, just do that. The fact is that dumping your whole mix through a compressor isn't going to make it sound better. You just shouldn't have to do that. That is all I am saying about that. Halo fucked around with this message at 16:51 on Jan 20, 2009 |
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Jan 20, 2009 16:44
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Halo posted:
Gonna have to agree with this. V-Station is awesome; simple and flexible. My "MUST LEARN A SYNTH NOW NO MATTER WHAT" of choice was impOSCar, which also falls into the easy GUI category, but has some pretty cool extra features as well. Sounds fantastic too.
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Jan 20, 2009 16:54
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Quincy Smallvoice posted:My "MUST LEARN A SYNTH NOW NO MATTER WHAT" of choice was impOSCar, which also falls into the easy GUI category, but has some pretty cool extra features as well. Sounds fantastic too. +1 OSCar is totally awesome vintage style synth. Boards of Canada have a real one. And very easy to understand.
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Jan 20, 2009 18:02
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I made an app awhile back that does something very similar to the software in this video, the "cheater keyboard": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sqe2rPm8QkE For those too lazy to follow the link, it's basically a program that turns your computer keyboard into a device that, when set to a particular key, will only play notes in that key. This means you can randomly bang on the keyboard and nothing will sound out of tune. You can download my take on it here: http://nil.cjb.net/code/geektar-0.0.2.zip It is extremely rough and minimal, just a black box which you focus on to enable it. It comes with a readme for an idea of what the keys do. You need some software to enable virtual midi ports (like Maple midi port or whatever it's called), and keep the first one open. I think it's quite useful, because I don't properly know how to play a keyboard. It's still better to get a MIDI controller keyboard (with the cheater keyboard you lose velocity and a lot of other 'expressive' data), but for the super-poor or those who want to bang out "chunes" now rather than AFTER they learn some scales, it's great. I'm betting there are people like me who were turned off to music education as kids, but became interested in making techno and frustrated that they can't play a melody worth half a poo poo. If I ever had a reason to, I could make a mac version using py2app. nihilocrat fucked around with this message at 17:49 on Jan 21, 2009 |
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Jan 21, 2009 17:42
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h_double posted:There are about 20-30 patches in the Noisia bank and most of them are really good, ranging from pads to basses to tech/industrial type effects. Most of them have interesting modulation wheel effects, and it wouldn't be too helpful to just post a bunch of one-note clips, so here is a little demo track that I just threw together, which is nothing but Noisia presets and a couple of stock drum loops (with no effects or anything added). Thanks, now I have a pretty good idea of what's involved 
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Jan 21, 2009 22:57
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nihilocrat posted:I made an app awhile back that does something very similar to the software in this video, the "cheater keyboard": You could also just transpose your synth or MIDI controller so that the key of the song is transposed to C on the keyboard (e.g. transpose +7 semitones for the key of G) and stick to playing the white keys. If you're using Ableton Live, you can use the "Scale" MIDI effect to do the same (and a bunch of other interesting tricks). And there's always Autotune.
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Jan 22, 2009 00:49
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hey guys, my first post in this thread, although I've read the whole goddamn thing. I'm already a musician, so the theory and what have you for electronic music is pretty easy, I know what i want to make, but I cant even get my poo poo to work with the software, so thats where I'm thinking I'm having issues. The op says to start all you need is the daw, more or less. I starting running cakewalk, but i was having some technical issues with it, so now I have cubase. My gear that I've got plugged in is a korg dig piano, the sp250, and this tiny edirol midi thing, that takes the xlr to usb. I'm guessing i just need different equipment, cause i can record a track off the piano, but when adding effects, none seem to work, I dont know how to add in a beat, and the vst's dotn seem to do anything to the tracks ive recorded. All in all, every track just plays back as a tinny piano track on the computer. I need to play with the software a little more, but I'm borrowing reason tonight to tamper with, I might have more luck with that. Primarily though, am I just going to see problems with my keyboard and this edirol connecter, should i get something a little better like a synth for midi? I know i sound like an idiot, but I've honestly spent a number of hours trying to figure it out.
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Jan 22, 2009 05:09
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It doesn't seem like your problem is with your gear, it sounds like like a software issue. Whether this is because there is some fault with the software or you're using it incorrectly is hard to say without more info. The best thing to do I think would be to go in depth one issue at a time posting your process and screenshots if possible. It takes a long time to figure this stuff out and the smallest thing can mess everything up.
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Jan 22, 2009 05:29
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My guess it incorrect usage. It sounds to me like the software is playing back only from the MIDI engine, like it's not seeing the VST or it's not engaged or set properly. I don't use Cubase so I couldn't tell you exactly.
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Jan 22, 2009 06:06
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Well, i always thought it might have something to do with that edirol device, but when i get reason installed I'll play the hell out of it. I was gonna pick up a microkorg and play with that near months end so I'll see if that helps too. But being software and not knowing the ins and outs of it makes more sense. Its just frustrating when something that seems so simple just fucks around with you and you get 9 piano tracks playing over each other. Even the beats I've created will play back in piano. wtf
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Jan 22, 2009 06:19
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Sir Braden posted:Well, i always thought it might have something to do with that edirol device, but when i get reason installed I'll play the hell out of it. I was gonna pick up a microkorg and play with that near months end so I'll see if that helps too. You could switch software suites, unless you're married to Cubase or it has some features you can't live without.
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Jan 22, 2009 06:25
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worked on that track a little more! added a harpsichord break and fine tuned some poo poo http://www.sendspace.com/file/moim5a let me know what you think!!!
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Jan 22, 2009 07:48
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Sir Braden posted:Well, i always thought it might have something to do with that edirol device, but when i get reason installed I'll play the hell out of it. I was gonna pick up a microkorg and play with that near months end so I'll see if that helps too. See this?  Click on it And select your instrument for that miditrack.  And then you sit down and read the manual, where this is fully covered.
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Jan 22, 2009 08:10
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trill rear end posted:worked on that track a little more! added a harpsichord break and fine tuned some poo poo It sounds nice when everything gets going in the break. Kinda like Dracula's Theme or something is the feeling it gets across. It has atmosphere. I would maybe vary the notes a little or add a low pass and some res. automation on that harpsichord for acid squelching. freaking oscar overdrives so good. You inspired me to make an electro track and now my water faucet turning on and off is my new snare. Good Work man.
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Jan 22, 2009 17:12
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Keep in mind you can also call up Steinberg and ask them. Most software comes with support like that.
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Jan 22, 2009 18:17
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If on Cubase 4, also search "jrrshop cubase" on youtube (some/most of it is applicable to 3 also).
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