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I am a college student looking to get into composition. I have some background in music theory (13 years of classical piano as a child will do that) but no real experience with electronic music; indeed, the thing that gravitates me to these tools is that they seem to be my best bet to compose and create anything. I am willing to spend around $500 on this for now. I'd be gratified to hear any advice you all have, and have two questions in particular. I have a big keyboard borrowed from a friend, a Yamaha Portable Grand (76 keys). It does talk to computers, but of course it is huge and therefore a bit unwieldy---am I going to want to buy something smaller as a MIDI controller? The whole systems-within-systems process of purchasing a DAW and then getting a bunch of VSTs for it is intimidating to me, and is scaring me off. I'd love to have a self-contained system I don't have to worry about, especially since, new to this as I am, I don't think I am going to need more than is in any one program for quite awhile. Because of this, my current inclination is to instead buy Reason. Am I going to regret this? Is Reason only capable of doing a certain kind of sound? I'm going into this with no real inclinations as to what sort of sound I'm looking for; is Reason going to limit me?
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Oct 14, 2010 19:05
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| # ? May 25, 2024 13:08 |
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Reason is extremely versatile and if you're looking for a self-contained package then it's a good choice. You can't do proper granular/spectral processing but that's about the only thing that's missing. If you have room for your big keyboard then I don't see any reason not to use it. You may want to get a controller with some knobs, buttons and sliders but that's up to you to decide if you need it.
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Oct 14, 2010 19:26
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I think Ableton Live Studio will do everything you need, without locking you into the Reason box, so if you want to use VSTs later and expand with other software, it'll be easier. The instruments will do what you need, even if the interface for them isn't as shiny.
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Oct 14, 2010 20:39
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nrook posted:I am a college student looking to get into composition. I have some background in music theory (13 years of classical piano as a child will do that) but no real experience with electronic music; indeed, the thing that gravitates me to these tools is that they seem to be my best bet to compose and create anything. I am willing to spend around $500 on this for now. I'd be gratified to hear any advice you all have, and have two questions in particular. You might like Logic - it has a very, very nice set of included instruments, including some pretty good piano samples, an awesome clavinet, organ, rhodes, and sample-based instruments, amongst other things. Besides that, I recently upgraded to Ableton Suite, and I love it as well. I wouldn't recommend Reason personally. But then again, I absolutely hate it.
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Oct 14, 2010 20:55
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There is nothing scary about systems within systems. The only thing that may be bothersome is the choice. Logic needs AU plugins, the rest of the planet uses VST except ProTools which has RTAS. The commercial offerings are cross-platform. There's just a shitload of plugins that are really neat; on the other hand the good ones all have decent demo versions. Even the virtually all the big DAWs come with a whole set of plugins - though you usually need the premium package for that (Live Suite, Logic Pro, etc. ). With Reason - which is arguably neat - you'll run into limits when you want to use audio. Which - for every DAW that isn't Record - will lead you back to square one, because Rewiring is also system-in-system. Go check some trial versions, see how far you get. Laserjet 4P fucked around with this message at 21:26 on Oct 14, 2010 |
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Oct 14, 2010 21:24
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Seconding reason no ableton/logic yes. although logic can be a beast to operate and learn for a novice, daunting even - but that will pass soon enough. I think its capabilities more than make up for it.
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Oct 15, 2010 00:31
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Twiin posted:White Zombie used old ACID loops. An embarrassing amount of dance hits are synth presets. As it turns out, though, the song is more than the sum of it's parts. At least if you do it right. I know of one one that uses a bone stock Roland MC-505 sound (a Rammstein song), and another that uses one of the stock Korg Wavestation presets (a TaTu song). This is among the reasons why I hate hate hate big workstation synths that come loaded with a ton of mostly mediocre presets and no easy way to create new sounds on them. It encourages lazy producers to just use the same stock presets over and over again. These lazy shits just go out and buy the latest Triton/Fantom/Motif flavour of the week, and then 6 months later you start hearing those same poo poo presets on everything. KryonikMessiah posted:Amen. I wish more people would stop thinking that having more disposable income than another person makes their opinion loving count more. I'm pretty sure his comment had nothing to do with a person's budget and a lot to do with how lazy they are about actually doing their own work vs. dialing up preset # 56 of whatever generic workstation synth you have sitting in front of you and slapping a 3 note melody over the top of some generic canned samples. It's pretty galling to see people like that making bank while actual artists who put a lot of work into their craft labour in obscurity. You can be just as lazy and worthless with a $2500 Fantom as you can with a copy of Acid and a $50 sample CD.
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Oct 15, 2010 00:45
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HotCanadianChick posted:I know of one one that uses a bone stock Roland MC-505 sound (a Rammstein song), and another that uses one of the stock Korg Wavestation presets (a TaTu song). Yeah, I felt like kind of a prick when I went and remembered that comment later. Shouldn't post while tired. But I don't think using a oneshot drum sample is a bad thing, myself. Just saying. I agree, though, i'm by far sick of hearing the Korg Triton.
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Oct 15, 2010 02:17
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nrook posted:I am a college student looking to get into composition.
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Oct 15, 2010 02:19
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Reality Is Digital posted:My best piece of advice for you is try before you buy. If it has a demo, use the demo until it expires. Demo everything as much as you can before you have to commit to it. If someone's recommending you a piece of software, get to really know it before you spend money on it. Learn its limitations and capabilities, why it's good and bad. That way you're making a truly informed decision. So much of this stuff is completely subjective that only you can really know what the best route to go is. For example, Ableton Live has a pretty generous demo. Many people have said you should check out this program, so check out the demo to see why they like it. This is great advice. The biggest reason(haw haw) to try out different DAWs is to see what their workflow is like. Any given program is going to be extremely versatile, so there's no need to be worried about being "boxed in". However, you might keep plugging away with Reason because you think it's more suitable to your needs, when your style is better suited to Live or Cubase. Incidentally this is exactly what I did, clinging to Reason then FL Studio before finally getting into Live and realizing I was way more productive with it. Try everything, find out what works best for you, go from there.
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Oct 15, 2010 03:21
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So, using most of the knowledge I've gotten from these very threads, here's a Hot Chip remix I made for a contest. http://soundcloud.com/thevandalsquad/hot-chip-we-have-love-the-vandal-squad-remix I know, my mixing and mastering suck  I still have no idea how to use compressors properly and everything to get that clean sound i want, but I figured I would post it here for criticism!
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Oct 15, 2010 04:10
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GbrushTwood posted:So, using most of the knowledge I've gotten from these very threads, here's a Hot Chip remix I made for a contest. The most obvious thing that stands out to me is that many of the sounds are panned to the farthest extremes of left and right in this mix. Learn to fiddle with your pan knobs and play with the stereo width of different elements. Some really important elements (e.g. your bass line) might sit dead center mono, a few things might end up at the extremes, but on the whole most songs tend towards a balanced stereo image, both in terms of balancing left and right and center and extremes.
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Oct 15, 2010 09:23
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So if I am panning hi hats and such, the best thing I should do is just slightly pan them to the left and right? Also, what is a good way to bring that bassline out to the front? I know its going to be a long answer, but I've eq'ed everything on that track to try to make space for the bass, and I even had to throw a high threshold on the sidechain to make more room for the bass, but it still doesn't come forward, or is "big" enough for what I am aiming for. Is this all in the compression and what not?
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Oct 15, 2010 09:38
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GbrushTwood posted:So if I am panning hi hats and such, the best thing I should do is just slightly pan them to the left and right? As a followup to what I just said I wouldn't be surprised if you're getting some phase issues on your bassline, too. If, as an experiment, you just take the left or right channel of your bassline and pan it straight at 12 o'clock (and drop the other channel entirely for the moment), does it sound any better?
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Oct 15, 2010 10:03
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parade posted:As a followup to what I just said I wouldn't be surprised if you're getting some phase issues on your bassline, too. If, as an experiment, you just take the left or right channel of your bassline and pan it straight at 12 o'clock (and drop the other channel entirely for the moment), does it sound any better? I double checked, and the bass synth was panned dead center, and there was a utility tool in there (Ableton user) to make sure that the bass was mono. What else can cause a potential bass phasing issue?
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Oct 15, 2010 10:46
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GbrushTwood posted:I double checked, and the bass synth was panned dead center, and there was a utility tool in there (Ableton user) to make sure that the bass was mono. What else can cause a potential bass phasing issue? Here's a quick example: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9620/Stereo-Mono-Left.mp3 (Stereo, mono sum, then just left channel) When summed it seems there's almost a low-pass on everything. Is there any sort of short delay or reverb that's being used? A stereo widener?
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Oct 15, 2010 18:24
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Ah! Thats what it is, there was a slight reverb thrown on it, and in the master channel I had some plugins like Izotope Ozone with a harmonic exciter and a stereo widener turned on. How should I go about approaching this? I can definitely hear the phasing issue now that you pointed it out with that clip, but what should I do for future reference so I don't run into these kind of issues again? Thanks again for all the help!
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Oct 15, 2010 21:18
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Yoozer posted:There is nothing scary about systems within systems. Apparently Reason 5 can handle audio- can record bits and bobs into the NN19 and NNXt, though really you would need the Reason/Record double pack for full functionality. I used to be a diehard Reason user, but I caught the Live bug and barely touch Reason at all now...
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Oct 15, 2010 22:01
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I never use reason by itself anymore, but I find Reason 3 - 4 to have a really cool overall sound when used in conjunction with a DAW....kind of cheap and gritty in a neat way. It's my go-to tool for midrange justic-ey distorto-synths. Reason 5 sounds too clean and 'professional' in comparison, I'm not going to upgrade.
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Oct 16, 2010 00:33
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GbrushTwood posted:Ah! Thats what it is, there was a slight reverb thrown on it, and in the master channel I had some plugins like Izotope Ozone with a harmonic exciter and a stereo widener turned on. How should I go about approaching this? I can definitely hear the phasing issue now that you pointed it out with that clip, but what should I do for future reference so I don't run into these kind of issues again? Thanks again for all the help! Avoid anything that can cause a delay/time difference between the left and right channel of the bass. When a sound is playing through the left and right channel at slightly different times, the waveforms can sometimes hit a point where the waveform on one side is 180 degrees opposite phase of the other side, this results in cancellation of a lot of the frequencies in either signal. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_noise_cancellation Phase cancellation is how electronic active noise reduction works - it uses a microphone to detect outside sounds, then sends the same sound, shifted 180 degrees out of phase, through the speakers. Phase cancellation is more noticeable on lower frequencies (higher frequencies tend to have unpredictable interactions due to phase difference), so it's most noticeable on bass. In short, don't get too creative with chorus/delay/stereo expanders on bass. The human ear can't really directionalize bass frequencies anyways, so unless you're hearing it on headphones, it's generally going to sound mono regardless of how you effect it.
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Oct 16, 2010 02:03
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place fucked around with this message at 05:06 on Feb 10, 2017 |
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Oct 16, 2010 02:07
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wacky posted:I hate to be that guy who does this, but I feel like this got lost in the flow of the last page. Sorry One thing that's irking me--the pad that is autopanning in the background is either falling out of sync or just not really jiving with the beat, in my opinion. I'm getting the sensation of it lagging behind where it ought to be.
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Oct 16, 2010 02:22
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HotCanadianChick posted:
Awesome, thanks for the advice. What do you recommend I do if I was going to throw the stereo expander on the master? I like the way it brings the majority of the song out, should I just make a dummy track and run every channel except the bass, through it?
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Oct 16, 2010 03:31
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GbrushTwood posted:Awesome, thanks for the advice. What do you recommend I do if I was going to throw the stereo expander on the master? I like the way it brings the majority of the song out, should I just make a dummy track and run every channel except the bass, through it? Make an aux bus (or however your DAW handles FX busses) and put all the channels except the bass through it, then send the output + bass through to the rest of your end chain (compression/etc). Expanders/exciters are something that's generally better used on individual channels rather than a whole mix anyways, at least IMO. The only 'global' effect I usually put across the entire mix is a multiband compressor to tighten up the whole mix a bit. All my other effects are either on a single channel, or a couple channels together (usually groups of similar instruments, since I often layer multiple instruments playing the same part to get a thicker sound).
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Oct 16, 2010 04:05
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Are there any IRC/Chats in which people that produce music gather? I would love to talk to people about this stuff!
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Oct 16, 2010 04:10
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I would like to know this as well... are there any goons on here that could do some sort of mixing/mastering class to help noobs like me understand how to use compression and the sort better to end up with good sounding mixes? Even if there was a goon offering some sort of mixing/mastering service at a fee, this would be something I would be interested in as well
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Oct 16, 2010 05:51
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place fucked around with this message at 05:06 on Feb 10, 2017 |
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Oct 16, 2010 06:00
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Anyone have a basic idea/guess of how to make the "electric kazoo" noise in this Afrojack track? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ti-39pAqel8 Starts at 2:12.
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Oct 17, 2010 09:20
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1 oscillator, shape sawtooth 1 LFO, downwards sawtooth shape Modulation slot 1: keytracking routed to rate (higher note = higher rate) Modulation slot 2: LFO output routed towards oscillator 1 pitch, adjust amount for intensity Voicing: portamento on, monophonic mode on It depends of course on what you want to use to emulate it with.
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Oct 17, 2010 11:40
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 Old trip hop track of mine I recently used some analog gear on to warm up. Well aware of the structure issues, may re-write it someday  . Just sharing it because I can basically and someone may enjoy it.
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Oct 17, 2010 18:13
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So I just finished one of my first electronic tracks. Let me know what you all think http://soundcloud.com/irpat/towhatwillcome
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Oct 17, 2010 19:59
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I think it sounds cool. I like the hard dirty electro sound you achieve. Kind of reminds me of Boys Noize.
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Oct 18, 2010 01:39
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNiHLp31koY Not sure what to categorize this as. It has somewhat frenetic drums and lots of samples.
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Oct 18, 2010 06:41
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I recently finished my first try at something dubsteppy in Reason. Tell me what you think
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Oct 18, 2010 20:14
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I am not really new to music, however I am new to making it on a laptop using all these VSTs, DAWs and other fancy abbreviations. Until now I have used a few DAWs to simply record guitar and such, however as currently I will be separated from most of my instruments for several months, I thought it would do me good to find something out about making stuff purely on the computer. Since I do not have a MIDI controller (nor do I intend to buy one), I was wondering if it is possible to use some musical score editor instead? If I am not mistaken then it should be trivial to pipe the MIDI output from a score editor through something like the Kore player and then record the result in Ableton Live or Reaper?
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Oct 18, 2010 21:06
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Penisface posted:I am not really new to music, however I am new to making it on a laptop using all these VSTs, DAWs and other fancy abbreviations. Until now I have used a few DAWs to simply record guitar and such, however as currently I will be separated from most of my instruments for several months, I thought it would do me good to find something out about making stuff purely on the computer. Since I do not have a MIDI controller (nor do I intend to buy one), I was wondering if it is possible to use some musical score editor instead? Yeah that's a thing you can do.
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Oct 18, 2010 21:29
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Penisface posted:I am not really new to music, however I am new to making it on a laptop using all these VSTs, DAWs and other fancy abbreviations. Until now I have used a few DAWs to simply record guitar and such, however as currently I will be separated from most of my instruments for several months, I thought it would do me good to find something out about making stuff purely on the computer. Since I do not have a MIDI controller (nor do I intend to buy one), I was wondering if it is possible to use some musical score editor instead? You can edit MIDI directly in Ableton (or any DAW, really) without a controller.
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Oct 18, 2010 21:30
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So long as it can export a midi file, and I cant see why it wouldnt be able to. I think the better solution would be to open the kore player vst in ableton and bring the midi into there.
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Oct 18, 2010 21:30
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Uhm live and reason has a score editor?
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Oct 18, 2010 22:00
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I was wondering if someone could give me a quick rundown on how to achieve something akin to this. Would be much appreciated. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cu4NNBlKogE&p=60A4B910D7010CAB&playnext=1&index=27 It's on the complete other spectrum to what I usually produce, but it intrigues me.
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Oct 19, 2010 07:03
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