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wayfinder posted:Thanks All your stuff is good as hell, do you have any stuff released?
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Dec 2, 2013 20:50
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Thanks! I've got two tracks signed, one was supposed to be released in summer but things happened (or rather they didn't)...
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Dec 2, 2013 22:03
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Sooooo I realized I have a bit of a problem: That's post compression. Anyone have any good advice for making good layered kicks that don't have weird issues like that one? That's just 909 lows with a 707 on top and a shaker on top of that.
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Dec 3, 2013 07:35
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Blowdryer posted:^wayfinder you're too good at everything. I think it's really cool, very jacking! The organ that comes in around 0:55 does sound a bit weird and weak before you open it up at 1:30, it gets lost in the bass, but you did say it wasn't fully mixed yet. All your stuff is cool and I wish i was as good at making stuff "groovy" as you.  Do you have any tips on drums/percussion? How do you usually go about composing a track? Anyway, took the feedback to heart and redid the bassline and vocals for this: https://soundcloud.com/addec/been-a-long-time Any critique would be nice, in particular about the mix! WAFFLEHOUND posted:Sooooo I realized I have a bit of a problem: Have you tried tweaking the individual layers' volume? aeverous fucked around with this message at 20:45 on Dec 3, 2013 |
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Dec 3, 2013 20:43
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Yup, the kick rapidly gets too quiet to hear, it's weird.
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Dec 3, 2013 22:15
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If the 909 kick on its own is almost nothing but low end energy, it's not weird that it seems to disappear if you turn it down. It requires a lot of energy for low frequencies to be audible. I'm not sure what inherent problem I'm supposed to see in your screenshot of a spectrum analyzer. It doesn't seem like something you wouldn't be able to fix with some equalizing or a multiband compressor even. The least you can do is highpass it a bit to get rid of some of the more useless stuff below 50-60Hz (before compression). Do I understand it right that you're using the top of a 707 kick as the 'click'? Maybe you need to replace that or complement that with a whiff of something that has more stuff going on in the 200-400Hz range. Acoustic kick samples usually have a bunch of that. Having the appropriate content in the lower midrange can allow you to turn down the bass part a bit without noticing as much. It's what tricks your brain in thinking there's a kick when playing music on laptop speakers, even if you can't actually hear the main part of it. If you've got some harmonic exciter plugin that lets you focus on the bass frequencies only, that might work as well for making the bass part seem loud without actually using up too much energy in the mix. Waves MaxxBass works on this principle. Some kinds of distortion can sort of emulate that effect. Anyway, just throwing some ideas out there, maybe some of them work for you.
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Dec 4, 2013 00:01
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I threw together a couple of tunes for a minimix for a radio show/podcast I am producing with some of my students. They all ended up a little more proof-of-concept than I had hoped, but I would love some criticism. I have a terrible time with arrangement, especially keeping things under like 7 minutes. Anyway, hope you enjoy. This one in particular I really had fun with, was shooting for sort of a throwback sound. I feel like some of the elements are a still a little thick, but who knows. https://soundcloud.com/selfishdudes/got-the-love
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Dec 4, 2013 01:07
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Goddamn, some great stuff lately thread.Blowdryer posted:^wayfinder you're too good at everything. Awesome rythms in this one. In the first segment, I feel like there could be more separation between the bassline and the electric piano/synthy thing. I love the classic filtered chord thing that comes in for the second drop. The transitions are pretty minimal but I think it works for the style. Captain Organ posted:I threw together a couple of tunes for a minimix for a radio show/podcast I am producing with some of my students. They all ended up a little more proof-of-concept than I had hoped, but I would love some criticism. I have a terrible time with arrangement, especially keeping things under like 7 minutes. Anyway, hope you enjoy. This rules - the bassline that drops around 1:20 is immense. Snappy perc throughout, I like it. I get what you mean by thickness - the bass and kick sound low mid(??) heavy compared to released stuff but by no means does this sound bad in the context. I'm gonna repost this because I had it on private when I posted it last time - I guess its tech house, still not really sure on 4/4 genres. Needs more mixing and transistion work, I just stuck a compressor on the master for this WIP. https://soundcloud.com/fieldbalm/bwip E: I don't remember making the bass sidechain so strong, goddamned ear fatigue. Also, please imagine some Sick Edits halfway through the final chorus. field balm fucked around with this message at 01:52 on Dec 4, 2013 |
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Dec 4, 2013 01:47
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aeverous posted:I think it's really cool, very jacking! The organ that comes in around 0:55 does sound a bit weird and weak before you open it up at 1:30, it gets lost in the bass, but you did say it wasn't fully mixed yet. I've changed it up even moreso now but ill edit a link into this post at some point to show you guys. E: https://soundcloud.com/swanconnley/all-night-extended-mix/s-BuHzg I always start with the drums first with a bit of swing on them, I have a huge amount of samples so i just got through and pick what hats snares claps and kicks I like. lately I've been doing a lot of 909 kicks and hats just because of the style I'm going for. I either start off the drums minimally and build them up or I just kinda bring them in with a good amount of energy and maybe change them slightly throughout. I just try to change it up over time to keep it varied but also try to keep the energy. I then come up with a melody with chords on a deep house type of synth or sample idk, that classic sound, there are a lot of different ones but I still havent mastered sound design (or even really begun to understand it) so I unfortunately have to sample or alter presets. Once I get the main melody I go for some basslines and I pick out an acapella I think sounds good. Throw the acapella into virtual dj to detect the key and alter pitch accordingly to the melody I've made. Ghetto music production woo!! I don't really know music theory so everything I do is by ear. But I do look up musical keys so I know what notes to use or not use. Blowdryer fucked around with this message at 14:55 on Dec 5, 2013 |
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Dec 4, 2013 02:11
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Guys I used a computer with SSL Duende and a bunch of Brainworx and AbbeyRoad plugins last night... I don't think I can ever go back to Ableton's built in tools or purely Ozone for mixing and mastering anymore. The Duende SSL is head and shoulders above everything with the exception of Waves, and I'm being exceptionally generous to say that honestly. Guess it's time to auction off the rights to my first borne to afford professional mixing tools.
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Dec 4, 2013 18:32
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Many of the cheaper waves tools are extremely underrated - Rcomp comes to mind. Personally I'd take the waves API pack over Duende, but thats just preference... (also, cheaper...) I wish the comp on the Duende channelstrip was a little...better... Love that gate tho, HP/LP filters are decent, as is the EQ. That said, atleast one of my high profile production buddies use that strip almost exclusively with great success and satisfaction. I'm still waiting for the day when someone releases a really good channelstrip that actually jives with me. The Cubase 7 mixconsole strip comes CLOSE, but its too.. fiddly. And also, I must add a big thumbs up for Limiter No6 that wayfinder posted. It blows away every single commercial plugin I either own or have tried... AND ITS FREE! The compressor from that same site is also top notch. That guy is some kind of weird genius... In other news, Cubase 7.5 was released today with some new stuff... Grabbed it this morning (cheap upgrade from 7...) and it installs, runs, imports settings and loads old projects without any issues. Take a look if you're on the fence!
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Dec 5, 2013 01:57
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https://soundcloud.com/control-volume-1/coolkicks Guess I'll shove this here, would appreciate advice, specifically on the mixing. Control Volume fucked around with this message at 02:24 on Dec 6, 2013 |
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Dec 5, 2013 07:45
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Control Volume posted:http://soundcloud.com/control-volume-1/lousy-bedroom-musician Here is some: don't talk poo poo about yourself in your song title and info. Grain of salt, its your tune do what you want, etc: What vibe are you shooting for? Right now it sounds like you are right on the fence between what could be some really thick, stompy, bass driven techno and something deeper and more progressive. Your kick, snare, and bassline aren't nearly up front enough for the first, and there isn't quite enough progression for the second. Really, the elements are all there, it just needs some drama.
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Dec 5, 2013 19:40
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Captain Organ posted:Here is some: don't talk poo poo about yourself in your song title and info. Speaking of which, how do you all end up naming your songs? I was originally just going to use a dictionary word of the day but for some reason I didn't feel "Bovine" was a good name for a track. quote:What vibe are you shooting for? Right now it sounds like you are right on the fence between what could be some really thick, stompy, bass driven techno and something deeper and more progressive. Your kick, snare, and bassline aren't nearly up front enough for the first, and there isn't quite enough progression for the second.
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Dec 6, 2013 02:29
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Control Volume posted:I didn't really have a vibe to begin with so I suppose that's a problem, the lack of direction was a product of my composition skills being practically nonexistent when I started. When you say that the kick/bassline/etc. aren't up front enough though, every time I tried bringing them forward through EQing or more fiddling with compression or just straight up raising the volume, the kick/snare started overpowering the rest of the track, so I'm curious as how to bring them forward without crushing everything else beneath them. Well, you can do a lot with sidechain compression, especially on your big pads and such. Also try and sidechain any reverb or delay buses/returns to help with clarity. One thing that I wish somebody had told me a long time before I learned it is to eq out everything you DON'T want rather than just boosting the poo poo out of everything you do. Try Hi-passing your pads, leads, percussion, and snares/claps starting at like 300hz (higher or lower is fine, just start somewhere and work your way up). Run an analyzer on every track, you will be shocked how much low frequency information there is in your snares and claps and pads and etc., and how much more room you will have on the low end when you get rid of it.
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Dec 6, 2013 04:22
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Control Volume posted:Speaking of which, how do you all end up naming your songs? I usually pick the last phrase I heard someone say if it would be cool.
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Dec 6, 2013 05:05
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ashgromnies posted:I usually pick the last phrase I heard someone say if it would be cool. I combine random words until I get something technoey
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Dec 6, 2013 05:15
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ashgromnies posted:I usually pick the last phrase I heard someone say if it would be cool. This is mostly how I name songs and mixes. Sometimes a good name comes to me originally and I use that, but most of the time it's a phrase I heard that stuck in my head. Basically the last time I heard something that I thought "That would be a really cool band name/song title". Turns out I make those now so I actually get to use them!
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Dec 6, 2013 05:56
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When people talk about the "click" of a synth drum, what is that exactly? I've seen a tutorial for making a synth kick that has an envelope with 0ms attack, 10ms or something decay, 0% sustain, mapped onto pitch with a scale of 3 octaves. So there's this little bit of high frequency at the beginning that almost immediately disappears. Is that an example of "click"?
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Dec 6, 2013 18:00
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Yeah that's pretty much it. Sounds similar to a 909, maybe a little harsher. It's basically just there to give otherwise bassy, deep drums some definition and ability to pull through the mix on laptops and lovely headphone.
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Dec 6, 2013 20:48
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I think this is Trip-Hop? http://soundcloud.com/stylereese/iron
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Dec 8, 2013 02:18
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Someone called this 'grumpyfunk' and I think thats probably the best word for it  Just wanted to share cos its pretty different. https://soundcloud.com/aneurythm/aneurythm-richter-delivery-1
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Dec 8, 2013 04:40
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ejstheman posted:When people talk about the "click" of a synth drum, what is that exactly? I've seen a tutorial for making a synth kick that has an envelope with 0ms attack, 10ms or something decay, 0% sustain, mapped onto pitch with a scale of 3 octaves. So there's this little bit of high frequency at the beginning that almost immediately disappears. Is that an example of "click"? Yeah, I think that's pretty much it. You can also try achieving that sound with white noise, enveloped in a similar manner but mapped to volume. I made a juke track. Related to the above post, the kick drum in this is a sample of a basketball bounce layered on top of a 808 thump https://soundcloud.com/zmbeats/i-like-it
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Dec 12, 2013 02:39
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What's the advantage of putting high-frequency energy into what's basically a low-frequency instrument? When I hear people talk about mixing tracks for release, it seems like the conventional wisdom is to EQ out stuff like that anyway. Or am I wrong to think of kick/snare/hat as low/medium/high?
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Dec 13, 2013 01:39
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Kicks personally sound good with a LPF as high as 900 Hz depending on style from my experience. The click adds a textural element and can give the kick character and make it more interesting to listen to.
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Dec 13, 2013 02:08
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ejstheman posted:Or am I wrong to think of kick/snare/hat as low/medium/high? So sometimes a kick will have a smidge of meaningful content around 2500Hz or a snare might reach down to 100Hz or something like that and you can completely intentionally keep it like that. If you filter the top of off kicks too aggressively, they all sound like "oomp". Whereas some genres call for "bonk" or "tmmp" or whatever. The information to differentiate between those is all in the mids and even highs. You can use a narrow parametric EQ peak to scroll through the frequency spectrum of different kick sounds to find sometimes surprising clusters of information. Besides, it's a compatibility thing. Someone's going to listen to your music on lovely earbuds or laptop speakers. As kicks are a driving force behind a lot of music, it helps if you leave a hint of what's supposed to be there. I mean, psychoacoustically that apparently actually helps make you imagine the kick that you can't hear.
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Dec 13, 2013 03:05
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Flipperwaldt posted:Statistically each of those will have most of their energy in these respective frequency slots. You're not necessarily supposed to EQ everything away that doesn't fit that mould. You should EQ everything away that you don't need, that doesn't fit your music or conflicts with something that's more important. The psychoacoustic part is really interesting to me. Does that work because you've heard the song on good speakers at least a few times, so you can fill in from memory? For an example, I can clearly hear the sub-bass at 5:53 here on my home stereo, but it's totally inaudible on my cheap car stereo. Like, I think I can hear it when I just press play on the whole thing and I'm jamming out to it while I'm driving and it gets to that part, but if I'm listening carefully and I'm honest with myself, I don't think the sound is actually there. When the same instrument plays higher notes I can hear it, but the initial note that's really low is just gone. I should probably just put a sub in my car, so I'm spending less time squinting and leaning forward and thinking, "but can I REALLY hear that note?" while driving.
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Dec 13, 2013 04:30
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ejstheman posted:Does that work because you've heard the song on good speakers at least a few times, so you can fill in from memory? For an example, I can clearly hear the sub-bass at 5:53 here on my home stereo, but it's totally inaudible on my cheap car stereo. In the mix you linked, I'm not hearing the sub bass on my laptop speakers at all. I don't know the song and I'm not clued in that it should be there, so it might as well not be. A car stereo or a boombox might go low enough to give you the essence without giving you the meat though, and might suggest enough, even to me, to fill out the missing bit. But in the song after that, even on my laptop speakers, I can hear that it has some sort of gabber kick going on, even though I've never heard that song before either. And I can identify and 'hear' that kick even though my laptop speakers are definitely not reproducing any sound below ~150Hz or so. I don't know where I picked that up, but it's likely something that's mentioned in Bob Katz' Mastering Audio, since he's so focused on making everything work on a wide variety of systems. Anyway, if you start thinking about it, there are a lot of playback systems that can only reproduce a limited range of frequencies. Just think of the speakers they put into TVs for example. And while you're not paying attention to it, you could play a movie with music on it and not sit there wondering where half of the song went all of a sudden. Because your brain is a pattern recognizing and recreating machine.
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Dec 13, 2013 15:02
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https://soundcloud.com/stylereese/distance-between-us Some deep Tempa-style dubstep I've been working on.
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Dec 14, 2013 03:34
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Finally released this album I've been sitting on for a month. Third release of the year  http://colugo.kicktone.com/zccny/happy-accidents
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Dec 14, 2013 16:59
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I know there's a thread for getting particular sounds, but it seems geared toward amps and guitarists and I have something edm specific. I'm pretty good at sound design these days, but there're two timbres I'm having a lot of trouble with producing, and always have. The first is a really analog sounding chord/pad thing that seems like a bunch of saws layered, but I can never get it right- I always lack the grit or the phasing is never right. Anyways, those timbres are present in Oliver- MYB (around 3:50 ish in the breakdown) and deadmau5 - Fn Pig (around 3:20 in the build). Those chords/pads are huge and no doubt layered, just not sure with what. The second timbre I'm having issues with is sparking bell like arpeggio synths. Best example I can think of is Grum - La Lights, used during transitions throughout. They sit in the background- and while I know how to make a single bell, I really suck at doing sparkly kind of 'falling arpeggios' you hear in that track. I can use sampled effects but it seems like a lazy solution for something that's common in the genre I'm working toward (nudisco/synthwave). For reference of the tools I'm working with, I use fm8/massive/razer, Arturia minimoog, sylenth, Korg m1 and poly six, accompanied by a Juno and Jupiter software vst working inside ableton.
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Dec 14, 2013 18:29
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Mister Speaker posted:https://soundcloud.com/stylereese/distance-between-us I don't listen to a lot of dubstep these days but this sounds well done and clean. Dicky B posted:Finally released this album I've been sitting on for a month. Third release of the year Nice, very happy!
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Dec 14, 2013 20:21
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Dicky B posted:Finally released this album I've been sitting on for a month. Third release of the year I didn't know you used Renoise! My friends and I have been fans of your stuff for a good while, ever since you posted Hello Yellow Fellow on SA some time ago. Would you be interested / comfortable with some of your .xrns files with me? If so, I'd love to take a look!
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Dec 14, 2013 20:29
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Poizen Jam posted:I know there's a thread for getting particular sounds, but it seems geared toward amps and guitarists and I have something edm specific. I know it's lame that I'm pointing you there without even attempting to answer your question now (haven't got the time this very minute), but I think it's worth keeping this one out of the archives because of Laserjet 4P's great OP and followup posts. So think of reposting there (or asking an additional question there) as providing a service to the community No pressure; I'm just grabbing your post as an opportunity to mention this thread again before it disappears.
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Dec 14, 2013 23:33
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I posted over there, but with no response after a few weeks I thought I'd give it a shot here in case someone's not looking at that thread v vI'll contribute some actual material here, a work in progress. I'm currently doing a synthwave album- was jamming on my Push tonight and came up with This. Not sure what to call it, but it doesn't really gel with the rest of my synthwave/nudisco tracks. Trying to give it a bit more 80s feel but it might be a square peg/round hole kind of deal with the heavy swing and guitar skank riff- almost disco. One thing's for sure, I do like it whatever it is. PoizenJam fucked around with this message at 10:43 on Dec 15, 2013 |
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Dec 15, 2013 10:41
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Sgt. Slaughter posted:I didn't know you used Renoise! My friends and I have been fans of your stuff for a good while, ever since you posted Hello Yellow Fellow on SA some time ago. Would you be interested / comfortable with some of your .xrns files with me? If so, I'd love to take a look! http://pleasesendhelp.com/renoise/Colugo%20-%20Of%20whimsy.zip If you're on Windows then the required plugins are all included in the zip. I think some of them are Windows-only though so if you're on a different OS you might be out of luck.
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Dec 15, 2013 14:00
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I just finished up a whole album of weird D&B tunes: http://killhamster.kicktone.com/hmrvt/station The mastering is a little all over the place and probably awful, because I'm still learning that bit (I'll probably never stop learning or know everything useful there.) Are there any good books or tutorials on mastering or am I just out of luck since I don't have the right ears for it?
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Dec 17, 2013 19:39
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killhamster posted:I just finished up a whole album of weird D&B tunes: I'm digging Black Bird. Here's something I've been working on: https://soundcloud.com/stephen-tyndall/drive-it-like-you-stole-it-1 I don't quite like the center bit, but I'm burnt out a bit on listening to it, so I'm going to put it away for a couple of days.
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Dec 18, 2013 01:18
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killhamster posted:I just finished up a whole album of weird D&B tunes: I'm going to piggyback off this post with my own mastering question. I generally do all my composing and mixing on a pair of $120 studio headphones (since my fianceé lives here too). When I'm in the mastering phase, I also listen through a pair of M-Audio monitors. Lastly, I try to export to an MP3 and listen in my car (with stock Prius C sound system). I'm noticing that I can get some really luscious warmth and thickness on tracks via headphones and monitors, but in the car, my tracks sound so quiet and reedy next to professionally mastered tracks, even when I use an Ableton mastering effect chain to really boost and thicken and gel everything. Does anyone know what the pro masterers are doing that makes things sound as good in a car as they do in headphones? I know about cutting frequencies, side-chaining, panning different parts to occupy different sonic spaces, and all the little tricks you see in all the Youtube tutorials, but I'm mystified by the extra presence the pros can manifest.
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Dec 19, 2013 23:27
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Are you using a brickwall limiter like the Waves L-series or Live's Limiter, at the end of your mastering chain? I saw your post in the other thread. I generally tend to avoid the stock Ableton Mastering Chains in favour of a bit of EQ (sometimes in M-S mode) followed by a nice bus compressor or two; one to gently catch the peaks and another to give the track some 'pump'. Sometimes I'll throw Live's stock Multiband Compressor (Standard Multiband Comp) on before the 'pump' compressor but since I don't really know much about that I won't gently caress with it - if I think the preset helps the sound, it stays, otherwise it goes. But yeah, a good brickwall limiter at the end is key - sometimes people push them pretty hard, too. I don't (if I need some gain into my L3 I'll use an instance of Utility before it, instead of turning down the threshold), but my poo poo sucks so...
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Dec 20, 2013 00:40
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