|
Mister Speaker posted:How bad is it to mix and match monitors and subwoofers? I mean, it’ll work exponentially better than trying to run mismatched Right and Left channel speakers or something like that. As long as you set the crossover properly, it’s probably gonna be fine. It probably won’t be as well integrated and linear and perfect as a full system from the same manufacturer/line, and I’m sure the Neumann subwoofer is way fancier and better than the 10S, but if you need the bass extension then it probably won’t sound or perform worse than running the Neumann monitors with no sub at all
|
#
¿
Jan 19, 2024 00:07
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Jun 3, 2024 02:24 |
|
|
exquisite tea posted:Hello dear goons. I'm a hobbyist songwriter in need of some advice on where to take my music from here. A few years ago I started the agonizingly slow process of notating some of my original songs. At the time I got some very helpful advice from Jazz Marimba and some other folks, and though it took me awhile, I finally managed to write enough down to start thinking about recording and publishing them. Here's the problem, though: I don't have any actual musical talent besides being able to sing a little, and no real experience with home recording. Some thoughts in no particular order: Plenty of people with limited or no instrument playing experience compose/produce music, usually electronically or using samples/synths/models/etc. Some of this stuff even sounds like/belongs to genres of music that aren’t “electronic” like orchestral or jazz or flamenco. Most soundtracks are made this way, with producers very rarely if ever using real instruments or getting to hear their songs played by a real orchestra or live band. This can be done collaboratively, solo, or by bringing in individual artists to do things like play a violin solo or lay down some instrument tracks, etc. However, your experience making “theatrical” music with trumpets and violins will probably benefit most quickly if you take lessons—particularly keyboard and piano lessons. This will allow you to best take advantage of the plethora of synthesizers and synthesized instruments/sample packs/etc that exist. You don’t need to become a virtuoso keyboardist (though I’m sure it helps) but being able to bang out some scales and chords is going to pay dividends for your ability to write and record music. There’s a reason why everybody songwrites on piano. A lot of composers also use synths to put together demos which are then re-played by collaborators. Instrument lessons with a teacher are always going to be the best in terms of growing your skills quickly and getting you to different levels in your ability to write and play music. A few weeks with a teacher is worth years of self-study for a beginner IMO. If you don’t want to/can’t get good enough at piano or other instruments then you can also get creative with things like sampling/looping, etc. There are lots of VSTs and synthesizer plug-ins, and built-in DAW features that will take the human voice/etc and turn it into midi, transcribe it to notes, etc.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 26, 2024 23:30
|
|
|
exquisite tea posted:Thanks for everyone's advice so far. these sound really good. If you didn’t want to get sample packs or whatever (don’t buy into Native Instruments, IMO) I would probably look at built in sounds in your DAW like Ableton or Garage Band or Logic, etc first. For a demo garage band instruments are probably fine. Then I might look at getting a synth VST that can play instrument sounds like KORG M1 software or a DX7 player, etc. Maybe get a wavetable synth. Lots of pretty basic synths can do “stringy” and “brassy” sounds, and fancy synths can do all sorts of weird poo poo. Maybe lean into that. Maybe get Pigments while it’s on sale, IDK. There’s also Puremagnetik, their packs are rly rly nice. I’d probably wait until one of their holiday sales and get the Century for 50% off.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 27, 2024 07:46
|
|
|
exquisite tea posted:I appreciate everyone's advice. This is all really outside of my knowledge area so narrowing it down to a few options does make the searching easier. A few years ago I tried to record some really basic tracks in Reaper, but I kind of fell out of it as nothing really worked how I thought it would. And the free VSTs I downloaded at the time sounded worse than Garage Band. I think Ableton might be more at my level because you can just drop effects directly onto the track and it magically works. What computer you got?
|
|
#
¿
Jan 29, 2024 00:14
|
|
|
exquisite tea posted:I have two -- A Windows 11 PC with components mostly from ~2020 that I use mostly for gaming and personal use, and a 2022 Macbook Air that I use mostly for work and storage. The Macbook is probably more convenient to hook my soundboard into but I could make either one work. you’ve got lots of options then, mostly dependent on your budget. Option 1: there’s a lot of free and “free to start, paid to upgrade” stuff that works on both platforms like Cakewalk or Waveform Option 2: there’s good Mac-specific stuff that’s very cheap if you’ve already bought into the platform. GarageBand is obviously there and free and will probably do a solid enough job if all you want is midi instruments. If you want to step up to something “professional quality” then it’s hard to beat Logic Pro for $200 when comparable DAWs are $400-500+, etc. There’s a student edition that comes bundled with FCPX for $200 all-in but I believe that it limits your number of installs. If you get the regular $200 version then you can install it on as many Macs as you want as long as you’re using the same Apple ID to authenticate, so if you decide to add something like a Mac Mini or Studio to your setup down the road then you won’t have to shell out for multiple licenses. At least for now Apple also hasn’t made people pay for iterative version updates like Ableton/etc do, so it’s a really good deal in that regard if you always want to have the latest + greatest features. No PC compatibility tho, so you’ll have to use a different company’s DAW on PC. Option 3: expensive multiplatform DAW like Ableton Live or fully unlocked FL Studio. As professional-tier as Logic, but with bespoke features that people like (really only Ableton in this case IMO, but PC people really love their FL Studio. If you want to use Push or Max or the Ableton workflow then there are no substitutes. If I was a FL Studio guy on Mac I’d prolly just learn to love Logic and save $300, but if I were constantly switching between Mac and Windows and I wanted to use the same DAW and I didn’t want it to be Ableton then I suppose I’d use FL). Ableton will give you perpetual access to your version of the software from their site and allow you to install/run it on up to two machines irrespective of platform, so there’s your MacBook and PC covered. However they will update the suite every 2-5 years and you will have to pay some amount of money (not full price, but it can be a lot depending on how far back you upgrade from) for said upgrade. For example I’m still on V9 from a decade ago instead of V11 which is what Ableton Live is currently on. (FYI—Live 12 is coming and they’re doing their standard upgrade sale where you can lock-in 11 for 20% off and then upgrade for free when 12 drops). Also Live is pricey and can be extremely pricey depending on which version you buy, whether you want Max/etc, and so on. IIRC they also let you installment-pay if that appeals to you. FWIW it’s much cheaper than it used to be, I remember paying like four figures for the full Live 9 Suite with all of the fixin’s but that’s also probably because I got it with a Push 2. I can’t remember, it was a decade ago. https://www.ableton.com/en/shop/live/ Ableton wants to charge me $183 to go from 9 to 11 to 12, I might just do that honestly. I remember the 9-10 upgrade being like $400. Maybe I’m misremembering. I do feel like DAWs in general are getting much less expensive than they were a decade ago, and especially two decades ago when poo poo like ProTools was the only real game in town. trilobite terror fucked around with this message at 05:55 on Jan 29, 2024 |
|
#
¿
Jan 29, 2024 05:45
|
|
|
exquisite tea posted:I guess $10,000 is probably my internal limit for everything from start to finish, from buying/updating equipment to the software to the eventual booking of studio time and musicians, engineers, etc. to album art and putting it up on Bandcamp or w/e. I don't know if that's a realistic number, but it's probably the most money I'd be willing to part with that I have no expectation of ever seeing again. I see this more as a single project for me than a lifestyle change or the long-awaited beginning of my music career, so I'm willing to pay to make it sound good rather than spend a lot of time experimenting. Which isn't to say everyone's advice about what DAWs and VSTs to look out for haven't been helpful, because it's given me a lot more focus on how to reach that next step. I'd want to have some fundamentals down before I start burning studio time asking my audio engineers to "make it sound like X" and confusing musicians. And maybe if I just take well to learning a particular DAW, I won't need the studio part. At least not right away. Take music lessons. With that budget you could become an extremely skilled keyboardist and arranger. 10-12 sessions of lessons is like $500 for one-on-one, and once you get good enough you can do poo poo like continuing ed and masterclasses and poo poo. Hell you could prolly take a studio class at such as Berklee online (I’m not suggesting you do this! Just presenting an idea) for $3k and learn everything you need to know about studio poo poo. I don’t know how complex your guitar interests are but you can get pretty good at guitar in a year or two and you don’t need to spend much at all on an instrument. A $250 Squier plus a $250 BOSS Katana, maybe like a $300-500 acoustic if that’s what you want. Put another $1-2k into lessons over the course of 12-24 months and you could come out playing good. You don’t need a super expensive mic or interface or mixer unless you have tons of instruments and synths and whatnot connected and/or you want to play them live or whatever, and at that point you’ll know what you need/want. I like tons of synths and loopy-doops and live poo poo and I’d probably max out at like a 22 or 24 channel Soundcraft or Tascam mixer/interface, and a $200 mic or two or three or whatever, personally. I used to have a 12 channel Soundcraft that was like $450 and that’s probably the most you’d need. I’d prolly get the Tascam tho, since it’s nicer and newer, or a Focusrite of some sort if I didn’t need the physical sliders. Looking at your needs/wants I’d probably spend like no more than $100-500 for that, probably on the lower end. Honestly you could probably make do with the latest generation Focusrite Scarlet 4i4 or whatever and be happy. Do you have monitors? You probably need them. Get the biggest ones you can, ideally, but don’t go nicer than JBL LSR II, or the entry-level Adams, or Kali audio, or maybe the Yamaha ones that are super commonplace. Honestly you could put like $1-2k into your studio all-in, or even less than that if you stick to the least expensive options I’ve listed in this rambling text, and have “endgame for your purposes”, then put the rest of it into learning actual skills, etc.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 29, 2024 09:33
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Jun 3, 2024 02:24 |
|
|
Kagrenak posted:So I might be able to get this enclosure thing for free as my work is tossing them in the trash because we have a better setup. Now my immediate thought is maybe I could rig this into a DIY vocal booth but I question whether or not the cost of the mounting hardware alone would make getting something else a more better idea. I mean, how much were you thinking of spending on mounting hardware? If that’s a sturdy metal frame lined in acoustic foam then IDK how you DIY something better/better looking for less than ‘free’
|
|
#
¿
Feb 6, 2024 19:46
|
|