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I need some advice on how to incorporate some drum triggering into my setup. Current setup is self-contained: VS-2480. No PC/Mac involved anywhere. I have a mouse/keyboard and monitor hooked up but that's as close as it gets. I do have one of the Plug-in effects boards (and 3 of the other kind), but the plug-in selection in VS format seems to be extremely limited. I would like to be able to use a mix of triggered/live drums for session work. Already decided on the ddrum triggers. Something important I should point out before I go on: - I am MIDI stupid, with a capital STOOPID. I understand midi out/thru/in, but that's really about it. I have had a drum machine for years, but never once have I used the midi stuff on it. I use the sounds that came with it and the stereo outs. My needs are basically this: I'd like to be able to record drums as I always have, but also have the trigger stuff there so I can go "hmm...let me beef up that kick drum by flying in Bonham's kick off When The Levee Breaks" (assuming I had the sample, of course). Or: "those toms sound like poo poo...let's use these sampled ones..." Or even: "Hmm...I'd like to hear a tambourine hit on all those snare hits..." etc. I am NOT going 100% midi. I will be using both triggered/live and almost exclusively live cymbals. From doing some research, I know I need some sort of brain/interface for the triggers to plug into, then something to use the midi data to trigger the samples, which presumably in some way outputs to the VS on whatever track I tell it to. So far, the only recommendation I have been given is the Alesis Trigger I/O. I have looked at the DM-4 and DM-5 also. The DMs seem to be a better stopgap solution moneywise, since not only do they consolidate the trigger inputs, they can actually play sounds as well. (Can pick up either used via ebay/CL for <$200) Thoughts? Recommendations? I'd prefer both a "cheapest/fastest" recommendation as well as an "in a perfect world" one. I can then let my financial needs dictate where I fall in the middle. Thanks in advance.
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Jul 7, 2008 05:37
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RivensBitch posted:Midi Drum Triggering: Noted, but as I'm looking, I see no way to record the MIDI data on the VS. It seems to only use midi for control/sync information. Can anyone confirm/deny? Assuming it doesn't - what are my other options?
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Jul 8, 2008 04:50
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So I suppose with all the money being made on ProTools Training Courses, people tend to make it difficult to find good usable information easily. Googling ProTools will result in 900 different courses you can take, but very little "here's how you do this" info. Anyway, I just switched my entire setup from a Roland VS-2480 over to ProTools 8 M-Powered with a Project Mix I/O. And while I have some books and things on the way (and waiting for some PT8-updated ones to be released), there are a couple of quick questions I have: Is there some way to monitor in "real-time" while recording a drummer with a click track? What I mean is, as it's setup right now, when I see the drummer hit a drum, there is a good 250ms or so before I hear it come out of the speakers. The only strange thing about it is that I seem to be hearing the click track in real time, so of course this makes it difficult to gauge the performance until after it's complete. On playback everything syncs up properly. I'm sure there's just some setting somewhere I'm missing, but hell if I can find it. After watching some of the digitv or digidesigntv or whatever it is videos, I'm having some cursor confusion. I see in the video where someone drag/drops in a drum loop, then grabs the end of it and stretches, and it fills haw ever many measures he needs. Which cursor is that? I tried what I thought was all of them, but couldn't get it to do that. Similar question, but in the MIDI editor. I see him dragging around individual notes in the MIDI editor, or being able to edit each one. Which cursor? Trying them didn't see to have the same result. Thanks in advance!
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Apr 9, 2009 14:47
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RivensBitch posted:You're kidding right? I don't know what's more laughable, the idea that there's tons of money being made on protools training, or that if someone WAS successfully doing so, that they'd somehow be influencing google results to make good answers hard to find. I guess more what I meant was. With how much money they are charging for ProTools training. I couldn't even find a ProTools 101 class for less than $2500 or so. And that's for a one DAY session. I'm not suggesting they are influencing google results, I'm just saying EVERYONE seems to be offering ProTools training, so that's most of what you get. Easy there, buddy. Wasn't trying to pee in your cornflakes or nothing.
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Apr 9, 2009 19:34
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RivensBitch posted:http://www.secretsofthepros.com/ Any idea when/if those videos might get updated for version 8? From what I can tell it's quite a bit different than 7.x. There's a few other books and stuff I am waiting on release dates for. I didn't realize 8 was so new or I might've gone for 7.4 or something.
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Apr 10, 2009 02:32
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(possibly) quick ProTools question here. Using M-Powered 8. How do I compensate for the amount of latency I'm hearing from the click track vs the input. Trying to record a drummer and he plays along with the click track, but the tracks are coming back out of the headphones a good 250ms or so after he plays them, and obviously that's not gonna work very well. If he plays right along with the click track it's in sync when we play it back, but there's no way to get through a track trying to monitor with it all laggy sounding. Help?
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Apr 23, 2009 23:45
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Need someone smarter than me at music networking things. In my home studio, in my control room, I have a MOTU 8 channel interface. That is networked via AVB to a MOTU Stagebox 16 channel interface out in the live room. I need a way to setup individual monitoring as well as talkback. So I have a Behringer XR18 that I was eventually going to use for in-ears live. Could I use that here for monitoring? I assume there's some way to network the two together. At any rate, I literally just learned about AVB when I was building this studio. Running a single ethernet cable is a gently caress of a lot easier than running 16 channels of XLR. So yeah....help?
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May 14, 2022 16:38
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Will 2nd the NT1. Was my daily driver vocal mic for years.
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Jun 14, 2022 21:13
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Nigel Tufnel posted:Or can you really not beat mixing on real monitors even if I can't treat the room? It's really more about knowing your room/speakers/headphones/setup than it is having a flat room. By "knowing" I mean: knowing what frequencies they might boost/cut and compensating for it. Honestly, when I get the first rough mix that sounds remotely decent, I start trying it on every possible speaker I can find, from my phone, to a shower bluetooth speaker I have, to as many cars/vehicles as I have access to, etc., and start adjusting from there. Compare mixes of songs you like - compare them on all the same speaker setups, then you can kinda tell how you might need to adjust things. It's not perfect, but it's definitely been "good enough". That being said, there are some great headphones that work well for mixing if you are unable to use a monitor setup. You mentioned not being able to really crank them. Meh. Shouldn't be mixing super loud anyway. 
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Sep 16, 2022 14:12
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Greggster posted:Honestly I'd put the mic somewhere just above the shoulder of the drummer, you'll get the sound of the drums that the drummer hear and it should drown out any leakage from the other instruments as well. This is what I do as well. Depending on the mic and the pickup pattern, you can fine tune quite a bit to bring out what you need. Start about 1 foot above the drummer's right shoulder, pointing at the midpoint between the center of the snare, and the point where the beater is hitting the kick. Adjust as needed. Your adjustments will be SMALL at that distance, but just angle it slightly more towards what you need. Obviously it's not gonna be great with a single mic on a drumkit, but pointing it almost straight down will cut WAY down on bleed from the other instruments.
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Sep 26, 2022 19:52
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Splinter posted:Any recommendations for a desktop vocal/mic reflector thing? Are they even worth it? Something like this: https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/ReflexionX--se-electronics-reflexion-filter-by-portable-vocal-booth is what I'm looking at. I do have a desktop mic stand already. So I had one of these sitting in a box for about 3 years. I had bought it because I had moved into a loft and didn't have room for a vocal booth. Blah blah things happen, never even ended up pulling it out of the box. Then a coupla weeks ago, I was recording someone, and I haven't really tweaked the cutting room in my new studio yet, and was wondering what I could do since I didn't like the room sound. Then I remembered I had this thing. Man - it makes a HUGE difference, so definitely worth it. Easily cut 90% of the room sound. I was really surprised at how much difference. Not sure mine is the exact same one, but it's pretty close, if not. So yes. Get one.
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Nov 30, 2022 14:35
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nitsuga posted:I've been working on recording my LPs, but I haven't been totally thrilled with the results. I think my main qualm is that the audio levels are significantly lower than songs I've downloaded or ripped from a CD. That said, I'm curious what I might be able do with the recordings I have. I think they sound alright if I crank things up enough, but they are pretty quiet in general. I did try to do a level check before recording each, and I tried to get the loudest parts of the albums to get my interface's clip lights to go on briefly. Are you mastering your tracks? That’s generally where all the adjustments to overall volume/eq are made. Also usually involves compressing things so that you can boost overall levels without clipping. While recording you want your transients to hit around -20db. That will leave you plenty of headroom when you go to master it. If you have no idea what mastering is, the elevator pitch is: Mix all your tracks Make a new session and import all the tracks Throw on your mastering plugins etc Dump out mastered tracks for upload/manufacture The idea is basically to sort of sonically “unify” the tracks, so they are all of similar level, and eq’ish-ness. Hard to explain. But basically you’re trying to get them to sound like they all belong on the same album, if you know what I mean. But yeah that sounds like what you need here. Be warned: Mastering well is some Jedi poo poo. For a time (no idea if this is true now, since I haven’t checked in over a decade), every major release basically went thru the same 2-3 mastering studios. It’s a different set of skills both for your fingers and your ears.
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Dec 16, 2022 00:08
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Flipperwaldt posted:I totally misread 'recording my LPs' as working on recordings to put on an LP. I wouldn't suggest equalizing and compressing things you record from LPs as common practice. I would in general lean towards the replaygain type of solution to bring the level of the louder music in line with the quieter ones on playback, non-destructively. But then this is music you have project files for, so ????? ?? ? Ha. I misread that too. Stuff on an LP is already mastered so, forget everything I just said, basically.  I have never done what you are doing, so no clue.
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Dec 16, 2022 02:01
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Wowporn posted:Basic rear end mixing question cause I’m very new to it and am recording a rock song; is there a best practice starting point for eq when I am high passing guitars/low passing bass so they don’t step on each other’s toes? Should I not think too hard and just move blips around until it sounds good or is there like an obvious “start at 500hz and move up from there” I should know Note: my experience is only with recording rock music: acoustic drums, guitars, bass guitar, keyboards and vocal. YMMV if you do something else. For starters, I would think long and hard before straight up HP/LP'ng instruments. What's going on with your input sound that you feel the need to make such drastic EQ changes? I pretty much only ever use EQ for minor tweaks, like notching out something that's bugging me. If my input sound was good, and my mic placement was good, then I hopefully won't need much eq. If I do, then why didn't I get closer to the sound I wanted going to tape? Many moons ago (oh god like 3 decades lol old) in some recording classes I took, we were taught to start a brand new mix by soloing the Bass guitar. If it already doesn't sound good and needs a bunch of EQ - then why did you record it that way? There are times when you've just been given the tape and the bassist has gone home and there's no way to re-record it, so you have to EQ the poo poo out of it to get it to sound good, but those are pretty rare. The instructor's reasoning here was: it's kind of the foundation of the mix and the most difficult thing to get right - so you start there, get it right, then everything else works around it. I have followed that advice ever since and am usually happy with my mixes. I typically add drums in next, get my rhythm section pinned down nice and tight. From there it's something like: - rhythm guitars (if I have acoustics, I usually do them first because they are tougher to get right than electrics) - keys (if any) - vocals - lead guitars or keys By the time I am pulling in rhythm guitars, I have a pretty good idea of my sound both vertically (pitch) and horizontally (stereo spread). Always think of your mix in both of those dimensions. Something you think is stepping on something else may not be if you just pan them out from each other. Try to get your mix to fill out the whole "square". Bass and Lead Vox are just about the only thing you want panned dead center. I realize that wasn't your exact question, but just slapping a LPF on a bass track is no way to go, my man. 
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Mar 31, 2023 14:45
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What's the new hotness in a decent set of studio cans these days? I don't need them for mixing, just something decent I can buy like 4 pairs of for recording.
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Apr 13, 2023 12:39
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exquisite tea posted:I guess what I'm asking is if anyone else has been in my position before, having music they believe in and want to record but maybe lacking the natural ability to pull it off. My initial plan once I'd finished notating everything was going to an audio engineer, paying for a couple weeks of studio time and session musicians and just cutting a 4-5 track EP that way to get something started. But searching the internet for people who have taken a similar approach doesn't seem to yield anything useful, so I'm beginning to think that's maybe a stupid idea. I'd also have to work with a super intuitive engineer and musicians because I'm not a trained composer at all and would need their input for the parts I wrote that probably don't make any sense or require unintentionally virtuosic skill. So that likely means more time and money, even if I dialed down everything perfectly before booking studio space. Either way I'd have to rely on active collaboration from more knowledgeable people, because I'm really not good enough to orchestrate all of this alone. So I have some questions. How can you say you're a songwriter, but then say you have no musical talent? Do you mean ability as a player? But that just leads me to another question: How do you write songs? Like - mechanically - what's your process? Are you in front of a keyboard? And finally: what's your aim? You say you're thinking about "recording and publishing" them. By publishing - what do you mean? Are you going to attempt to sell them? - because that comes with some different answers.
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Jan 26, 2024 15:34
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exquisite tea posted:To make this really simple: What do you think the best DAW would be to learn for my current method of writing music? Basically I want to notate everything on manuscript first, export them as MIDI, and then overlay the horn and string parts I've written using the sample/instrument packs people have shared here to make it sound not-like MIDI, while contributing my own live vocals and guitar accompaniment. However, I spent a couple hours searching Ableton tutorials and that doesn't seem to be how most people write -- they just play something on their MIDI keyboards and layer tracks directly into the project itself. I don't want to do that because I want the note lengths to already be perfect, and I want a lot of time to listen to how the parts sound together musically before trying to overlay them with a VST. I also want there to be some written notation in the event that I ever work with live instrumentalists. Nobody seems to be importing whole MIDI tracks into their projects though, so I'm thinking my way of doing things is probably dumb. Am I adding too many unnecessary steps? Writing out an entire piece before you haven't actually played a note is kind of an unusual process. For people who want scores, they typically work with Sibellius or something that generates the score after the song is complete. But I mean - you say you "already want the note lengths perfect" before you start messing with VSTs - but I mean - they are MIDI editors. Don't you want to be able to play with it on the fly? And you want to "listen to how they sound together musically" first - what do you do that on? Do you listen with just the old school default MIDI instruments? At any rate - your thinking isn't dumb - it's just - not what anything was really designed for. I am trying to fully understand your process then maybe I can think of ways you can accomplish that with current tools. Can you talk me through composing a song, from conception to "finished"?
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Jan 29, 2024 20:12
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exquisite tea posted:It takes me like 10 years to write a song! But generally I start out with some kind of lyrical idea or concept, I find a melody that's memorable to me, I try to build a chord structure on my guitar around that, and then I just... think for a really long time, about how I'd like it all to sound in my head. I'd like to believe I have a really strong idea of how I want my music to sound, but up to this point, I've kind of lacked the skill to articulate it much further than that. It's already taken me a few years just to learn enough notation to write them all down as sheet music. I like to write songs but it's always been a very slow process for me. If I had a genie where I could just say "make it sound like this" and have it make sense then I'd be so happy, haha. But I suppose most people would want that, so that's hardly an excuse. I'm also starting to realize that I'm maybe one of the few people who would prefer to look at pages of musical notation than a DAW interface, but that's probably just a familiarity thing. I'd probably have given up by now if I didn't think some of my songs were really pretty and just having the need to get them out into the world somehow, ya know. So you start out the same way as most people - with a melody / chord structure. But like for me - that is the point where I head to the DAW to flesh it out. Find a tempo, then do a quickie recording of the chords/melody, then I just start....trying poo poo. Throw a drum part on it, maybe a piano, maybe a second guitar. Maybe it's good - maybe it's not. The important part for me is that it is FAST. I can go into the studio with chords/melody, and inside of an hour have it fleshed out enough to know how it will turn out. Trying to write it down manually would feel like rubbing sticks together to make fire, while having a zippo in my back pocket the entire time. Plus - too much ambiguity on paper. Like - you write down a guitar part - but what does it sound like? Acoustic? Clean? Fuzzy? Overdriven? What guitar? What pickups? None of that info (arguably integral to the song) appears on paper. But it's all right there in the DAW. That genie you mention is basically YOU - after you have practiced enough. You will know how to get the sounds that are in your head. However - you will never get there without firing up the DAW and jumping in. Recording is a separate art from songwriting, but you can easily pick up enough to demo a song. Plus it depends on what you are going to do with them. Are you just demoing them to try and sell them? Or do you want finished recordings for friends/family/fans to listen to? I think the reason I am having so much trouble wrapping my head around notating FIRST is - how do you know what you want at the end? If I notated first - it might be something completely different by the time I am finished, and most of my notation would be worthless. Plus writing everything out and sticking to that doesn't leave any room for spontaneity - and that's where some of the best stuff happens. I guess what I'm saying is: the DAW is just a tool - not unlike a pen and a piece of staff paper - but it's a REALLY GOOD tool, and FAR more efficient/handy/useful than a piece of paper.
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Jan 30, 2024 03:54
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Wowporn posted:I am shopping for good drum samples to put on my Alesis sample pad and get option paralysis easily, what are the best ones to get?? Like decently real sounding acoustic kits or ones that are like crunchy sounding in a fun way. Will be paired with guitar oriented rock ish music I like all the Toontrack stuff, and EZDrummer is my go-to when I am not using acoustic drums. I tried Superior Drummer for a bit, but anything it offered over EZD wasn't something I was going to use. As for what packs to get, just listen through. I own some because I wanted a specific drum, and others because I liked the overall sound of the kit. I have the 70s Rock and Vintage Rock kits since that's a sound I like. I got the Indie Folk kit mostly for that ridiculous 28" Slingerland kick drum. EZD and the packs all come with MIDI loops if that interests you. I have only ever used a handful, but they seem good enough.
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May 1, 2024 12:17
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