The "how do I make electronic/club/DJ music" Megathread!

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > No Music Discussion > Musician's Lounge > The "how do I make electronic/club/DJ music" Megathread!

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The Fog: Oct 10, 2004; -I spent the whole day trying to pull a peanut from that heater vent. Turns out it was just a moth. -How was it? -Dry.

Packed Tightly posted:

Does anybody have drum and bass production experience? I won't post my questions here because I have a whole heap of genre specific ones, but if there's anybody out there who'd be willing to give me a bit of advice/answer some questions, it'd stop me from going crazy trying to figure this poo poo out.

Cheers.

Just write them out. You'll see most stuff isn't very genre specific.

Altoidss posted:

Where? I have no clue how to get new drum samples, and I certainly can't afford to buy them at the moment.

But I'll try your suggestions out tomorrow after I've gotten some sleep.

http://www.vipzone-samples.com/freesamples.php
There's some free ones, but I suggest you shell out a few bucks for these (which have more or less become [dance] industry standard):
http://vengeance-sound.de/eng/indexes/indexSampleCDs.html

# ¿ Mar 12, 2008 13:48

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 04:42

The Fog: Oct 10, 2004; -I spent the whole day trying to pull a peanut from that heater vent. Turns out it was just a moth. -How was it? -Dry.

Yoozer posted:

Those forums do not necessarily help you, you know this? There's also a lot of misinformation there, if I can believe WanderingKid's words.

I agree. They're alright for beginners, but once you're semi-good, you realize it's mostly misinformation.

# ¿ Mar 13, 2008 13:07

The Fog: Oct 10, 2004; -I spent the whole day trying to pull a peanut from that heater vent. Turns out it was just a moth. -How was it? -Dry.

Jobless Drunk posted:

Last I heard, Lemon D does everything in mono.

Is there a reason behind this? I can see why he would mix down the reece in mono, but I don't see a reason to do the rest in mono as well.

# ¿ Mar 15, 2008 02:28

The Fog: Oct 10, 2004; -I spent the whole day trying to pull a peanut from that heater vent. Turns out it was just a moth. -How was it? -Dry.

I haven't heard that deadmau5 track myself, but if the lead is short in the beginning and long in the end, I would imagine he put the Sustain on the Amp Env to 0% and automated the Decay to slowly increase as the track progresses. Is that what you were looking for?

# ¿ Mar 20, 2008 04:16

The Fog: Oct 10, 2004; -I spent the whole day trying to pull a peanut from that heater vent. Turns out it was just a moth. -How was it? -Dry.

Quincy Smallvoice posted:

I had this problem for many years, until I started forcing myself to a fixed workflow.

Something like; Basic groove, basic structure, break, buildup, replace sounds, add fills, finalize arrangement, add SFX, add drum/FX transitions, rough mix, feedback, replace sounds again, mix, master, expect failure.

Basically this helped me personally alot because it prevented me from straying from getting closer to finishing since I didnt get hung up on small details (that usually turn out to be irellevant and a bad idea to begin with anyway)

Its so easy to lose focus and get lost because you want to add 16 choruses to your lead sound. Thats why I can never produce if im high.

Another thing that helps immensly; Deadlines!
If you HAVE to complete a project in a fixed period of time, you would be amazed at how focused and organized your production will become.

And never ever give up.

Yeah, seconding this. Knowing your goal right from the start and filling in the blanks as you go (i.e. what sounds to use, how to mix down, etc.) is probably one of the most efficient ways to produce. It takes away the focus from "what more can I add to this climax-loop" and puts it where it belongs; the finished track.

# ¿ Apr 15, 2008 00:19

The Fog: Oct 10, 2004; -I spent the whole day trying to pull a peanut from that heater vent. Turns out it was just a moth. -How was it? -Dry.

I hate Audacity with a passion. The fact that it's free is great and the fact that so many programmers are willing to contribute their free time to make a program like that is even better. However, its user interface is unintuitive, basic operations are hard to figure out (why are the names of the pitch/stretch/resample-operations so ambiguous?), lots of features missing, unstable etc.
The best program for audio editing is imo Audition, but that's not free either.
I used Audacity first and then went to Audition and I'm never going back, that's for sure.

# ¿ May 4, 2008 17:48

The Fog: Oct 10, 2004; -I spent the whole day trying to pull a peanut from that heater vent. Turns out it was just a moth. -How was it? -Dry.

Terrible Horse posted:

So basically theres no advantage to Logic over Live? Great, one less thing to get.
But if youre DJing with Live, you have to warp your tracks. Are the transients just not noticable? I've heard lots of Ableton sets, both live and recorded, and I never noticed any.

Logic's built-in plugins are of very high quality. You may not hear the difference in the beginning, but once you've reached a certain level you'll start to notice.
I used to work mostly with Cubase's built-in stuff, which is mostly crap imo. It's good if you're just starting out, but for proper mixdowns you'll want something with better quality and that's why Logic is so good.

Mind you, I'm a Cubase user and love the program, but Logic is better for immediate clean results imho.

# ¿ May 5, 2008 08:39

The Fog: Oct 10, 2004; -I spent the whole day trying to pull a peanut from that heater vent. Turns out it was just a moth. -How was it? -Dry.

WanderingKid posted:

Its easier to use headphones and pretend like the room doesn't matter. :X

That's sort of my situation

I do have monitors, but no treatment. I have a lot of comb-filtering, which makes it impossible for me to judge the bass. I rely on my earplugs for that. Also noticed that when I was done mixing, I would get better results when I adjusted the faders with earplugs than when I used the monitors. I assume this is because of the acoustics in my room.

# ¿ May 7, 2008 18:58

The Fog: Oct 10, 2004; -I spent the whole day trying to pull a peanut from that heater vent. Turns out it was just a moth. -How was it? -Dry.

Yeah, the Boys Noize lead in Lava Lava is glide and sidechain.
The lead is 1 bar long and the first half bar doesn't use glide, but the second does. This could be automated, but it seems unnecessary, because you can set the glide to only work on overlapping notes (which is mostly likely what he did). Then he sampled that line and put it into the sequencer and cut it up into smaller pieces.
When that was done he put a sidechain compressor on the track to make it pump like that.
The envelopes are probably set to something like 0% attack, 0% decay, 100% sustain, 0% release, but the sidechain gives the impression of a complex ADSR-envelope

# ¿ May 18, 2008 14:17

The Fog: Oct 10, 2004; -I spent the whole day trying to pull a peanut from that heater vent. Turns out it was just a moth. -How was it? -Dry.

Hi there, ML!
I usually don't ask for help regarding this kind of stuff, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to make this here waveform:

So far, what I've derived is that the sound is made up of 2 sawtooth oscillators. If you look at the picture you'll see 2 sawtooths (sawteeth?) next to each other, but the 2nd is -6dB of the loudness of the first one and 50% shorter and I got that by using two sawtooths in the same octave and twisting one 135 degrees. The only problem now is that there are a few spikes here and there which I have no idea how to recreate. They seem to appear right before the middle and right before the end of each cycle, but I'm not sure. You can see them in the waveform. Any takers?

# ¿ May 20, 2008 10:11

The Fog: Oct 10, 2004; -I spent the whole day trying to pull a peanut from that heater vent. Turns out it was just a moth. -How was it? -Dry.

Yoozer posted:

Try oscillator (hard) sync, but use a constant pitch instead of the typical "weeeooow" sound.

Thanks for your help Yoozer, but I'm not sure I understand what you mean. The oscillators are already synced. What I'm having trouble with is creating those spikes right before the end and the middle of each cycle. What are they and how do I get them there?

# ¿ May 20, 2008 11:51

The Fog: Oct 10, 2004; -I spent the whole day trying to pull a peanut from that heater vent. Turns out it was just a moth. -How was it? -Dry.

Yoozer posted:

Well, what's the source of the signal? I'd like to hear WanderingKid's opinion, but couldn't it be aliasing? (e.g. cheap algo).

The source is pure digital 320kbps MP3. Here's the clip: http://www.sendspace.com/file/y1aaq4
The clip contains a ride followed by the bass I'm trying to remake with a hihat on top. I tried my best to phase cancel the hihat, alas it's still audible.
I think this is a generic EDM sound and I wouldn't be surprised 4if it's a preset in some synths, but I haven't found anything that sounds close. It's a rather raspy sound.

# ¿ May 20, 2008 19:00

The Fog: Oct 10, 2004; -I spent the whole day trying to pull a peanut from that heater vent. Turns out it was just a moth. -How was it? -Dry.

I checked it out in a spectrum analyzer and the way the harmonics look, it actually looks like it's 2 (or more) sawtooth oscs who are detuned. Still can't figure out how to get it to sound right though.
Can anybody crack this one?

# ¿ May 21, 2008 08:33

The Fog: Oct 10, 2004; -I spent the whole day trying to pull a peanut from that heater vent. Turns out it was just a moth. -How was it? -Dry.

jvilmi posted:

Sounds more like pulse waves to me.

Is it, though? I'm not sure.
The thing is, everything indicates that it's sawtooth (waveform-wise) because the harmonics are exactly as you would expect from a sawtooth. Also, low-passing the signal makes it look like a sawtooth more than anything else.
Dunno really... Been trying to crack this for the past 3 days, but got nothing.

# ¿ May 21, 2008 14:00

The Fog: Oct 10, 2004; -I spent the whole day trying to pull a peanut from that heater vent. Turns out it was just a moth. -How was it? -Dry.

Mannex posted:

Which software synth do you all use? Which would be the easiest for a beginner to learn? I've never made custom sounds before, and I've been doing Live's Operator lessons.

IMO, it's very hard to say which one is the easiest. I find z3ta+ to be the easiest, because that's what I learned synthesis on. That said, z3ta+ is more complex than most synths thanks to its modulation matrix. I hear people talking about how V-station is very easy, but I could never grasp it.

My recommendation to you is to download a few demos, see which one most easily gives you the results you want just by twisting a few knobs. Try learning exactly what everything means (like, what does Amp EG mean? What does an LFO do? What's the difference between a square and a pulse?) and then you can try out some other synths. Those other synths may have the same functionalities but with another name. For example, resonance can be called Q or quality (although both are very uncommon). Learning one synth at a time is the best thing you can do, imo.

Just use whatever gives you the best results. Preferably let us know what genres you're looking to make. Chances are there's a few synths most people in that genre already use and have made presets for. Presets are invaluable and a great resource to learn from. For example, Minimonsta and Minimoog are used a lot for electro house, whereas Vanguard, z3ta+ and Sylenth1 are used a lot in trance. You can use those synths for lots of different genres, but if you're going for a trancy sound, it's probably easier to make in Vanguard than in Minimoog, which brings me back to my first point; choose whatever you get the best results with.

# ¿ May 23, 2008 09:59

The Fog: Oct 10, 2004; -I spent the whole day trying to pull a peanut from that heater vent. Turns out it was just a moth. -How was it? -Dry.

Terrible Horse posted:

Is this the general attitude on presets? I read up on basic synthesis and made a few tunes in Reason with Subtractor and Maelstrom's initial patches and tried to make my own synths, but they sounded very 8-bit and chiptuney (not at all what I want). Then yesterday I made a track using some presets, which I modified both on the synth and through external effects, and the track sounded so much better. I'm definitely of the mindset that whatever works easiest is best, but it seems like programming the synth yourself is the best way to get original tones. So when someone says something like Massive is a great synth, do they mean it allows you to create the best synths from scratch, or it comes with the best presets?

Basically is using presets cheating, or shortchanging myself by using tones that everyone else with that piece of software is possibly using?

Presets aren't cheating. In music, the only thing that counts is the end result. Whenever you think that using a certain method to achieve what you want (be it using presets, premade samples or ripping/sampling stuff from another record) is cheating, you need to remember that that's how every successful producer does it. You can't let your morals get in between you and a hit. Also, most of your audience are casual listeners, not experienced producers. They'll never know that you used a preset, nor will they care. What they care about is strictly the end result, not how you got there.
I'm with WanderingKid on this one, whatever you do, learn why you do it. Taking shots in the dark will only yield good results if you're lucky, which most of the time you won't. Don't worry about that at this stage though, just get to learn the synths.
Use presets as inspiration and learn from them. If you're using them for your own tracks, you'll probably want to disable or alter a lot of stuff. Reverbs are a good example, cause most synth's reverbs sound like poo poo (except Nexus, which uses ArtsAcoustic's) so you'll want to replace that with another reverb which you use as a send effect, like a convolution reverb.
Another example is bass sounds. Most bass presets are for example drenched in reverb, delay and phasing to make them sound big and impressive when listening in solo and stereo. The problem doesn't arise until you listen in mono (phase cancellation problems) or cut it to vinyl (needle jumping) or try to make it work in the mix (lacking bass/definition/tightness/consistency). In reality you want a bass that's synched/retriggered in mono without phasing problems and effects like delay or reverb to make it work in the mix.

As WanderingKid already wisely stated, presets on compressors are a generally bad idea, because it depends on the loudness and character of the sound to begin with. Only use it if you know why you need it. In my inserts and sends I usually try to keep all my outputs and inputs at -0dB so I don't get tricked by thinking louder sounds better and so I can find any clipping immediately.

# ¿ May 23, 2008 16:22

The Fog: Oct 10, 2004; -I spent the whole day trying to pull a peanut from that heater vent. Turns out it was just a moth. -How was it? -Dry.

extra innings lovin posted:

So this is kind of a weird question, but I'm curious to any answers:

What was the "Eureka!" moment, per se? When did you make the switch from "loving around, making cool noises" to "making a conscious effort towards a specific sound, and knowing how to go about making that sound"?

Was it a certain piece of gear or software? Rearranging your workspace or work ethic? Becoming more disciplined about producing? Or was it just a natural progression over time?

I know that it's an ambiguous question with no single kind of answer, but I ask because I myself am having some trouble getting everything off the ground. I'm in school, so I'm extremely limited in terms of time, finances, and even space (dorms). I'm really hoping that having an apartment next year and a better-paying job will help with both the space and the gear, but I'm interested in how other musicians got to where they are.

In music, you don't have THE eureka-moment, it's all about several eureka-moments. Rome wasn't built in a day, as they say. You will learn how to make a conscious effort towards a specific sound once you've learned how to make them. A lot of people (including myself) think a good idea to learn to make sounds you like, by copying presets. Fire up 2 instances of the same synth. One with the preset you wanna copy, one initialized. Now play a certain melody for a few bars on the first synth, then the same melody on the second synth. Now the first synth will be your goal and the second will be what you have. Listen to the loop repeatedly and make a mental note of what knobs make a certain change in your patch as you twist the knobs. If you can't hear any difference when twisting a knob, I suggest you revert it and continue with the other knobs in the mean time. Chances are that the knob wasn't even used and was just residue and if not, in most cases you will be able to hear the difference later on. Once you've done that, you'll know a lot about synthesis and be able to recreate many of the other presets in that synth. Try concentrating on those patches that you think sound very complex and learn how to do those. You'll see it's not as hard as it seems at first.

As for developing and becoming more efficient, there's a simple answer which takes a long time to master: Structure.
Really, it's all about doing things in a structured manner. Have the goal ready before you even fire up your sequencer. You can practice by writing music on a piece of paper. Write down what parts you want to go where in the track. Then just make it sound as good as you can.

# ¿ May 26, 2008 15:30

The Fog: Oct 10, 2004; -I spent the whole day trying to pull a peanut from that heater vent. Turns out it was just a moth. -How was it? -Dry.

You won't be distorting hardcore drums, not for UK Hardcore at least.
Kick is 1/8th long and offbeat bass is 1/8th long. Then you have your clapsnare on every 2nd kick and a hihat on the offbeat bass and a drumloop to fill it out. That's all there is to it basically, so you have:

code:

kick     : X-X-X-X-
clapsnare: --X---X-
hihat    : -X-X-X-X
bass     : -X-X-X-X
drumloop : X-------

You can get a kick like that out of the box with VEC1 or VEC2, just make it 1/8th note long. No need to EQ or compress it. The rest is all about the mixdown.

# ¿ Jun 27, 2008 16:01

The Fog: Oct 10, 2004; -I spent the whole day trying to pull a peanut from that heater vent. Turns out it was just a moth. -How was it? -Dry.

Also, check out this video for hardcore:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7483869089507547499

# ¿ Jun 27, 2008 23:57

The Fog: Oct 10, 2004; -I spent the whole day trying to pull a peanut from that heater vent. Turns out it was just a moth. -How was it? -Dry.

IMO, the problems with trackers is that they're a pain to work with if you're dependent on samples other than one shot samples. There's no good way to zoom in or out of a project which makes it hard to find mistakes in the arrangement. There's no good way to record samples (in a tracker which is MADE for samples nonetheless), so if you're trying to do any original work with vocals, you'll really have to work a lot just to get things going.
TBH, I see no reason (but it's possible if you really must) to use trackers if your goal is to make serious/pro-quality music as the other DAWs are better for that.
Some people like the routing capability that Buzz offers, but you can do the same with inserts and sends in any DAW, so I see no reason to use Buzz either TBH.

# ¿ Jun 30, 2008 16:20

The Fog: Oct 10, 2004; -I spent the whole day trying to pull a peanut from that heater vent. Turns out it was just a moth. -How was it? -Dry.

I've actually worked in trackers for about 6 years and Cubase for 3 years. The moment I switched to Cubase, I could see the tracks on a whole new level. This visual aid helped me a LOT, because all of a sudden I could see the structure (which I previously had to listen through the whole song for). All of a sudden arrangement became a breeze.

I've used Renoise after that and I think it's quite a capable tracker. The best I've tried imo. The only problem I have with it is that you're unable to zoom out and see where you've put each part.
Also aligning samples so they end exactly at the end of the bar (without having to resample or anything like that) is very hard in those trackers as well. Also making stuff that's not quantized (like shuffled loops, DnB's ghost snares) is impossible. Only thing you can do is shuffling the ticks per beat, but that will lower the BPM to a number that's hard to calculate and is not necessarily what you're looking for. I guess what I mean is that if you're working with loops or want to spice things up, trackers are a pain to work with. You can't extract groove patterns from loops like you can in other DAWs like Cubase.

# ¿ Jul 2, 2008 16:44

The Fog: Oct 10, 2004; -I spent the whole day trying to pull a peanut from that heater vent. Turns out it was just a moth. -How was it? -Dry.

toadee posted:

There's actually a collection of sliders for shuffled loops/non quantized beats in Renoise. Also, you can get sub tick resolution of timing (for extremely precise, perhaps even moreso than in a regular DAW) non-quantized beat placement with the DXX pattern command.

Also, in Renoise anyhow, you can label every row on the pattern arranger, so if you want to know where you are in a song, just note it on the pattern arranger and it will tell you by looking at it.

Cool! I didn't know you could do that in Renoise! Proving once again it's the best tracker of the bunch out there.

However I still think you've misinterpreted what I was trying to say about zooming in and out. AFAIK you can't look at the whole track and see the automation on every effect all at once. Is there a way to do that in Renoise? Cause it's a tool I use every day and all the time.

# ¿ Jul 3, 2008 00:41

The Fog: Oct 10, 2004; -I spent the whole day trying to pull a peanut from that heater vent. Turns out it was just a moth. -How was it? -Dry.

glitchkrieg posted:

Have to second the love of the Glitch VST. I've been using it recently and although some might see it as cheating, I think it's a really useful VST and a massive timesaver. It's fun to dick around with the settings while recording your output and then chopping, splicing and building more beats from that.

Then run it all through Glitch again. And again etc.

gently caress that attitude. There's no such thing as cheating. It's called "doing what it takes to get the results you like."
The sooner you learn this, the more successful you will be in creating your music.

# ¿ Jul 3, 2008 23:33

The Fog: Oct 10, 2004; -I spent the whole day trying to pull a peanut from that heater vent. Turns out it was just a moth. -How was it? -Dry.

That stabby sound is just a sample that's included in every stab sample pack. Most stabs are sampled.

# ¿ Jul 12, 2008 11:15

The Fog: Oct 10, 2004; -I spent the whole day trying to pull a peanut from that heater vent. Turns out it was just a moth. -How was it? -Dry.

OMGWTFAOLBBQ posted:

Okay, I've given up on hardcore.

I really love hardcore (lame, I know), but it's just too drat hard to get the beat and bass right.

Anyway, here's a house track I've made that I'd like some feedback on.

I've been working on Electronica for about a month.

Don't worry about the mix of the beats and bass just yet. They're a tricky part in every genre to get right. Start off making tracks and once you get the hang of what's behind it musically, you can start working on your mixes.

# ¿ Jul 15, 2008 04:22

The Fog: Oct 10, 2004; -I spent the whole day trying to pull a peanut from that heater vent. Turns out it was just a moth. -How was it? -Dry.

ManoliIsFat posted:

That's great advice because you can so easily get caught up in details that you neglect the rest of the track. You can ALWAYS go back and re-eq those hihats that are pissing you off, but its so much easier to do that when you have a whole song to work with and you're not stuck at square 1.

I couldn't agree more. For like 2-3 years I couldn't finish a track cause I just didn't know what to do next once I had my chorus-loop done, so instead of arranging the track, I was fiddling every single knob I could find and it would never get finished.
The problem was simple. I was focusing on the mix before I even had a solid musical foundation. That is, the song was essentially boring, so I tried to make it good by ignoring that fact and instead concentrating on the mix.
Music is divided into 2 parts, IMO:
Music
Production

If you start worrying about production when the music is poo poo, you'll never finish a good song.
A good song with a poo poo mix is better than a poo poo song with a good mix.

# ¿ Jul 17, 2008 03:23

The Fog: Oct 10, 2004; -I spent the whole day trying to pull a peanut from that heater vent. Turns out it was just a moth. -How was it? -Dry.

Try these videos.
Pretty good if you're starting out in hardcore:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=3D807C61AE9E7F3A

# ¿ Jul 20, 2008 15:52

The Fog: Oct 10, 2004; -I spent the whole day trying to pull a peanut from that heater vent. Turns out it was just a moth. -How was it? -Dry.

Lemon Groove posted:

Hey could anyone tell me how to go about isolating tracks from songs. Also, is it possible to do this using ableton live or sonar 7? I'm new at this and any help or suggestions would be great.

You can't!

You can _sometimes_ extract some parts, but that's the exception, not the rule. Usually it's acapellas that are extracted. There's a good guide on acapella extraction on YouTube.
HTH

# ¿ Jul 29, 2008 23:46

The Fog: Oct 10, 2004; -I spent the whole day trying to pull a peanut from that heater vent. Turns out it was just a moth. -How was it? -Dry.

Here's another question.
Does anyone of you know of some sort of MIDI-triggered gate? I'm using Cubase SX3.
The problem is as follows: I'm making a synthesized distorted kickdrum, but the tail of the kickdrum needs to be cut off. Because of the distortion, I can't really control the tail without affecting the main body and the main sound of the kickdrum. There's one simple solution to this which has crossed my mind and that is resampling. Now obviously resampling is very effective, but the problem with resampling is that I can't control the note of the kickdrum anymore, so resampling is out of the question. I thought that maybe there would be a plugin that uses a MIDI signal to reopen the gate, and then I can adjust the ADSR times in the gate to use as an amplitude envelope in my kickdrum's insert. Please note that it's very important that I can retrigger it and not just use a synched LFO on it.
Any solution is welcome.

# ¿ Aug 29, 2008 10:29

The Fog: Oct 10, 2004; -I spent the whole day trying to pull a peanut from that heater vent. Turns out it was just a moth. -How was it? -Dry.

wayfinder posted:

There's mgTriggerGate, which I believe you can trigger on and off via MIDI. You should also try Dyno, it lets you (among other things) put an arbitrary volume curve over hits, which it recognizes automatically. OR you could just automate the volume itself, I guess? I don't know if Cubase can route MIDI to arbitrary parameters, I'm so spoiled by Buzz, where I have a machine called PeerADSR that provides triggerable ADSR control for any parameter I choose.

Thanks for this, I shall try out the free one!
Re: MIDI-routing to arbitrary params, I'm afraid there's no such thing in Cubase as far as I'm aware. I know for a fact that FL Studio does this, but I've never seen (or heard) it being done in Cubase

# ¿ Aug 29, 2008 11:36

The Fog: Oct 10, 2004; -I spent the whole day trying to pull a peanut from that heater vent. Turns out it was just a moth. -How was it? -Dry.

So, in essence he's saying:
Unison -> Monophony
rather than:
Unison <-> Monophony
or:
Unison = Monophony
Correct?

# ¿ Aug 31, 2008 19:36

The Fog: Oct 10, 2004; -I spent the whole day trying to pull a peanut from that heater vent. Turns out it was just a moth. -How was it? -Dry.

The way I gather it, monophony means that you only play one note and one voice at a time, whereas unison means you play several voices AND one note at a time.
This would mean that while unison is only one note in itself, but several voices, you could have another note playing in unison with itself. Monophonic doesn't imply that there are several voices, it only limits the amount of notes that can be played simultaneously.

# ¿ Aug 31, 2008 21:19

The Fog: Oct 10, 2004; -I spent the whole day trying to pull a peanut from that heater vent. Turns out it was just a moth. -How was it? -Dry.

There's a few drum libraries out there. XLN Addictive Drums seems like a popular choice. Drumkit From Hell is another one. Look after those products and most music websites will be able to give you more suggestions.

# ¿ Sep 9, 2008 23:16

The Fog: Oct 10, 2004; -I spent the whole day trying to pull a peanut from that heater vent. Turns out it was just a moth. -How was it? -Dry.

I definitely agree with wayfinder there.
A compressor will compress the peaks of the signal, so the wet signal sounds just as loud as the dry signal, but without the peaks. If you raise the volume, you don't hear the compression artifacts (which is why you should be A/Bing anyway), you just hear that the sound is now louder.
You don't use a compressor to expand the signal. There's expanders for that.
To me, A/Bing a compressor on different loudnesses, is like A/Bing an EQ on different speakers.

# ¿ Sep 24, 2008 20:38

The Fog: Oct 10, 2004; -I spent the whole day trying to pull a peanut from that heater vent. Turns out it was just a moth. -How was it? -Dry.

WanderingKid, I think you know how the technical side of a compressor works, however you seem to have confused the real-world application and the intention of it.
You don't use compressors to make the sound perceivably louder while keeping the same peak, but rather you use compressors to make the peaks lower, maintaining the same perceived loudness.
THAT is the reason you don't A/B at different volumes.
You A/B so that you can hear if the sound is too squashed after compression. If you A/B at different volumes, you'll be unable to tell.

I Dig Gardening, the Fletcher-Munson curves just tell you that we perceive certain bands of frequencies differently, no more, no less. However, louder volumes are perceived as better/phatter.

# ¿ Sep 25, 2008 00:46

The Fog: Oct 10, 2004; -I spent the whole day trying to pull a peanut from that heater vent. Turns out it was just a moth. -How was it? -Dry.

Yoozer posted:

It is said: there are no rules.

Without rules, there is no game. Playing pinball without rules would mean that you'd roll a steel orb over an infinite plane, never scoring, never dying. You need bumpers, a plunger, a hole and flippers and a plane at 6.5 degrees to get things moving.

It is asked: what are the rules? Is there a setting for the EQ/compressor/reverb/chorus that makes (x) sound good/fat/warm/awesome/jizztastic automatically?

The question is misguided, but so is the answer that there are no rules.

There's a low-cut switch on microphones - that's a rule poured in hardware. There's a limit to the range of the attack and release on a compressor. Another rule. You can boost or cut a frequency range only so much - another rule.

The first thing to understand is that these "rules" are not laws set in stone but practical, sane guidelines. Furthermore, we've had half a century to debug the rules, to find the borders and bumpers and even the big hole where our poor little steel orb would disappear in. In other words, shitloads of work has been done by pioneers to find out what sounds good and what doesn't.

You'd be nuts to ignore that legacy. You'd be doomed to reinvent it and waste a lot of time doing so. What's much more interesting is to apply that teaching and then start looking for weak spots. "Convention says to treat x like y, what happens if I do this and boom, a new universe may open, or you may forever be tarred and feathered for introducing the rest of the world to the Cher effect (and getting caught lying about it, too).

You use the word "good". Good compared to what?

And this is exactly why you need the right and wrong ways. Terminology is just there to save you from typing out "that one thingamajig up there in the left that makes it go like WHEEE only with SHHHH added to the last bit of WHEEEE" and other assorted stream-of-consciousness nonsense. It's effective because it lets everyone know what they mean, pretty much immediately as long as you're not talking about synthesizers (where Roland, Yamaha and Korg do their stinking best to invent their own jargon, each completely loving worthless).

It's not broken, it's bent at a weird and rather painful angle

E-mu Xboard 49, another nice one with a small footprint - and knobs! Just again, more expensive. I hope space is a bigger issue for you than cash I think Edirol has a few 37-key keyboard controllers - while 25 keys is really awfully cramped, 37 gives you just a wee bit more space so that it's nearly comfortable.

Yoozer! Thank you, sir.
I couldn't agree more with there being rules on everything. I used to wander around in the dark twisting this knob on the EQ and changing the compressor to a a setting where it wasn't triggered because the threshold was set up wrong and the auto-gain was on. There definitely are rules (or guidelines as one may put it more appropriately).
The whole thing about genres is sticking to a certain set of rules. Sure you may add a few new elements etc., but generally you have to stay within the genre's rules for the track to be recognized as that genre.
And look at music theory. There's very little music put out by The Big Three that doesn't follow music theory.
When using instruments, there's rules to what notes they can play (tessitura) to make them sound good, etc.
I definitely agree with you that there are rules. I also think people should experiment without thinking about the rules, but at the end of the day, you need to know what the rules are and WHY they are used, to get the big picture to gel.

# ¿ Sep 27, 2008 12:44

The Fog: Oct 10, 2004; -I spent the whole day trying to pull a peanut from that heater vent. Turns out it was just a moth. -How was it? -Dry.

sh1fty posted:

Ohhh okay, now I get it. I definitely notice it now. I know exactly which pad he's talking about that I've used now too. No more cheese-gate I promise!

I suggest you learn to mix like the pros (techniques and ideas, etc.). Once you know how to mix properly, you will be able to add whatever you want and make it sound good. Even a cheese-gate!

# ¿ Oct 3, 2008 00:44

The Fog: Oct 10, 2004; -I spent the whole day trying to pull a peanut from that heater vent. Turns out it was just a moth. -How was it? -Dry.

Try making the track and finishing it with MIDI-sounds.
If the song works with poor production, it'll sound great with good production.

If you want a more in-depth book on audio, there's always Mastering Audio, by Bob Katz

# ¿ Oct 11, 2008 03:25

The Fog: Oct 10, 2004; -I spent the whole day trying to pull a peanut from that heater vent. Turns out it was just a moth. -How was it? -Dry.

cubicle gangster posted:

I'm not so sure that would work with techno. The focus there is less on the melodies and more on the actual noises themselves.
Good sounds are as important as a good beat in my eyes.

You do have a point! In genres where the focus is on sound design you should definitely be concentrating on that. The good thing about that is that melodies and sound design seem mutually exclusive to an extent. The genres with the most complex and interesting soundscapes are usually very sparse on melodies and vice versa.
For club music where there's a lot of focus on melodies, you usually only hear the same formulaic sounds in every track, but the melodies, chord progressions and vocals are what makes the tracks.

Cheers for pointing that out cubicle gangster!

# ¿ Oct 11, 2008 13:27

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 04:42

The Fog: Oct 10, 2004; -I spent the whole day trying to pull a peanut from that heater vent. Turns out it was just a moth. -How was it? -Dry.

Wasn't psycle developed by the now diseased Arguru (RIP)?
Also, I'm sure wayfinder already knows this, but buzz is under development again! There's some tasty new betas out there. Looks rather promising.

# ¿ Oct 12, 2008 21:21

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > No Music Discussion > Musician's Lounge > The "how do I make electronic/club/DJ music" Megathread!

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