Small Questions Which Don't Deserve Their Own Thread

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > No More Drake > Musician's Lounge > Small Questions Which Don't Deserve Their Own Thread

for fucks sake: Jan 23, 2016

Jazz Marimba posted:

Does anyone here keep a practice log? What do you keep track of? How is it organized? May I see it, or even just a section of it?

For a while I kept my practice log in a notebook, but I didn't like it because it's usually in the wrong room and it's hard to get a summary of what you've been working on.

My current practice log is in Trello. It's easy to see at a glance what I'm currently working on. The colour labels are red for exercises, green for tunes I'm working on and yellow for teaching material I'm going through (blue is for music production stuff).

I keep the progress for a given exercise, book or course up to date inside that ticket.

# ¿ Mar 31, 2016 21:42

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 9, 2024 20:22

for fucks sake: Jan 23, 2016

Simone Poodoin posted:

I'm trying the Syntorial app and have a question about pulse waves: when it comes to sound is there a significant difference between when the duty cycle is under or over 50%? For example if pulse width is at 60% or at 40% it sounds the same to me.

e: maybe this question belongs in the synth thread

My gut says they should sound identical. I think you'd only notice if you played a 40% and a 60% at the same time. You'd probably get phasing that would sound different than two 40%s.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2022 20:06

for fucks sake: Jan 23, 2016

pseudorandom posted:

Honestly I'm having a hard time describing what I'm looking for because I don't know enough to know what questions to ask. I guess, If you're familiar with "cooking for engineers", I'm kind of hoping for "music 101 for engineers".

If you're after the real fundamentals you can try to understand the role of the harmonic series.

Basically if something sounds like a musical note it's because the frequencies that make up the sound line up more or less with the harmonic series. Conversely non musical sounds have frequencies that don't line up with it.

Andrew Huang has a pretty nice intro to it here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wx_kugSemfY

# ¿ Apr 4, 2022 11:33

for fucks sake: Jan 23, 2016

cruft posted:

You're gonna love how the modern western scale is determined: just multiply each frequency by 2^(1/12) to get the next half step up.

Yeah, we went through centuries of fiddling about with different compromises, making the thirds a little sweeter at the cost of the fifths and so on, and then just went "gently caress it, just divide the octave by twelve that's good enough."

# ¿ Apr 4, 2022 19:12

for fucks sake: Jan 23, 2016

Pollyanna posted:

If not, would a thread where we discuss the process and share tips/tutorials on doing so be valuable?

Definitely. Online music spaces tend towards talking about gear, and there's not enough emphasis on the craft imo.

# ¿ May 20, 2022 20:50

for fucks sake: Jan 23, 2016

If you want to go the free open source route, check out musescore.

# ¿ Jun 13, 2022 15:42

for fucks sake: Jan 23, 2016

ProperCoochie posted:

I'm worried that once I export all the .wavs, the EP will sound like a random collection of songs--which it is--but I still want the same feel throughout. The same personal touch.

In my experience this isn't something you can achieve after-the-fact. You have to go into the process with the intention of making the tracks have a similar vibe.

ProperCoochie posted:

One tip that's helped me is to not use such a wide range of sounds, samples, effects. Sticking to say, 20 different kicks, 30 different snares, 30 types of synth, etc.

That still sounds like too much. I've made two albums where I decided on some sonic restrictions before starting them. For one I made every single sound with two hardware synthesizers, for the other I restricted myself to one bass amp VST, one bass guitar, one drum library and chromatic percussion (marimba, glockenspiel, etc). Those sounded cohesive because they drew from a relatively small source of sounds.

When I have let myself build up tracks somewhat at random then decide to package them up as an EP it has resulted in, as you say, a random collection of songs. That's ok, I'm still fond of some of that music and the EPs serve as a document of me making a particular style at a particular time, but they definitely don't have the cohesive feeling of the more deliberate albums mentioned above.

ProperCoochie posted:

And technically speaking, the same peaks and levels to be similar among the tracks. What does the master channel of an EP look like? (Is that even a question? or the right question?)

Technically at least you can master them so they all have a similar LUFS level, -14 is the standard on Spotify for example.

# ¿ Jul 4, 2022 15:56

for fucks sake: Jan 23, 2016

You could install the demo of Amplitube 5 and try loading your presets from 3.

# ¿ Jul 27, 2022 13:11

for fucks sake: Jan 23, 2016

TooMuchAbstraction posted:

People need to stop thinking that art is only the highly-polished "professional" stuff. Seriously, this is one of the biggest problems with how culture is presented these days.

Starting to notice a backlash against this. Best example I know is 100 gecs, they do all kinds of stuff "wrong" like deliberately clipping digital signals and writing ska songs.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2023 13:04

for fucks sake: Jan 23, 2016

Beer_Suitcase posted:

i think well the vocals have a varying amount of volume and im not sure how to make that all consistent.

Volume automation and compression.

Beer_Suitcase posted:

Its got more reverb in it that i really like but i still feel my voice is "out of sorts" with the music, but i may just being overly critical .

Firstly, the vocals are way too high in the mix. This is a cover with the vocals removed, right? Do some a/b listening with the original and try to match the levels.

On reverb, if anything they're way too dry. It sounds like it was recorded in a completely separate environment, this is something that reverb can help with. If you think about the sounds in the room around you, they sound like they're all in the same place because they all have exactly the same "reverb settings" applied to them.

I think the main reason it sounds "out of sorts" is because there's a real midrange hump to the sound - there's very little low-end in the vocals and it doesn't match the character of the rest of the sounds that are present.

# ¿ Feb 28, 2023 10:18

for fucks sake: Jan 23, 2016

Guitar quartets are a thing, there was a very cool one on NPR Tiny Desk recently.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tu_PRf1tyjI

# ¿ Apr 30, 2023 22:43

for fucks sake: Jan 23, 2016

Loopcloud - https://www.loopcloud.com/cloud/

# ¿ Jul 11, 2023 17:38

for fucks sake: Jan 23, 2016

I'm trying to work on my timing. Is there something that will show me how far in front or behind a given subdivision I am? Something like the scoring system in Rocksmith but not a game, just a metronome that reads the transients of what you're playing and tells you "you're 5ms ahead of the beat" and so on.

# ¿ Jul 22, 2023 16:35

for fucks sake: Jan 23, 2016

It looks like there was a hardware unit that does exactly what I described in the mid-90's, long discontinued. Hilariously called the Russian Dragon (rushin' draggin').
https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/jeanius-electronics-russian-dragon-rd-r3

I play with a metronome often. I think the problem is that what I hear as on the beat is actually slightly ahead of the beat. I'm in time, just shifted forwards. My thought is that some real-time feedback could help me adjust.

# ¿ Jul 22, 2023 17:23

for fucks sake: Jan 23, 2016

I've been through recording myself and inspecting how close the transients are to the grid lines, I'm really after something real-time.

But if this book is as good as yous say it is I should probably give it a shot!

# ¿ Jul 22, 2023 19:17

for fucks sake: Jan 23, 2016

webcams for christ posted:

any kind of basic spectrometer software would let you easily visualize it, as long as you have a mic picking up the metronome click/beep and whatever you're playing, whether that's an Audacity plugin, something on your DAW, or stand alone software like this

but the Starer book is really, really helpful for locking in your subdivisions and helping with rhythmic sight reading skills imo

Ok thanks to your suggestion I tried using the built-in oscilliscope in my DAW. It has a neat feature where you can have two sources with different colours. Here the clave is in blue and the bass is in orange. Pretty much exactly what I was looking for

# ¿ Jul 22, 2023 19:46

for fucks sake: Jan 23, 2016

Don't forget velocity either, this is extra important on drums as they're usually in control of the dynamics of a track. Also, velocity is the main way to change the timbre of a drum.

# ¿ Jul 27, 2023 21:48

for fucks sake: Jan 23, 2016

I mainly meant acoustic drums which change timbre in a particular way as you hit them harder. With electronic drums you can do whatever you want :cool:

# ¿ Jul 27, 2023 22:20

for fucks sake: Jan 23, 2016

xzzy posted:

If you want to do modular type stuff, VCV Rack is the way to play. The free version is more than enough synth for any single human.

If you're going for modular, I'd suggest trying both VCV Rack and The Grid in Bitwig Studio, as they both use very different metaphors. VCV rack is skeumorphic, aping the form and function of hardware modular synths, where BWS knows it is a piece of software first and foremost.

# ¿ Nov 10, 2023 13:49

for fucks sake: Jan 23, 2016

Have you considered an electric violin?

# ¿ Nov 24, 2023 12:56

for fucks sake: Jan 23, 2016

Bandcamp is still fine, there haven't been any big changes and they haven't suddenly started doing anything unethical towards artists. Soundcloud is also an option.

# ¿ Dec 31, 2023 11:11

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 9, 2024 20:22

for fucks sake: Jan 23, 2016

Plank Walker posted:

Reposting from the YOSPOS music thread:

Can anyone recommend some good youtube vids or articles on what to do with this? My brother gave it to me when he heard I was recording guitar into a DAW when he upgraded to a bigger model, but idk what capabilities it has or what use I'd even have for it. Been interested in having a keyboard of some kind though to screw around with, just need a pointer in the right direction.

If you're already playing guitar I'd suggest trying a decent drum library which can take advantage of the fact that the keys are velocity sensitive. You can really play the drums on a velocity-sensitive keyboard (or maybe on the pads this thing has) in a way that's not possible on a computer keyboard or using the mouse.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2024 01:12

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > No More Drake > Musician's Lounge > Small Questions Which Don't Deserve Their Own Thread