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NEOGAF's Official Music Production Thread: calling all producers

Fusebox

Banned
Yeah I'm on a Mac, the download was a 450mb dmg file which installed both the VST and the demo library.

It needs to be hosted in a DAW btw, it isn't a standalone product if that's what you're looking for.
 
Yeah I'm on a Mac, the download was a 450mb dmg file which installed both the VST and the demo library.

It needs to be hosted in a DAW btw, it isn't a standalone product if that's what you're looking for.

Do the contents install to the Library -> Audio -> Plug Ins?

How do I go about adding them to Ableton, for example?
 

Fusebox

Banned
What files?

Let's go back a step. Are you familiar with using VSTs? Are you able to open the VST but can't find the presets? What are you seeing on your screen?
 

Fusebox

Banned
Good to hear. It's a wicked plug. I don't use it for bread and butter percussion like kicks, snares etc although that one click step sequencer is a joy to use, I use it to create complex, polyrhythmic percussion sequences which I layer under my bread and butter layers.

Also, take a one shot out of your synth melody as audio, load it into BT, wreck it and then slot it back into your synth melody as a fill and watch the kids go wild trying to figure out how you got your synth to do that sound.
 

Fusebox

Banned
Got inspired by the upcoming TR-08 and decided to make a tune using only the 808 kit from Addictive Drums Reel Drums expansion. Had to be on a hip-hop tip of course but ended up a tad dub . I slowed down a 128 trance vocal to fit, all the synth parts are from Virus TI except for one aggressive bass fill which is from Spire. A few Waves plugs on this e.g. Maxxbass on that drone bass toward the end, Chris Lord Alge stereo drum plug on the percussion, NLS channel strips all around (using a mix of the different desks) and some H comp on the drum bus.

Not my usual style but it turned out surprisingly ok, check it:

https://soundcloud.com/kaarma/808-steak
 

reddmyst

Member
Amazing work for everyone here, hopefully I'll be as good. Never thought it would be fun at all, but I'm glad I was wrong.
 

Fusebox

Banned
Those are AU plugs only, no VST but that shouldn't be a problem depending on your DAW. What kind of plugs are you after tho? Synths? Creative effects? Mastering tools?

There's a mix of stuff here that might be useful:

http://www.resoundsound.com/25-best-free-vst-au-plugins-pc-mac-2013-part-1/

Off the top of my head my fave free VSTs are TAL Noisemaker and Tyrell N6 synths, bx cleansweep for HP/LP filter, Molot compressor for dirty Russian compression and Voxengo Span for visually monitoring frequencies.

And how come your dad went to NAMM and you didn't man? What's the story there?
 
Those are AU plugs only, no VST but that shouldn't be a problem depending on your DAW. What kind of plugs are you after tho? Synths? Creative effects? Mastering tools?

There's a mix of stuff here that might be useful:

http://www.resoundsound.com/25-best-free-vst-au-plugins-pc-mac-2013-part-1/

Off the top of my head my fave free VSTs are TAL Noisemaker and Tyrell N6 synths, bx cleansweep for HP/LP filter, Molot compressor for dirty Russian compression and Voxengo Span for visually monitoring frequencies.

And how come your dad went to NAMM and you didn't man? What's the story there?
I've gone the last like 4 or 5 years but I live in SF now

thanks for the recs, I'll look them up. I basically just need good basics. Compresser, Delay, Reverb, EQ, etc. I'm on Live Lite right now so I don't get all those nice built in effects.

Also I learned when installing those AU's that Apple has a bunch of default AU's. Interested in trying them out.
 

Fusebox

Banned
Those default AU's are probably from Garageband if you have that installed.

For what you need check out Freeverb for verb, Sonimus EQ for eq, Yohngs W1 limiter, Molot compressor and Camelcrusher for fun.
 

lil smoke

Banned
thezerofire, check out Klanghelm's free stuff.

Check Satson for something VERY cool at low price.

See if you can still get a hold of Driver or Supercharger from NI, you'll have to dive in some forums for that one, since they aren't offering it on the site anymore.

Fusebox, NLS is just a beast isn't it? That Nevo on bass? Wicked. I don't think a lot of people realize that the Drive on Nevo works opposite the way the drives work on the other 2. At least that's what I get. It smooths out somewhat, where the others get distorted in non-pleasing ways.

Yeah, with Molot... also Limiter 6.
 
Those default AU's are probably from Garageband if you have that installed.

For what you need check out Freeverb for verb, Sonimus EQ for eq, Yohngs W1 limiter, Molot compressor and Camelcrusher for fun.
I don't think I have Garageband. I'll look into those. I have Molot and Camelcrusher already
 

Fusebox

Banned
Hmmm, maybe they aren't from Garageband , but I bought a Macbook recently and found a load of AUs on it and when I searched some of the names they all took me to Garageband links.

Edit: Doesn't Garageband come preinstalled? I think mine did.

Oh yeah I use Klanghelms DC1A all the time and forgot it was free, good tip. All the Sonimus stuff is excellent too, I started with their free EQ which was so good I bought SonEq Pro. Satson is awesome too, but tbh I haven't used it as much since I got NLS soon after and yep, Nevos custom Neve sounds awesome.
 

neos

Member
Also I need to learn compression in general

+1
lol i just sit in front of mi pc thinking "now i'm gonna look out for some compression video\lectures"

If anyone wants to put his 2cents on the subject is more than welcome:)

Also, i have this feeling that Reason's compressor sucks, but probably it's just me being noobish
mclass-compressor.jpg
 

Fusebox

Banned
Compression took me ages to get properly (and I'm still a long way off from feeling like I've mastered it), even after I had read a stack of tutes and understood what was happening inside the compressor I still had trouble trying to dial in the right compression settings. It wasn't until I got a dedicated hardware compressor and spent long hours sitting in front of with my eyes closed just really listening hard to the changes being made when I turned the knobs. You don't need a hardware comp of course, but at the very least map Attack, release, ratio and threshold to a MIDI controller so you can change these settings with your eyes closed and your ears wide open.

A good place to start is really think about what you're trying to achieve by compressing. For example if you're just trying to make a snare pop out in the mix then do a really slow attack so all the start transients are preserved, a really quick release so the tail doesn't smear, a high ratio to emphasise the sharpness of the snare sound and the threshold generally needs to be set in relation to the volume of your snare, a low threshold is a good place to start for a snare example. You should see loads of gain being reduced when the compressor triggers.

Remember that the compression is also going to bring up any reverb or delay effects too so best to compress beforehand if possible, and the majority of compressors I use also naturally roll off a bit of bass and treble so don't be concerned if you feel the need to re-eq after comping.

Conversely, if you're looking to comp at the master then you want hardly any gain reduction at all, maybe a 1.something ratio, high threshold, gentle attack, gentle release, if you see your gain reduction meter bouncing a lot then you're probably working the comp too hard. Gentle is the key on the master.

Also, mixing back in a bit of the uncompressed sound can create some really big sounding parts ala parallel, NYC compression. And don't forget that compression ratios are multiplied. So if you do 2:1 ratio on a snare and then 2:1 on the drum bus that contains that snare and then another 2:1 at the master the snare is actually being compressed 2 x 2 x 2 which is an 8:1 ratio.
 
Compression took me ages to get properly (and I'm still a long way off from feeling like I've mastered it), even after I had read a stack of tutes and understood what was happening inside the compressor I still had trouble trying to dial in the right compression settings. It wasn't until I got a dedicated hardware compressor and spent long hours sitting in front of with my eyes closed just really listening hard to the changes being made when I turned the knobs. You don't need a hardware comp of course, but at the very least map Attack, release, ratio and threshold to a MIDI controller so you can change these settings with your eyes closed and your ears wide open.

A good place to start is really think about what you're trying to achieve by compressing. For example if you're just trying to make a snare pop out in the mix then do a really slow attack so all the start transients are preserved, a really quick release so the tail doesn't smear, a high ratio to emphasise the sharpness of the snare sound and the threshold generally needs to be set in relation to the volume of your snare, a low threshold is a good place to start for a snare example. You should see loads of gain being reduced when the compressor triggers.

Remember that the compression is also going to bring up any reverb or delay effects too so best to compress beforehand if possible, and the majority of compressors I use also naturally roll off a bit of bass and treble so don't be concerned if you feel the need to re-eq after comping.

Conversely, if you're looking to comp at the master then you want hardly any gain reduction at all, maybe a 1.something ratio, high threshold, gentle attack, gentle release, if you see your gain reduction meter bouncing a lot then you're probably working the comp too hard. Gentle is the key on the master.

Also, mixing back in a bit of the uncompressed sound can create some really big sounding parts ala parallel, NYC compression. And don't forget that compression ratios are multiplied. So if you do 2:1 ratio on a snare and then 2:1 on the drum bus that contains that snare and then another 2:1 at the master the snare is actually being compressed 2 x 2 x 2 which is an 8:1 ratio.

This is my first time noticing this thread, and generally I have so far just skimmed the thread here and there. So, I come across this and I felt that I can impart some knowledge here.

Let me clear something up here first just so I don't come across like some arrogant jackass coming in here to make you guys feel bad and step on toes. Its not my goal at all to just tell people what they think is wrong. I would be more then glad to explain anything and everything if you guys want to know it. I should tell you guys where I am coming from. Music production and Post production is what I do for a living. Its not a hobby for me, ok?

I want to comment on Fusebox's post here about compression not just for him, but for everyone else who wants to get a handle on compression. Again, this isn't to knock on Fusebox here, but based on what I read I felt the need to speak up and tell you and anyone else reading what you are misunderstanding about compression.

You give an example about this snare drum that you want to pop out in the mix by setting a slow attack so all the start transients are preserved. Based on just this alone, you fundamentally missed the entire point what one would use a compressor on a snare drum in the first place. Refer yourself to this.
Code:
[IMG]http://lossenderosstudio.com/adsr.png[/IMG]

The snare drum just like any idiophone or membranophone has an envelope where the peak is immediately present at the point of compression. Doing what you suggested does not help your mix at all. This only further complicates and confuses you on how much headroom you have to work with.

Also, the purpose of compression is NOT to preserve the transient. Applying a compressor to tracks in your mix is done to control the sounds that are too dynamic so that you can mix much more comfortably.

Also, many a times you want to do your EQing BEFORE you compress something. For example, I may want the attack of my kick drum to be more present and thus attenuate some 4k and then compress that back into place. In fact, every professional I know does EQ work before they resort to compressing a track during mixing.

To further elaborate what you have wrong there. If you compress your snare drum 2:1, compress your drum submix 2:1, and then compress your stereo mixdown 2:1; that does not necessarily mean that you have compressed your snare drum at 8:1. Thats wrong. The snare drum for all we know could be left completely unaffected if it never reaches the threshold. If it does not reach the threshold, it doesn't compress. Now, it may sound more present in your mix because the rest of the compression you've applied has put your mix on a much more closer level dynamically to where your snare drum is. But that does not mean that your snare drum has been compressed in total at a 8:1 ratio. Thats just plain silly.

Anyway, I hope what I clarified is of help to you or somebody else here. I'll sub the thread and maybe I'll pop in sometime. If you guys are really, really interested receiving help then perhaps I can make some video tutorials. I work exclusively in Pro Tools, but a lot of things are still applicable. Especially Abelton live.
 

Fusebox

Banned
Good post man. Although I use compression for much more than just controlling dynamics , I use it as a creative effect. For the snare example I'm not trying to get it to sit nicely in a mix, I'm smashing the hell out of so it cracks like a whip and stick out like a sore thumb in a busy house track.

And eqing before the comp is all good too of course, but that doesn't really change the fact that most compressors have a roll-off effect on the low and high frequencies of the signal being passed through and if you want to preserve that then you need an eq after, that's what I was referring to, wasn't trying to suggest you shouldn't eq before either, I almost always do both. Not trying to start an argument btw lol, there's already loads good arguments on the Internet for putting the eq before or after.

And yes, the multiplication doesn't take effect if it isn't reaching the threshold, good addition.
 
if any of you dudes are producing the "hip-hop" beats and need someone to rap over them send me a pm i like to rap for fun in my spare time

here is me rapping over other people's beats i stole[
I don't really have a genre at all yet, so if I do something hip hop I'll let you know

If you guys are really, really interested receiving help then perhaps I can make some video tutorials. I work exclusively in Pro Tools, but a lot of things are still applicable. Especially Abelton live.
yes please
 
I know there are a few guys here who are into composing for film/tv/games and this looks like a good opportunity:

http://www.hanszimmerwantsyou.com/

The 3 finalists get an interview for a full time composers job at Hans' company Bleeding Fingers. Unfortunately it seems that the first stage of the contest relies on number of likes/listens on soundcloud and votes on the site before any entries will reach the judges, and it looks like some people have been buying listens/comments or using other manipulation, which sucks.

I think it's definitely worth a shot though if you're interested in this sort of thing, and here's my shameless plug for my entry:

http://www.hanszimmerwantsyou.com/tracks/560
https://soundcloud.com/matthewchastney/northern-lights-bleeding

Has anyone else entered this?
 
The snare drum just like any idiophone or membranophone has an envelope where the peak is immediately present at the point of compression. Doing what you suggested does not help your mix at all. This only further complicates and confuses you on how much headroom you have to work with.

This is a completely valid way to compress a snare. By missing the attack stage of the snare you can increase the make up gain of the decay.

Also, the purpose of compression is NOT to preserve the transient. Applying a compressor to tracks in your mix is done to control the sounds that are too dynamic so that you can mix much more comfortably.

The purpose of a compressor was originally to limit the dynamic range of a signal. You can set up a compressor to preserve transients. You seem to be completely overlooking the fact that producers have been abusing compressors for decades now, to achieve a variety of creative effects and uses. I assume you are familiar with the loudness war, as one glaring example of the use of over compression.
 

lil smoke

Banned
Spy, I think that's a bit of overthinking compression and some semantics, but Fusebox's method was pretty darn good explanation in a musical sense.

I think, just get to know your compressors, know how they individually react to sound, if you envision one of your comps as a transient designer, then use it that way.

That is not a good compressor. I have seen it confuse people who were trying to learn.
 

neos

Member
can i get some feedback on a song i made over the past few days? i dont usually sing so im not used to mixing vocals really

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/40086894/Cancer.mp3

Track is good, nice mood and good percussive stuff, but the vocals are feeling weird, too much reverb. Maybe try using a shorter decay (maybe a gate?) on the reverb, and eq the lower frequencies off from the tail of it. Give it a shot and let us hear how it goes

Compression related:
i'm working on a track with heavy use of side-chain compression as rythmic effect (i use a synth with 0 Attack and 0 Release\full DS with the same pattern of the kick as a trigger).But a couple of instruments are wild and tend to go overboard (a sub-bass and a lead) because the melody is quite wide in the piano roll, so in certain notes they tend to prevail upon the rest of the mix (particularly the sub). I really don't want to change the instruments cause i like how they sound for the rest of the track, Should i use another compressor to help make them more "stable" in volumes? What if i set up another comp before or after the sidechain one?How will affect the track once i get to the mastering?
Should i just automate the volumes to be lowering those peak notes?
So many questions:)
 
Compression related:
i'm working on a track with heavy use of side-chain compression as rythmic effect (i use a synth with 0 Attack and 0 Release\full DS with the same pattern of the kick as a trigger).But a couple of instruments are wild and tend to go overboard (a sub-bass and a lead) because the melody is quite wide in the piano roll, so in certain notes they tend to prevail upon the rest of the mix (particularly the sub). I really don't want to change the instruments cause i like how they sound for the rest of the track, Should i use another compressor to help make them more "stable" in volumes? What if i set up another comp before or after the sidechain one?How will affect the track once i get to the mastering?
Should i just automate the volumes to be lowering those peak notes?
So many questions:)

Hopefully I've understood you right. If the sub bass is going overboard, one good way to combat this is to print the root note of your sub to audio, stretch it over the key range of what you need in a sampler, then re program in your sub bass line with the sampled instrument. This will ensure the note velocities remain the same.

Instead of automating the volume levels by hand for the lead you could try out an AutoGain plugin. You could demo this to see if it has the desired effect.

But there a number of ways you could go about correcting this, just try out a number of different things and see what works best for you.
 

Sadsic

Member
Track is good, nice mood and good percussive stuff, but the vocals are feeling weird, too much reverb. Maybe try using a shorter decay (maybe a gate?) on the reverb, and eq the lower frequencies off from the tail of it. Give it a shot and let us hear how it goes

i did a lot of crazy routing on that, had a return track of reverb on top of the regular track, then like 2 chains of filtered delays on the regular vocal tracks, then had about 5 vocal tracks of me each with reverb on a bus for all of them, ill experiment around with it
 

Servbot24

Banned
I'm gonna be picking up a Shure Beta 87a tonight for recording vocals. Do I need to be careful when getting an XLR cables? I have no idea if they vary in sound quality.
 

neos

Member
Hopefully I've understood you right. If the sub bass is going overboard, one good way to combat this is to print the root note of your sub to audio, stretch it over the key range of what you need in a sampler, then re program in your sub bass line with the sampled instrument. This will ensure the note velocities remain the same.

Instead of automating the volume levels by hand for the lead you could try out an AutoGain plugin. You could demo this to see if it has the desired effect.

But there a number of ways you could go about correcting this, just try out a number of different things and see what works best for you.
I'm in Reason 5, so no VST allowed,. However i gave a look to the link you provided and...

"The HoRNet AutoGain has been designed with a specific purpose in mind: drastically shorten the time it takes to create volume automations."

so looks like i'm going to automate volume levels, not a problem, i'll do that. The other way you suggested seems much more complicated but i will give it a shot just to see if i can do that in Reason.
Thank you
i did a lot of crazy routing on that, had a return track of reverb on top of the regular track, then like 2 chains of filtered delays on the regular vocal tracks, then had about 5 vocal tracks of me each with reverb on a bus for all of them, ill experiment around with it
Why would you do all of those routing on the vocals?just curious, i'm not criticizing you. I never really used vocals, in my last track i had some samples but i did nothing more than adding a couple of very short delays panned oppositely to give a little wideness and a gated reverb+delays on the mid-high frequencies, but the main sample were still clear and almost unaltered from the original.

@Fusebox
@Professor Chaos

I made this video to directly respond to you guys

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7U4Bf9ef6bk&feature=youtu.be
Watched this, and if you would plese elaborate more on the difference between limiting and compressing, it'd an interesting lecture for me.
Also i'm glad you pointed at the fact that you are not a fan of the louness war, i'm not as well (i love to rewatch here and there theBroken Age Teaser because of its dynamics), but as an EDM wanna be producer, i'm struggling to achieve that really loud-as-fuck sound for my productions, because that's how the genre works,and i think others in this thread may be in the same boat.Don't be too harsh on us:)
 
@Fusebox
@Professor Chaos

I made this video to directly respond to you guys

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7U4Bf9ef6bk&feature=youtu.be

Hey man, I appreciate your reply. I get what you're saying about using a compressor in a general sense. And I agree that you need to fundamentally know how a compressor works before you can use it effectively. And a lot of what we are saying here would not be applicable to mixing live drums, which you seem to be doing in the video.

You're asking why you would want to compress the decay of the snare and leave the attack stage intact right? By doing this you increase the overall perceived volume of the snare. It's not about the decay cutting through the mix, as you say in the video. Then you go on to say that it is the impact that defines the snare drum. This is correct and precisely the reason why (In Fusebox's example) you would set a slow attack on the compressor to avoid clamping down on the attack of the snare.

Re: the Loudness war. I don't want to go into it too much, because I'm certainly no advocate of loud tracks. But to get a track as loud as possible (like most EDM for example) it needs to be loud before it even goes to the mastering engineer. This will usually involve a combination of heavy compression and limiting on a ton of tracks. As an example, listen to a track by Noisia or Skrillex. Again, I'm not advocating their music, but to achieve results like theirs, compression and limiting is going on all over the place before it even reaches mastering.
 

Sadsic

Member
Why would you do all of those routing on the vocals?just curious, i'm not criticizing you. I never really used vocals, in my last track i had some samples but i did nothing more than adding a couple of very short delays panned oppositely to give a little wideness and a gated reverb+delays on the mid-high frequencies, but the main sample were still clear and almost unaltered from the original.

i like experimenting. thats really it. really everything i do is very crazy complicated. sometimes i make whole songs then resample them into another song because im not satisfied with it enough

See here:

Illyrian -> Fairy Music

the second song is made entirely out of the first song looping all fucked up
 
Watched this, and if you would plese elaborate more on the difference between limiting and compressing, it'd an interesting lecture for me.

Sure. I'm pulling this from an article since its such a clear answer.

A 20:1 ratio and above the compressor is considered to work as a limiter, though a theoretical limiter would have a compression ratio of infinity to one (whatever the input level, it would always be attenuated down to the threshold level, so that output would never exceed the threshold once the attack time has elapsed).

Limiters
For the compressor to work as a limiter, we will adjust the compression ratio to 20:1. Unlike compression, limiting is utilized as a brick wall that avoids signal peaks causing damage to speakers or overloading amplifiers (or recording devices), so limiters should only activate occasionally. Otherwise the effect will be very audible and sound quality will suffer. Attack times need to be fast to ovoid overload or over-excursion (on the speaker). Since there is always some degree of limiter overshoot (the limiter takes a finite time to provide full limiting, so some transient peaks may escape the limiting action), the threshold level may have to be set 2 or 3 dB lower than the level we do not want to exceed, so as to allow for some time for the limiter to be able to clamp the signal down.

Depending on the speed of a limiter's attack time, some limiters may distort the signal, working as abrupt wave form clippers. As mentioned earlier, some compressors are equipped with dedicated peak limiters. If so, we will make use of then as they are specifically designed for the job.

A dedicated type of limiter may be integrated into a power amplifier's channel to prevent continuous clip. If they are correctly designed, the compression (limiting) threshold is not fixed, and compression is only activated when the amplifier channel is actually clipping. The output voltage at which the amplifier clips may vary as a function of the type of signal and the mains power supply voltage, so the limiter would use a "floating" threshold to get the limiter to track the amplifier clip, avoiding unnecessary limiting when the amplifier is not clipping, or avoid the amplifier clipping when the mains voltage is lower than nominal AC power levels. In the case of the limiters in a crossover or controller, ideally they receive a "sense" signal from the amplifier to determine whether the amplifier for a given band is clipping or not, though the additional cabling makes it somewhat cumbersome for live sound applications (unless the sense capability is used in a powered-speaker). If it is the crossover unit that is taking care of the limiting, in practice we have a multiband compressor and, if compression attack and release times are user selectable, we will need to chose faster timer for the high frequencies and slower ones for the low frequencies, thus optimizing the compromise between protection and audibility.

And just to strictly clarify on multiband compressor. It pretty much is almost exclusively a mastering engineer's tool. You never, ever use it to mix with. Ever. They are very expensive pieces of hardware, and subsequently plugins as well. You are very unlikely to ever use one, so just pretend they don't exist.

Also i'm glad you pointed at the fact that you are not a fan of the louness war, i'm not as well (i love to rewatch here and there theBroken Age Teaser because of its dynamics), but as an EDM wanna be producer, i'm struggling to achieve that really loud-as-fuck sound for my productions, because that's how the genre works,and i think others in this thread may be in the same boat.Don't be too harsh on us:)

Oh, no worries. I don't blame anyone for wanting to be in the competitive loudness business. Its a business. For me, since I don't work on stuff that is supposed to be as loud as possible we just never cross paths. I just don't strictly engage in it because its never my decision to make. Its the bands that consent to these kinds of practices. It destroys pretty much anything that resembles your mix that you took time to do, and it literally takes about 3 seconds to use a limiter and make it loud. So, its all A-OK if you guys are in it, I just don't know how to offer professional advice on the subject if that is your end goal.

Professor Chaos said:
Hey man, I appreciate your reply. I get what you're saying about using a compressor in a general sense. And I agree that you need to fundamentally know how a compressor works before you can use it effectively. And a lot of what we are saying here would not be applicable to mixing live drums, which you seem to be doing in the video.

Right, but I've also used compressors on synthesized drums as well using similar technique because in a general sense it is still applicable.

Professor Chaos said:
You're asking why you would want to compress the decay of the snare and leave the attack stage intact right? By doing this you increase the overall perceived volume of the snare. It's not about the decay cutting through the mix, as you say in the video. Then you go on to say that it is the impact that defines the snare drum. This is correct and precisely the reason why (In Fusebox's example) you would set a slow attack on the compressor to avoid clamping down on the attack of the snare.

You see, I am scratching my head at this comment here wondering if you indeed do know what is going on. In your experience, how many ms do you guys set the attack to?

Professor Chaos said:
Re: the Loudness war. I don't want to go into it too much, because I'm certainly no advocate of loud tracks. But to get a track as loud as possible (like most EDM for example) it needs to be loud before it even goes to the mastering engineer. This will usually involve a combination of heavy compression and limiting on a ton of tracks. As an example, listen to a track by Noisia or Skrillex. Again, I'm not advocating their music, but to achieve results like theirs, compression and limiting is going on all over the place before it even reaches mastering.

Getting a track to be as loud as possible basically takes no skill at all, Professor Chaos. If you can open a plugin and turn 1 knob, it can be as loud as your heart's content. Trust me, those people aren't doing some secret voodoo plugins or sacrificing virgins to satanic hardware to achieve maximal loudness.

Getting a VU meter to slam all the way to the right when the song starts and stay there until the song ends is not a difficult task.
 

Servbot24

Banned
Pulled the trigger on a Novation Impulse 61. Chose this one because the keys are the most important thing to me.

Impulse-Main-Banner-980x351.jpg


Also picked up a Shure Beta87A from Craigslist. Played with it a little last night, quite happy. Was originally just going to get an SM58 but found a great deal on the 87A.

prod_img_beta87a_l.jpg


Will be recording in Ableton and Reason. Also hope to get an electric guitar soon as well, which will be primarily used for ambient effects.

Can't wait to begin. :)
 

Fusebox

Banned
I



Getting a track to be as loud as possible basically takes no skill at all, Professor Chaos. If you can open a plugin and turn 1 knob, it can be as loud as your heart's content.



The suggestion that you can throw a one knob solution (I guess you're thinking along the lines of L1) on the master and compete on a club system with the big guys makes me think you just don't have much respect for dance music production whatsoever.

And, honestly your posts come across as 'rock engineer tells dance producers they're using their compressors wrong'. I bet you would pitch a fit and shit your pants if you saw some of Daft Punk or JUSTICEs compressor settings and really, even if there was some good advice buried among your condescending remarks I think you've missed the vibe of the thread altogether.
 

lil smoke

Banned
A good loud track is written to be loud I think.

You can't just turn a knob and easily make it loud, it will actually sound small!

Loudness is perception.

MB compression is fine. Just like anything else, it needs to be properly setup and monitored. It can be abused. I prefer dynamic EQs. What is this becoming though, the rules and regulations of bedroom producers? I know Fusebox has been around here for as long as I. Pretty sure he's past the 101 stuff.
 
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