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NEOGAF's Official Music Production Thread: calling all producers
- Thread starter Tr4nce
- Start date
show me your skeleton
Member
ah awesome! thanks for the info.
so does any one have any good youtube channels regarding production etc. that would be worth following?
EDIT:
okay so i am having trouble with one midi track on logic. it seems to just go silent, despite no change in volume or muting or anything. it only does it at some point in the track and i have no idea when. the worst thing is, it completely kills all sound from that track, as if the virtual instrument (a solo cello running through kontakt 5) has crashed. even if i go earlier on in that track it won't play anything. i can only get sound from that track again if i reload the virtual instrument. every thing else is absolutely fine, even an exact copy of that virtual instrument that happens to just be playing different midi information.
any idea how to troubleshoot and find the problem?
Professor Chaos
Member
Youtube:
Pensado's Place Into the Lair - Focused on mixing. Sometimes covers fairly advanced topics.
Next Step Audio, with Brian from Trifonic. Doesn't upload often, but a good archive of solid material.
Re your problem: Could it be you automated a silence on the track and forgot about it? If it's Kontakt crashing, make sure you have the latest updates for Logic and kontakt. But other than that I'm not really too sure...
ClivePwned
Member
I use both and have never encountered a problem like you mention. Guitar Rig used to do something similar but that affected all of the sound.
questions- which exact version of Kontakt (ie latest patch), what's the sample, what articulation do you have selected, what library, which version of Logic?
1- Is it the same point each time? or different (that's a bug).
2- Is the cello running its own instance of Kontakt and just one part or are you using a multi-timbral (one instance of Kontakt running multiple parts on different MIDI channels using one instance of Kontakt?). If you're using multi-timbral- check the automation on the other channels since they affect the whole.
3- Have you checked the velocity and modulation settings?
4- you could solo the cello and play it back from the start. have the list editor open and stop playback as soon as it cuts out. There maybe something else there.
5- can you solo the track and bounce it?
6- if you copy the midi data to a new track and load a fresh instance of Kontakt and use a different sample, does it do the same thing? If it doesn't, change to the same cello sample and see if that works (muting the original).
show me your skeleton
Member
thanks for all the help, turns out it was a simple mistake that i overlooked. the virtual instrument can change articulations via midi and i had accidentally triggered an articulation that i had purged from my ram. geez!
anyway, sorry to bother you all. i'm sheepishly going to go be rubbish at logic all the way over here now.
Anyone have some advice on a decent set of studio monitors? Can't spend too much right now. I see a few that are a pair for a couple hundred of dollars, are those decent or would I just be throwing my money away?
I've been looking here: http://www.long-mcquade.com/departments/42/Pro_Audio_Recording/Studio_Monitors.htm
I've been looking here: http://www.long-mcquade.com/departments/42/Pro_Audio_Recording/Studio_Monitors.htm
I've got the HS7s. I tried them in a music store next to a lot of others and they came out best for its price. Really like them!
Of course more expensive one's sound better, but this was already a huge step up from my PC speakers, and I don't think a pair of 1000+ dollar monitors would also be that much of a difference.
Hey gaf! I posted this in its own thread, but figured I might as well get some more practical feedback here.
https://soundcloud.com/maratonband/change-of-skin
A new track from my bands debut album. Recorded and produced by yours truly, but mixed and mastered by pros.
https://soundcloud.com/maratonband/change-of-skin
A new track from my bands debut album. Recorded and produced by yours truly, but mixed and mastered by pros.
Damn! That would be like $700 for a pair! Thanks though.
What about the HS5s? Same brand, same line, I think they are just smaller.
http://www.long-mcquade.com/20979/P..._Studio_Reference_Monitor.htm#Description-tab
Professor Chaos
Member
If you've only got a few hundred dollars to spare I would skip monitors and buy a decent set of headphones instead. You'll get more bang for your buck that way. And tbh, if you don't have a moderately treated/ideal room, monitors could well be doing more harm than good.
Hmm well I already use a pair of Sennheiser HD 280 Pros, but I've been having trouble where the mix sounds good on the headphones, but not over any speakers.
I have the HS80Ms, a mate has the HS5s and they're really good in a smaller room, they reveal plenty of detail and don't have any hype to the sound but you will need to rely on a spectrum analyzer like SPAN to make sure your bottom end is solid or even eventually add a subwoofer one day. If you don't have any monitors at the moment the HS5s will be a great start. For me it's more important to learn how your monitors sound with well produced material and matching that sound than it is about having the most exy monitors money can buy. If you can get your mix sounding good on HS5s it's usually gonna translate well to a lot of other systems.
About a week ago I downloaded the Mixcraft 6 trial for fun and started goofing off. I only made some stuff for about 2 days, obviously they were awful because this was my first time making music, so I haven't really touched it since.
I was using loops, though, and I need to get off them. I downloaded the Zebra2 and Diva synths, but there seems to be something wrong with them since I can't get them to make any sounds at all. As I understand, those are my best bets for custom composing stuff, without hardware. Does anyone know some kind of digital piano I can use for Mixcraft?
Any recommendations for getting off loops? Here's an example of what I was doing a the 2 days I was playing with Mixcraft, keep in mind that I don't really understand music or beats very well, which is why it sucks.
I did enjoy it a lot, though, but I'd like to get better!
I was using loops, though, and I need to get off them. I downloaded the Zebra2 and Diva synths, but there seems to be something wrong with them since I can't get them to make any sounds at all. As I understand, those are my best bets for custom composing stuff, without hardware. Does anyone know some kind of digital piano I can use for Mixcraft?
Any recommendations for getting off loops? Here's an example of what I was doing a the 2 days I was playing with Mixcraft, keep in mind that I don't really understand music or beats very well, which is why it sucks.
I did enjoy it a lot, though, but I'd like to get better!
Professor Chaos
Member
If the Sennheiser's are giving you good bass reproduction you might be alright with the HS5s. Fusebox seems to think they are good monitors, which they probably are, but usually I'd never recommend a 5" cone, you're just not going to get the bass representation. But with the combination of the headphones and them you might be covered.
Also, think about where you are going to place them, the HS5s are rear ported, so it's a bad idea to place them close to a wall.
I agree on the headphone bit, but I think monitors will always be a great step up from your average 100 dollar 2.0 or 2.1 speaker set.
Save up for a pair of Events. They're accurate and work well. The cost is worth it if you're a serious hobbyist.
Doesn't matter if you pay a hundred or a thousand bucks for a pair of monitors if you don't know how to use them. Placement is important. Space is important. You have to train your ears to use what you have effectively in any case. And you still have to check your mixes in the car, in the iPod, on your TV, on shitty laptop speakers - all the places people listen to music. Means nothing if your music only sounds good in your environment but like shit everywhere else.
I've got a pair of Alesis M1 Active MkIIs that do the job well for me. At $300 for the pair, they might be what you're looking for. I don't have a sound treated room or bass traps/stands to work with, but I make pretty decent mixes. I guess it all depends on your skill/experience and your goals. I'm strictly a bedroom producer, but my mixes still end up on compilations and such, so I can't be doing too bad of a job. They are definitely preferable to mixing on headphones. I don't know how anyone does that.
This absolutely. NFMs are made as flat as possible because they don't bias the sound (in theory). You still have to test it out everywhere you can, but the purpose of a good set of monitors is to start with as neutral a sound as you can.
Free Eventide channel strip plug, use the code 0F736710
http://eventideplugins.elasticbeanstalk.com/ultrachannel.jsp
I've got loads of channel strips already but the price was right and the micro pitch shift is classic Eventide, grab it before the offer ends.
http://eventideplugins.elasticbeanstalk.com/ultrachannel.jsp
I've got loads of channel strips already but the price was right and the micro pitch shift is classic Eventide, grab it before the offer ends.
thezerofire
Banned
what about username? just make an account I assume
Oh yeah you need to make an ilok account for this, that's where your ilok username goes., however you DONT need an actual Ilok dongle to use it, just the licensing software. I already had it installed so up to you guys whether the plug is worth the effort but given it's from Eventide I'd say it is.
thezerofire
Banned
I don't know what an ilok dongle is, but judging just from the screenshots this thing seems extremely powerful, definitely going to give it a shot
radios shipping overview
Member
I've been playing with generative/algorithmic composition a fair bit, as well as trying my hand at some more dance-oriented tracks, just to see if I enjoy making them. So far, I'm a lot happier on the experimental, nonrhythmic side of things. I think, so far, my favorite tracks are the ones that I don't know fully when I record them, and therefore I can listen to them over and over.
https://soundcloud.com/ym2612/sunday
I made this little ambient thingy yesterday. It's a recording by an open window on a Zoom H1 with FM and sine synthesis done in Puredata. Some random, some sequenced. Recorded Pd output into Logic and added environmental reverb/processing/compression.
I still don't understand compressors for crap, despite having gone through some tutorials. And my tracks always come out too quiet when I mix them in Logic. It's like I always allow too much headroom. I need to do more reading.
https://soundcloud.com/ym2612/sunday
I made this little ambient thingy yesterday. It's a recording by an open window on a Zoom H1 with FM and sine synthesis done in Puredata. Some random, some sequenced. Recorded Pd output into Logic and added environmental reverb/processing/compression.
I still don't understand compressors for crap, despite having gone through some tutorials. And my tracks always come out too quiet when I mix them in Logic. It's like I always allow too much headroom. I need to do more reading.
Thank you, that was a very clear explanation.
One thing, i couldn't see the Attack setting in the comp he was using. I thought it was a common setting for all compressors. Am i missing something?
To contribute, i want to share this "Understaning Equalization" video, very well done.
You should eat up that headroom with a nice transparent limiter on the master instead of a compressor. Izotope Ozone has a sweet limiter but if you're on a budget grab Yonghs Waves L1 clone:
http://www.yohng.com/software/w1limit.html
Or the Kjaerhus classic limiter is sweet too but it's been ages since I've used it, it might be 32bit only.
http://www.kvraudio.com/product/classic_master_limiter_by_kjaerhus_audio#
Even the free Eventide plug I posted above has a good limiter module, be sure to grab that if you haven't already.
2nding the recommendation for W1. It's the only 3rd party plug-in I use. I believe Deadmau5 uses it as well.
thezerofire
Banned
what does having a transparent filter mean?
Transparent limiter? It'll let you boost the overall mix volume, and if you've left enough headroom you shouldn't hear any difference in the mix other than a few db boost. The reason I mention transparent is that some limiters add their own color to the sound which typically isn't ideal for this task.
thezerofire
Banned
I mean I don't know what transparent means in this context haha
OK, now i see, thank you.
Little thing i did for a friend, vocals were done with Balabolka, a voice synthesis software. The .wav output was pretty bad with lots of rumble, i've tried my best:
https://soundcloud.com/blindzoom/mos-angeles-trainwreck
Cosmic Dreams
Member
hey GAF. just recently purchased an imac and im looking into a great (cheap) thunderbolt audio interface. I had the presonus firebox but since macs dont take any firewires anymore (i tried the thunderbolt converter) it tends to go on and off sporradically when i use the thunderbolt converter so im looking to try something new that wont do that and is native to the thunderbolt cable.
got any suggestions? thanks.
got any suggestions? thanks.
FloatingDivider
Member
I've been slamming my tracks into the ableton limiter (well not slamming) but it honestly sound terrible for anymore more than a few db of gain reduction. I know nothing of the technical aspects of producing music and it has been driving me nuts.
Like how does volume actually work? I know this sounds sort of like "magnets how do they work" but how do I know how loud something actually is. Why do two sounds that both peak at -6db individually peak higher when played togheter. I need a book or something that just gets me going on understanding the basics.
I struggle with panning too - and basic mixing. I also don't understand the whole production -> mixing -> mastering pipeline when working as a lonely solitary producer. Especially since 95% of my music happens in the box and I rarely use any of my live instrument skills - mostly because I have terrible recording equipment and I find the in the box stuff sounds more powerful and as a result I find it hard to mix the live stuff without resorting to dumb shit like duplicating tracks a bunch of times or ridiculous compression+gain staging.
Don't even get me started on using compression though, if I use compression for an individual item it makes mixing that item exponentially more difficult - I recently noticed the first kickdrum of my song was always significantly louder than any other kickdrum in the song turns out it's because my attack on the compressor I was using was too slow or the release too long? I honestly don't know why I had a compressor on that kickdrum though other than a general feeling of I should because it's what everyone does when I watch youtube videos of the producing. If I use compression on a mix and the settings sound good for one very busy section it might make another quiet section sound completely blown out and super loud and vica versa.
I have to be honest and state that this is all ableton plugins though, I should branch out but I'm too broke to buy the oft recommended mixing and mastering plugins.
I'm just ranting at this point though. It's because I'm sad that I've been producing music for slightly under a year now and still have no clue what I'm doing a lot of the time. I feel like I've made a lot of progress in getting the "music" to sound sort of like what's going on in my head but it doesn't sound like it. It sounds like my kickass song played by something 2 steps above a terrible midi soundfont with a deaf chimp responsible for mixing and mastering. The more I work at trying to get it to not sound like that the more it sounds like that. I've got 9 songs I really want to post up on my soundcloud as an album but I've been struggling to mix and master them for about a month now and I feel like I've only made them sound worse than the initial sketches.
I'm really getting way too deep into it though, I've neglected my other hobbies like crazy it's probably that dark souls like difficulty level that's doing it for me. I've been spending like 4 to 5 hours a day just trying to make music that doesn't suck.
Like how does volume actually work? I know this sounds sort of like "magnets how do they work" but how do I know how loud something actually is. Why do two sounds that both peak at -6db individually peak higher when played togheter. I need a book or something that just gets me going on understanding the basics.
I struggle with panning too - and basic mixing. I also don't understand the whole production -> mixing -> mastering pipeline when working as a lonely solitary producer. Especially since 95% of my music happens in the box and I rarely use any of my live instrument skills - mostly because I have terrible recording equipment and I find the in the box stuff sounds more powerful and as a result I find it hard to mix the live stuff without resorting to dumb shit like duplicating tracks a bunch of times or ridiculous compression+gain staging.
Don't even get me started on using compression though, if I use compression for an individual item it makes mixing that item exponentially more difficult - I recently noticed the first kickdrum of my song was always significantly louder than any other kickdrum in the song turns out it's because my attack on the compressor I was using was too slow or the release too long? I honestly don't know why I had a compressor on that kickdrum though other than a general feeling of I should because it's what everyone does when I watch youtube videos of the producing. If I use compression on a mix and the settings sound good for one very busy section it might make another quiet section sound completely blown out and super loud and vica versa.
I have to be honest and state that this is all ableton plugins though, I should branch out but I'm too broke to buy the oft recommended mixing and mastering plugins.
I'm just ranting at this point though. It's because I'm sad that I've been producing music for slightly under a year now and still have no clue what I'm doing a lot of the time. I feel like I've made a lot of progress in getting the "music" to sound sort of like what's going on in my head but it doesn't sound like it. It sounds like my kickass song played by something 2 steps above a terrible midi soundfont with a deaf chimp responsible for mixing and mastering. The more I work at trying to get it to not sound like that the more it sounds like that. I've got 9 songs I really want to post up on my soundcloud as an album but I've been struggling to mix and master them for about a month now and I feel like I've only made them sound worse than the initial sketches.
I'm really getting way too deep into it though, I've neglected my other hobbies like crazy it's probably that dark souls like difficulty level that's doing it for me. I've been spending like 4 to 5 hours a day just trying to make music that doesn't suck.
This should be obvious, but two sounds combined together is going to be louder than the individual sound, hence why the peak is higher.
As for mixing, all I can say is keep going at it, practice, read up about it (magazines, books, websites), watch videos, try to break down the elements about songs you like. I've been doing this for almost 10 years now and I'm still learning how to do stuff. It's not going to come together quickly if you're doing it alone. But the fact you've been working at it for a year already is great. Don't give up! When you finally start getting somewhere, it's so rewarding.
http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-spl.htm
You absolutely do not need to know any of that to mix well, but there it is.
Mixing is all about creating space. You create space a lot of different ways; leveling, EQing, compressing, panning. The trick is knowing when to do each of these things, and that is partially dictated by the style of music.
EQing is HUGE. The audible frequency spectrum runs from 20Hz to 22,000Hz (22kHz) - this is the full range of what the human ear can hear. We divide that spectrum into three areas - lows, mids, highs. How these areas are defined is a little nebulous, but there is a rough consensus.
What are the lows? I consider the lows to be roughly from 20-250Hz. Someone else might say as high as 300 or 500 Hz. This can be broken down further into two areas - bass, and sub bass. Sub bass would be 20-60Hz. We call it sub bass because you can't really hear it, but you can feel it. The more audible bass spectrum would be from 60-250Hz.
I consider the midrange to be from 250-4,000Hz. Some might go as high as 6,000Hz for defining the upper end of the midrange. This is where the most action takes place - your melodies, vocals, snare drums all sit in this range. This range is also broken down into two areas - low mids and high mids. I'd say low mids range from 250-2,000Hz, then the high would be from 2k-4kHz. Low mids are where the meat of these sounds are, while the high mids are where the clarity is. A snare drum really knocks around 2,500Hz, vocals sound nice and crisp around 3k-4kHz
The highs would be everything above 4,000-5,000Hz. I consider this the area where shit starts to get annoying. This is where brightness comes in. And the super high frequencies like around 16,000Hz and up is kinda like sub bass in that you can't really hear it too much, but you can sense it, like an airiness. I'll give a tiny boost to a cymbal around 10,000Hz to give it a nice little shimmer.
Another helpful thing to know: Pitch is intrinsically tied to frequency - ie: a pitch of middle C rests at 261.6Hz. You don't need to know the frequency of every pitch to understand that when you're EQing a given instrument, you generally want to accentuate it's natural frequency range while hiding some of the frequencies you don't need.
So, for a bass guitar, we know where the body of that sound is - do we cut it off above, say, 500 or 1,000Hz? Not necessarily; the pluck of a bass guitar string sits way up in the 2,000Hz area - you probably wanna keep that pluck audible in many cases, but in between 1,000Hz and 2,000Hz, you can remove some stuff, and you can remove most of the stuff above 3000Hz. But those frequencies above and below the meat of a given instrument are resonant frequencies - frequencies that, while not carrying the full weight of an instrument, still hold some of it's presence, and thus are still important. If you remove too many resonant frequencies, you lose a lot of warmth (another nebulous term); basically, what I mean to say is you don't want to build walls around your sounds when EQing and make your mix too cold, you want to cut off just enough so that they they have their own space in the mix but still blend naturally into the other sounds without intruding too much - those overlapping resonant frequencies help with the blending.
By the way: the above two paragraphs are total bullshit - we hear professionally made EDM routinely cutting off melodies and vocals down to like 500Hz all the time for the sake of an arrangement transition. Alternately, something that might seem counter-intuitive is boosting a resonant frequency to mask the harshness of the meat of a sound - if a guitar is annoying you for some reason around 4000Hz, boosting a little around 500 might actually hide that harshness. I say all that to say this: don't let EQ box you in creatively. Move it around however your need to. They're versatile enough that you can really sculpt the shit out of a sound the way you would whittle a boat out of wood, only with EQ you could periodically change that boat into a car on a whim if you really wanted to.
More about placement
As a general rule, you want things in the low end to be as narrow as possible while things in the upper frequencies get wider and wider. What do I mean by narrow and wide? You're sitting in front of two speakers, one on the left, one on the right, but the sound coming out of them sounds like it's directly in front of you - you're listening in stereo, this not exactly mind blowing information. But you can change the perceived positional presence of a sound so that it either sound's more directly in front of you (narrow) or more spread out to your left and right (wide).
Let's try something: get a bass instrument going in Ableton, and put Ableton's Utility plugin on it. Slowly increase the Width parameter all the way up to 200% to spread it out. What happens? The bass disappears into the stereo field - we never ever ever want this to happen. Bass, as it turns out, only sounds good when you keep it narrow; turn that Width all the way down to 0% to bring it back, and you can feel it in your chest like you're supposed to, it'll be directly in front of you. Bass is not something you wanna spread out. Similarly, a kick drum is not something you wanna spread out - that thump needs to be dead center or else it's useless.
Try the same thing with a vocal or synth; the wider it gets, the more ear-candy-like it becomes - this is good. Just don't don't overdo it. You wanna spread out sounds in the upper frequencies, like guitars, piano, snares (to a small degree OCCASIONALLY), cymbals, vocals, a synth. How you do this is entirely up to you, but I tend to just go wider the higher - for me a violin would be wider than a cello.
A free stereo tool for Ableton and non-Ableton users: http://www.fluxhome.com/products/Freewares/stereotool Same principles apply, plus it's nice to be able to see it visually.
Panning kinda goes hand in hand with widening and narrowing in that you need to do it selectively and don't overdo it - I never hard pan anything all the way left or right. I like balance; if I got maracas panned slightly to the left, I need a hi hat or a wood block or something going slightly to the right - I absolutely hate when a song has too much going on on one side and it sounds lopsided.
You can definitely combine panning and widening to great effect - I like a wide ride cymbal panned slightly to the side, for example.
Another cool trick for widening things: Delays.
Throw Ableton's Simple Delay on a synth or something in the mid range. Unlink the left and right, click and change the sync to time, set the delay on both L & R to 1ms, turn the feedback to 0% and the wet/dry to 100%. With these settings your synth or whatever will sound pretty plain, directly in front of you, nothing special. Change the delay time on the right side from 1ms to 10ms. Even such a small difference in the delay in the output of the right side will trick your ears into thinking the synth just got wider - it didn't, one side is just lagging behind slightly. I do this on vocals all the time. It's a very neat trick.
Common problem: Getting a kick drum and a bassline to coexist. Sometimes you'll hear one cancelling out the other and weird phasing issues. Solution: EQing and/or sidechain compression. If you look at a kick drum through Ableton's spectrum analyzer, you'll see most of the thump is peak centered around 40-50Hz, or 60-75Hz, or maybe around 110Hz sometimes.
So, method one: set your bassline EQ to remove only that frequency. I like Ableton's EQ8 with a pole set to notch with the narrowest Q. When the bass is solo you'll hear a slight loss of low end in that spot, but when the kick drum is playing alongside it, the bass will actually wrap around the kick and the bass will sound as if you hadn't removed anything from it at all.
Method two: throw a compressor on the bass, activate the sidechain and set it to accept input from the kick track, set the fastest attack possible, release around 5ms, ratio at least 2:1, threshold as needed, but not too drastic. What's gonna happen is the bassline is actually going to duck out of the way whenever the compressor detects that kick drum playing. Increase the release time if you want the bass to stand up again more slowly (you've heard this effect in EDM alot, that pumping synth sound). I also like sidechaining vocals against melodies, like making a guitar duck down a little when a vocal is playing. You just gotta be subtle with it.
That's a common mistake - doing things that don't need to be done because you saw someone else do it. And I'm guessing you're overdoing it. As a general rule, I will only use drastic compression ratios on individual instruments. I never compress an entire mix more than 2:1. And I like to use a soft knee on a whole mix - a hard knee will make the pumping effect of the release phase more apparent. I'll use a hard knee on individual instruments I need bring out the attack on, like drums or some kind of plucky instrument; I like when those pump sometimes. If the sound doesn't have a tail, keep the release short probably. When it's time to go for loudness - LIMITER.
So you have a lot of choices to make, but you get to make them creatively, not just technically. If you've got two instruments occupying the same space, you gotta decide: maybe one goes left, the other goes right; one dips at 3kHz, the other at 500; one is wider, the other narrower; one is more compressed, the other more dynamic. You'll probably be combining some or all of these on any given instrument.
show me your skeleton
Member
that was an amazing post, thank you J10!
god, i barely understand composition let alone the entirely other side of the independent music-making coin that is production.
god, i barely understand composition let alone the entirely other side of the independent music-making coin that is production.
Agent Icebeezy
Welcome beautful toddler, Madison Elizabeth, to the horde!
I'm curious as to what everyone is using these days to keep up with all of their music. I have nearly 200,000 mp3s, wmas, flacs on my PC and I'm trying to organize them competently. Mainly for DJing but just for the network in the house too. If someone could direct me to something that can update id3 tags automatically for example or certain parts of it like genre that can be automatically filled from a download. It'd be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
thezerofire
Banned
saving that post for future reference, thanks J10
also been going through Mr Bill's Ableton tutorials, so interesting and the guy is a machine in that DAW
also been going through Mr Bill's Ableton tutorials, so interesting and the guy is a machine in that DAW
No problem. If you ever have any questions about mixing I'm happy to share what I know.
I use mp3tag: http://www.mp3tag.de/en/
You can edit all the relevant metadata, embed artwork, easy track numbering, and you can even copy information straight from tag<->filename both directions.
First off, thanks to J10 for that wonderful, detailed post! Lots of great information there.
Now, a question - I'm working on a movie score style piece (piano + strings) I'm quite fond of, and once I'm finished with it I'm thinking I'd like to give it that extra special treatment and get it professionally mastered (I suck at mastering). Does anyone here have experience with online mastering services? I know there are guys/studios out there who you can send a track to and have it mastered for like $25 or so.
Now, a question - I'm working on a movie score style piece (piano + strings) I'm quite fond of, and once I'm finished with it I'm thinking I'd like to give it that extra special treatment and get it professionally mastered (I suck at mastering). Does anyone here have experience with online mastering services? I know there are guys/studios out there who you can send a track to and have it mastered for like $25 or so.
FantasticMrFoxdie
Mumber
Found this alarming article about a leaked YouTube contract for independent artists:
http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2014/06/23/fk-heres-entire-youtube-contract-indies
http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2014/06/23/fk-heres-entire-youtube-contract-indies
Magicman103
Member
Holy shit! I never knew Gaf had a music production thread (I guess I haven't taken enough trips to the dark side that is Off Topic).
I LOVE producing music and EDM in general and I'm actually going to college for audio engineering this fall.
The roots for my production career started 3 years ago when I first started DJing using virtual dj. Later on (about a year and a half ago) I started getting into producing music with FL Studio (which everyone and their brother uses) when I made an "ep" for my friend's birthday.
Needless to say it was terrible.
I had never known music theory in my life and my EQing/Mixing were fucking atrocious, not to mention none of the tracks were even mastered. Hell, I think I even made it on computer speakers. However, it was a great learning experience and it was through this experience that I learned that I had a great affinity for this.
I continued to produce tracks in FL for a while after that slowly getting better and improving until one day last summer going into my senior year of high school I realized that I could actually go to college for this and do something I love. I still remember this day clearly because it was liberating knowing that I could go into my college search knowing what I was looking for rather than being an "undecided" major (which ended up being a great thing because not many schools have an audio engineering program).
Anyway, last christmas I got a Macbook Pro for christmas along with Logic X. I was super excited to use logic (especially logic x). However, it took me a long time to get acquainted with this new DAW. It was frustrating because I found logic to be not as intuitive as fl was naturally. Another thing that I hated about Logic X was that you couldn't use 32 bit plugins. The only way to use 32 bit plugins was with a bridging program which a. used a lot of cpu power and b. required more work to get the plugins running. Logic X just didn't appeal to me because it seemed designed more for recording artists (especially the automation).
Flash forward to now, I just recently switched to Ableton Live from Logic X and I have to say the difference is night and day for me. I fucking love Ableton Live. It's like it was made for electronic music producers. Everything from the automation to the drum racks to the sampler are perfect and I love the work flow in Ableton.
I loved Gaf before I found this thread, but now I love it even more knowing there is a thread full of like-minded people like myself
.
Sorry for the life rant haha.
Can't wait to discuss production with you guys.
Edit: forgot to say that I primarily produce electro house and dubstep (which I unfortunately don't see too much of in this thread )
I LOVE producing music and EDM in general and I'm actually going to college for audio engineering this fall.
The roots for my production career started 3 years ago when I first started DJing using virtual dj. Later on (about a year and a half ago) I started getting into producing music with FL Studio (which everyone and their brother uses) when I made an "ep" for my friend's birthday.
Needless to say it was terrible.
I had never known music theory in my life and my EQing/Mixing were fucking atrocious, not to mention none of the tracks were even mastered. Hell, I think I even made it on computer speakers. However, it was a great learning experience and it was through this experience that I learned that I had a great affinity for this.
I continued to produce tracks in FL for a while after that slowly getting better and improving until one day last summer going into my senior year of high school I realized that I could actually go to college for this and do something I love. I still remember this day clearly because it was liberating knowing that I could go into my college search knowing what I was looking for rather than being an "undecided" major (which ended up being a great thing because not many schools have an audio engineering program).
Anyway, last christmas I got a Macbook Pro for christmas along with Logic X. I was super excited to use logic (especially logic x). However, it took me a long time to get acquainted with this new DAW. It was frustrating because I found logic to be not as intuitive as fl was naturally. Another thing that I hated about Logic X was that you couldn't use 32 bit plugins. The only way to use 32 bit plugins was with a bridging program which a. used a lot of cpu power and b. required more work to get the plugins running. Logic X just didn't appeal to me because it seemed designed more for recording artists (especially the automation).
Flash forward to now, I just recently switched to Ableton Live from Logic X and I have to say the difference is night and day for me. I fucking love Ableton Live. It's like it was made for electronic music producers. Everything from the automation to the drum racks to the sampler are perfect and I love the work flow in Ableton.
I loved Gaf before I found this thread, but now I love it even more knowing there is a thread full of like-minded people like myself
.Sorry for the life rant haha.
Can't wait to discuss production with you guys.
Edit: forgot to say that I primarily produce electro house and dubstep (which I unfortunately don't see too much of in this thread
)Never used any, I do my own mastering. See if you can verify that these services are run by reputable mastering professionals. I've seen a couple that actually allow people to upload just anything, even mp3s (why anyone would get an mp3 mastered is beyond me) and they just run an automated limiter script thing server side, with no actual mastering engineer doing anything. It's a lame hustle, but I think most just hear that their song is louder and think it was worth it even for a few bucks.
thezerofire
Banned
I got Kick a while back but only really just fiddled around with it, but watched this yesterday and holy crap it's powerful. Can't wait to play around with it now
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0ywTFe6FNg&feature=youtu.be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0ywTFe6FNg&feature=youtu.be
Made a new track: http://youtu.be/QMk9lvzyL7k
Tried high-passing everything this time, really makes a huge difference in making everything sound clearer.
Tried high-passing everything this time, really makes a huge difference in making everything sound clearer.
thezerofire
Banned
went home and my dad gave me his copy of Massive he wasn't using. time to play around a bit
How do you guys go about and promote your music?
I've put my stuff on YouTube, SoundCloud, and on Spotify/iTunes when I'm not using uncleared samples. Putting it up on Facebook/Twitter... But really how do you guys get more people to listen than just a few good friends who say they like it?
I've put my stuff on YouTube, SoundCloud, and on Spotify/iTunes when I'm not using uncleared samples. Putting it up on Facebook/Twitter... But really how do you guys get more people to listen than just a few good friends who say they like it?
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