Kwansu Dudes
Member
Pejman Roozbeh? Man, thanks for the nostalgia trip. Do you know a Marwan Green Critter too?
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NEOGAF's Official Music Production Thread: calling all producers
- Thread starter Tr4nce
- Start date
Pejman Roozbeh? Man, thanks for the nostalgia trip. Do you know a Marwan Green Critter too?
Kwansu Dudes
Member
Concerning so called aggregators that will put your music on various online outlets (iTunes, Spotify, Deezer...). Do more people have experience with them?
Previous page Catapult was mentioned (i had not heard of them before, but their pricing is interesting). The best known are CDbaby and TuneCore. They are trustworthy but also among the most expensive. I found an interesting article... or at least many of the comments on the article are interesting (especially for those to steer clear of):
http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2014/05/29/digital-distribution-company-review/
Some interesting ones:
emubands.com (higher entry fee per track/album, no cut, no recurring fee, free UPC/ISRC codes)
catapultdistribution.com (lower entry fee per track/album, small cut, no recurring fee, $20 per UPC/ISRC code)
recordunion.com (lower entry fee per track/album, small cut, no recurring fee, free UPC/ISRC codes)
Previous page Catapult was mentioned (i had not heard of them before, but their pricing is interesting). The best known are CDbaby and TuneCore. They are trustworthy but also among the most expensive. I found an interesting article... or at least many of the comments on the article are interesting (especially for those to steer clear of):
http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2014/05/29/digital-distribution-company-review/
Some interesting ones:
emubands.com (higher entry fee per track/album, no cut, no recurring fee, free UPC/ISRC codes)
catapultdistribution.com (lower entry fee per track/album, small cut, no recurring fee, $20 per UPC/ISRC code)
recordunion.com (lower entry fee per track/album, small cut, no recurring fee, free UPC/ISRC codes)
FloatingDivider
Member
Look at this networking, get a room you two (j/k).
I have no experience whatsoever, sorry. I have seen Distrokid come recommended a few times on /r edmproduction since they charge no royalties. Related topic question though, when do you start deciding to charge for music? I mean I'm not sure I'm at that level (probably not) but I'm hoping to sort of get to that level by the end of year. I'm essentially sort of waiting until I'm 100% sure I can hit some sort of quality watermark consistently and at will. Especially mix and mastering wise but also in terms of songwriting. Basically I want my music to be at some sort of undeniable "worth" listening too level.
Kwansu Dudes
Member
Yeah, I should've PM'd Falk but I'm dumb.
You can do it whenever really. I've seen a decent chunk of people putting their music on paid services (didn't know how it worked, thanks Oz) and their music wasn't really good/amateur sounding.
For me personally, I would do it once you have a good following of users who say they would buy it or you feel your music is good enough to be used professionally. Or if you have the money to spend and want to increase your visibility. I'd also recommend using Band Camp and have the Pay-What-You-Want option.
Tl;Dr do it when you want to and have money for it.
You can do it whenever really. I've seen a decent chunk of people putting their music on paid services (didn't know how it worked, thanks Oz) and their music wasn't really good/amateur sounding.
For me personally, I would do it once you have a good following of users who say they would buy it or you feel your music is good enough to be used professionally. Or if you have the money to spend and want to increase your visibility. I'd also recommend using Band Camp and have the Pay-What-You-Want option.
Tl;Dr do it when you want to and have money for it.
In the comments of that article i posted, distrokid gets destroyed by a few people, IIRC. (EDIT: destroyed is a bit harsh, but apparantly there are some issues, do a page search for their name and they'll pop up un the comments below). They also charge a yearly fee, meaning, if you release an album this year and nothing else the next 5 years, that you will need to pay the next 5 years regardless in order to have your album for sale during those 5 years. It's somewhat the opposite of emubands, who charge a one time fee per album. Meaning if you release your album now, it will remain for sale for "ever". Of course, if you release two albums each year, Distrokid is more interesting. If you release one album every 3 years, Emubands is more interesting. Both pay 100% royalties.
I think you can start "charging" for your music when you feel a track is "done" and is good enough to share with others. They can decide if they want to pay for it or not.
Personally, i think there are commercial releases out there that are a lot worse than what you or i make, so...
I'm currently putting a few tracks on Baboom. To be honest, it's as an alternative to Soundcloud, but with the option to get paid. You can join completely free (i have a free account) but you can be paid for your work, and you can be paid for every stream (there are conditions). Anyway, the compression is much better than Soundcloud, so there basically is no reason NOT to do it. They also have a better copyright policy than Soundcloud. It's like a crossover between Soundcloud and Spotify, really. But you can join and get paid without having to pay for a subscription. If you use a free account, you get 70% of all sales. If you pay for your account, you get 90% of the sales. You also get more per stream. You can link up with your facebook fanpage, twitter account, youtube account and instagram account. So whenever you post something on those accounts, it will also show up on your Baboom profile. I will once more shamelessly self-promote my Baboom page for you to see: www.baboom.com/puncheur. And people can just stream your music like on Soundcloud. They don't need a subscription to listen to your music. They don't have to "buy" your music in order to listen to it either.
Baboom also has that option, to let people pay more. I think it should be possible to set it to "free" and have people pay "more" according to what they feel is justified. Also for you I will shamelessly self-promote my Baboom page: www.baboom.com/puncheur.
As far as I'm concerned, there's really 4 levels of 'when do I make money off my music'
1) Have another actual job, just dabbling occasionally, might as well put a price tag on things and see how it goes.
2) Getting serious into music making, invest in gear/plugins/etc, still have other sources of income that are the majority
3) Music as a career, some supplementary sources of income, but music income is a majority
4) Live and die by music, you're so in-demand that all your resources and work time are devoted to your craft
You need to be very aware of where you stand depending on your interest in it, because nothing sucks more than having an imbalance where you have too little resources in hand to do things you want to do, or on the flipside investing waa-aay too much in e.g. a home studio setup and then realizing you only want to do it as a hobby and you can't really make a living off it anyway. Situation always changes too, and it's prudent to reevaluate where you stand from time to time, especially if opportunities open up. (Say suddenly a record label wants to sign you, you should be 'hell yeah' and pegged right at 4) for obvious reasons)
In other words, 'when do I start charging money?' often is intertwined to do with 'do I want to start investing in hardware/plugins to give me better tools make my craft better?' which is both a catch 22 and a positive feedback loop.
Also another important distinction to keep in mind is that there's two separate mindshares here. Marketing to listeners who want to hear your music specifically, and marketing to clients who want to use your music for their projects. Generally nowadays with the whole freelance thing, these often go hand-in-hand (e.g. getting your music in a successful indie darling builds up your fanbase to the point people know who you are and want to hear more of your stuff - or the flipside, having a following making it easier to cold call indie game devs, just as two examples related to the game industry) but it's also completely possible to make a decent income solely off one or the other - there are plenty of people who get millions of plays simply just doing VGM-themed remixes/covers/originals who don't have an interest in actually working on a game soundtrack, and there are plenty of people making a living off pumping out material for games/media/whatever who have close to zero public mindshare, yet can put food on the table. You need to decide very clearly if you're going after one of these, or both, and invest your time accordingly.
Sorry if that was a little vague in terms of answering the question itself. I think honestly that's something that differs from person to person and the answer can only really come when you ask yourself related questions and get your own answers to those.
1) Have another actual job, just dabbling occasionally, might as well put a price tag on things and see how it goes.
2) Getting serious into music making, invest in gear/plugins/etc, still have other sources of income that are the majority
3) Music as a career, some supplementary sources of income, but music income is a majority
4) Live and die by music, you're so in-demand that all your resources and work time are devoted to your craft
You need to be very aware of where you stand depending on your interest in it, because nothing sucks more than having an imbalance where you have too little resources in hand to do things you want to do, or on the flipside investing waa-aay too much in e.g. a home studio setup and then realizing you only want to do it as a hobby and you can't really make a living off it anyway. Situation always changes too, and it's prudent to reevaluate where you stand from time to time, especially if opportunities open up. (Say suddenly a record label wants to sign you, you should be 'hell yeah' and pegged right at 4) for obvious reasons)
In other words, 'when do I start charging money?' often is intertwined to do with 'do I want to start investing in hardware/plugins to give me better tools make my craft better?' which is both a catch 22 and a positive feedback loop.
Also another important distinction to keep in mind is that there's two separate mindshares here. Marketing to listeners who want to hear your music specifically, and marketing to clients who want to use your music for their projects. Generally nowadays with the whole freelance thing, these often go hand-in-hand (e.g. getting your music in a successful indie darling builds up your fanbase to the point people know who you are and want to hear more of your stuff - or the flipside, having a following making it easier to cold call indie game devs, just as two examples related to the game industry) but it's also completely possible to make a decent income solely off one or the other - there are plenty of people who get millions of plays simply just doing VGM-themed remixes/covers/originals who don't have an interest in actually working on a game soundtrack, and there are plenty of people making a living off pumping out material for games/media/whatever who have close to zero public mindshare, yet can put food on the table. You need to decide very clearly if you're going after one of these, or both, and invest your time accordingly.
Sorry if that was a little vague in terms of answering the question itself. I think honestly that's something that differs from person to person and the answer can only really come when you ask yourself related questions and get your own answers to those.
Basically anybody here (and elsewhere) falls into one these categories.
As for investing in decent equipment... you can get your tracks sounding good enough for the indie market, with a few hundred dollars worth of software. Basically any hobby will cost you money, buying a bike, going to the gym, buying a digital camera... everything costs money. With the money you spend on a decent race bike or a decent dslr camera + lens, you can get Reason with a midi keyboard, a decent pair of headphones, a DAC and still have half the budget to spend on used synths, like a DX7 and a minitaur. And i mean COMBINED.
For some reason people always act like spending money on music/equipment is "not done" unless you're serious about it, good at it, and/or (anticipate) making money with it. Why is there a double standard? We're on a videogame forum, EVERY generation of videogame systems, we all spend WAY more money on a hobby that decreases in value MUCH MUCH faster. Buy a game today, you'll be lucky if you can sell it next week at half the price. Synths and equipment keep their value much longer. Especially if you buy second hand. So i don't get the double standard.
It's not so much a double standard as it is being realistic. My viewpoint may be skewed coming (still rather recently) from a music school where more than a fraction of people finish a degree, realize they don't actually want to do music, and end up elsewhere (and holy shit college is not cheap in the US)
Granted, that's one helluva extreme example, but I also know a couple of people who set up rooms (like, hardcore acoustic treatment and all that) and then do virtually nothing and try to pawn off the resellable bits of their setup they have.
Spending some cash on a hobby is well within the boundaries of being realistic, don't get me wrong. All a matter of scale.
Granted, that's one helluva extreme example, but I also know a couple of people who set up rooms (like, hardcore acoustic treatment and all that) and then do virtually nothing and try to pawn off the resellable bits of their setup they have.
Spending some cash on a hobby is well within the boundaries of being realistic, don't get me wrong. All a matter of scale.
I was speaking primarily about sane people ofcourse. Investing in a soundproof studio without having either the budget or the vision for it, is no different from going to the bank, loan money for a Mercedes... when you don't even have a driver's license nor a job to pay the loan.
There is a lot you can do with little money. If you would spend the same budget you spend on one videogame generation, on music equipment, you can easily put out tracks that are more than good enough to sell in the indie space. Which was what the discussion was about. Throw in another 50 bucks or less per track (the price of one game) and get it mastered for more professional sounding tracks. There is a studio in the UK that masters tracks manually (not with a plug-in) for i think it was $20. They actually get good feedback.
I'm talking from the perspective of an electronic music creator primarily ofcourse. If you're a saxophone player, things are a bit different, but chances are you wouldn't be making music by yourself either.
As for getting a degree you don't want to follow up on... i know exactly what you mean, being a graphic designer by trade after a 4 year degree and a 2 year post-grad. Most students i graduated with ended up doing something completely different. But, i don't really see how that's relevant. Fact of the matter is, for people wanting to make good sounding (electronically generated) music, good enough to ask money for, the investment needed does not have to exceed that of many other hobbies. The main problem will be having the talent or not. Yet, if you're having fun, it doesn't really matter. I have a $1200 racebike i (used to) ride almost every day... without having the intention or the ambition to ever make any money from riding a bike.
User 73706
Banned
Yeah, I'm probably Option 1 for life. Pursuing more realistic / lucrative pastimes in terms of actual income, but I have put a little cash into getting my stuff distributed.
Spoiler: I've made like 5 cents off of approx. 3 and a half hours of music that's currently out there.
Spoiler: I've made like 5 cents off of approx. 3 and a half hours of music that's currently out there.
I've earned nearly 1 euro from 2 tracks on Baboom
That's roughly one buck!FloatingDivider
Member
Excellent post, the vagueness is understandable since it is essentially a very opaque subject. But it does get my gears churning. I'm at a 1 now, and while I'm theoretically fine being a 1 for the foreseeable future I'd really like to progress to a 2. Essentially I'm at the point where I'd like to invest more in the tools but it'd be cool if I could get some return because I'm certainly not the richest man and some of this stuff is quite expensive. I mean ozfunghi made a reference to the price of videogaming, but I can honestly say, I've probably spent far less on videogaming than music production over the last 2 years. (Still waiting for that humble vsti bundle
) And I'm a pretty hardcore gamer. I also think you made an excellent point with bringing up marketing because I think that's essentially a requirement for any movement up your ladder of progression. (outside of catching a "lucky" break). Regardless of who you market to, clients or fans. Although the fact that you brought up that distinction also crystallizes another thing I should have mulled over. I essentially have no idea what I'm trying to sell to who. I mean I switch genres on a whim, have no actual sound that's sort of my thing and am still way deep into experimenting with things. I also have no idea of what my end goal actually is outside of making music that sounds amazing to me and hopefully, at some point, other people (nowhere near close to that yet though). I don't know, I suddenly feel kind of rudderless, I'm probably getting way ahead of myself thinking about selling music. I have 28 followers on soundcloud lol, down from 29. In fact most of my friends and family don't know I make music because I'm too shy about it to show it to them. The fuck am I thinking about selling music for, going to go back to sticking my head in the sand and just making music. Should find a new goal for my music this year though since I achieved my previous goal of making 5$ fairly randomly. Probably want to get to a point where I can get vocalists to reliably want to collaborate with me so I can get my Max Martin on and stop spending so much time making bootleg remixes. I also want to see if I can make some music for an indie game, that'd actually be kind of cool to do. Also maybe get to 100 followers because lol at 28.
I might put some tracks on baboom though, seems fairly effortless
. Can't turn down that hot 1$ card money. I could buy like 3 hidden object games for my fiancee with that.I have 28 followers on soundcloud lol, down from 29. In fact most of my friends and family don't know I make music because I'm too shy about it to show it to them.
I might put some tracks on baboom though, seems fairly effortless
I had 15 followers on Soundcloud, lol. Most of my family and friends also don't know, or have no idea about what it is exactly, or how good/bad it is. And if they did, they probably wouldn't care.
There is basically no reason not to release stuff on Baboom. The only thing Soundcloud has over Baboom, is that it's more famous. It's also (Soundcloud) filled with spammers and such. Other than that, it has nothing Baboom doesn't have IMO. Just finish your best things (I wouldn't include samples that aren't your own) and put them on Baboom. Streaming quality is better, and you might earn something along the way. You've got nothing to lose.
Also, if you're a hardcore gamer, and you've put more money into music... but on the other hand you've said in the past that you don't own analog stuff... what exactly have you been spending so much money on?
Intheflorsh
Banned
Good luck trying to sell music online in the era of free streaming music. :/ You're competing with millions of people and it takes an inordinate amount of luck and talent to even get noticed. Even the people who "make it" end up with a supplemental income at best. I'm sure you are all aware of these things.
You gotta do it for the love maaan, because spending time and effort on music is never going to make financial sense for most of us. I'm not saying you shouldn't try, but just be smart and don't tie your self worth around it.
Also, you all should be sharing your music with friends and family. I shared a song with my mom last week and, not to brag, now she thinks I'm pretty cool.
You gotta do it for the love maaan, because spending time and effort on music is never going to make financial sense for most of us. I'm not saying you shouldn't try, but just be smart and don't tie your self worth around it.
Also, you all should be sharing your music with friends and family. I shared a song with my mom last week and, not to brag, now she thinks I'm pretty cool.
First of all, nobody is thinking to be the next charts topper. The point is, if your tracks are finished and of decent quality anyway, why not put them out there? Chances are they won't get noticed/bought, but what do you have to lose? Baboom is completely free and offers better streaming than Soundcloud, so why NOT put it on there? Maybe Bandcamp is similar (i've heard of it but never used it). That doesn't mean we are making music to make money. But if your music is just sitting on your computer, what's the point?
Second of all, free streaming music... that was also part of the initial debate/question. How to get your music on spotify, deezer, itunes etc... Turns out it is rather easy to do, and doesn't cost that much either (going from a couple of bucks per track to 60 bucks for an album without any further costs ever). However, "not much" is still not free, so every dollar you invest in getting your music on spotify & co, is a dollar you might want to earn back. If that's the case, then you have to set your priorities.
I would also like to say that my second track was uploaded to Baboom about 10 days ago i think, and it now has 68 streams, which is more than any of my tracks got on Soundcloud in the same timeframe.
And my mom is 78. She thinks i'm cool regardless of what music i would make. Even if i made crap like Tiesto or something.
Kwansu Dudes
Member
I'm from the US and have never heard of Baboom ever nor has any popular music person I follow ever mention it. Is it larger in other countries?
FloatingDivider
Member
While I'm not going to go through the effort of tracking down receipts to make a incredibly detailed list of my expenditures (because I admittedly have bought some dumb shit) I am going to say it adds up really quickly. In terms of hardware I purchased over the last 2,5 years I've been producing. I've purchased a 61 Key Akai MPK, A steinberg CI1 interface, a cheap rode starter set condensator mic, fuck knows what the model designation is, it sounds like hot ass though and I really want to replace it. I also bought a pair of m-audio bx5 monitors I never use and a few headsets. I'm not going to lie, it's not top of the line fancy ass shit but it does add up to a good 1000?. In terms of software it's probably worse, my daw & komplete 8 probably add close to another 1000. Add all of the random shit I gradually bought like the fabfilter mixing bundle, Serum, Zeta+2, Ozone 5, Valhalla reverbs, Vsti's, sample packs, kontakt instruments, autotune 8, melodyne editor, etc... I'm sort of afraid to find receipts and add it all up because it's probably a ridiculous amount. And now I'm stuck with the upgrades dilemma where a bunch of the software I have is out of date and unsupported and I'm essentially looking to upgrade most of it, and while they do offer discounted rates it all adds up too. Compared to gaming where the newest releases rarely cost me more than 30, and most of my purchases end up being below the 10 amount there's no comparison honestly.
You're right, I knew what I was getting into. I don't have a get on a major, get rich sort of pipedream going on. I think that's essentially winning the musical lottery, and I'm not that concerned with that type of money. I am essentially doing it for the love already, I started off producing on a whim because I was too shy to find bandmates, but I'm so way deep(so way deep? I'm the Carnage of neogaf) into it now I'm sure it's going to be a lifelong thing now. Essentially I know I'm addicted and I was thinking about finding some enablers to enable me a little bit, so I don't end up in subways performing sexual favors for strangers(j/k terrible joke). I do share my music with my mom, but she's my mom, I could produce essentially 3 solid hours of fart music and she'd love me for it. I know my musical stylings currently aren't really her jam because she's into early to mid 80's funk (which I've tried to make but I can't get it to not sound like some sort of midi band funk song cover). My fiancee also knows and she's equally supportive and I really trust her feedback in terms of when my songs get to having a commercially viable sound since she essentially listens to the radio 8 hours a day at work. (not there yet according to her and I agree). I was just sort of bringing up my extended family not knowing as a way to indicate that I'm not in that zone where I'm ready to fully stand behind my music and claim my craft as artistic genius. As I said earlier I don't think I'm at a point that making any money outside of cents is plausible so I might as well just keep producing and just see what happens if anything.
FloatingDivider
Member
I fully agree, Komplete was a no brainer, I immediately saw the value and it was essentially my first music production related purchase alongside my daw. I don't think I've ever made anything that hasn't had a sound or effect from the komplete bundle in it somewhere.
Komplete is even more amazing value when they end-of-life a generation and start selling off the current/old version for 50% off, which is how I got Komplete 9.
I'm fortunate to be in Falk's category 2, but I think I would've still pumped a stupid amount of money into the hardware and software even if I wasn't, because I love making music and all the technology that is a part of production. It's always been a hobby, a huge passion of mine, just one that happens to make me a bit of money along the way (which I inevitably end up spending on more music-related software/gear).
I'm fortunate to be in Falk's category 2, but I think I would've still pumped a stupid amount of money into the hardware and software even if I wasn't, because I love making music and all the technology that is a part of production. It's always been a hobby, a huge passion of mine, just one that happens to make me a bit of money along the way (which I inevitably end up spending on more music-related software/gear).
It's relatively new. It launched in august 2015 i think. Their take is "fair trade streaming". If you pay for a subscription, you get 90% of sales and streams, if you opt for a free account, you get 70%. You can interact with your fanbase directly. You can split revenue between band members. Like i said, it's a sort of cross-over between Spotify and Soundcloud. As if you could release your music directly to spotify, without needing an aggregator (of which some take a cut too and/or charge a fee per release, some with a yearly subscription on top).
Actually... This might be a good excercise. Let me think about money i spent on hardware alone:
Moog Little Phatty + CP251 (new) €850 (a steal bargain due to currency rates between GBP and EUR in 2008)
Talkbox horndriver (DIY talkbox) €50
AKG Q701 €220
Nuforce Icon HDP €0 (i bought a bunch of Nuforce DACs from a bankrupcy, kept one, sold the rest and did some profit... about €400 profit and a free DAC)
Arturia Beatstep (used) €55
Studio projects B1 (condensor mic) €120 (i think this is what i paid in 2008, maybe less)
Two Moog Slim Phatties (used) (basically rack versions of the Little Phatty, for polyphony) €900
MFB Tanzbär €777
UR22 USB audio interface €115 (paid with the sale of my FA-66 interface which i paid €200 new)
JBL lsr305 monitors €280
Upgrade CV out mod of my Little Phatty €300
Random stuff (cables, stands, mini mixer...) €100
Adds up to more than i was thinking, lol. Nearly €3500.
Nevertheless, I stand by my previous assessment. Buying some second hand synths, an audio interface, decent monitors and headphones and a copy of Reason, will not cost you an arm and a leg and get you a long way towards making decent sounding stuff:
Used Minitaur: €350 + used DX7 €350 + copy of Reason €350 + interface/monitors/cans €500. That's a total of €1550. Basic wave editing can be done with the free software that comes with your interface or with audacity.
I think the most sentimental piece out of my entire hardware collection are a pair of monitors I built myself (kit, not from scratch) that cost me less than $200, I've used them for over five years now.
Don't let the graphs in the manual lie to you, these suckers go down to 28Hz. I was pretty surprised.
http://www.parts-express.com/dayton...y-bookshelf-monitor-speaker-kit-pair--300-640
Don't let the graphs in the manual lie to you, these suckers go down to 28Hz. I was pretty surprised.
http://www.parts-express.com/dayton...y-bookshelf-monitor-speaker-kit-pair--300-640
Passive? That means you need a more than decent amp to go with it.
Yeah, they're passive. For a long time I was using a $100 amp from Best Buy because I figured 'hey, cheap gear matched up with cheap gear'.
That amp didn't do the speakers justice.
I dunno how to put it, really. They aren't the most transparent pair of speakers, and they're a tad bit harsh in the high mids, but they somehow remind me a little of NS-10s without sounding like NS-10s.
And they pump out bass. Doesn't quite replace a sub, but good enough for most types of music.
That amp didn't do the speakers justice.
I dunno how to put it, really. They aren't the most transparent pair of speakers, and they're a tad bit harsh in the high mids, but they somehow remind me a little of NS-10s without sounding like NS-10s.
And they pump out bass. Doesn't quite replace a sub, but good enough for most types of music.
It's the main reason i did go with active monitors, because you need a good amp, and a good amp costs more than good active monitors. But if they work for you, that's all that matters.
It's a huge difference when i listen to my headphones (those Q701) just through my laptop, or when i listen through my DAC. Even though the headphones don't require that much power and should work fine on a laptop, going by stats. But it's two completely different things. I can imagine the difference between listening to those monitors through a bad amp, or a good amp.
I gave up my NS-10s, Samson 550 amp, and Delta 2496 card for some Logitech X-540s and an X-Fi Titanium some time ago. I think I'm just over studio monitors and pro audio equipment. Or at least, the stuff that doesn't just plug right into my computer / consumer-grade equipment. Which is one of the reasons I went for the Samson C03U mic. Having it be USB is great. I think this is the way to go, for me.
R
Rösti
Unconfirmed Member
Here's my submission:
https://soundcloud.com/rostineogaf/sounds-of-neogaf-mwiriitupw
I used a rather small amount of the samples provided:
- Acoustic Kick 1
- Synth Kick
- You just want to keep me on repeat
- Vinyl
- Blend it good
- Scraped
- Washington monument
- Ascariasis
- Bluetooth badass mofo
- Very rage much scream
thezerofire
Banned
very late update, but my battery pack started whining. It's louder when it's plugged in without batteries charging, but if you hold it up to your ear when charging you can hear it
also I found out that the Circuit can act as multiple polyphonic sequencers, pretty excited to try to get it to work with all my synths
Rösti;196289021 said:
very metroidy this would make good video game music imo like exploring a cave or something. i like the broken up feel to it its a cool sound given the samples
heres my submission to contest https://soundcloud.com/cokeoutfit/submission
its cool to see how different the entries are haah
FloatingDivider
Member
Holy fucking dickballs anti piracy shit sucks. I finally cracked and wanted to re-install autotune, and test out a bunch of the free soundtoys shit I got. But that Ilok shit is so annoying. Not only does the installer look like something out of 95, so does the website. And it took their mailserver 10 minutes to send a mail to reset my password. Why make it such a hassle? It's killing me. Oh and it installed atleast 2 services that run in the background 24/7 just to make sure I'm allowed to make music at some point in the future. Now I can happily autotune my terrible vocals (melodyne barfed when I tried it and couldn't even reliably detect the octave I'm singing in /D). Oh gosh if only I could find singers. Producing a bunch of poppier stuff now I'm going to sing myself as a demo to lure singers but I may have to end up abandoning ship and just putting the beats out there or something. I'm going to feedback train it up one of these days btw and get all of these sample thingies, ozfunghi, orlanisworks, and whoever else I missed.
Edit: Also fuck the blue light on this dongle, whoever invented blue leds deserves nothing but pain and misery.
Edit: Also fuck the blue light on this dongle, whoever invented blue leds deserves nothing but pain and misery.
the iLok stuff is indeed awful.
What version of Melodyne are you using? I could take a look at your audio file for ya to see if I can make it work.
Icyflamez96
Member
I'm going to try at the contest again this weekend. Hopefully I can get something out of it this time around.
FloatingDivider
Member
I'm using the latest 3.whatever editor version before they upgraded to four. Don't really see a reason to upgrade, the harmony&workflow stuff is cool and I'd really like to upgrade for that alone but it's kinda steep and since my issue is pitch detection and they haven't advertised any upgrades on that front I'm rather meh on spending money whole thing.
I mean if you want to try tuning 2 verses, a bridge, and a chorus, that are terribly sung I'd love to see you try
. I sure can't do it. If you want to hear them before trying I uploaded a clip of the song that inspired my tuning crisis. All the vocals are completely dry, I think part of my issue is my setup, I seem to be hearing a lot of room but I don't want to build a blanket fort in my bedroom . If you bow out after hearing the atrocity linked below I utterly understand.Do not click
Don't click unless you want to laugh at my atrocious singing.
Kinda sad though song'd be good if I wasn't the worst singer in the world. I was kind of riffing on that banana boat man or something, you know the one come mr tallyman tally me banana etc. I agree to a point, on the slow stuff, sure. It seems to perform far better and it's far more transparent when using it for minor intonation fixes on good singers. That being said, I think autotune flat out sounds better on bad singers and material with shorter note values. Melodyne has this terrible low fi artifacty quality that dulls the vocal when you need to do some serious pitch correction while autotune has this really synthy sharp quality that makes a vocal pop out.
Haha, sounds okay to me! I think you sound pretty good. I dunno if the beginning part there without the music was tuned yet, but I messed with it a bit anyway.
I see where it's not detecting the octave correctly though, and it's because of the grit / vocal fry. When a vocal isn't perfectly clean, it detects it differently, hence some of the high notes are displayed an octave lower. Still works though, it's just displayed weird.
But anyway, if you want me to prod your vocal files, hook me up with a zip or something.
FloatingDivider
Member
Nah everything was untuned. That's some high speed messing yo, sounds better than what I was achieving but I was getting pretty aggressive with it. If you want to do the vocals I'd be super cool with that though, collaborative powers ahoy! I'll send you a pm with the zipped dry vocals either tonight or somewhere tomorrow.
Edit: I also don't think I'm allowed to call it a vocal fry or grit, it's just poor breath control or something from years of smoking and honestly having no idea what the fuck I'm doing singing.
Actually, Melodyne also lets you do a bit of formant control, but Autotune packages that up neatly so there's a lot less work/tweaking involved. So yeah, on creating harmonies or major pitch corrections, Autotune wins out.
Honestly I'm amazed at how far pitch/stretch tools have come overall. I've actually stretched orchestral section/solo recordings (of all things) from one BPM to another, or reharmonized them, as a last-resort when shit hit the fan on a session. Feels like the late 90s when I'd explain to people how polyponic pitch correction is impossible was not that long ago.
Turning any recording into a mini-sample library is fun. We had some unused takes from the electric bass recordings of this which I completely took apart with Melodyne to turn into the bassline for this. Just recording bass for that would obviously have been a lot less effort but I was on the go, and it made a cool academic exercise, anyway. Heh.
FloatingDivider
Member
Yeah the formant stuff in melodyne is cool, autotune has essentially the same feature but they call it throat or some nonsense. I also agree with the fact that it's amazing how far melodyne has come in some respects. I mean I certainly wasn't producing music in the 90's, but I'm aware of the difficulty of the task they accomplish. I mean fast fourier analysis and pitch modulation using a carrier source is all fine and dandy but to accurately do it for polyphonic material while maintaining most to all of the timbre of the original instrument is way cool. Then you get into the sound design options for 4 with envelopes and a bunch of assorted things you can tweak and it does become somewhat ridiculous.
That being said, I do like how laser focused on vocal correction autotune is as well, and like I said previously in terms of getting a bad singer to sound like a pop vocalist it's unbeatable. That being said it might be unbeatable due to how prevalent it is in that scene. Minor corrections or sound design, I'm giving the trophy to Melodyne everytime.
Let me guess... you'e one of the few people with an interesting voice with some actual character to it, but you'd prefer to sound like a studio singer you couldn't tell apart from 10.000 other commercially slick voices. Seriously, it's not bad. I've only had one listen (through my laptop speakers), but i don't even think you need much pitch correction, if any.
FloatingDivider
Member
I've noticed this too, not in real live singers but I browse a lot of youtube music cover videos and I constantly hear people do vocal melisma's that are essentially the equivalent of autotune warbles.
I think so? Not autotune neccesarily but I think they're essentially singing to it's strengths. It just adds a really nice sheen to close to falsetto really strained and pushed vocals. I don't even think it's female vocals only, Jason Derulo is pretty much the number one offender for that vocal styling imo.
This too, that being said I often think it sounds kinda good in context but I'm also not going to act like I'm some purist that can detect the slightest hint of overcompression.
Yes. Controversial opinion incoming but I don't think Bob Dylan would sell for shit today, atleast not in any number that is internationally significant. If you want to make something that sounds poppy pitch perfection is virtually an unspoken expectation. That being said the pitch correction plugin that could fix my shit hasn't been made yet so I don't think you need to be worried about me managing to polish my voice to a mirror sheen. That being said, I essentially want to sound like a "studio" singer so I can attract actual studio singers to sing on my productions for me, I have no intention of actually becoming a performing artist.
That being said, I don't think that sound is ever in the cards for me no matter how many tuning plugins I use so don't worry.
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