Music Producers / Studio Thread

[ROYALEFATALE]

all self taught here, learning from people in the know was a big help, also forums dedicated to your sequencer are helpful, it also takes a bit of time to train your ears to mix properly, you'll know when you realize you can't just listen to music anymore without really LISTENING to it, hearing every seperate instrument within a mix/picking it apart with your ears, the one thing that cannot be stressed enough is EQing, it's absolutely essential and probably the number one reason why several instruments don't seem to mix together well for you

[ProfessorOak]

ahh, I see. Well the main thing I was trying to ask for was how to make your own cool sounds and special sound effects. Because frankly all I know what to use is the lame premade sounds/effects.

[ROYALEFATALE]

experiment!! there's really no wrong way to go about it, learn about oscillators, LFOs, envelopes, etc and what they do, once you learn what they do you can shape the sound you're looking for much faster

[lotek01]

weeerd, self-teaching is the most fun and if not, it's not for you

[haploid]

Youtube has thousands of videos of how-to's. yo FL sucks so move onto somethign else before you end up only able to find tutorials of "How to make hardstyle in FL!!!!"

It's a pretty competent DAW but the community of users is mostly made up of chubby german kids monitoring out of computer speakers exclusively.

I dunno wut

[ProfessorOak]

oh haha i didn't know. I got the program from my friend that's why. I'm not trying to get totally serious about this, I just kinda make beats for fun. Just whatever comes to mind basically.

[poly800rock]

i have the most retarded time with drum theory...and i've been playing guitar for like 12 years.

[haploid]

Make a basic drum pattern you're familiar with, bounce it down (record it to audio in your DAW) and then chop/re-arrange randomly. Listen to the result and you should understand how to recreate the pattern in the piano roll/step sequencer format.

Dunno if this is what you're asking but couldn't hurt.

[ROYALEFATALE]

haploid do you use logic? here's a screenshot of a fairly usual setup, give or take a few tracks, clusterfuck!

[haploid]

No I can't afford Logic right now

I use Live 7. I'll take a screenshot when I get the chance.

[Caps Lock]

New track between my friend and I as the Duke Of Canterbury:

http://soundcloud.com/nikosmaridakis/nikos-maridakis-cblvsn-duke-of-canterbury-hot-winter-original-mix

[destructodisk]

live ownz logic for real.

like i feel bad for anyone that doesn't use ableton

oh and I"m starting my year long project of making a song every day tomorrow, so I'll be posting up lots of shit for ya'll to hear

[haploid]

Logic is vastly superior for mixing but yeah I agree Live is excellent for composing.

[ROYALEFATALE]

live seems pretty ass-backwards to me as far as composing goes, probably because i never took the time to learn it, but are the track window and arrangement window always seperate? like you have to go back and forth between creating tracks/adding fx chains and the actual arrangement/piano roll esque window?

[ROYALEFATALE]

another question after seeing that, is there a set of tools in live for the arrangement window? i was messing with it last night but couldn't find them anywhere, such as logic's scissors tool, glue tool, velocity tool, etc, etc? how do you mess with audio regions, the mouse is simply an audio previewer for me

[haploid]

It's sort of hard to explain. You make edits by selecting and cutting, and from there you can consolidate clips etc. Volume automation can take place both in the automation window and the clip window for even more control.

Also, I'm not sure if marketing is taboo in this thread so mods feel free to call me out on this if I'm crossing any lines and I'll remove it but the studio I'm interning at has suggested I reach out to artists I know in case they're looking for affordable yet professional mixing/mastering. We can work through file-transfer/email to give you a product that you're satisfied with. If anyone's interested in having their tracks professionally mixed or mastered to a more "finished" product to send to blogs and labels, feel free to PM me and I'll fill you in on the details.

[ROYALEFATALE]

do they have a standard price for mastering, i've done a bit of research in the past, most places ranging anywhere from 50-110ish per track, the higher prices are from studios mastering/mixing for huge top 40 artists though

[Dioxic]

I'm relatively new to making beats and such but I'd like to get an MPC or some sort of beat making hardware. I want a decent one so that I won't have to upgrade when I start using it seriously. Any recommendations? Oh, I'm getting an apple laptop soon so preferably something compatible with macs, but any advice is welcome.

[ROYALEFATALE]

anything with midi/usb will work mac or pc, before you spend alot of dough on an MPC i would also look into samplers without any internal drive or memory, like the MPD, unless you're dead set on creating beats within the hardware unit itself, since you're getting a mac, you could run all of the samples through the EXS in logic or any number of other virtual samplers in ableton/pro tools

[haploid]

Any MIDI controller such as an MPD or PadKONTROL will suit you as you progress so I'd suggest checking those out as royale suggested.

Edit: Buy Battery by Native Instruments. Tons of great samples to get you started and lots of options to manipulate them once you get more in-depth. Importing whole banks is possible and efficient too if you decide to go that route.

[Disco Nap!]

correct me if im wrong but is it possible to find "short" drum loops? possibly like a simple reggae or hip hop bass loop? trying to refresh my memory...

[haploid]

Has it occurred to you that you can simply loop a smaller part of a larger loop or cut the bits you like and comp them together? Or are you talking one hits?

[Disco Nap!]

i could do that and i will, basically what im mean is where could i find such loops?

[ROYALEFATALE]

personally i wouldn't mess with loops if you're going to be using a sequencer, unless you don't mind not being able to fully control your sound, if you're looking for drum machine one hits i can hook you up with a site that has high quality samples of just about every machine ever made, if you want a bunch of loops definitely look into www.primeloops.com , they have alot of genre-related loop packs that you can play with, you can preview them on their website and get most of them via torrent/rapidshare

[ROYALEFATALE]

just upped an edit, one for the CWGs:

http://soundcloud.com/royalefatale/lady-gaga-monster-140bpm-edit

[destructodisk]

haploid that clip kinna reminds me of this awesome song:

GjNAhWW4COA

btw i'll have an EP ready to go in two weeks br0z

[haploid]

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To all the DAW users on this threak, watch this and laugh. Who would have thought the computer would be come so big in music?

[julianREE]

quick question guys.

i'm trying to find a drum sequencer like fruityloops for the mac. anybody have a good suggestion?

[ROYALEFATALE]

just to sequence drums? pretty sure garageband can do all the basics as far as midi programming/sequencing for drums, which is standard on macs, if you're looking to sample with an MPD/pads i would look into Logic or Ableton

[terrible1fi]

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To all the DAW users on this threak, watch this and laugh. Who would have thought the computer would be come so big in music?

crazy how far we've come, yet we're still using an archaic form of hardware communication.