Music Producers / Studio Thread

[mizanation]

it doesn't matter what you use. the most important thing is being able to get the sound you want. it doesn't matter if it's analog, digital, or whatever. spend less time worrying about what to use, spend more time making music and learning your gear.

it doesn't matter if you are using digital or analog. sp1200, mpc or asr. reason, logic, fruity loops or live. protools, digital performer or cubase. it doesn't matter if you run your shit through a quarter million dollar slr or do it completely digital. it just doesn't matter.

[onemancult]

you digital nerds need to chill out.

i think the analog junkies are nerds.

why don't you patch your cables into yer ass?!

but really, people who swear by either exclusively are

as stupid as one another. it's all about the brain.

[Double D]

I'd hardly call any of those programs restricting. Whether it is working out a sketch for a song or producing a full track, what you get out of them is all about how much work and creativity you put into what you're doing with them.

Squarepusher, I believe, does and has used software for his stuff.

I never said software as a whole was restricting (quite the opposite), but Reason and Fruityloops sure as hell are. When you're trying to superimpose 4/4 over 6/8 into polyrhythms and shit like that, things kind of fall apart. Or the point where you try and write any musical passage more complicated than a monophonic 4 bar line. Which is kinda where Logic Pro comes in handy. Such things are possible in Fruityloops (hell, I've written classical pieces with Gigastudio sound libraries in it), but when it gets to the point that you're running the sequencer at 340bpm to get the amount of rhythmic subdivisions you need you realise it just doesn't quite cut it.

[onemancult]

Or the point where you try and write any musical passage more complicated than a monophonic 4 bar line.

That's a bit of a hyperbole for sure, but everything else you said is pretty much fair.

However, considering what the programs are geared towards producing, wouldn't you have to say that anyone attempting to bash out a complex polyrhythmic composition on software geared, for the most part, towards dance music, is kind of a fool?

[Double D]

That's a bit of a hyperbole for sure, but everything else you said is pretty much fair.

However, considering what the programs are geared towards producing, wouldn't you have to say that anyone attempting to bash out a complex polyrhythmic composition on software geared, for the most part, towards dance music, is kind of a fool?

Or too poor at that point to afford a Mac and some decent software.

Alse a) it certainly isn't hyperbole when you try to fit a 7 note scale into the space of one beat, and the last piece I wrote for my studio module was a 'dance' track both polyrhythmic and having about 5 different time signatures. Last time I checked Lamb had killed 4/4 dance music about 4 or 5 years before FL v1.

Also when I was writing drum and bass tracks a few years ago before I abandoned PCs for good I used to have to set the FL sequences to 40, 48 or 56 to get 5/6/7 segment sequences to get a variety of swingbeat grooves going on. I don't even know if such a thing is possible in Reason.

[wEstSidE]

i love how this has turned into an argument about four on the floor.

naturaljax, you can make music on the 'puter. if you like it then get more stuff.

[Corbin Law]

im suprised no one has mentioned ableton

thats my personal favorite

somethings ive made. not hiphop but made

in the same style that i used to make my hiphop beats n such

http://www.myspace.com/saintonmars

[keagan]

Plenty of respectable artists produce around the computer. Moby says he produced most of hotel on a with a computer running pro tools on OS 9 (!) Richie Hawtin has said he uses logic 7, and has ditched almost all his hardware- he should be enough confirmination that computers are getting to the point where they are necessary in the studio- in any situation.

For the record; Squarepusher uses Reaktor which is basically Max for pussies.

Fucking music theory and DANCE music production do not mix. Period. Harmonic mixing is stupid.

DANCE music is supposed to make you DANCE. Not make you wonder about the time signature or what key the track is in (I dont know anything about music theory).

That being said- if you're looking to make IDM best way to go is a really nice midi keyboard and a copy of max- and a couple of classes. Or you're looking at thousand of dollars on outdated, crusty, old analogue gear that will probably still make you sound a lot worse than todays IDM stars.

[thatkidpercy]

I dabble - a few tracks are on www.zebox.com/percy - the remix was produced in FL Studio, the other 2 instrumental tracks were made when i still had my MPC2000XL..

FL Studio is a great piece of software, so long as you are using your own drum samples and sounds rather than the inbuilt ones! I think a lot of the bad reputation it receives is because of the scores of kids using the stock sounds and creating cheap sounding shit. If you're gonna keep it software, I would still highly recommend a midi keyboard aswell because programming notes is a complete bore if you do it by hand!

Some software I'd recommend:

• Adobe Audition (alternative to Soundforge, I prefer Audition)
  
• Lounge Lizard VST (a good vintage keys emulator - rhodes, wurlitzer etc.)
  
• Spectrasonics Trilogy Bass VST (sampled bass sounds aswell as synth basses)

If you're interested in hip hop production, a good site to read is http://forums.undergroundhiphop.com/forumlisting.asp?Forum=Producer - check if they have any "beat battles" going on - they provide samples and usually drums aswell in a kit, and the idea is to make a beat using nothing else. Your first couple of attempts will probably be far from amazing, but listening to other peoples entries will probably inspire you and show you what's possible...

[fg0d]

Im really interested in getting my feet wet in music production. I've downloaded fruity loops, and I'm slowly figuiring it out. But it hardly feels effective, especially since the preloaded samples are just blah. Any other suggestions on how to get started in this field?

[GoodHustle]

Im really interested in getting my feet wet in music production. I've downloaded fruity loops, and I'm slowly figuiring it out. But it hardly feels effective, especially since the preloaded samples are just blah. Any other suggestions on how to get started in this field?

Man you should really learn how to use the program before you knock it. The preloaded samples can be decent IF you layer, filter and tweak to whatever sound you want. Also, I would recommend digging for your own samples and importing them into FL.

[onemancult]

I'd like to collectively shit on everyone on earth who is totally on the plasticine cock

of Mac and Mac-specific software when it comes to music production.

When it comes to composition, okay, sure, yeah, you don't want to sit down with something like FL Studio and try to program in fifty different grooves that are in time signatures that even the most advanced DAW's can't handle off the cuff- then again,

why are you so concerned with snapping to grid? Set it to null, and punch everything in freehand and fine tune it by ear- last time I checked, Mozart didn't have a handy dandy machine keeping his notes on time.

Thanks to Keagan and others for providing some sense of truth and justice into this discussion.

[littleomar]

Plenty of respectable artists produce around the computer. Moby says he produced most of hotel on a with a computer running pro tools on OS 9 (!) Richie Hawtin has said he uses logic 7, and has ditched almost all his hardware- he should be enough confirmination that computers are getting to the point where they are necessary in the studio- in any situation.

respectable and moby don't belong in the same sentence.

That being said- if you're looking to make IDM best way to go is a really nice midi keyboard and a copy of max- and a couple of classes. Or you're looking at thousand of dollars on outdated, crusty, old analogue gear that will probably still make you sound a lot worse than todays IDM stars.

or you could just buy a computer and record on it like every other 15 year old jerkoff. i start to wonder why there is so much shitty music now, and it's because EVERYONE can make a cd. Analog vs. Digital applies mainly to what you lay your tracks down on. There is a reason why the industry standard has been 2" analog tape for the past 40 years now.

you people need to relisten to power corruption and lies.

[mizanation]

it doesn't matter what the fuck you use.

[thelaststarfighter]

when it gets to the point that you're running the sequencer at 340bpm to get the amount of rhythmic subdivisions you need you realise it just doesn't quite cut it.

"rhythmic subdivisions" ! :eek:

wow

[Double D]

When it comes to composition, okay, sure, yeah, you don't want to sit down with something like FL Studio and try to program in fifty different grooves that are in time signatures that even the most advanced DAW's can't handle off the cuff- then again,

why are you so concerned with snapping to grid? Set it to null, and punch everything in freehand and fine tune it by ear- last time I checked, Mozart didn't have a handy dandy machine keeping his notes on time.

Last I checked, Mozart composed using a pen, paper and his head, as do most composers writing in a particular style, be that baroque, classical or 20th century serialism (Beethoven being the most extreme example what with being deaf and all). There's absolutely no difference between punching things into a matrix editor and writing things down onto a manuscript paper to me. As music has moved on we've seen composers such as Stravinsky take a more practical approach to composition, but the classical style of Mozart is an extremely intellectually based writing process.

Secondly, the magic of good sequencers is that you're not bound to a grid (I hand edit everything without snap or quantise switched on).

Thirdly, I bum Macs because asides from having greater stability and power, Logic has been for a good 8 years or so head and shoulders ahead of it's competition in terms of flexibility and power, not to mention that I can take my laptop into my university studio and sync it up to the Pro Tools powered Macs without a hitch.

[onemancult]

Thirdly, I bum Macs because asides from having greater stability and power, Logic has been for a good 8 years or so head and shoulders ahead of it's competition in terms of flexibility and power, not to mention that I can take my laptop into my university studio and sync it up to the Pro Tools powered Macs without a hitch.

I can agree with you on Logic, and I can appreciate your need to be able to sync without a hitch to your university studio, but the first part is a myth. Macs do NOT

have any more stability or power than a PC dedicated to and fine tuned for music production- as a matter of fact, dedicated PC DAWs are often MORE stable than

a Mac laptop, with comparable power... I mean, Apple did go ahead and finally make

the intelligent decision to start sticking Intel chips in their machines, and it wasn't

for the hell of it.

These days, it comes down to a matter of preference, the bullshit 'Macs are better for creative work' speech is so tired, and so out of date- which is funny that Apple insists on using it in their commercials, but hey, who can blame a company dedicated to milking thousands of dollars every few years out of gullible everyday computer users eager to keep up with the Macintosh joneses?

[cuddlysheep]

amen brother.

it doesn't matter what the fuck you use.

[Double D]

I can agree with you on Logic, and I can appreciate your need to be able to sync without a hitch to your university studio, but the first part is a myth. Macs do NOT

have any more stability or power than a PC dedicated to and fine tuned for music production- as a matter of fact, dedicated PC DAWs are often MORE stable than

a Mac laptop, with comparable power... I mean, Apple did go ahead and finally make

the intelligent decision to start sticking Intel chips in their machines, and it wasn't

for the hell of it.

It's not the CPU that's always made Macs more stable than PCs, it's just simple architecture. It's a hell of a lot easier to program software for a Unix based OS and a platform which has very little variation in hardware than it is for Windows and hardware that could be one of thousands of possible combinations. I mean, you could fork out for a well-configured PC DAW for ever so slightly less than a Mac, or you could just get a Mac and benefit from both the vast library of software and plugins under Windows and the sheer awesomeness of Logic and Pro Tools under OSX.

And the primary move to Intel chips wasn't a problem with the G3/4/5 back in the day, it was mostly down to the fact that IBM failed to deliver a next-generation CPU suitable for portable units, which left Apple with little option but to sign a whopping new contract with Intel to supply all their CPUs.

[polishmike]

I think the "creative work" speech changed in last few years and it's not directed at the audio/video producers anymore. Housewifes are getting Macs becuase they can be creative with designing the family christmas card and a school dance flyer. The software is a lot simpler than on the PC and thats why Macs are the "creative" computers.

OMC, I don't want to get into your holly crusade against Macs but the agrument works both ways. The music PCs you were talking about in another thread are as much a rip off as most of the Macs. You can set up every PC to work in a studio just as well as the Mac. I used to specialize in high end Mac setups for audio/video production studios. I set up a few video rooms and we always used Macs. They could handle the post processing better, had a better up time and the hardware was made to work on them. It was a much easier process to set up a fiber optic server storage connected to few workstations on the Mac than on the PC. Macs could handle the video data in much better fashion than the PCs. Once it was all in place and everything was set to the clients specs I never saw them again. With PCs I always had some issue after 3 weeks because some driver updated itself. I'm not saying PCs can't do the job, they can. But Macs broke less, gave users less problems and this was the factor. Bigger companies only cared about down time and I could guarantee less of it with the Macs.

[polishmike]

I still like the PowerPC and will never let my G5 go

Intel was a better option from a business side even just because they can produce way more chips than IBM.

[onemancult]

OMC, I don't want to get into your holly crusade against Macs but the agrument works both ways. The music PCs you were talking about in another thread are as much a rip off as most of the Macs. You can set up every PC to work in a studio just as well as the Mac. I used to specialize in high end Mac setups for audio/video production studios. I set up a few video rooms and we always used Macs. They could handle the post processing better, had a better up time and the hardware was made to work on them. It was a much easier process to set up a fiber optic server storage connected to few workstations on the Mac than on the PC. Macs could handle the video data in much better fashion than the PCs. Once it was all in place and everything was set to the clients specs I never saw them again. With PCs I always had some issue after 3 weeks because some driver updated itself. I'm not saying PCs can't do the job, they can. But Macs broke less, gave users less problems and this was the factor. Bigger companies only cared about down time and I could guarantee less of it with the Macs.

It's not so much a crusade as it is a terrorist campaign...

but yeah. In most environments and applications, Macs may very well be completely idiot-proof. But it has been my experience that a PC in the hands of someone with some intermediate computer knowledge works out better in the long run than anything else- after years on a PC platform without a hitch, and after going through plenty of hours frustrated with a couple of Macs that crapped out on me right when I needed them the most (brand new machines, too), I don't think I'll ever give 'em another chance.

Plus, I hate the whole culture surrounding the company and their current user base.

Snooty bastards.

[polishmike]

It's not so much a crusade as it is a terrorist campaign...

but yeah. In most environments and applications, Macs may very well be completely idiot-proof. But it has been my experience that a PC in the hands of someone with some intermediate computer knowledge works out better in the long run than anything else- after years on a PC platform without a hitch,

I know a guy who worked 30 years in the office on the PC and asked me to get him a new computer for his house. He had vista for a month and switched to the mac. He might not be a computer wizard but he's not a total idiot. Macs are easier but if you have completely no technical abilities the toaster becomes complicated.

and after going through plenty of hours frustrated with a couple of Macs that crapped out on me right when I needed them the most (brand new machines, too), I don't think I'll ever give 'em another chance.

that's what happens when you're trying to stick you dick in them

you must had some bad luck cause i had much more trouble with PCs.

[onemancult]

I know a guy who worked 30 years in the office on the PC and asked me to get him a new computer for his house. He had vista for a month and switched to the mac. He might not be a computer wizard but he's not a total idiot.

See now, Vista is another beast entirely. I'm going to be buying a new laptop in a few months, and I will pay the extra 75 bucks for WinXP. I'd rather die than switch to Vista.

Vista is essentially Microsoft's attempt to emulate a Mac OS, and that is fucking stupid.

I

t eats up resources for making things look pretty, as if I fucking care that my OS looks pretty, and it locks the user out of or complicates entirely the bits and pieces of the OS- meaning that guys like me that know what they're doing can't tweak the machines as much as we'd like to.

See? Apple ruins everything- not everybody wants their world to fit into a sleek white plastic casing, goddamnit!

[polishmike]

I still use OS 9 on my music/movie/file server and MS started to make windows pretty before OS X came out. I don't really care much about the white plastic either. I like silver better and would mind a different color for my iMac.

Are you also an ipod hater? I have the second generation ipod with stylish black and white screen and I really have nothing to complain about it.

Since you're the PC taliban, what do you think about running windows on the Mac?

[onemancult]

oh shit i'm so changing my sig to PC Taliban...

you bet your 'puck mouse' i'm an ipod hater- and again, it isn't that i think it is some horrible shoddy piece of technology, i comes down to me not agreeing with the a. marketing scheme behind it, b. the culture that erupted around it and c. my being able to find something cheaper and better somewhere else. Creative mp3 players rule my world.

running Windows on a Mac does not inflame my anger... yet.

EDIT: alak barak alek lak lek alak barak hak lakha alak!

[mrjuby]

Creative mp3 players rule my world.

in every single way.

can we get some pics of SFers' studios? i like seeing other peoples studios. i got banned from the tweakheadz forum for looking at sudio setups only and not contributing.

if anyone wants lots of pics of studios the book "behind the beat" is great. lots of pics from madlib, preme, dilla...

[thelaststarfighter]

if anyone wants lots of pics of studios the book "behind the beat" is great. lots of pics from madlib, preme, dilla...

though this is a bit off topic;

as a friend of people who worked at close side with Dilla, and a fan myself, I'd like to make clear that DILLA = GOD.

that is all.

[mizanation]

ok, i'm going to change the topic somewhat since i have already stated that the previous arguments are really a waste of time.

i wish open sourcers would step it up with linux. linux has already changed the visual effects industry. now, instead of buying a million dollar SGI machine, you can buy a bunch of cheap intel boards and put linux on them--faster performance for a fraction of the price.

if someone would just make a multi-threaded linux audio recording application, you could have a ton of processors for limitless real time effects. it would be much cheaper than buying a full-out HD system. it would also be expandable and SOLID--meaning crash, jitter and latency proof.

with an HD system, they make you pay more for more tracks. with a multi-threaded linux system, you could record at maximum bit rates for cheap.

[Double D]

you bet your 'puck mouse' i'm an ipod hater- and again, it isn't that i think it is some horrible shoddy piece of technology, i comes down to me not agreeing with the a. marketing scheme behind it, b. the culture that erupted around it and c. my being able to find something cheaper and better somewhere else. Creative mp3 players rule my world.

My iPod Mini is still running strong after 2 years. Must be some kind of record, I swear.