Harmony
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Ohhh, I had forgotten about this thread and I've been looking for an excuse to share this. My friend and I decided to try to figure out what this whole "HDR" things is about, and this was one of my first attempts. Not exactly the best use of HDR because I think the dynamic range was fairly limited to begin with, but I LOVE the result! I call it "Tools of the Trade"
Nikon D70s, 50mm, f4.5, 3 exposures in 1EV increments
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Don't whine about it man, just improve like you said you would. I'd start with that drum loop...c'mon man, it's a 4-bar loop that repeats through the entire thing. Even an excellent loop wouldn't stand up to that kind of abuse.Maybe I should sample other people's work more often? I haven't sampled anyone's work and seem to have no luck. It would probably be easier that way. -
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No no no, stop living in the past. The future is infinite sampling rate, infinite bit data...i.e. the future is the perfection of analog technologies!and I would demand a 128 bit 1024khz wav copy because there is just too much information loss from 16 bit 48khz wav -
Ha, that reminds me of how my friends and I used to joke that as music becomes more perfected, quantized, and computerized, eventually a "song" will be just be 4 mins of a sine wave at a particular frequency.most people don't want to just outright remove any semblance of dynamics from their musicbeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep
"And that was the new joint '676.56Hz' from Kanye West III"
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Cool, that's my method these days too. I usually pan the signals 80L/80R and that gives me a lot of width and warmth. However, I think if I had a matched mic pair (or even two good mics) I'd probably just skip the line out. That characteristic piezo sound used to appeal to me, and it still sounds fine, but I've heard it way too much and I'm getting bored with it. Of course, another solution is to get one of the Taylor ES guitars with their fancy triple magnetic sensor pickup and skip the mics altogether...<droool>We have an acoustic/electric guitar so on the last track we recorded the guitar and mixed it with the guitar output to get that sound. -
whats excessivetypical valuewhich r crazy
but....it's music!
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Yeah, it was primarily for visual and auditory effect. But also, I don't like to give people these ideas about what "typical" compressors are because then, instead of playing with the thing until they have enough control over it to make it sound the way they want, they start at these "typical" values and then wonder why they can't get the sound they want with the settings that "everyone else uses." It can be counterproductive in a didactic sense.Jeez man, 30:1?From the little experience I've had with it, I like the sounds of the kjaerhus compressor but my problem with it, as some might guess, is that it doesn't have any meters :-/ Sorta the same thing with the fishphones ones. Spitfish is, however, awesome in every way
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You're welcomeThanks so much..
No disagreement here, but the problem I usually have with the GR meters is that the don't measure true peaks. They use an RMS value (I guess), which doesn't help me at all if I'm trying to use the meter to exactly make up for whatever gets cut in the compression stage. Not sure if that's similar with all compressors or just the ones I've used, but I wish it was standard to have an option to change that.Then apply make-up gain to increase the db's by that amount. -
Since I’m not entirely sure what you do or don’t understand, I’ll take a stab at a few points and hope I say something helpful in the process.
If I’m thinking of the right FL compressor, I don’t like it either…it doesn’t have enough visual feedback. I don’t have a free one to recommend, but I’d look for one with an input/output graph, some input/output meters, and a gain reduction meter. Those are really critical IMO. Although it’s not the best, I like the Sonitus compressor that comes with Sonar.I don't like FL's compressor very much. Are there any good free ones or priced ones (sub $100) that you could recommend?I have tried fussing around with one on a solo kick drum track and I can't really hear what it is doing. Does anyone have a guide to compression with audio examples?Like on a metal kick drum,... that clicking sound?
I like visual examples, but I’ll give the audio too. I took an acoustic kick and ran it through the compressor at a few different settings. I adjusted the gain each time to have each test run peak at 0dB for a fair comparison. I’ll use the track numbers for reference (from top to bottom)
The top ruler shows milliseconds; this sample is about 500ms long
8: Attack 2.5ms, Release 4000ms, Thresh -10dB, Ratio 30:1
To see how you can get more click in the kick I’ve taken a fast attack time so that you only hear the first couple of ms before the volume is reduced. To effectively get a greater reduction and chop off more of the tail of the kick I’ll progressively lower the threshold. Here you can see that the tail reduces it’s amplitude a little faster than in the clean case.
9: Attack 2.5ms, Release 4000ms, Thresh -20dB, Ratio 30:1
Lower threshold emphasizes the initial click more and you can see an even faster reduction in the tail amplitude.
10: Attack 2.5ms, Release 4000ms, Thresh -30dB, Ratio 30:1
Even lower threshold and you can basically only see/hear the initial clicky attack. What’s left can be eq’d to give a little more punch (for example, high pass at 50Hz, 10dB 3.0Q peak at 100Hz).
11: Attack 2.5ms, Release 200ms, Thresh -30dB, Ratio 30:1
Taking the same settings as the previous example, we could also want to emphasize the tail. Just bring down the release and let the volume come back in. This is helped by adding gain so that the original tail (as well as the rest of the signal) is amplified. Note how you see/hear much more of the tail and you pick up the click and the boom.
12: Attack 0.0ms, Release 100ms, Thresh -34.6dB, Ratio 30:1
An extreme effect would be to kill the decay of the kick altogether and get the click, the boom, and any ringing all near the same volume. Here I’ve taken the attack to 0ms which cuts the volume down immediately. That is compensated for by the gain to get it back to 0dB. The result, as you can see, is a signal that does not decay until after the release time has expired. Now you can hear all of the intricacies, from hi freq to low, in this simple kick.
techno style hi hatUsing those same ideas, you can get a hi-hat to do what you described. However, what you hear in the final product is probably a combo of compression on the hi-hat, compression on the drum track, compression on the entire track, side-chaining, etc, etc….
You would need an expander (oddly enoughHow do I use one to expand the dynamic range
). You could also use a compressor with a ratio of less than 1:1 (like 0.1:1), but I don't think I've seen any of those. 
Above is the old Cakewalk expander. Note that the knee is on the lower left of the plot, as opposed to the upper right as in a typical compressor. What this means is that you are adjusting the level of quieter sounds, as opposed to adjusting the louder sounds with the compressor. You expand the dynamic range with an expander by making quiet sounds quieter.
Invalid question! Use it when you need it, how you need it. If you want fewer dynamics, you know how to do that. If you want to bring up the quieter notes in a drum solo, you can do that. If you’ve got a snare that just overpowers everything, you can compress the track and bring its volume down. If you don’t need to compress it, don’t. You don’t always need that tool, just like you don’t always need a hammer to build something.but how exactly do I use the compressor to make drums sound better? -
I'm just getting around to listening to it today, but I got it earlier in the week. Thanks for the fast delivery!
Nice work. Love the voice, of course. I'm gonna go ahead and say that, for now at least, "metro underground" is my favorite track. I've been trying to write stuff in this style lately (lyrically and musically) so it definitely caught my attention as a simple and slick example of what I'm looking to do. "This is the end" is pretty cool too. You can't help but smile when you hear the 80's pop intro on track 3
I wasn't paying attention to the lyrics until the I heard the acoustic version though. Good stuffs for sure. How did you record your guitar on that last track, Amy? I can't tell whether its a dual mic setup that gives it that width and richness, or whether you doubled the guitar track.Looking forward to future stuff you two!
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Hahaha, awesome. I make a mean George Foreman grilled salmon....just sayin' OCR
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wha? Drafting letter to editor...
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Done. Waiting for pizza....
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Usually when I buy things online at 3am I end up regretting it when I get it in the mail a week later. Glad that's not gonna happen this time
Congrats on the new album!
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hahaha
For Logic, I did think about the expensive Mac platform, but for some reason I also thought Logic was a lot more expensive itself. Has it come down in price, or was I just dreaming that it was close to the $1000 mark at some point? -
Well, you just about covered it. Except you didn't note the common criticisms.Help me fill in the blanks, guys!FL is for n00bs.
GarageBand is for n00bs with Macs.
Logic is for the wealthy elite. And nobody likes the wealthy elite.
Sonar is for people who want Cubase, but can't find a torrent for it.
Cubase is for people who want Sonar, but also want people to know they paid for it.
ProTools is for studio snobs.
ReNoise is for people afraid to abandon old technology.
Live is for DJ's who think they can produce.
Acid is for people too lazy to learn anything else.
Reaper is for poor people. (after 30 days it's for poor people who like stealing software)
Reason is for people who refuse to think outside the box.
Energy XT is for people who aren't hung up on making "good music".
Microsoft Sound Recorder is for...um...well...it's pretty awesome actually.
I guess we've found our winner.
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Ok, yeah I agree. My brother uses Acid and feels like it's a lot easier than SONAR because ALL he wants to do is record the band. And fortunately for him, I think that's all that Acid can do well. So I should qualify my recommendation of SONAR for beginners looking to record. It's a great all around program that's suited to recording a band and doing other stuff; you won't be limited by it. But if you are only looking to get your band's next chart topping single into a computer, and are content to leave the heavy musical editing and fancy FX processing to someone else, then SONAR would probably be overkill.Naw, for absolute beginners wanting to record audio for say, a band, I'd recommend something like Sony Acid Music Studio. -
I've used it a few times and I think it's the polar opposite of FL Studio (see how subjective this stuff is!). I've been a Sonar user since it was called Pro Audio 9 and every time I use Cubase, it's like driving a different model of the same car...very intuitive from a Sonar standpoint. I've also used FL Studio for a while and it certainly presents a different way of thinking about music making that other sequencers.Cubase: I've personally never used this, but many people seem to either love or hate the work flow. I liken it to FL Studio...Anyway, SONAR: Excellent interface, plugins, and workflow for audio recording, mixing and mastering. Some of the included plugins could use an update (Logic's FX plugins blow everyone elses out of the water, IMO), but they are definitely a good start. If you're a beginner looking to learn a software that will help you, say, record your band, this would be a better choice that, for example, FL Studio. On the other hand, I don't think SONAR is as easy to use as FL Studio for electronica. That opinion has nothing to do with the piano roll view, because I honestly think that SONAR's is equally as capable as FL Studio's. However, the way that FL handles automation, the included plugins, the step sequencer, and the program's interface are all superior to SONAR's in terms of that musical style.
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https://www.rodemic.com/onedollarmic.php
For August 2009, buy a Rode mic and get either a Rode M1, M2 or M3 for 1 Australian Dollar (0.82 US dollars). What!? Why oh why wasn't this going on LAST month
Hope someone else cashes in on this amazing deal. -
I usually use soundsnap.com (good quality) and findsounds.com (better variety) for free sound effects.
I'd personally look for sounds that are as cleanly recorded as possible, then go about making them sound far away using EQ and reverb. The more control you have over the sound, the better
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Have a good one, bro!
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Me.Who cares, right?Cheers man, thanks for the help you've given me, directly or otherwise.
Need help with a sound
in Music Composition & Production
Posted
Maybe I'm listening to something else, but it sounds like samples are just being repeated in rapid succession using an arpeggiator, delay, or manual sequencing. Just pick a synth or a sample with a short attack (for example, one of those sounds like a cow bell to me) then use your piano roll to sequence about 6 notes of them at 64th or 128th beats apart.