dannthr

No problem, man, keep checking out other potential options. A $300 budget for Headphones leaves you with a lot of great options, so look around, and then make a list, and try to find a way to try these out yourself, especially if you can do it side-by-side--the best way to test your cans out is to make a playlist of high-quality, well mixed tracks that are in or around your style and tracks that you know, really, really well. Ultimately, these are just cold-hard graphs; the true test will be your ears. EDIT: I also wanted to mention that the square wave tests, I would assume that both the Skullcandys and the Shures shape would improve over time as the snap back is due to the elasticity of the speaker material, and after 50-80 hours of listening, these materials tend to loosen a bit and become more flexible. But that is a supposition, I don't have any hard evidence that this would happen. I just know that it does happen with many headphones.

Hey Metal Man, What it means is that bass frequencies are probably going to be underrepresented with the Shure SRH440s. So, let's say you're working on your mix, and you've got a rock drum set, and the kick bass is hitting at about 40-50Hz. It's going to sound quieter on the Shures than on the Sennheisers which could be dangerous because that means that you might over mix your kick-bass and your mix won't translate as accurately on other speaker systems (resulting in an overly boomy bass--which would also suck out the headroom on your mixes, taking away the punch of higher frequency content). With that said, more than anything else, it's important that you UNDERSTAND your cans and how a good mix sounds on them, you can usually compensate, at least somewhat, if you have a good sense of how your cans sound. Also, it's important to have a variety of listening/monitoring devices, anything from Headphones, great direct field monitors, and even car stereos or little radio speakers. I sometimes will work on an iPhone game, and so I'll mix on Headphones, my Equator D5s, and I'll also bounce out mixes and listen to them on my iPod Touch's crappy external speaker. You want to find a happy middleground where your mix sounds optimal on all of your various listening systems.

So, I did some quick comparisons keeping in mind that the ultimate test is your own ear, but this might direct your attention to some alternatives: I compared your Skullcandy Mix Master Mikes to the Senn HD280 Pros, and then two other headphones in the Skullcandy MMM price range: The AKG K271 II and the Shure SRH940s. What you're looking at is a measurement of a sine wave swept through the cans and into a monitoring system that measures the dB level, then the graph is produced by taking the difference between the constant volume of the source sound and the resulting volume. The goal for a Producer is to stay around 0dBr and if possible, not swing too widely. Here you can see the Shure SRH940s have the most tame graph. The skullcandys are okay, but you can see that when you hit around 8,000Hz, it really starts to drop off rapidly. This is a problem if you're mixing high hats and other high frequency content. I would not be surprised if this was also Mix Master Mike's hearing range, as DJs have TERRIBLE hearing, generally. This is a harmonic distortion graph. That means that they pumped a 500Hz frequency through the cans and measured what other frequencies emerged. All of them have an appropriate spike at 500Hz, but you can see the AKGs are the worst offenders of creating additional harmonic content. This is due to the quality of the speaker construction and material and indicates what accidental frequencies your headphones create (not just reproduce). This is the 500Hz square wave response, this is a graph showing the waveform that the speakers send out based on a simple square wave. Ideally, all of these would look like a solid square wave with minimal wavering. I think the Skullcandys and the Shures look the best here. The Shures have a snap right after the first hit of the wave but after that they really stay fairly solid with a nice almost right angle drop back to the opposing wave. This is the same test except with a 50Hz frequency, so here's a visual representation of your bass clarity. I think that the Shures and the AKGs have a nice strong articulate attack, but you can see that the AKGs practically wither and distort on the hold. This test is where the Sennheisers really shine, their waveform is almost a solid square, it looks really well formed. The Skullcandy and the Shures are almost identical on their hold shape, with that slope, but I will say, both of them have a very nicely defined right angle drop.

Not sure which headphones you are comparing, though it's worth checking out http://www.headphone.com/headphones/ to do some comparisons (they'll even let you overlay multiple selections to compare frequency response and square wave accuracy. With that said, the needs of a DJ and the needs of a music Producer/Mixer are quite different. A DJ needs a strong attenuation (think passive noise isolation) because you need to hear the beat of one record through headphones over the beat of the currently playing music, even if that music is coming from a 200 Watt speaker system just over his/her shoulder. A strong but accurate bass response is crutial. A Producer/Mixer needs an even frequency response (no dominating frequencies) with a huge amount of detail. Noise isolation is not an issue as the Producer/Mixer is working in a controlled listening environment. Sometimes open backed headphones are good for getting a more accurate sense of spatial width as they tend to be a bit closer to the sound of direct field monitors than close backed headphones (but they have 0 isolation). Their needs are almost opposite.

Motive. There are only 4 notes in Beethoven's 5th Symphony 1st Movement.

Two things: Score study - it seems like you're focusing on rules a lot. That's good in the beginning, but eventually you want to explore the vast universe of music and possibility. I suggest seeking out scores of tracks that seem to have unique harmonic movement or chromaticism, and studying them: Analyzing how they make effective use of harmonies to create pleasing chromaticism. Key is an illusion - Aspire to the point when you can create pleasing harmonic movement with absolutely no regard to key signature. Where chords have independent and mutual relationships, and where you use these relationships effectively. This can take a long time to master.

SSDs make great sample drives because they have a high read rate and sample libraries are rarely updated, so write operations are minimal. The newer SSDs use an algorithm to more evenly distribute data over the drive space, but you still have a physical limit on how many times you can write on a single SSD flash based memory cell.

Just keep in mind that SSDs based on Flash Memory actually has a maximum write operation per memory cell, and once its maximum write number has been reached, the cell will fail. I would not use an SSD for anything you update often, or write to frequently as more frequent use literally just speeds up the time the drive will fail. All flash memory is only good for a certain number of write operations. I would not use an SSD for an OS drive, as OSs download updates and are the primary drive for virtual memory/page filing as well as the main drive for writing/saving/copying files.

Omnisphere is one of those things that I use in waves. I could use it on just about anything I wrote, somehow. But then I go stretches without using it. With that said, it's a great addition to an already extensive library. I will say that I use it less now that I have Zebra 2, since the synth engine in Omnisphere really can't compete with Zebra 2. (But Zebra 2 doesn't have the sample-engine side of it, nor can it blend the two)

Recent AMD MoBos support higher RAM. "Couldn't even beat" Not sure what you mean by that, but I'm not here to argue with you about the merits of one brand over another. My choke point is not CPU power. I buy AMD processors because I get a cost/benefit ratio that works to my advantage. Intel processors cost too much for the speeds and cores I want, the only benefit to Intel processors that I can see is that they overclock well, and I will never overclock a CPU.

You can't just drop 8GB sticks into whatever you want. This is my motherboard: http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3417#sp Its maximum capacity for RAM is 16GB, I've maxed it out. The only reason to go with Intel processors is for overclocking, and I don't overclock. I don't overclock because I want my equipment to last longer than I need it. Unfortunately, I burn through hard disks quite often.

For $10,000 dollars, you could hire an Eastern European Orchestra to record about 5 minutes of music for you. Just saying... No DAW is going to make you a master of orchestra music out of the box. My suggestion is to get a DAW that works well for you (make certain it supports VST), and then get a nice all in one solution like EWQL Symphonic Orchestra. The nice thing about East West's stuff is that they give 50% discounts to Students. So, if you're a student, just starting out, well, there you go.

My current system is an AMD Phenom II x6 3.2GHz (T1090) 16GB of 1333 SDRAM 8 HDDs (1 System (7200rpm), 1 Storage (7200rpm), 6 Samples (10krpm)) I just built my new Orchestra Template and it's just a basic template, it takes up about 10GB of RAM on its own. That only leaves me a few gigs for system operations and a few gigs for extra instruments.

It's better to get it on SOL website, since the PLAY software has invariably been updated since your disc was printed.

The PLAY installer is what you should install. The PLAY installer will have a configuration page that will allow you to select which libraries need to be installed--there you can select both Gold and Silver at once.

My 16GB is insufficient. I'm going to have to start looking into getting a new Mother Board as I've already maxed out the one I've got.

Damn, I fuckin' miss VGMix 2.0

What kind of piano do you like? Different manufacturers have different sounds. Personally, I love the sound of Steinways. My ex-girlfriend loved the sounds of Yamahas. Alicia's Keys is a sampled Custom Yamaha C3 and it has that bright sound that is indicative of Yamahas. (But as you say, is probably a little more delicate than a C7, which is the Yahama sampled in QL Pianos). QL Pianos, by the way, is the most thoroughly sampled Piano library on the market. About 60GB of samples per piano. When I was looking for a piano, I didn't want to spend the money on QL Pianos, and I'm not a fan of PLAY software. So I got the Galaxy Vintage D, which is a sampled Steinway Model D. I like it because you can hear the vintage signal chain in the recording process but still comes through clean. It has a warm low-end and a delicate high-end.

Eventually, just been busy, workin' on an iPhone game, and writing curriculum for audio implementation for Unreal.

I feel that if Reason could some how support VST technology in a creative wrapper which would allow patching and patch-modulation, it could be EXTREMELY powerful. But I can not recommend it to a beginning student because I feel that it has too many inherent limitations. I am surprised that it's as popular as you say, but I believe it nonetheless. There is little to no marketing value in creating high-end Reason Refills. One of the biggest problems is also that the Reason sampler is also just behind the times in scripting technology--you would even be hard pressed translating a complex and sophisticated library concept from Kontakt to Reason. You would more than likely lose a lot of the main features of your instruments along the way.

The problem you have is not a mastering problem, the problem you have is that the production sounds terrible. Your composer is not a producer. That's okay. I am often hired by composers or game companies to produce a composer's original work. I have done this work for some pretty big companies, check out my website: www.musicianeer.com Email me, I may have a proposition for you: dan@musicianeer.com

I don't believe there is a ProTools demo. Logic and Digital Performer are out of the question, as his friend has a PC. Nuendo is about 1800 dollars, and probably out of the question, also, it would be useless without the Cubase add-on, in which case you might as well get Cubase. Cubase's demo will require a Steinberg or Vienna Key. Acid is more like a loop-based/remixing tool.

Unfortunately, there is no perfect DAW. I recently switched to Cubase 6 from SONAR X1 for two and a half reasons (after being a Cakewalk user for almost 14 years): 1) Steinberg invented VST, and I've never had such a stable experience. I use some pretty esoteric plug-ins, stuff you'd only really make use of in orchestral production. Lots of room emulation, stage positioning, reverb stuff. I also use extremely intense patches that can require a TON of very minute and carefully programmed MIDI CCs, so I need an editor that runs stable with patches that have a lot of MIDI CCs flying both in and around. 2) Mother F***ing Arranger Track. There is nothing on the market, not Ableton, not SONAR, that does non-linear playback like Cubase. With Cubase I can actually audition musical INTERACTIVITY, and when you work in games, man, that's the magic word. 2.5) Folders inside of other folders. You might not think that's a big deal, but when you have 40-100 tracks of Orchestral Articulations, organization is paramount. What's important is finding a DAW that satisfies your friends mental workflow--one that works with his ideas and not against his ideas. Because here's the honest truth about those whole damned mess: Tools are the only thing standing between conception and product. Let that sink in for a minute. Tools are the only thing standing between conception and product. You want the distance between the idea you have, the inspirational spark, and the resulting music/sound/audio/product/whatever, to be as SMALL AS POSSIBLE. Unfortunately, it can't be non-existant. So you need not only something that works for you, but something that doesn't feel like work. You really won't be able to figure what that is until you try everything.

I guess I'll just have to disagree. On my site you will find a picture of me at an SSL AWS 900+, which is identical to the 9000k/4000e (actually includes a switch for both EQ styles G and E). There's a reason for the hardware, there's a reason why people still spend 100,000 on a 24 channel console: Because hardware SOUNDS different. I am a pro, and I've used an SSL, and Reason consistently sounds outdated to me.

I include production because that's the next step in the growth of a composer looking to create orchestral compositions. Especially if he wants to be anything more than a hobbyist. I don't care what he gets, but if he gets Reason, he's painting himself into a corner. If all he ever wants to do is compose music and never produce, then Sibelius or Finale will do him just fine--forever. But we know that's not where this will lead. You have to keep an eye on where you might grow in the future, when making purchasing decisions now.