GarretGraves

Tinitus sucks. William Shatner has it I think. Paul Gilbert has it. Now everytime he takes the stage he has to wear headphones. Or so I hear. Never had the opportunity to hear him live. But it strikes me as a managable thing. Just really annoying.

Need a second pair of ears. Here's the track: http://soundcloud.com/metaldevin/straight-shot-through This has been a sort of "test shot" at mixing with Pro Tools 9 and the new gear I've bought. I've been hammering at this track for over a week and there some things I just can't get my head around. 1) My guitars sound rather thin. Like there's no bottom. Doesn't really sound filling. Not sure what I should do about that. 2) I could probably get my track louder than it is, but I dunno if something needs more mud cut or something. 3) I'm try to add more synth parts in some places where there are none but not really sure what to put. 4) There might be some clipping. I don't hear it through my mixer and PT doesn't show any signs of it. But FL Studio was jumping in the red all over. Any comments would be greatly appreciated.

Really? Even if you set the ceiling to -.03 or so and try not to meet that? As someone who specializes in rock and metal, I push HARD against that ceiling and adjust to where it doesn't sound too compressed.

Moseph, I STILL can't thank you enough for that! I treat your post in that thread as my mixing bible. Since you've shown me that, I've managed to get my volume level up to par with well-mixed tracks! Mixing-wise, I figure that depends. I'm not sure about electronic music, but as a prog rock kinda guy I've found that I like to keep my drums, bass or my guitar consistent sounding from one song to another if I'm working on an album (hopefully soon. I think I have it in me to do so ) Let's say I've mixed my drums to the point where I'm happy with them. EQ On the guitars and bass are also highly ideal. I went through SO MUCH TEDIOUS AND HEAD-POUNDING-HAIR-PULLING WORK to get to this point. I don't want to have to to it again. So what should I do? SAVE A TEMPLATE! Now every time you want to record those instruments to tape, you'll never have to mix them again so as long as you're happy with that setup! Or you can use it as a starting point and then build from there with a lot less work.

Ok. I tried contacting Native Instruments tech support but have yet to recieve a reply on this. so im wondering if anyone here has suffered this problem. I bought FM8 a few days ago and I can't get their Service Center to activate it! It doesn't show up on the activation browser at all! When i first installed the service center, a message came up saying it could not detect my plugins and that they may not work properly with the browser. but there doesn't seem to be any way to have the service center detect my plugins folder. What gives? 200 dollars only to not be able to activate it? really!? anyone else ever have this problem? I know this isnt the NI tech support forum, but im getting desperate because NI has yet to respond to my pleas for help. EDIT: Nevermind. Im an idiot.

From what I'd imagine, you'd probably have to (like everything else in life) start out small time and then work your way up to BIG TIME! An ideal situation I think would be to have a friend who works on an indie game refer you onto the project. That's a foot in the door. So networking seems like one way to get around. But as they said earlier, demand I guess is low for composers in the VG industry. A friend of mine, who use to work at Ready at Dawn Studios and has credit on God of War for PSP, is still trying to get his own project off the ground. And when he does, I'm the first person he's gonna turn to for sound and music. ...can I DO the job you ask? HAHA!...no. no I can't. BUT! In that ideal situation, there's less pressure and more room to learn the process. I'm kinda talkin outta my ass here, but it seems like a way in. right?

Well it sounds like he can't mix for shit. That's point #1. If you don't know how to pan your shit, ugh. Second, I now use a Line 6 Spider IV amp miked with 2 sm57's and am loving it! My tone has a really great crunch to it which I like and have been searching for for what seems like years. I had been very unhappy with my sound up until now. So to talk shit about solid state is just stupid. Solid states can be great amps if made right. I have very little experience with tubes. But a friend of mine told me that you have to replace the tube every year or so? Is that correct? Because if it is then pfft fuck it. Im too lazy and cheap.

Wow I never thought of doing that. Imma try that with my next track

ok after a reinstallation i noticed that the directory i installed the VST to was incorrect. I reset the file path in FL and NOW it detects it. so nm. thanks!

I recently installed windows 7 64bit edition which required me (of course) to reinstall my DAWs. The two in which I use are now Pro Tools 9 Student Edition and FL9 (extended memory). After reinstalling EQWLSO Gold I noticed that I could only get FL to detect the DXi for it and not the VST. I can open the DXi and load an instrument but there would be no sound coming out. I'm not familiar with DXi's. What exactly are they and can I get it to work with FL9 WITH sound? I'd load EWQLSO into PT9 but it only uses RTAS. SO fooey.

I tried doing 4 takes once. I couldn't get it to sound great at all. 2 was enough. anymore than that things would sound rather messy.

I've experimented with this idea a bit. Pro Tools 9 has a Stereo Width plugin that does a decent job at fattening up a guitar track. It doesn't do it as well as doing 2 takes for each side. but for songs where you make the rhythm guitar super fricken crazy (IE: Paul Gilbert's Scarified) and you don't want to have to try making a second take exactly like it to give it more meat, it works well. Of course with this if you try to make it TOO stereophonic (i hope that's the right word) it may sound a bit outta phase and really put a damper on things. EDIT: By the way, i didnt get to hear the track on the website cause it says it aint there. BOOOOOOOOOO!

WAIT A SEC! I just realized! I have XLR output on the bass amp! http://bass-guitars.musiciansfriend.com/product/Fender-Rumble-150-150W-1x15-Bass-Combo-Amp?sku=584202 Holy shit! I should really pay attention to these things. lol!

I don't want clicky presence. well, SOME picking noise isn't bad. More bottom if anything. I've been using the GearBox gold for some time now and I just couldn't get the bass sound i wanted out of it. and I tried 3 different basses i had at my disposal spending hours and hours for each trying out amp models and cab models and adjusting EQ, emulated mic positions and so forth. I even tried post EQ on some of my tracks after each try and I just couldn't get a great sounding bass. It just wasn't giving me that fullness I wanted. And same thing for the guitar amps! I wasn't happy with any of the sounds coming out of the damn thing! But once I bought me a mixer, new line 6 spider IV amp and a couple SM57s? The difference is insane! So I figured I should do the same thing with the bass. New amp and at least one mic.

now THAT That sounds like a great idea.

I bought a bass amp some time ago with plans to mic it to my Onyx 820i. When I went to the store to shop, the guy HIGHLY recommended I use this Tech 21 something rather direct input. Claims it's better than miking if your room isn't to your liking. I never really thought about it cause there really wasn't much i could do to improve my room without spending even more money. But I bought an amp with plans to mic it. is one thing better than the other in this case? or is it kind of an "up to you" deal? I personally would rather mic it. But i'd like a second opinion. Thoughts?

Bad ass! I was just about to shop for a mic too.

Unfortunately, the only treatment to the room Im in is the insulation in the walls. beyond that, no i have none. Speaking of room treatment, is there a cheap roundabout way to get at least a little better room sound? It'd be good for my acoustic stuff.

well, since i already ahve the BX5a's i might as well get the sub cause i dont think bigger speakers will fir in this tiny ass room of mine. i'll see what I can manage. I wasn't gonna jump right to guying though. I knew someone would mention another option. I appreciate that.

I bought a pair of M-Audio BX5a's to monitor my Mackie Onyx 820i mixer and I get like ZERO low end! I didn't realize my mistake til days after the return policy. They're not very good for mixing at all. Can anyone recommend a pair of good speakers? Like maybe 300 to 400 dollars and up? I play a lot of rock and metal (but not limited to those genres). Suggestions are most welcomed.

Ah THAT I did not know. Thanks! I downloaded a converter and in the encoding options it asks for a max and minimum bitrate. should i put both at 160 or so? or should i set a gap at some rate?

Im working on a mix right now but I'm curious. I'm trying to make it submitable on OCremix. The song is about 5 minutes long and at 192Kbit it's over the 6mb requirement. My question is, aside from editing down the track or mixing it down in smaller Kbps, how can you get the MP3 lower in MBs and still retain it's quality? is there even another way possible?

k. thanks for the response people! But yeah, it was a waste of time when I first got Win 7 cause all m,y software was either crashing or not working at all. so im skeptical. b ut no one else seems to be having problems so i'll try again when I get my copy of Pro Tools 9. Again thanks!

im using Kontakt version; what does that mean? can i get the PLAY version for free if i have a serial or something? or do i have to re-buy?

yeah FL doesnt like symphonic choirs. you using that dxshell plugin?\ also, my EWQLSO and EWQLSC are 32 bit. last time i tried to use them in win 7 64 bit i couldnt do anything or open any multis. someone told me that i had to have the 64 bit versions of the software so that it would work with the OS. I hope that isnt the case cause that means i wasted a lot of money.