list of your production techniques? (not intended to replace mastering thread.)

[Nicholestien]

The mastering thread seems to be dead these days, and posting there dosn't do much, this isn't exactly some sort of permanany thread, or something to replace the mastering thread, just a thread I thought would be nice to spark a bit of discussion and give amatures like me the opprotunity to learn things that isn't anywhere else; so share your experience, let someone know that there methods suck balls, discuss discuss!

One more thing, don’t let your advice be off limits to some people, this is for armatures like myself and the big guns of ocr alike.

heres my scrub list, post your's.

1.) Try and change your perspective on your music when listening to it. When I say listen differently, I don’t mean to simply focus your attention on other parts of the song, I mean to realize the music in a different way. I believe that if you try hard enough, you can find yourself hating one of your favorite mixes, but that’s beyond the point.)

2.) Volume levels are very important. This is especially important because people tend to not only mix the volume levels to suit there listening taste, they tend to over exaggerate it.

3.) I think it’s a bad idea to playback a finished mix to find “those small errors”. My reasoning for this is because your mind-set while doing this isn’t a true music listening mind-set. I think it’s best for all those who do playback a mix to find errors, to not actually pay any attention to finding the errors, I know this might not make to much sense, but I think it actually does work, because you aren’t listening for mistakes, your listening to music, in the same way you listen to your favorite songs, when an error does occur while your “listening to music”, you’ll know that it is genuine error, something that was defiantly not your intention, and you also find these errors instinctively, which is always the best way to do everything in life, you don’t focus on tucking your thumb when going up the c major scale on a piano do you? Nah man, it’s 2nd nature, I think to some extent it works here too! But if I’m wrong, I’m going to feel like a huge dumbass! The only reason I posted this one is because I think doing something like this is a lot harder than it seems, it’s hard to enter the mind-set of listening to music when you already know that your looking for mistakes!

4.) The music comes before the production. Too many times have I made the mistake of going about errors the wrong way, when I could have simply adjusted the articulation or velocity of a certain instrument without having to resort to sever compression or abuse of effects, simple adjustments to the articulation of the instruments, adsr envelopes and filters of your synths are probably the best solutions to the problem if you were snoozing while creating them, I know this is flat out obvious, just thought I’d put it out there, since most scrubs do these things while soloing an instrument and completely forget about the mix and end up paying the price cuz they forgot.

5.) It’s always a good thing to get feedback from other listeners; but I also think it’s important to realize that it is there perspective, not yours.

My Request: I would really like someone to go in depth about using samplers, using them with drums, pianos, etc.

I’ll post more if this thread turns out successful.

[Nicholestien]

How do I edit the title of this thread? I think it might be a decent idea to make this a general request thread, about simple things, I know alot of the answers can be found else where on the web, but they never really answer your question specifically, and besides, this website houses tons of legendarys. general questions, like how do you work with a reverb unit to get a certain sound you want, you know, to answer specific questions, like a hotline service bruv.

[Flexstyle]

Something I've found very true over the years is after you've finished mixing your track, let it sit for at least a day. A few days is best. That way your ears have time to rest and freshen up, and the excitement of creating the track is at least somewhat past. After a few days, go back and listen to the render of your track, making notes of what needs to be fixed and there WILL be stuff. Then, go back and fix it. This process could go on indefinitely, so be judicious about it (hope that's the right use of that word, lol). Also useful during this process is posting it somewhere like the WIP forums here or just somewhere where you'll get lots of feedback on it. Revise it once or twice, then call it good and move on to the next thing.

Hope that made sense.

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

*simple and effective beats out complex and tedious anyday. however, that doesn't mean you can skimp on attention to detail. nooooo dont just slap on that delay unit with the default 3-step delay nooooo dont just slap on the same reverb preset for everything, might as well just reverb the whole damn mix o_o

[SnappleMan]

How are these techniques? So far everything that's been said has been along the lines of:

"To make your song good, make sure it sounds good and doesn't sound bad."

This thread fails. Though it is funny to read a Nicholestien post where he tries to use punctuation and proper grammar, but still uses "there" instead of "their".

[Malcos]

How are these techniques? So far everything that's been said has been along the lines of:

"To make your song good, make sure it sounds good and doesn't sound bad."

This thread fails. Though it is funny to read a Nicholestien post where he tries to use punctuation and proper grammar, but still uses "there" instead of "their".

No this thread does not fail - I think it's a good idea to discuss production techniques and swap ideas in relation to that.

1. Don't be afraid to throw songs out/delete songs. I have a folder that I call 'fail', and I put all of my garbage into it. Some nights I will come out with something that I think sounds great, and then the following morning listen to it and realise that it was just plain rubbish - and into the fail folder it goes. However, when I feel like making something but I am out of ideas, listening through the fail folder I often find an element of one of the songs that I like. I can then take that element (perhaps a chord progression or bass groove) that I can use to make a much better piece of music.

2. Other than mixing, when making a song make sure you know what element of it you want to stand out. This also has a lot to do with what you're making the song try to convey. You can draw attention to different instruments by making them play things with a little more gusto (varying length of notes, range of melody and rhythm) without even touching the volume.

3. Don't forget the human element. You're making a song for a reason, make sure that every element goes towards achieving the message/emotion that you are looking for. When we get too technical we can lose sight of the fact that we are music artists and that music is still an art.

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

"To make your song good, make sure it sounds good and doesn't sound bad."

QFT

10char

[SnappleMan]

No this thread does not fail - I think it's a good idea to discuss production techniques and swap ideas in relation to that.

1. Don't be afraid to throw songs out/delete songs. I have a folder that I call 'fail', and I put all of my garbage into it. Some nights I will come out with something that I think sounds great, and then the following morning listen to it and realise that it was just plain rubbish - and into the fail folder it goes. However, when I feel like making something but I am out of ideas, listening through the fail folder I often find an element of one of the songs that I like. I can then take that element (perhaps a chord progression or bass groove) that I can use to make a much better piece of music.

2. Other than mixing, when making a song make sure you know what element of it you want to stand out. This also has a lot to do with what you're making the song try to convey. You can draw attention to different instruments by making them play things with a little more gusto (varying length of notes, range of melody and rhythm) without even touching the volume.

3. Don't forget the human element. You're making a song for a reason, make sure that every element goes towards achieving the message/emotion that you are looking for. When we get too technical we can lose sight of the fact that we are music artists and that music is still an art.

These are not techniques, these are theories. The technique would be to explain how you would do these things. Stating the general idea like that is fine, but you have to go into detail to help someone. These kinds of generic ideas are what everyone is gonna be saying, so after the second page, everything will be repeated with nothing really having been said. I don't know how you people can't see that.

[Sixto]

Make sure everything is loud. Then make sure to make the whole thing loud.

In detail, when mixing, the first thing I like to do is cut. CUTCUTCUT everywhere you can! Everything but the bass and kick drum gets a hipass filter. Cut the mids on filler/background sounds like rhythm guitars and synths and even most of the drum pieces (acoustic kit, that is). Also, If I plan for a certain song to be pretty loud I make sure to mix it loud. If you try to just make a relatively quite mix louder at the mastering stage, you're not gonna be happy with the results. Also, I HAVE NO MASTEING STAAAGE LAWL. I just do everything I need to in the main mixing stage. Happy mixing!

[-RK-]

My thoughts:

1. Finish those eternally unfinished tracks. Now, maybe finishing this track means slapping a crappy arrangement and played out progression onto it, but "finishing" each track helped me develop a faster mind for composition and moving ideas quickly.

2. A little goes a long way. I'm talking about processing, or effects. Some of my best sounds have come from thinking logically about the signal chain of my effects, but mostly how to get the most out of each link in the chain. Cranking compression on each track solves nothing (I'm guilty of this), and boosting EQ levels too high tends not to leave as much room in the total mix (at least in my experience). As far as modulation, think automation.

3. Be critical of each note you play, but not cruel. Be mindful of your writing, and look for improvements, but don't be discouraged by an idea that isn't coming out quite right.

4. In light of number 3, don't be a cocky fuckshit. Never think you know everything, and look for chances to absorb and innovate.

How am I at motivational shit?

[Moseph]

I like to bounce every track down to a wav file before I actually start mixing, and then create an entirely new project out of those wavs for the mixing stage. It removes all of the clutter (VSTs, automation envelopes, MIDI notes, etc.), which I find helps me to focus on the mix rather than the compositional elements.

[Beatdrop]

One of the biggest questions I ask myself when I sit down at my computer to try to force myself into coming up with something cool is, "Do I have any old ass WIP files that I can take and turn into something new?"

So my advice is to go through your old stuff and try to reimagine it, particularly if you're stuck with no inspiration.

Songs of mine that have been created in this way:

From 'In The Dark' (this was a major theme of the album, by the way):

Lights Out

Smoke

Unrest

Freefall

Afterburner

Epiphany

Tinderbox

Azure

Phase 1

Guilty

Heterodyne Principle

Yume no Kage

Style Free

Decimation By Decibels

From 'Everlast':

Intro

Supernovatomic

single voice

Arena

Subservient

OC Remixes:

Battle Clash - Clash of the Titans

DDR 4th Mix - Dazed & Destroyed

Final Fantasy 6 - Deserted Industry

Guilty Gear X - Alpha Blade

Guardian Legend - Ace of Space

Chrono Trigger - Antimatter

Saga Frontier - V-MAX Engaged

Super Metroid - Dimstar

Mega Man X3 - House Hornet (at least, the stuff I contributed)

And there's probably a whole bunch more that I'm not even thinking of.

So yeah! Go back and look at old WIPs and stuff that you haven't looked at in a long time. You might be surprised at how useful the kind of crap you pieced together years ago may end up.

[Nicholestien]

yo snapplebro, you need to lay off those hater flavored beverages brah'