Remixing guide needs YOU!

[PROTO·DOME]

PromoToe'd is just provoking me to use my idiosyncrasies more prominently.

ROOOOOOZOVIAN!!!! *shakes fist*

[Guifrog]

I'm giving a fast read to this, and I love the language. Sometimes I lol at the simpliticy of it when you say like "Humanization is something newbs often overlook. They've written their song, arranged it, so now it's done, right? Okay, so it's not mixed and mastered, but the writing is done now, right? Well... no." That's cool ;P.

I suppose the waveform basics might be the boring part for newbs, but I think it's well explained. Just think it could be better to give audio examples.

[Zeroboros]

Wow this should definitely get a sticky since it would help alot of people and also lessen up repeat question about the same thing regarding this type of thing. I will dedinitely take a closer look at this later.

[Anorax]

Hey, Rozo, have you updated the guide lately?

[Rozovian]

Nope, haven't worked on it much, but I'm still accepting feedback. It hasn't been a priority, but if there's interest in moving it forward, I'll get back to it.

[Rozovian]

Been screwing with the guide some more, v8 is now uploaded. Updating links once I'm done writing this post.

I need to read up on recording, the only unfinished chapter iirc. That's a chapter I think is important but I don't have that much experience recording stuff. Half the time when I've recorded, it's been with plugged straight into the computer, the other half has been the few instances where I've set up mics and my recording interface and most of that time spent troubleshooting anyway. Maybe I should just have a guest writer...

Anyone with plenty and diverse recording experience interested in helping me out with that? Guest writer or just consultant. Get in touch.

(still appreciate if you any grammar weird spotted do, spelling errrs, i dont get it, fractal/technical errors, and whatever else that doesn't count as my kind'a unique idiosyncrazies.)

Edited January 4, 2012 by Rozovian

[Rozovian]

Updated to v10, see first post.

I could be lying all the way through a whole new chapter. Feedback needed.

[Anorax]

-portable recording devices-

There are also professional, portable recording devices. These can be sued to record just about anything, but all the above should be considered where applicable. The physical properties of the recording device's mic(s) matter, as will the placement and angle, the room, all that stuff. The benefit of these devices is in their portability, lack of interference from the rest of the signal chain (there is no signal chain), and quick startup time. Of course, getting a recording to sync up means you need headphones and something to play the source music with.

Unless you're looking for specific qualities inherent in mics, a portable recording device would be ideal for many sound effects recording situations - you can take it anywhere and record anything. If you're visiting a friend and want to record his vocals, just use headphones and a version of the backing while recording.

There are also professional, portable recording devices. These can be sued to record just about anything, but all the above should be considered where applicable. The physical properties of the recording device's mic(s) matter, as will the placement and angle, the room, all that stuff. The benefit of these devices is in their portability, lack of interference from the rest of the signal chain (there is no signal chain), and quick startup time. Of course, getting a recording to sync up means you need headphones and something to play the source music with.

These can be sued to record just about anything, but all the above should be considered where applicable.

These can be sued

sued

lolwut TENCHARLIMITARGH

[Brandon Strader]

lolwut TENCHARLIMITARGH

Be careful, or you may end up sued as well.

[Rozovian]

Still making that typo, I see. Grr.

Good find.

[Anorax]

Still making that typo, I see. Grr.

Good find.

aww, we all love you Rozo, typos and all

[Magnetic Ether]

Oh good, for a minute there I thought I was going to have to go through the legal system every time I wanted to record something.

On a more serious note, I took a look at the guide and I think it's pretty good. It's more of an overview than a comprehensive guide, but it seems like that's what you're going for. My only concern is that it might be difficult for a "newb" to piece together all the bits of information since there are a lot of individual sections that, while fine on their own, are kind of all over the place (Recording coming after mixing and output for instance). Then again, maybe not...either way I think re-arranging the sections would make it easier to read.

Some instruments and other audio tracks (like vocals) will be uneven. There will be soft parts and loud parts, and you might not want to go in and edit the volume for the whole track. What do you do? You apply a compressor that'll make the soft parts louder but not change the loud parts.

Isn't it the other way around? Or have I been thinking about it the wrong way this whole time?

I also found a few typos:

Drums are usually the instrument getting layered, since fat beats need fat sounds. The classic example of drums layering would be to combine a bass drum with punch and click with a bass drum with lots of low frequencies (aka bass).

The audio interface can come in a lot of different forms. Some simple ones have an input, an output, and connect by usb. Others can be built into mixing desks and feature dozens of inputs and quite a number of outputs as well. SOme will say an audio interface is the same as a soundcard, tho I go by the distinction that the soundcard is inside your computer, while an audio interface is only connected to the machine (by usb, firewire, or other means).

Edited July 10, 2012 by Kuolema

[Rozovian]

I took a look at the guide and I think it's pretty good. It's more of an overview than a comprehensive guide, but it seems like that's what you're going for.

My only concern is that it might be difficult for a "newb" to piece together all the bits of information since there are a lot of individual sections that, while fine on their own, are kind of all over the place (Recording coming after mixing and output for instance). Then again, maybe not...either way I think re-arranging the sections would make it easier to read.

...

Isn't it the other way around? Or have I been thinking about it the wrong way this whole time?

[Magnetic Ether]

Well, it's more a guide than a tutorial. For length reasons, and the fact that there's a whole lot of DAWs out there, I can't go into DAW-specific stuff. Is it any good, tho?

What I meant by that is that it's not as comprehensive as a guide that focuses on just one of the topics you cover. As a starting point though I think it's pretty good.

And yeah, it makes sense that you don't go into DAW specific stuff. It's nice to see something like this that doesn't use FL Studio or whatever as an example.

The poor placement of the recording chapter stem from it being written later than the other chapters. My reasoning was that not everybody will need to know how to record, and those that do should still start with learning the other stuff. On the other hand, if I went strictly by that reasoning, the chapters on waveforms and synths are the ones poorly placed. Where would you prefer to find it?

Eh, now that I go back and take another look I think it's probably fine. Actually I'm not really sure what I was talking about XD.

[DusK]

Isn't it the other way around?

It can go either way, really.

[Eino Keskitalo]

I've read this thing. Very useful, and easy to read. 74 pages printed! Will post more detailed feedback later.

--Eino

[Anorax]

I've read this thing. Very useful, and easy to read. 74 pages printed! Will post more detailed feedback later.

--Eino

...Wow.

Rozo should publish this and make bank off of it

[Rozovian]

Rozo should make an album and have ppl who read this thing support it by getting the album for like 20 bucks or something.

Tho I should probably add a few things to it before then. Like how to market yourself on the net, how to sell your remixes, and a few things like that. Stuff that I'm such an expert in.

[Anorax]

Rozo should make an album and have ppl who read this thing support it by getting the album for like 20 bucks or something.

Tho I should probably add a few things to it before then. Like how to market yourself on the net, how to sell your remixes, and a few things like that. Stuff that I'm such an expert in.

PROTIP: Bandcamp.com

[timaeus222]

Haha, you're going to hate me for this, but at the spot where it says, "Note that there are also so called "modes" besides just major and minor. The intervals are the same, but they begin from different notes. There are also additional scales (like harmonic and melodic minor) that use different intervals. Look it up later.", that foreshadows a short paragraph on modes.

"Look it up later" isn't fun. You might as well write about them, since I couldn't find anything about ionian, dorian, phrygian, lydian, mixolydian, aeolian, or locrian modes in what you wrote currently, and as I am with my sense of character, I expected to see that. It's not too hard to explain, right? You already did, except without the official names. Besides, you can't expect "newbs" to just know when what they find is what they are supposed to find. xD

Where you wrote, "so every note will contain tones higher than the note pitch. As does our voice.", a good example is the tines in an E. Piano.

In the section after where it says, "the blues note, and microtonal music. Learn the basics first, tho.", it'd be awesome if you included this definition I developed for the word "melody":

"A memorable sequence of notes that flow in a logical manner while lying within the same key of the current section of the song."

That might help people write reasonable melodies. ;D

Can I also request a small section on chordal feel? It probably belongs in the "direction" section, sometime after "Much like stories, music can be written with changes out of the blue or with changes foreshadowed". If you can do this, that would be badass. If you end up having trouble with it, zircon might be able to give some insight on it, from what I know about his experience. This is what I mean:

Each chord, when placed after a chord, foreshadows a specific chord. Sometimes, you'll have to nail a specific chord to get exactly the feel that you want. Some chord progressions are present in certain styles of songs, but sometimes are meant only for those styles. Some chord progressions work so well that they actually give the listener the feeling that this is a specific section of the song and they'll know more about what to expect next. It'd be epic if you could include a section about what chord progressions, or at least, what diad progressions create what type of feel or foreshadow what diads.

-------

I did really like the idea of EQ being a chisel, though. That section is dead on. Sweet controlling metaphor

Edited August 10, 2012 by timaeus222

[Jonathan!]

Thank you very much for posting this - it was an extremely useful read. Although I have been playing music for many years, I was pretty clueless about where to start with the whole remix thing.

I apologise for necroing the thread but I think that this would really help others that are in my position (it took me a lot of searching to even find this).

[Rozovian]

No worries. I'm glad it's useful.

And here I thought it was all over the place. It's in my sig. Apparently people don't read sigs.

[Anorax]

And here I thought it was all over the place. It's in my sig. Apparently people don't read sigs.

maybe it should be in a bigger font

and in

COMIC SAAAAAAANNNSSSS!!!!!

[Sansato]

I'm not entirely sure how many months I've had your remixing guide, but it wasn't until just now that I realized that I was supposed to give you feedback. Well, better late than never.

As far as I'm concerned, this guide is actually pretty helpful. I have no complaints at the moment since I can't really remember the content and I'm not petty enough to come back three to six days from now and say exactly what I think is wrong with the guide. So yeah, kudos, brah.

I apologize for necro-posting. You may now proceed with the throwing of rotting tomatoes.

[Rozovian]

I apologize for necro-posting.

No.

Thanks for reminding me this guide exists. I had a look at it the other day and concluded that I need to work on the writing. There's a lot of it that probably made sense in the voice I wrote them but that, after a year of not really touching the guide, feels awkward and clunky. There are parts that are way too long, parts I could cut down on the wording without losing the meaning, or parts that are just badly explained or over-explained, that I could rewrite or cut.

Besides, this guide is an ongoing project. It's supposed to get better, and it's not something I can or even want to do alone. That's why I want feedback on it.

And I still want feedback.