BlackPanther Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 I think I'm at my breaking point with music making meaning that I could either plummet from this point or keep rising and I'm hoping for the latter. There are so many things that I don't know about music that I've just been kinda doin my own thing and hope that it works and nothin has been truly consistent with me. Maybe it's my confidence when I hear some peoples work around here(not gonna name but you amazing people should know who you are lol) or maybe it's just my lack of knowledge in the field. /end ranting stuff There are a few things I have questions about hopefully this'll help me in the long run because I'm not gonna publish any more music until I feel I have a process of start to finish music creation that works for me everytime. When one talks about music referencing, what the hell do they mean by that exactly? I understand that you're suppose to listen to other peoples music as a reference, but how do I take what I listened to and apply it to my music? Are there any plugins that help with this sorta thing, what should I be listening for? Another thing that I'm not so confident about is my eq'ing and compression. EQ I won't really talk about I think I just have to worry about that on my own. When is it appropriate to use compression and limiters and how should you compress a sound? Where in the mixing or mastering chain should a compressor or limiter go? Speaking of mixing chains is there a rule of thumb for placing effects before or after other effects? What type of effect processors work well with drums, synths, live instruments? Another huge thing for me is reverb. I make very shitty reverb and I use the presets very shitty like so I either use no reverb at all or ultra lightly which really doesn't impact the music at all. What type of things should I be listening for and how much should be applied? Before you guys flame me or anything, please note that I don't have the internet at home right now so any researching I do is at school. And all of the guides and tips and shit don't go into enough detail and I've been to a ton of places. I know a lot of it you have to try for yourself, but I've done plenty of that I feel and I really haven't been gettin anywhere and it's discouraging and I don't want to stop because I have all this great music in my head but it's never exactly what I was hoping for when I put it onto my DAW. Also, I have an maudio axiom 61. How can I make better use of it? I use it in conjunction with FL but I can also use it with Reason. Should I just start goin at it and record whatever I play? What about the controls? I know with Reason the devices are automatically synced to the keyboard, but what about FL Studio? Would I have to use the midi learn function everytime? All the damn guides I've seen were for the axiom pro which I don't have . So can you guys help a brotha out who's at his wits end? I'm like seriously lost at this point or maybe it's all just psychological =/. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dissidia Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 Sounds like you are overthinking it. How long have you been at it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidoff Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 Unfortunately, I can't answer any of your questions, because I pretty much have all the same questions myself, but I do want to agree wholeheartedly with this: ...all of the guides and tips and shit don't go into enough detail... And, yeah, I'm sure that most of it is a learn-over-time thing, but finding a good jumping off point on some of this stuff seems to be nearly impossible. I feel like having a structured approach to it would be way better than accidentally stumbling into it one day. I have a book on beginning home audio recording en route from Amazon: if it's actually a pretty comprehensive guide and explains a lot of this stuff, I'll be sure to let you know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anorax Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 As of now, Rozovian has a guide (which is WiP), and needs feedback. I haven't seen it, but I am sure that it could help. You sound like you've reached a point that I've been at since the beginning (and still am at... ) I noticed that you have questions on effects. The "mix chain" as you referred to is pretty simple. I don't know if there is a rule of thumb, but however you feel it should be ordered. If you want your delay effect to be echoed into the reverb, then go ahead. If you want to compress before you EQ, go ahead. It's up to you. ... Personally, that wouldn't really help me, but if you find some help in that, then good luck with your work Electro Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yoozer Posted January 25, 2011 Share Posted January 25, 2011 Maybe it's my confidence when I hear some peoples work around here(not gonna name but you amazing people should know who you are lol) or maybe it's just my lack of knowledge in the field. /end ranting stuff Post. Get critique. Your music should be punched and pinched and people should kick against its tires and then it should still stand or get improved. When is it appropriate to use compression and limiters and how should you compress a sound? Where in the mixing or mastering chain should a compressor or limiter go? Speaking of mixing chains is there a rule of thumb for placing effects before or after other effects? What type of effect processors work well with drums, synths, live instruments? Another huge thing for me is reverb. All these questions are like those of a painter, asking "When should I use red? Am I using enough red?" EQ is a tool. EQ is also a flavor - if music was cooking you could use it to spice things up or to mellow stuff down. The same goes for compression; in "tool" mode you'd use it to avoid grasping for the volume slider as fast as possible, in "flavor" mode you'd use it for sidechaining, for instance. The thing is that there's no pre-set guide to make choices like that. There are stylistic choices that already exist for a whole load of music genres and you can choose to adhere to them or not, because there are no rules; there are just useful guidelines. Thing is, these one-liners like "do x" don't tell the rest of the story - all those choices are based on experience and listening and trying to solve problems (tool mode) or trying to stand out (flavor mode). Get to the point first where you can feel with reasonable confidence that you can solve problems. That means that you can let instruments coexist instead of having them get in eachother's way. So you add a breakbeat and a bass guitar, and for some reason your meter is already in the red and those are just two tracks - and if you turn the volume of each down you don't hear anything useful anymore! That kind of stuff falls under the "problem" header so then you should use tool mode. If it sounds good, it is good - but that's usually said assuming that you've got monitoring of sufficient quality - you should be able to trust that the music you hear doesn't sound all messed up on everyone else's car stereo/music player thingy. Reverb is the illusion of space - how much space do you need? Nobody lives in an anechoic room, but listening to music on closed headphones can get close (since you're not hearing any natural reverb). Reverb muddies things but also gives a sense of dimension. If you want to emulate music with real instruments - well, the bass player's usually not at the end of a 50-meter long hallway or at the bottom of a well while the singer's at 2 inches of your ear, so that's how you gauge the what and how of reverb. In flavor mode, you'd turn it all the way up with a ridiculously long decay so you might get an ethereal effect - but that constrains your kind of source material, too. Just an example. I know with Reason the devices are automatically synced to the keyboard, but what about FL Studio? Would I have to use the midi learn function everytime? I don't think you have to use it all the time; you should be able to save settings like that, but I don't know anything about FL. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SonicThHedgog Posted January 26, 2011 Share Posted January 26, 2011 There are so many things that I don't know about music that I've just been kinda doin my own thing and hope that it works and nothin has been truly consistent with me. That is music, do your own thing,go crazy, more important make producing fun. look at videos of studio people using gear and what they do with it, its all a learning process. another thing is quality of the effects you have, the amount you use, etc... fl's verb presets are good, just toggle the delay and reverb knob to get that sweet amount you need in that preset. yoozer pretty much took what i was gunna say but longer. to sync the axiom, you have to click ''link to controller'' then move the thing you want to control that device with. you have to do it every time you open fl i think, er thats what i do.... or what i used to do b4 i moved to ableton and protools. another thing in compression. compressors add energy,Balance dynamic range,and/or can add depression to a track depending on what sound your looking for,you dont need to use a compressor, its recommended to use limiters because they prevent peaking and some other stuff i cant remeber atm. Compressors are not Good Nor Bad, its all on what sound your looking for. if you use compressors on some of your tracks thats good, if on all of your tracks thats bad, if none of them thats bad if you not getting the sound you want then thats bad it recommended to put a Compressor on a master track before starting the mixing process just incase you want power on the whole track, its also good to add a compressors to a track depending on what you want that specific track to sound like. do i use compressors? sometimes like this track http://soundcloud.com/aires/ice-cap-crater-v4-oc i did a brick wall master(manually) and it gave it dramatic power for this specifily but i used to much i think i would lower the gain Music is all on taste and what your feeling like making/listening to so go crazy, stretch genre's if you want to, i dont know go just go crazy♪ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nase Posted January 26, 2011 Share Posted January 26, 2011 if you want to get anywhere, you just have to accept that you will fail oh so many times more. failure, of course, is relative to the goals you've set for yourself and to how strictly you pursue those goals. myself, i've accepted that i just do a lot of shoddy work, technically speaking. i constantly end up missing the sound i've got going in my head by a mile. so many things end up being non-deliberate and accidental. that said, there are happy accidents. they can take your music to entirely new places, even when they start out sounding like shit. they still require quite some work, usually, to make them work. so yeah, no matter if you still want to picture something in your mind and bring it into existence with formidable accuracy, or if you're trying to work with all the "byproducts" and modify your goals dynamically as you see fit, it all boils down to a lot of work. if you want to get better you need to expand on your vocabulary, and you need to work on your delivery. we all have to do that. your vocabulary is expanded by: - taking existing concepts from others (or other things) and assimilating them. - experiments. your delivery improves as you get more experience working with said concepts and refine them. mixing skills also help of course. i for one am pretty sure that if you continue doing the one man bedroom studio thing and getting some enjoyment out of it, your mixing skills will improve naturally along the way. if you want to be good at it asap, take some courses or read the internet. making awesome music is a huge challenge. if you want it, deal with it. truth be told, i haven't really dealt with it seriously for quite a while. i hate my music sometimes, and i'm afraid of my own expectations. raw deal. however, i know i'll be coming back for more. there's quite nothing like the creative rush of ecstasy when the stuff is really pouring out. yup, it's downright orgasmic ^^ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garpocalypse Posted January 26, 2011 Share Posted January 26, 2011 Sounds to me like you are at a point that every artist finds himself at multiple times throughout their lives. Embrace it because it will make you better, more attentive and perceptive. With that out of the way, remember music is a language and everyone will learn it differently. I would recommend getting a copy of Victor Wooten's The Music Lesson which is a fantastic book about learning and perceiving music in a very simple easy to process way. Remember when you graduated from Go Spot Go to something like Clifford the big red dog? It felt kind of like reading a medical journal on 200 new ways to labotomize the rattus norvegicus didnt it? (what are all these new words? this is going to take forever to read!) How you percieved the English language, all the fun you had before, and the confidence you built up, was torn away and you had to put lots of eye straining work into taking that next step. But eventually you discovered that Clifford was indeed red *spoiler* and have gone onto bigger and better things since then. This is going to happen over and over again as you learn and if it doesn't then you are flatlining, plateuing or whatever you want to call it. Either way it means nothing new or great is going to come from you and your life as an artist is over. So my message, if there is one by this point, is be grateful for the moments that shake your perceptions of what you thought you knew. Each time you get broken down you'll find you have more room to grow though it is going to take alot of thoughtful work and tons of effort over time. Trust me I know what I am talking about. 'Cause I suck at this remixing stuff. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJ-c-bFLtcM&feature=related Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kidd Cabbage Posted January 26, 2011 Share Posted January 26, 2011 if you use compressors on some of your tracks thats good, if on all of your tracks thats bad, if none of them thats bad if you not getting the sound you want then thats bad Disagree. Every single one of my tracks in a mix has its own EQ, compression, and reverb on it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SonicThHedgog Posted January 26, 2011 Share Posted January 26, 2011 Disagree.Every single one of my tracks in a mix has its own EQ, compression, and reverb on it. well if you use it to find the sound you want then by all means thats fine. but most of your tracks i'v heard are toward metal and i would imagin the compressors even out the dynamic range which most people (and me sometimes) do. But thats not the point of my post, the point is to use compression to your advantage of finding the sound you want. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkSim Posted January 26, 2011 Share Posted January 26, 2011 But eventually you discovered that Clifford was indeed red *spoiler* and have gone onto bigger and better things since then. This made me smile. And you make a great point, every artist hits a brick wall or has a mental block now and again. Taking that extra step beyond it feels great though, so take whatever time you need and then get back into it when it feels right. When one talks about music referencing, what the hell do they mean by that exactly? I understand that you're suppose to listen to other peoples music as a reference, but how do I take what I listened to and apply it to my music? Are there any plugins that help with this sorta thing, what should I be listening for? I think when I reference music in my songs it's more of a subconscious thing - say if I've been listening to lots of electro-house recently, I'll be more inclined to add elements of that to my compositions. If I listen to things like the Oblivion soundtrack, it makes me want to do ambient orchestral pieces, or at least borrow some techniques from it. Sometimes I rip off beats by trying to re-sequence them myself (not sampling them), and that's fine because you learn to deconstruct music you like and see why you like it and how to do it yourself. In trying to recreate a certain aspect of a track you like, you may stumble on something that sounds even better, and that's how you can develop on ideas. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kidd Cabbage Posted January 26, 2011 Share Posted January 26, 2011 well if you use it to find the sound you want then by all means thats fine. You're the one that spoke in absolutes, not me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PROTO·DOME Posted January 26, 2011 Share Posted January 26, 2011 if you use compressors on some of your tracks thats good, if on all of your tracks thats bad, if none of them thats bad if you not getting the sound you want then thats bad Perhaps you're doin' it wrong? I mean, compressors are good for limiting. Limiting is a pretty neat way of getting decent loudness without clipping. Compressors =/= Mmmtss Mmmtss. Heck, trad jazz is better with compressors. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SonicThHedgog Posted January 26, 2011 Share Posted January 26, 2011 You're the one that spoke in absolutes, not me. I prob worded what i was going to say wrong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kidd Cabbage Posted January 26, 2011 Share Posted January 26, 2011 I am now changing my stance to whole agreement of what Hedgog said in the first place because Protogay argued on what was my side. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PROTO·DOME Posted January 26, 2011 Share Posted January 26, 2011 I am now changing my stance to whole agreement of what Hedgog said in the first place because Protogay argued on what was my side. Screw off IBBABABABABULBABASAUR. It was an objectively bad point and you know it. InB4 thred lok lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kidd Cabbage Posted January 26, 2011 Share Posted January 26, 2011 I'll turn this Goddamned thread around, son. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SonicThHedgog Posted January 26, 2011 Share Posted January 26, 2011 Perhaps you're doin' it wrong? I mean, compressors are good for limiting. Limiting is a pretty neat way of getting decent loudness without clipping. Compressors =/= Mmmtss Mmmtss.Heck, trad jazz is better with compressors. thats the point im (trying to) making D: im just saying use a compressor to a advantage to find that sound your looking for, not cause you know people so it all the time, but to use it to find that sound you want, and i did say its recommended to do limiting : p I think i used a bad example : I I am now changing my stance to whole agreement of what Hedgog said in the first place because Protogay argued on what was my side. Im now re-lost in this thread XD Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nase Posted January 26, 2011 Share Posted January 26, 2011 yeah, what's up with this ibbiaz vs. protodome phenomenon anyway Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PROTO·DOME Posted January 26, 2011 Share Posted January 26, 2011 I just think it's good practice to use a limiter on everything that's all. And an EQ, but that's beside the point. Also. yeah, what's up with this ibbiaz vs. protodome phenomenon anyway http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BelligerentSexualTension Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kidd Cabbage Posted January 26, 2011 Share Posted January 26, 2011 I think it's good practice to shut your whore mouth. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anorax Posted January 26, 2011 Share Posted January 26, 2011 I hate to say this, but I think that threadlock is imminent with these two. Sorry BlackPanther. There is some good help in here (which I think will help me too ), but... yeah Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garpocalypse Posted January 26, 2011 Share Posted January 26, 2011 This much drama over compression? Well it beats talking about what I have to deal with at work. Compression is for suckafishes! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SonicThHedgog Posted January 26, 2011 Share Posted January 26, 2011 This much drama over compression? Well it beats talking about what I have to deal with at work. Compression is for suckafishes! This thread is Now about Compressors, DAMN CRAPPY REMASTER CDs But seriously lets get back on topic Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SnappleMan Posted January 27, 2011 Share Posted January 27, 2011 There's no right or wrong way to do any of this stuff. If people didn't think outside the box and try things that shouldn't have worked we'd still be listening to music in mono with antennas sticking out of our assholes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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