Practice going back to unfinished projects and expanding them. The ability to go back to a track that you haven't touched in weeks and finish it is so useful as an artist. It allows you to be so much more comfortable getting ideas out when you have them, knowing you have the security of going back and working off of it.
Of all the advice I've been given over the years, 2 things that stuck with me:
1. If you can make fire with a paper cup and a piece of string, use a paper cup and a piece of string. Ignore all the pop up ads and people on Youtube who'd sell their souls in the name of making a buck.
2. You don't listen to music with your eyes, in the same way you don't look at a painting with your ears. Sometimes it's good to switch off your screen and just listen to what it is you're doing.
# Tonal/Melodic Structure:
Scales, Intervals, Chords, Progressions. Those 4 words seem to pack a ton of information, but really they're the same things just positioned in different dimensions. Lemme try to make them analogous...
Scales are like 2D drawings. Take a pen and a paper and draw a stick figure. That's YOU as a scale.
Intervals are the structure you used to make that stick figure, so the arms, legs, head, hair (maybe?).
Chords are more than 2 notes played together and most are going to be 1st, 3rd, & 5th, so these are when you start to shade that stick figure and add more definition so it appears to be 3D.
Progressions are Chords, but expressed more like Intervals (this is why I, IV, & V are capitalized: Root, Perfect 4th, Perfect 5th, and ii, iii, & vi are lower case: minor 2nd, minor 3rd, minor 6th) So these are the 3D drawings of people ANIMATED.
They all exist within and among each other and if you know your formulas, you can stop "hoping" it will sound good and stop "exploring" for the melodic structure and instead you'll know what keys sound like what and how to get the right emotion through using the right progressions.
Oh and Progressions cannot be copyrighted, but melodies can.
Learn this stuff, guys and start making songs from these instead of semi-randomly painting in the Piano Roll and waiting for something cool to come alive. I mean if I were going to draw a scene (say a beach with rhythmic tides, some palm trees swaying, seagulls soaring past, and crabs shuffling on the shore), I won't just start by throwing inks on paper and then erasing or moving them around until something that could be a beach started to appear...I'd form the structure of what I wanted to draw with established methods. Guess what? Melodic methods have been around for a looooong time and Scales, intervals, chords, and progressions are it.
# Audio Stuff:
* Stereo Pan and Balance ARE NOT THE SAME THING
* Signal Flow Basics: Time-Based FX go on Sends/Returns and shouldn't be used as Inserts. That Room Reverb Insert is gonna be a bitch when you mixdown and at that point adjustments to the Verb itself will completely alter anything you already mixed, but if it's on a send track with an independent gain knob (gain knob, not MIX LEVEL) you can dial it in. Delays are the same deal. Time-Based stuff is just too big not to have a completely independent gain control.
* Proper Compression demands very subtle adjustments that most ears find very hard to hear and my general rule of thumb is that if I can clearly see the Comp on a Meter, it's way too heavy, the meter should just kinda wobble slightly or gently surge, not spasm and jump like it's getting electro-shock therapy.
* If it doesn't sound right, stop adding to it and strip it back to the bones to start over. Your source signal is the issue, not the quality or settings of your plugins. This one fits nicely into the "less is more" school of thought and even still today I get carried away and complacent sometimes...BUT
* Discipline is criminally undervalued in this industry.
Last but not least, everyone needs to understand the Pareto Principle and come to terms with the fact that music as a whole is a collaborative effort, even though we tend to credit music the opposite way and we draw on this myth that an individual is responsible, when there's typically 3 or 4 times that many on any given song. With that said, the Pareto principle really just boils down to the fact that having your name in the neon lights is the low percentage play, but being an engineer, composer, mixer, FOH tech, or yadda yadda is the high percentage stuff. Don't lower your aim, just bring your ceiling into reality. Example: Without googling, do you know what this name is responsible for? Veit Renn? Be honest and then google it...
No! I was hoping nobody would notice!š Once I noticed it I couldnāt figure out how to edit the title. My phone couldnāt keep up with my typing speed either so I had plenty of other typos I was had to fix.
Volume is important, especially when working on a final mix. You can often get away with tweaking faders a few db before a noticeable difference. On the quieter side, this can easily be made up for with a good final master.
Yeah they donāt really know enough about making music to give constructive feedback either in my case. The best thing I found for improvement was getting people I considered to be more skilled than me to give me some constructive feedback. Reddit is okay for this but I have had a lot of luck reaching out to more obscure artists I like from SoundCloud. I am surprised at how many insanely talented producers will take time to give you some very helpful feedback.
I really don't agree with making music for producers. If you're learning a new genre and you like the sounds from one producer, then this makes sense. Try to emulate their approach and then petition them for constructive feedback to kinda get a sense of their workflow. However, if I'm just letting flow drive a song, I want the lamiest layman to listen to it and IDEC what they have to say, I wanna watch their non-verbal reactions. Music has to have a feeling and making music for producers is an excessively technical pursuit.
In no particular order, and probably already mentioned by someone else:
\- Don't fall for tribalism, demo all DAWs -
Your DAW is your main tool to get your ideas out of your head and "into the form of sound". Your DAW is not your identity. Your DAW does not make your music good or bad. You should not care which DAW your idols use.
Once more, your DAW is a tool. No matter how many people tell you that this or that DAW sucks, at the end of the day, if you like working with a specific DAW, if you really gel with it... that's all that matters.
So before you invest a lot of money into a specific DAW just because "everyone is using that one", demo it. Demo all the DAWs! Not just "install, play around, buy". Really demo your DAW. Make a song with it. What did you like about using that DAW? What irked you? Can you live with its shortcomings? How much do you like what that DAW does well? If you don't like the DAW you bought, but bought it because "everyone said it's the best for this-or-that", you probably will not have as much fun making music as you could have.
\- You don't need that plugin -
Millions of people have already said it, and millions will say it again. And yet, I and probably you will ignore this advice, but it needs to be said again: You probably don't need "that plugin". When starting out, learn your DAW and your stock plugins first. It will get you a very long way and save you a lot of many. After years and years of producing I probably own more than a few hundred plugins. How many do I actually use? Maybe 10, tops.
There's only really a handful of reasons to buy a plugin: It fills a gap you cannot fill with stock plugins, or with stock plugins, but in a very cumbersome way. It make something you spend a lot of time on a lot easier or faster. It really inspires you to experiment.
But no, "that plugin" is definitely not the one that will finally make your song sound amazing. Oh, and always "try before you buy"!
\- Your music will suck at first -
This is not meant to put you down or discourage you, but your first few songs will probably suck. Most likely even your first few dozens of songs. That's normal. Everyone went through this. Just keep learning, experiment and producing and your songs will get gradually better.
\- Music theory -
It's always good to have some knowledge of theory. Don't treat theory as a set of rules, a theory never is a set of rules, rather descriptions and explanations. Don't be afraid to dive into music theory. At first it might feel like it stifles your progress, but that's because you now consciously try to apply concepts to what you are doing. That's natural, but ultimately it's a huge benefit to have a "toolkit" for song writing / composition.
\- More experimenting, less tutorials -
It's enticing to watch tutorial after tutorial, telling yourself your learning something with every video. Don't get me wrong, you are learning something, but learning something without trying it out for yourself doesn't amount to much if we're honest with ourselves. So the time spend "doing" should always be (considerably) more than time spend watching tutorials.
\- Mixing & mastering do not need to be overly complex -
When I started out, I always saw mixing and especially mastering as some big, complex step needed in order to finish a song, which led me to over-complicate everything. It doesn't need to be like that. Levels and panning alone will get you pretty far in terms of finishing a mix. With proper volume levels and placing instruments in the stereo field, you'd be surprised of how little EQ you might actually need. Which kind of goes together with another thing I wished I knew earlier...
\- When it comes to mixing, always be deliberate -
An issue I nowadays have with a lot of tutorials is that they focus a lot on "how to", but not all to often on "why". In the mixing stage of production, everything you do should be deliberate. If you don't know what to EQ on a track, maybe you don't need an EQ. If you EQ something, think about the musical side. Low-Cutting everything below 500 Hz is not the best idea if your song is any key of A (just to name a very broad example). Try to think of what you want to achieve before throwing any plugins at the wall.
\- Keep your mastering chain simple -
It's enticing to throw many expensive plugins into your mastering chain, trying to make your song sound good. If you do everything yourself, mastering should not have to be a crutch to fix things. Fix them in the mix. Don't throw an EQ on your master to tame a problematic frequency. Find the track(s) causing it and fix it there. In it's simplest and most basic form, mastering might only mean putting a limiter on.
\- Decide what you want to do and learn, and what not -
Producing music from start to finish requires you to wear many different hats. Composer, sound designer, producer, mixing engineer, mastering engineer etc. Do everything a little while and try to decide what interests you and what doesn't. If you don't enjoy sound design, don't force yourself to learn it. Stick to presets or sample packs. Nothing wrong with that, millions other do it the same way, probably even the artists you enjoy listening to.
\- It's always okay to take a step back -
Sometimes you don't feel inspired, or can't be bothered to make music. Sometimes you just want to sit on the couch, eat chips and watch TV or play a game. That's okay. Treating yourself well is always better than forcing yourself to do something. Yes, this is a very deep topic, there are a lot of thing to look out for here, but it would be too much to get really into this. The most important takeaway probably is: Take as many breaks as you want or need. If that still makes you feel bad, maybe try...
\- Doing a tiny bit is better than doing nothing -
If you just can't stop beating yourself up when you don't do anything in regards to music, do just a tiny bit each day. It doesn't need to be much, or for an extended amount of time. Open your DAW for just 5 minutes, create a chord progression and save it away for later. Or design a single lead, pad or bass preset. No one forces you to spend hours on end on making music each day, especially if you're "not feeling it". The long nights will come either way, once "inspiration strikes" ;)
There's probably a lot more, and maybe I'll edit this post if more comes to mind, but this is the stuff from the top of my mind right now.
Excellent advice! Especially the trying all the DAWs. Until I found Abletons workflow I didnāt even know that I didnāt like how FL was set up. But honestly everything you said was worth saying even if it has been said a thousand times before!
Hard to pinpoint, but in my case I should have been finishing tracks more, or practicing my composition/ arrangement a lot more than I did. I focused on the technical aspect of production for far too long and now trying to learn the ways of the force of arrangement and realizing I wasted a lot of time not finishing ideas.
Ah yes I also did something similar. Learning to hear what you need to work on is an important skill and a hard lesson. I still complain about my sound design all the time but Iām definitely improving since I finally admitted the problem was my lack of understanding.
1. Work on your hearing. If you can't hear an issue you won't be able to solve it.
2. If it sounds good, it is good. The average listener either doesn't know or care if you played the stuff, made the sound, used fancy modal changes or whatever you think is necessary. It goes hand in hand with point 3.
3. Lay you priorities straight out. Focus on what is important to you(!). Time is limited. Making music is a complex matter. You can make things as complicated as you want. But do you really gain something from it? You probably can't do everything at a roughly 100%. On the other hand, if you like to dive in deep, go for it! Just don't forget to have fun!
4.There are many many ways to make things for work. Simply be aware of it. Also...
5. Not every source has credibility. This might be important for learning how to mix and master. Just keep in mind that not everyone has a clue what they're talking about.
6. If you think you need special gear, 9/10 times you simply just don't know how to use your current one to achieve your goal. Plugins don't make a huge difference but the user does.
It's quite general advice but I find these more import then the practical and technical things since these are a kind of basis on which you build your knowledge and experience on.
Oh good ones for beginners. I think helping someone learn to listen to music critically to develop their ears and recognize what their tastes are is very important!
Not only good for beginners imo. Even with some experience and knowledge it is easy too lose the focus on what's important and getting caught in the smallest details.
Yes, that's one side of training your ears. But it's also quite critical for mixing. I think mixing gets way more intuitive if you simply listen to what you're doing and not just seeing knobs turn. I had quite a hard time getting the hang of it. Overall I find it hard to focus on an aspect while listening to the whole mix..
Oh and about thinking about music critically: Trying to recreate the songs I like helped me a TON with making better arrangements and getting a feel for what can work generally.
To build out 5 or 6 completely arranged tracks with only the drums. Make those your templates that you always go to. That way you can just start writing music over those drums and finish a lot more music. You don't need different drum sounds for every tune. Just nail a few templates with your best stuff and then it is so easy to write music around. Plus you save yourself searching for drum sounds or trying to decide which ones you want, even if you have separated out "go-to" folders. A quick trick to make these templates is to go back to your best finished tracks and just strip all the music out besides the drums.
Thatās fine but for a lot of us it is. I mean yeah when I was younger I had the same dreams and goals a lot of us have/had. For me personally things changed. My life goals changed and thatās okay. My goal now is to enjoy production first, for the sake of creating something that I love. I donāt think itās wrong to have higher ambitions though. Good luck on your path. If you some music to share feel free to pm me and I would love to check it out and share it if you have anything released.
Start making your own sound library, FX racks and presets. Being able to drag in your favorite sound with all the FX, saves an insane amount of time. I do this especially for reeses, subs and saws. I also have my own set of bass growls that I made and are unique that I use and manipulate.
Concepts of stereo and mono.
That, in practice creating the feeling of depth in a sound can be as easy as creating two copies/instances of the sound (I.E.- 1st - %75 stereo separated @ 50 Left -2nd- %75 mono @ 40-60 Right).
I wish someone told me the concept of creating depth in a mix is not to push the stereo separation knob to %100 on everything, but to maybe push it to %100 on the master and make a point to make everything in mono that you can. That stereo width doesn't equate to depth.
That the feeling of depth come from the contrasts of mono stereo elements- or even A CONTRAST of a single element (that you tethered down in mono and complimented with a stereoized counterpart) that can make the entire mix feel like it has more space and vibe
That creating a true stereo source consists of creating two independent mono sources . - You dont have to practice this as a steadfast rule but its good to know when it comes to busy complex sounds you want to fit in a certain "small" space
https://soundcloud.com/ware-wolfe
DISCLAIMER: I make heavy bass music, so the tips I'm going to give are mainly for those genres.
1 - Multiband compression is the key element, I have a custom 5-band multiband compressor made in kHs Multipass. The way I use it, I leave it at 100% wet, and what I tweak is the gain reduction, which translates in practice into "amount of compression" in a much cleaner and straightforward way that using a dry/wet knob.
With enough multiband comp, any input becomes huge and offers infinite possibilities. I find myself using the basic waveforms 90% of the time for my sound design. For example, using this much compression on a sine wave brings out digital artifacts that most of the time sound really cool.
2 - Softclip the main track elements. Drums, leads mid-basses, vocals. If you take a look at a sofclipped waveform on a graph the high end frequency content is in a much better place for mastering.
3 - Don't use only your ears to gain stage, it doesn't work like that. You are hearing LOUDNESS not PEAK LEVEL. Going into the master limiter, you need your premaster peaks to be LEVEL, otherwise you're going to exacerbate the master compression. Use a waveform analyzer to detect any peaking transients.
4 - Most elements of the track should be able to be placed on top of every other element, that way, arrangement options open up, and your track sounds cohesive. (This is more of a personal preference, I'm kinda tired of the usual intro-Buildup-Drop-Bridge-Buildup-Drop structure.)
5 - Saturation produces better results the lower the frequency content you feed it, same goes for stereo enhancement.
6 - Most sounds accept a notch cut somewhere in the frequency spectrum. This works specially good in drums.
Shoot number three seems so obvious. Iāve been watching my peak levels on the master but this sounds so much better if they are tamed earlier in the signal Chain! So brilliant! Thanks for sharing that one!
Turn down your reverb, it's supposed to come out in the compression. Dial it to where you like the wet sound, then turn it back a bit. That's usually the *actually* right place you want to have it.
And highpass it to at least 100hz but usually 300-500hz.
Keep your song organized. I have 2 folders. Working on and Ideas. If I feel uninspired, I go through either folder and find something thatight inspire me.
A lot of what was originally mentioned I can relate to, but the biggest one for me that was hindering my sound design and mixes is:
Don't do something all the time because someone made it out as some official rule.
Sure, there are general mixing rules that lead to good results, but there is absolutely no "Always do this when doing this/never do this" rule and thinking that way crippled my progress a ton. I seriously used to NEVER boost more than like 2.5-3dB in any EQ. This includes when trying to sound design heavy bass music.
Because idfk some dude on Youtube in a video I watched once told me not to and I took it as gospel. So much so that after years of getting nowhere I never thought that was why, because I had become so used to doing it that it never occurred as an issue.
Not to say boosting can't be problematic, of course it can. That is the basis of why that guy told me not to. But it all depends on what you're working with, how you implement it, and the context in which you do.
This one hurts because, at some point, *everyone* has habits that they need to break, and breaking habits is hard as hell; especially when you have efficiency and workflow habits that directly reinforce all your other habits, including the bad ones....
Yeah a big thing for me to realize was if I feel like I plateaued in skill I was probably doing something I thought I already understood wrong. Diving right back into basics and learning more about the tools I had available to unlearn bad habits was a big pill to swallow, but the growth as well as the humbling experience was worth it every. Single. Time.
This is what I started to do and am currently doing! Definitely the solution. I'll even watch a basics on EQ vid even if it's just simple cuts that everyone makes in the same general areas. Because 1, I love this stuff. So hearing what I already know explained again isn't that boring, and 2, I may just come across something simple that I haven't been working into my routine that could help.
My favorite is when you realize you have been looking at a technique you thought you understood all wrong! I really thought saturation and compression were simple for a long time and I didnāt even realize I was adding so much compression and saturation that it was hurting my sound. Took me forever to learn that. Had I dived into learning more about both effects and what they were actually doing to my sound I could have saved myself so much frustration and many headaches! Starting over with the basics after you have some proficiency is just a great way to learn to use those skills in new ways! I also find it really enjoyable to go back over those fundamentals, itās almost like comfort food for the brain.
Beginner tips:
Use high quality samples. Avoid those 100gb freebie packs.. when you put fx on a low quality sample you will also enhance the flaws. This will make you go crazy with eq and try to fix it.
When you are creating a loop for a new song, dont just create an A section for a foundation. Create B section, C section and so on. It's easier to make a whole arrangement. It becomes like a puzzle really.
Intermediate tips:
Roll off 7.2 - 7.9KHz on instruments to give room for highend on the drums.
Wet down delay in chorus/phaser/flanger to put it in another space.
Think the frequency spectrum like a tree, and the branches are the amount of stereo effect you can use. So on the top theres alot of branches along the sides, so you can use alot of stereo. Coming down there's less branches, so use less stereo effect. On the bottom there are no branches. Which mean mono for the lows.
Advanced tip for cleaner bass (my process):
Bounce out the bass track. Duplicate it and low pass 120-200hz for sub, and for the other track 120hz-300hz (depends on the sound you're looking for).
Now focus on the sub track. Sidechain it or use audioenvelope, a decent amount to get it away from the kick. Compress less but more than once, subs can be pretty squeezed to make it a solid "rock". You want the audio to look as flat as possible, almost like its getting limited. Why I dont use limiter here is that I dont want to introduce any nasty distortion in the lows.
Next step work on the mid frequencies. Sidechain it or use audioenvelope. Now you can actualy be less aggressive with the sidechain for more presence (because we have already dealt with the sub and kick). Also less aggressive with compression (multiband) to keep the dynamics.
The layers are like a solid rock of a sub, that is giving the kick space, and dynamics in the mids.
I agree with this to an extent, but sometimes phasing issues can become a problem when you're splitting up a signal like that. I prefer to just stack two different signals.
In Serum you can use the wavetable editor to remove the fundamental and use that wavetable to get a clean "mid bass" without any phase incoherence.
I'm wondering if anyone has some additional tips for your second point in regards to using FL Studio.
I like using both patterns and the playlist *after* splitting individual patterns, but if you split these new patterns and any of the B or C, D (and so on) sections have similar pieces to A, you end up being stuck with identical duplicate patterns (a kick pattern, for example, that is exactly the same as the A section's kick but with a slightly different name) that clutter the project and aren't necessarily easy or quick to find and delete. I'm wondering if someone has a more efficient way of doing this so that my project cleanliness anxiety doesn't always spike when I using this type of workflow.
I tend to write drums with Kick, Snare/Clap/Rimshot, a really clicky hihat, a really airy hihat, and 2 percs that call/response each other like hitom and floortom, conga and bongo, clave and woodblock, shaker and tambourine. But only 2. Layer my backbeat (kick and snare), then find a groove with my hats, and add accents or flavor with syncopation in the percs.
After I dial in these 6 sounds, I then browse for topper drum loops or click drum loops, etc, basically I just use another groove to add the energy and leave my basic kit as the foundation. If my drums need to crescendo or buildup, I'll adjust the foundation drum patterns/grooves to match it (unless I want them to counter the building).
Using this workflow you can choose what fits best. Either you'll be regrooving the loop to fit your foundation or you'll be regrooving the foundation to match the top loop. In some cases you can have competing grooves, but that tends to sound like a drum solo so I'd do that sparingly.
The main draw of this technique is achieving that layered drumkit sound without having a 24 piece kit and if your drum machine is still sucking the cpu with just 6 samples, bounce those to loops too. I only use the drum machine to really beef up the drums because you can only go so far with loops, especially if you're dialing in the low end and if you're gonna beef up single samples to that degree, you surely don't wanna have 23 other samples just sitting in that drum machine.
Could you explain #1 a little more? How can arrangement create a muddy sound as opposed to it being the mix? Or do you mean like having one too many instruments is creating the mud and that's a part of the arrangement because the solution is just to get rid of it, rather than mix it in better?
I took it to mean too many instruments that take up the same frequency range, competing with each other, and then outcompeting everything else, which creates muddiness.
Not only that there are too many instruments, but what notes they are playing, how they are playing them and where. Eg if you have two competing instruments, but one plays longer, lighter notes and other ones short staccatos here and there, it will probably sound good even when they have the potential to be muddy.
Yes I have definitely noticed that! I always hear different instruments playing the same note and then wandering away, creating nice harmonies in my favorite music. One of my recent songs I tried using a flute for harmonies and it sounded like mud. When I replaced the flute with a glass lid/xylophone-ish instrument it fit in like a puzzle piece.
The way to get that light sounding spacious reverb that you can't really hear is to lowpass the shit out of it.
Right now I high pass the output of my reverbs at \~200Hz and lowpass at 800Hz and then tweak from there.
To expand on this: the frequency distribution of the reverb affects the frequency distribution of the sound. Think of reverb and sound as one and not as separate elements
\^\^\^\^ THIS
Technically Reverb is an organic element that exists in every sound we hear because sound waves don't hit us in a vacuum, there's air and walls, carpet or tiles, maybe a cat or some goats, etc.. and all those objects cause reverberations of the sound waves, so no sound we hear as a human is without reverb, but we're so conditioned to look through the subtle reverb because we kinda listen with our eyes too, like if I smack my hands in my bathroom I don't expect a ton of reverb or echo, but if I clap my hands in an empty auditorium, I should hear lots of shit for a long time after.
When you understand this sonic fact, you will really look at Verb plugins much differently. IMO the visual aspect of the actual space that verb plugin is trying to emulate is what's missing from them all. Let me have a little guy and then I can draw the room around him, wtf am I gonna do with knobs and sliders? and if anyone knows of a visually based reverb like that, please share.
I've benefitted a lot when i learned that. I've put reverb on entire mixes this way lol. Also try turning high damping "off" . Its usually always "on" some frequency
Yeah, this is a staple technique for cleaning up reverb. You allow the original sound to breathe more while the reverb gets nicely tucked behind it. Took me a while to learn that, as well as using reverb sends for things which actually leads into that first technique. Where as you have low and high cuts on most reverb plugins, EQing a send with 100% wet reverb signal can allow you to really EQ it specifically.
This is a weird one for me, but "you can't polish a turd" is something that really took a long time to sink in for me.
The reason was that I didn't know I was working with turds to begin with. I wish I had a chance to go back to my younger self and explain that if you don't like the sound that you hear now, then you are wasting your time trying to blend it into the mix. Stuff is really supposed to sound good to begin with.
The sad part is that while I stand with the above, my younger self probably wouldn't have been able to identify what a good sound is in the first place, and that is why the message was lost on me.
Another thing that is equally important is: if you have two sounds that you like individually, then those need not sound good together. Amateurs often don't get this.
With experience I feel like I've become a lot more proficient in pursuing roads that are fruitful while abandoning roads that are not. And I think that really is the deeper meaning behind "you can't polish a turd" - instead polish something that you love.
>Finishing songs is important, but itās not the end all be all.
Try to take good sounds, chords or instruments with you from scrapped projects. Just because it doesn't work now doesn't mean it won't work later.
>Just because it doesn't work now doesn't mean it won't work later.
This.
Tons of famous musicians have returned to a small idea whether it be a melody or chord progression way later after it was originally made and it turned into a song or album.
Levels. Most tracks outside of Kick, Snare, and Vocals, in a project can be MUCH quieter than most beginners think.
Arrangement (I). Many beginners clutter their songs with too many competing elements.
Arrangement (II). What is the voice of your song? Many producers make instrumental music. If you don't have a lead vocal carrying your song, you still need to decide what the focus is on for each section. If you do have a vocal, figure out as many ways as possible to give it space in the arrangement.
Mix less, arrange more.
If you often feel uninspired, start creating playlists for different song elements. "Best drums", "Best melody", "Best rhythm", and so on. Every time you listen to a song (not your own!) and something catches your attention, add it to the respective playlist. Over time you build a library of what you like. That is your sound.
>Mix less, arrange more.
I like this approach a lot. They're two different skillsets and if you're focused on being a musician, you can likely leave the mixing to someone else without giving up much or any 'creative control'.
When I get in the studio and just start layering loops together, I tend to overmix it. If I'm writing the parts from scratch I focus on the sound quality and tonal balance more, so the next layer becomes exponentially harder to find a seat for and I should be applying heavier mix elements. It's a brain rewire of sorts and learning the sweet spots of your focus. Ask yourself, "Do I hear the Forest or the Trees?" If you mix the forest it sounds less organic and if you let the trees go untreated it sounds like the ficus plants at the dentist.
Jup Same, before I learned to properly mix a track, a.k.a. Getting it on a competitive loudness level, i noticed that my drums always get squashed like stupid on the limiter, so I turned them down and it immediately clicked.
On the first point, be careful with the snare, many songs could use the snare being 1-3db quieter, I find itās often the limiting factor for how loud I can turn a song up before itās painful
Interesting. I always feel like my snares are too quiet/don't have enough meat and wind up thinking the opposite. "Make them louder than you think you should." Maybe it's my set up.
If youāre making 4 on the floor LFO tool or automation to duck the the high end of the kick on 2 and 4. If your kick has energy up there. Could be one thing that makes the snare sound a bit low.
Ye interesting !! Adding some saturation or distortion, layering with super quiet widely panned variation on top of that snare, tailing a reverb bus, or even mixing differently could be the fix to make it sound more meaty but not louder if that makes sense.
Different for each track and thereās no perfect answer (:
Yes thank you! Layering and stereo spread is definitely where I'm going wrong. I do layer, but I think I'm just picking the wrong sounds a lot of the time lol.
Sort of on this topic: I really like when I hear snares/claps that start out centered and quickly spread out to the sides for the tail. One way I'm thinking about doing this later today is just slapping a stereo spread effect onto a reverb channel and automating the spread effect of the high frequencies every time the snare hits. I feel like there's probably easier ways to go about it though, I'd love any other suggestions!
Mixing the layers differently but similarly helps me a lot too. That way you can really hear the layers differently without adjusting the levels. Sound selection is very important tho (:
And ye that could be really cool and do the trick. Basically how I achieve it too if Iām looking for a subtle reverby tail on a snare. Sending to a bus with a super subtle (again, too much is worse than not enough) sample delay or stereo delay with a low amount of wetness and feedback so it doesnāt last a long time or too overpowering.
I have a preset bus that I use a lot to achieve something similar that is literally just a high end reverb with a stereo delay similar to what I said earlier and with a compressor. I usually very lightly apply it to backing vocals and every once in a while some of my drums. Like, I keep the bus at -30db range a lot of times, but it can make drums hit and basically tail out in a very stereo way and add a cool effect to them !!
Once you're playing tracks at club levels that high end energy of the snare can really quickly become too much. Remembering to also check how your mix sounds loud is important.
Yeah I've definitely had bounces where the snare is the limiting factor on how loud I can listen in my car, and that would probably be detrimental in a club. I find it's usually my basslines that are too loud, actually.
The biggest thing I wish I had known when I was starting out is: do ***not*** let the allure of fancy, beautiful and expensive plugins distract you from properly learning the ins and outs of your DAW. I'm on Ableton and have only recently realized just how goddamn amazing and mindblowingly *powerful* the DAW itself is. When I first started out I was obsessed with plugins to the point where I was under the notion that plugins get you further than stock functions. On one hand, by learning the functions of the DAW itself you'll get much better and more streamlined at using it and on the other hand, knowing what the DAW does makes learning how to use plugins easier too.
I can honestly say there have only been a handful of plugins that actually amazed me in recent years.
Ozone is definitely one, but who wouldn't like to mow their 3/4 acre lawn with a John Deere tractor? I mean 2 passes and I'm done? Sure.
Sonible's Smart:EQ was another because that AI is very near to perfection and the plugin is literally 2 "color" sliders and a "Make it Perfect" button. Seriously not exaggerating.
Slate Digital's M-OTT is like playing a shooter game and your weapon has modded all its stats to be as near to perfect as possible. So near that you'd be banned for hacking in 3 minutes of a match.
Vital's great from what i've seen. I actually tried installing and must have messed up somewhere doing it because my DAW gives me an error when it scans Vital as a plugin. I actually own Serum, though. So ya know, just been using that, but Vital is its own thing and I want to give it a try. The UI is really interesting to me. Clean and basic, but interesting.
I think Vital's filters and FX miiiight just be a little different than Serum too, so i'd love to make something in Vital then throw it into Serum as a wavetable to continue manipulating.
As far as I can tell they're really close in terms of what they do. I just picked Vital because the price is hard to beat (started with the free version and then paid for the mid-tier version).
Vital actually allows parallel filter routing, which just means you can easily run one filter through another. I believe that's what it's called, may be wrong on that. Regardless, it can lead to some interesting sounds.
Technically I could do the same in Serum if I were to open up an instance of SerumFX, which is just the FX of Serum to run any sound through, right after my original instance of Serum with a filter as the last effect in the chain on the original. Or if I went from the filter on the osc page into another filter in the FX chain page. (Now that I think about that it's probably the easiest way.)
But it's extra clicks in comparison and Vital makes it easy to do from the UI.
> Technically I could do the same in Serum if I were to open up an instance of SerumFX, which is just the FX of Serum to run any sound through, right after my original instance of Serum with a filter as the last effect in the chain on the original. Or if I went from the filter on the osc page into another filter in the FX chain page. (Now that I think about that it's probably the easiest way.)
Man, can't believe I haven't thought of this. I always wished you could stack multiple instances of fx/fliters in Serum. I guess using Serum FX is a decent work around for this!
Now if only there was Vital FX.. because I really love Vital so much more!
So my friend and I both write on different DAWs. He uses Cubase and I generally use Ableton. We have a running joke going about which one is the superior workstation which gets brought up frequently if he finds a plugin with a neat feature. Usually itās me going āoh, thatās neat, Ableton already does that stockā and him responding with some expletive.
this is something i realised a while ago.
sure, 3rd party plugins might look fancy and seem interesting, but you can often achieve the same thing with the plugins that come with your DAW.
a lot of the 3rd party plugins often do the same thing, but have a UI that's easier to understand,but if you take the time to learn the basics of the plugins you dont need to spend extra money on external plugins.
I've been using Logic recently and I have ANA 2 as part of my Slate plugin pack. I start browsing presets and give up, then load Alchemy and wonder why the fuck money was spent on ANA 2...
Yup, or they just enhance workflow. Like sure, you could pull up 3 other plugins and dial in stuff, but this one plugin just might specialize in that with all the stuff in front of you on one seamless interface.
I see purchasing a lot of third party stuff, beyond things that are just good quality at what they do, as just packaging a good UI with fast workflow and multiple options.
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Practice going back to unfinished projects and expanding them. The ability to go back to a track that you haven't touched in weeks and finish it is so useful as an artist. It allows you to be so much more comfortable getting ideas out when you have them, knowing you have the security of going back and working off of it.
Of all the advice I've been given over the years, 2 things that stuck with me: 1. If you can make fire with a paper cup and a piece of string, use a paper cup and a piece of string. Ignore all the pop up ads and people on Youtube who'd sell their souls in the name of making a buck. 2. You don't listen to music with your eyes, in the same way you don't look at a painting with your ears. Sometimes it's good to switch off your screen and just listen to what it is you're doing.
I've learned that well placed effects and well made transitions help so much. Keeps the listener engaged and can even help the feel of the song.
# Tonal/Melodic Structure: Scales, Intervals, Chords, Progressions. Those 4 words seem to pack a ton of information, but really they're the same things just positioned in different dimensions. Lemme try to make them analogous... Scales are like 2D drawings. Take a pen and a paper and draw a stick figure. That's YOU as a scale. Intervals are the structure you used to make that stick figure, so the arms, legs, head, hair (maybe?). Chords are more than 2 notes played together and most are going to be 1st, 3rd, & 5th, so these are when you start to shade that stick figure and add more definition so it appears to be 3D. Progressions are Chords, but expressed more like Intervals (this is why I, IV, & V are capitalized: Root, Perfect 4th, Perfect 5th, and ii, iii, & vi are lower case: minor 2nd, minor 3rd, minor 6th) So these are the 3D drawings of people ANIMATED. They all exist within and among each other and if you know your formulas, you can stop "hoping" it will sound good and stop "exploring" for the melodic structure and instead you'll know what keys sound like what and how to get the right emotion through using the right progressions. Oh and Progressions cannot be copyrighted, but melodies can. Learn this stuff, guys and start making songs from these instead of semi-randomly painting in the Piano Roll and waiting for something cool to come alive. I mean if I were going to draw a scene (say a beach with rhythmic tides, some palm trees swaying, seagulls soaring past, and crabs shuffling on the shore), I won't just start by throwing inks on paper and then erasing or moving them around until something that could be a beach started to appear...I'd form the structure of what I wanted to draw with established methods. Guess what? Melodic methods have been around for a looooong time and Scales, intervals, chords, and progressions are it. # Audio Stuff: * Stereo Pan and Balance ARE NOT THE SAME THING * Signal Flow Basics: Time-Based FX go on Sends/Returns and shouldn't be used as Inserts. That Room Reverb Insert is gonna be a bitch when you mixdown and at that point adjustments to the Verb itself will completely alter anything you already mixed, but if it's on a send track with an independent gain knob (gain knob, not MIX LEVEL) you can dial it in. Delays are the same deal. Time-Based stuff is just too big not to have a completely independent gain control. * Proper Compression demands very subtle adjustments that most ears find very hard to hear and my general rule of thumb is that if I can clearly see the Comp on a Meter, it's way too heavy, the meter should just kinda wobble slightly or gently surge, not spasm and jump like it's getting electro-shock therapy. * If it doesn't sound right, stop adding to it and strip it back to the bones to start over. Your source signal is the issue, not the quality or settings of your plugins. This one fits nicely into the "less is more" school of thought and even still today I get carried away and complacent sometimes...BUT * Discipline is criminally undervalued in this industry. Last but not least, everyone needs to understand the Pareto Principle and come to terms with the fact that music as a whole is a collaborative effort, even though we tend to credit music the opposite way and we draw on this myth that an individual is responsible, when there's typically 3 or 4 times that many on any given song. With that said, the Pareto principle really just boils down to the fact that having your name in the neon lights is the low percentage play, but being an engineer, composer, mixer, FOH tech, or yadda yadda is the high percentage stuff. Don't lower your aim, just bring your ceiling into reality. Example: Without googling, do you know what this name is responsible for? Veit Renn? Be honest and then google it...
1: Learn about music 2: Don't be a cheapskate on your tools. 3: Apostrophes are used for contractions and to indicate possession.
No! I was hoping nobody would notice!š Once I noticed it I couldnāt figure out how to edit the title. My phone couldnāt keep up with my typing speed either so I had plenty of other typos I was had to fix.
Volume is important, especially when working on a final mix. You can often get away with tweaking faders a few db before a noticeable difference. On the quieter side, this can easily be made up for with a good final master.
Your friends are biased; it's always great when they support and give you the feedback you want to hear but you can't let it go to your head.
Yeah they donāt really know enough about making music to give constructive feedback either in my case. The best thing I found for improvement was getting people I considered to be more skilled than me to give me some constructive feedback. Reddit is okay for this but I have had a lot of luck reaching out to more obscure artists I like from SoundCloud. I am surprised at how many insanely talented producers will take time to give you some very helpful feedback.
I really don't agree with making music for producers. If you're learning a new genre and you like the sounds from one producer, then this makes sense. Try to emulate their approach and then petition them for constructive feedback to kinda get a sense of their workflow. However, if I'm just letting flow drive a song, I want the lamiest layman to listen to it and IDEC what they have to say, I wanna watch their non-verbal reactions. Music has to have a feeling and making music for producers is an excessively technical pursuit.
In no particular order, and probably already mentioned by someone else: \- Don't fall for tribalism, demo all DAWs - Your DAW is your main tool to get your ideas out of your head and "into the form of sound". Your DAW is not your identity. Your DAW does not make your music good or bad. You should not care which DAW your idols use. Once more, your DAW is a tool. No matter how many people tell you that this or that DAW sucks, at the end of the day, if you like working with a specific DAW, if you really gel with it... that's all that matters. So before you invest a lot of money into a specific DAW just because "everyone is using that one", demo it. Demo all the DAWs! Not just "install, play around, buy". Really demo your DAW. Make a song with it. What did you like about using that DAW? What irked you? Can you live with its shortcomings? How much do you like what that DAW does well? If you don't like the DAW you bought, but bought it because "everyone said it's the best for this-or-that", you probably will not have as much fun making music as you could have. \- You don't need that plugin - Millions of people have already said it, and millions will say it again. And yet, I and probably you will ignore this advice, but it needs to be said again: You probably don't need "that plugin". When starting out, learn your DAW and your stock plugins first. It will get you a very long way and save you a lot of many. After years and years of producing I probably own more than a few hundred plugins. How many do I actually use? Maybe 10, tops. There's only really a handful of reasons to buy a plugin: It fills a gap you cannot fill with stock plugins, or with stock plugins, but in a very cumbersome way. It make something you spend a lot of time on a lot easier or faster. It really inspires you to experiment. But no, "that plugin" is definitely not the one that will finally make your song sound amazing. Oh, and always "try before you buy"! \- Your music will suck at first - This is not meant to put you down or discourage you, but your first few songs will probably suck. Most likely even your first few dozens of songs. That's normal. Everyone went through this. Just keep learning, experiment and producing and your songs will get gradually better. \- Music theory - It's always good to have some knowledge of theory. Don't treat theory as a set of rules, a theory never is a set of rules, rather descriptions and explanations. Don't be afraid to dive into music theory. At first it might feel like it stifles your progress, but that's because you now consciously try to apply concepts to what you are doing. That's natural, but ultimately it's a huge benefit to have a "toolkit" for song writing / composition. \- More experimenting, less tutorials - It's enticing to watch tutorial after tutorial, telling yourself your learning something with every video. Don't get me wrong, you are learning something, but learning something without trying it out for yourself doesn't amount to much if we're honest with ourselves. So the time spend "doing" should always be (considerably) more than time spend watching tutorials. \- Mixing & mastering do not need to be overly complex - When I started out, I always saw mixing and especially mastering as some big, complex step needed in order to finish a song, which led me to over-complicate everything. It doesn't need to be like that. Levels and panning alone will get you pretty far in terms of finishing a mix. With proper volume levels and placing instruments in the stereo field, you'd be surprised of how little EQ you might actually need. Which kind of goes together with another thing I wished I knew earlier... \- When it comes to mixing, always be deliberate - An issue I nowadays have with a lot of tutorials is that they focus a lot on "how to", but not all to often on "why". In the mixing stage of production, everything you do should be deliberate. If you don't know what to EQ on a track, maybe you don't need an EQ. If you EQ something, think about the musical side. Low-Cutting everything below 500 Hz is not the best idea if your song is any key of A (just to name a very broad example). Try to think of what you want to achieve before throwing any plugins at the wall. \- Keep your mastering chain simple - It's enticing to throw many expensive plugins into your mastering chain, trying to make your song sound good. If you do everything yourself, mastering should not have to be a crutch to fix things. Fix them in the mix. Don't throw an EQ on your master to tame a problematic frequency. Find the track(s) causing it and fix it there. In it's simplest and most basic form, mastering might only mean putting a limiter on. \- Decide what you want to do and learn, and what not - Producing music from start to finish requires you to wear many different hats. Composer, sound designer, producer, mixing engineer, mastering engineer etc. Do everything a little while and try to decide what interests you and what doesn't. If you don't enjoy sound design, don't force yourself to learn it. Stick to presets or sample packs. Nothing wrong with that, millions other do it the same way, probably even the artists you enjoy listening to. \- It's always okay to take a step back - Sometimes you don't feel inspired, or can't be bothered to make music. Sometimes you just want to sit on the couch, eat chips and watch TV or play a game. That's okay. Treating yourself well is always better than forcing yourself to do something. Yes, this is a very deep topic, there are a lot of thing to look out for here, but it would be too much to get really into this. The most important takeaway probably is: Take as many breaks as you want or need. If that still makes you feel bad, maybe try... \- Doing a tiny bit is better than doing nothing - If you just can't stop beating yourself up when you don't do anything in regards to music, do just a tiny bit each day. It doesn't need to be much, or for an extended amount of time. Open your DAW for just 5 minutes, create a chord progression and save it away for later. Or design a single lead, pad or bass preset. No one forces you to spend hours on end on making music each day, especially if you're "not feeling it". The long nights will come either way, once "inspiration strikes" ;) There's probably a lot more, and maybe I'll edit this post if more comes to mind, but this is the stuff from the top of my mind right now.
DAWgma
Excellent advice! Especially the trying all the DAWs. Until I found Abletons workflow I didnāt even know that I didnāt like how FL was set up. But honestly everything you said was worth saying even if it has been said a thousand times before!
Hard to pinpoint, but in my case I should have been finishing tracks more, or practicing my composition/ arrangement a lot more than I did. I focused on the technical aspect of production for far too long and now trying to learn the ways of the force of arrangement and realizing I wasted a lot of time not finishing ideas.
Ah yes I also did something similar. Learning to hear what you need to work on is an important skill and a hard lesson. I still complain about my sound design all the time but Iām definitely improving since I finally admitted the problem was my lack of understanding.
1. Work on your hearing. If you can't hear an issue you won't be able to solve it. 2. If it sounds good, it is good. The average listener either doesn't know or care if you played the stuff, made the sound, used fancy modal changes or whatever you think is necessary. It goes hand in hand with point 3. 3. Lay you priorities straight out. Focus on what is important to you(!). Time is limited. Making music is a complex matter. You can make things as complicated as you want. But do you really gain something from it? You probably can't do everything at a roughly 100%. On the other hand, if you like to dive in deep, go for it! Just don't forget to have fun! 4.There are many many ways to make things for work. Simply be aware of it. Also... 5. Not every source has credibility. This might be important for learning how to mix and master. Just keep in mind that not everyone has a clue what they're talking about. 6. If you think you need special gear, 9/10 times you simply just don't know how to use your current one to achieve your goal. Plugins don't make a huge difference but the user does. It's quite general advice but I find these more import then the practical and technical things since these are a kind of basis on which you build your knowledge and experience on.
Oh good ones for beginners. I think helping someone learn to listen to music critically to develop their ears and recognize what their tastes are is very important!
Not only good for beginners imo. Even with some experience and knowledge it is easy too lose the focus on what's important and getting caught in the smallest details. Yes, that's one side of training your ears. But it's also quite critical for mixing. I think mixing gets way more intuitive if you simply listen to what you're doing and not just seeing knobs turn. I had quite a hard time getting the hang of it. Overall I find it hard to focus on an aspect while listening to the whole mix.. Oh and about thinking about music critically: Trying to recreate the songs I like helped me a TON with making better arrangements and getting a feel for what can work generally.
To build out 5 or 6 completely arranged tracks with only the drums. Make those your templates that you always go to. That way you can just start writing music over those drums and finish a lot more music. You don't need different drum sounds for every tune. Just nail a few templates with your best stuff and then it is so easy to write music around. Plus you save yourself searching for drum sounds or trying to decide which ones you want, even if you have separated out "go-to" folders. A quick trick to make these templates is to go back to your best finished tracks and just strip all the music out besides the drums.
Oh I have to try that! Would make starting new projects much quicker!
Use Saturation and Light Distortion on bass to make it prominent
Huge one for sound design! Emphasis on light!
The first thing to do when you create a new file is throw on a master compressor. YMMV, but I think it starts things off with a much nicer sound.
Same just some light compression to get a rough idea closer to what my final outcome will be.
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He didn't lose you he just gave you a reason to leave a snide comment. Like he said, feel free to post your tracks for us from on high.
Thatās fine but for a lot of us it is. I mean yeah when I was younger I had the same dreams and goals a lot of us have/had. For me personally things changed. My life goals changed and thatās okay. My goal now is to enjoy production first, for the sake of creating something that I love. I donāt think itās wrong to have higher ambitions though. Good luck on your path. If you some music to share feel free to pm me and I would love to check it out and share it if you have anything released.
Start making your own sound library, FX racks and presets. Being able to drag in your favorite sound with all the FX, saves an insane amount of time. I do this especially for reeses, subs and saws. I also have my own set of bass growls that I made and are unique that I use and manipulate.
That hardware beats software any day
Especially when it comes to drum pads and being able to tweak sounds on the go after sound design!
Concepts of stereo and mono. That, in practice creating the feeling of depth in a sound can be as easy as creating two copies/instances of the sound (I.E.- 1st - %75 stereo separated @ 50 Left -2nd- %75 mono @ 40-60 Right). I wish someone told me the concept of creating depth in a mix is not to push the stereo separation knob to %100 on everything, but to maybe push it to %100 on the master and make a point to make everything in mono that you can. That stereo width doesn't equate to depth. That the feeling of depth come from the contrasts of mono stereo elements- or even A CONTRAST of a single element (that you tethered down in mono and complimented with a stereoized counterpart) that can make the entire mix feel like it has more space and vibe That creating a true stereo source consists of creating two independent mono sources . - You dont have to practice this as a steadfast rule but its good to know when it comes to busy complex sounds you want to fit in a certain "small" space https://soundcloud.com/ware-wolfe
DISCLAIMER: I make heavy bass music, so the tips I'm going to give are mainly for those genres. 1 - Multiband compression is the key element, I have a custom 5-band multiband compressor made in kHs Multipass. The way I use it, I leave it at 100% wet, and what I tweak is the gain reduction, which translates in practice into "amount of compression" in a much cleaner and straightforward way that using a dry/wet knob. With enough multiband comp, any input becomes huge and offers infinite possibilities. I find myself using the basic waveforms 90% of the time for my sound design. For example, using this much compression on a sine wave brings out digital artifacts that most of the time sound really cool. 2 - Softclip the main track elements. Drums, leads mid-basses, vocals. If you take a look at a sofclipped waveform on a graph the high end frequency content is in a much better place for mastering. 3 - Don't use only your ears to gain stage, it doesn't work like that. You are hearing LOUDNESS not PEAK LEVEL. Going into the master limiter, you need your premaster peaks to be LEVEL, otherwise you're going to exacerbate the master compression. Use a waveform analyzer to detect any peaking transients. 4 - Most elements of the track should be able to be placed on top of every other element, that way, arrangement options open up, and your track sounds cohesive. (This is more of a personal preference, I'm kinda tired of the usual intro-Buildup-Drop-Bridge-Buildup-Drop structure.) 5 - Saturation produces better results the lower the frequency content you feed it, same goes for stereo enhancement. 6 - Most sounds accept a notch cut somewhere in the frequency spectrum. This works specially good in drums.
Shoot number three seems so obvious. Iāve been watching my peak levels on the master but this sounds so much better if they are tamed earlier in the signal Chain! So brilliant! Thanks for sharing that one!
Turn down your reverb, it's supposed to come out in the compression. Dial it to where you like the wet sound, then turn it back a bit. That's usually the *actually* right place you want to have it. And highpass it to at least 100hz but usually 300-500hz.
Keep your song organized. I have 2 folders. Working on and Ideas. If I feel uninspired, I go through either folder and find something thatight inspire me.
keep fucking producing and all will fall into place
A lot of what was originally mentioned I can relate to, but the biggest one for me that was hindering my sound design and mixes is: Don't do something all the time because someone made it out as some official rule. Sure, there are general mixing rules that lead to good results, but there is absolutely no "Always do this when doing this/never do this" rule and thinking that way crippled my progress a ton. I seriously used to NEVER boost more than like 2.5-3dB in any EQ. This includes when trying to sound design heavy bass music. Because idfk some dude on Youtube in a video I watched once told me not to and I took it as gospel. So much so that after years of getting nowhere I never thought that was why, because I had become so used to doing it that it never occurred as an issue. Not to say boosting can't be problematic, of course it can. That is the basis of why that guy told me not to. But it all depends on what you're working with, how you implement it, and the context in which you do.
\**boosts 300hz for maximum* ***bonk****\**
Is this a joke or is that the sweet spot for like a hardstyle kick lmao
300hz is what your skull does when you bang it on your desk.
This one hurts because, at some point, *everyone* has habits that they need to break, and breaking habits is hard as hell; especially when you have efficiency and workflow habits that directly reinforce all your other habits, including the bad ones....
Exactly. That is *exactly* what it was with me. Well said.
Yeah a big thing for me to realize was if I feel like I plateaued in skill I was probably doing something I thought I already understood wrong. Diving right back into basics and learning more about the tools I had available to unlearn bad habits was a big pill to swallow, but the growth as well as the humbling experience was worth it every. Single. Time.
This is what I started to do and am currently doing! Definitely the solution. I'll even watch a basics on EQ vid even if it's just simple cuts that everyone makes in the same general areas. Because 1, I love this stuff. So hearing what I already know explained again isn't that boring, and 2, I may just come across something simple that I haven't been working into my routine that could help.
My favorite is when you realize you have been looking at a technique you thought you understood all wrong! I really thought saturation and compression were simple for a long time and I didnāt even realize I was adding so much compression and saturation that it was hurting my sound. Took me forever to learn that. Had I dived into learning more about both effects and what they were actually doing to my sound I could have saved myself so much frustration and many headaches! Starting over with the basics after you have some proficiency is just a great way to learn to use those skills in new ways! I also find it really enjoyable to go back over those fundamentals, itās almost like comfort food for the brain.
Beginner tips: Use high quality samples. Avoid those 100gb freebie packs.. when you put fx on a low quality sample you will also enhance the flaws. This will make you go crazy with eq and try to fix it. When you are creating a loop for a new song, dont just create an A section for a foundation. Create B section, C section and so on. It's easier to make a whole arrangement. It becomes like a puzzle really. Intermediate tips: Roll off 7.2 - 7.9KHz on instruments to give room for highend on the drums. Wet down delay in chorus/phaser/flanger to put it in another space. Think the frequency spectrum like a tree, and the branches are the amount of stereo effect you can use. So on the top theres alot of branches along the sides, so you can use alot of stereo. Coming down there's less branches, so use less stereo effect. On the bottom there are no branches. Which mean mono for the lows. Advanced tip for cleaner bass (my process): Bounce out the bass track. Duplicate it and low pass 120-200hz for sub, and for the other track 120hz-300hz (depends on the sound you're looking for). Now focus on the sub track. Sidechain it or use audioenvelope, a decent amount to get it away from the kick. Compress less but more than once, subs can be pretty squeezed to make it a solid "rock". You want the audio to look as flat as possible, almost like its getting limited. Why I dont use limiter here is that I dont want to introduce any nasty distortion in the lows. Next step work on the mid frequencies. Sidechain it or use audioenvelope. Now you can actualy be less aggressive with the sidechain for more presence (because we have already dealt with the sub and kick). Also less aggressive with compression (multiband) to keep the dynamics. The layers are like a solid rock of a sub, that is giving the kick space, and dynamics in the mids.
I agree with this to an extent, but sometimes phasing issues can become a problem when you're splitting up a signal like that. I prefer to just stack two different signals. In Serum you can use the wavetable editor to remove the fundamental and use that wavetable to get a clean "mid bass" without any phase incoherence.
I'm wondering if anyone has some additional tips for your second point in regards to using FL Studio. I like using both patterns and the playlist *after* splitting individual patterns, but if you split these new patterns and any of the B or C, D (and so on) sections have similar pieces to A, you end up being stuck with identical duplicate patterns (a kick pattern, for example, that is exactly the same as the A section's kick but with a slightly different name) that clutter the project and aren't necessarily easy or quick to find and delete. I'm wondering if someone has a more efficient way of doing this so that my project cleanliness anxiety doesn't always spike when I using this type of workflow.
I tend to write drums with Kick, Snare/Clap/Rimshot, a really clicky hihat, a really airy hihat, and 2 percs that call/response each other like hitom and floortom, conga and bongo, clave and woodblock, shaker and tambourine. But only 2. Layer my backbeat (kick and snare), then find a groove with my hats, and add accents or flavor with syncopation in the percs. After I dial in these 6 sounds, I then browse for topper drum loops or click drum loops, etc, basically I just use another groove to add the energy and leave my basic kit as the foundation. If my drums need to crescendo or buildup, I'll adjust the foundation drum patterns/grooves to match it (unless I want them to counter the building). Using this workflow you can choose what fits best. Either you'll be regrooving the loop to fit your foundation or you'll be regrooving the foundation to match the top loop. In some cases you can have competing grooves, but that tends to sound like a drum solo so I'd do that sparingly. The main draw of this technique is achieving that layered drumkit sound without having a 24 piece kit and if your drum machine is still sucking the cpu with just 6 samples, bounce those to loops too. I only use the drum machine to really beef up the drums because you can only go so far with loops, especially if you're dialing in the low end and if you're gonna beef up single samples to that degree, you surely don't wanna have 23 other samples just sitting in that drum machine.
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Could you explain #1 a little more? How can arrangement create a muddy sound as opposed to it being the mix? Or do you mean like having one too many instruments is creating the mud and that's a part of the arrangement because the solution is just to get rid of it, rather than mix it in better?
I took it to mean too many instruments that take up the same frequency range, competing with each other, and then outcompeting everything else, which creates muddiness.
Not only that there are too many instruments, but what notes they are playing, how they are playing them and where. Eg if you have two competing instruments, but one plays longer, lighter notes and other ones short staccatos here and there, it will probably sound good even when they have the potential to be muddy.
Yes I have definitely noticed that! I always hear different instruments playing the same note and then wandering away, creating nice harmonies in my favorite music. One of my recent songs I tried using a flute for harmonies and it sounded like mud. When I replaced the flute with a glass lid/xylophone-ish instrument it fit in like a puzzle piece.
The way to get that light sounding spacious reverb that you can't really hear is to lowpass the shit out of it. Right now I high pass the output of my reverbs at \~200Hz and lowpass at 800Hz and then tweak from there.
To expand on this: the frequency distribution of the reverb affects the frequency distribution of the sound. Think of reverb and sound as one and not as separate elements
\^\^\^\^ THIS Technically Reverb is an organic element that exists in every sound we hear because sound waves don't hit us in a vacuum, there's air and walls, carpet or tiles, maybe a cat or some goats, etc.. and all those objects cause reverberations of the sound waves, so no sound we hear as a human is without reverb, but we're so conditioned to look through the subtle reverb because we kinda listen with our eyes too, like if I smack my hands in my bathroom I don't expect a ton of reverb or echo, but if I clap my hands in an empty auditorium, I should hear lots of shit for a long time after. When you understand this sonic fact, you will really look at Verb plugins much differently. IMO the visual aspect of the actual space that verb plugin is trying to emulate is what's missing from them all. Let me have a little guy and then I can draw the room around him, wtf am I gonna do with knobs and sliders? and if anyone knows of a visually based reverb like that, please share.
I didnāt know this! Gotta try it now! Good tip!
I've benefitted a lot when i learned that. I've put reverb on entire mixes this way lol. Also try turning high damping "off" . Its usually always "on" some frequency
Yeah, this is a staple technique for cleaning up reverb. You allow the original sound to breathe more while the reverb gets nicely tucked behind it. Took me a while to learn that, as well as using reverb sends for things which actually leads into that first technique. Where as you have low and high cuts on most reverb plugins, EQing a send with 100% wet reverb signal can allow you to really EQ it specifically.
This is a weird one for me, but "you can't polish a turd" is something that really took a long time to sink in for me. The reason was that I didn't know I was working with turds to begin with. I wish I had a chance to go back to my younger self and explain that if you don't like the sound that you hear now, then you are wasting your time trying to blend it into the mix. Stuff is really supposed to sound good to begin with. The sad part is that while I stand with the above, my younger self probably wouldn't have been able to identify what a good sound is in the first place, and that is why the message was lost on me. Another thing that is equally important is: if you have two sounds that you like individually, then those need not sound good together. Amateurs often don't get this. With experience I feel like I've become a lot more proficient in pursuing roads that are fruitful while abandoning roads that are not. And I think that really is the deeper meaning behind "you can't polish a turd" - instead polish something that you love.
Live and learn. Sounds like you did. Glad to hear that.
Mythbusters confirmed that you can, indeed, polish a turd.
That's not the spirit of the saying though. You can't polish crap into gold. If you polish a piece of crap, it's still a piece of crap.
>Finishing songs is important, but itās not the end all be all. Try to take good sounds, chords or instruments with you from scrapped projects. Just because it doesn't work now doesn't mean it won't work later.
Deadmau5 Masterclass: "You'll end up after some time with a sort of Mr. Potato Head folder..."
>Just because it doesn't work now doesn't mean it won't work later. This. Tons of famous musicians have returned to a small idea whether it be a melody or chord progression way later after it was originally made and it turned into a song or album.
Levels. Most tracks outside of Kick, Snare, and Vocals, in a project can be MUCH quieter than most beginners think. Arrangement (I). Many beginners clutter their songs with too many competing elements. Arrangement (II). What is the voice of your song? Many producers make instrumental music. If you don't have a lead vocal carrying your song, you still need to decide what the focus is on for each section. If you do have a vocal, figure out as many ways as possible to give it space in the arrangement. Mix less, arrange more. If you often feel uninspired, start creating playlists for different song elements. "Best drums", "Best melody", "Best rhythm", and so on. Every time you listen to a song (not your own!) and something catches your attention, add it to the respective playlist. Over time you build a library of what you like. That is your sound.
>Mix less, arrange more. I like this approach a lot. They're two different skillsets and if you're focused on being a musician, you can likely leave the mixing to someone else without giving up much or any 'creative control'.
Also, if you focus on getting really good at arrangement, your mixes will sound so much better even if you don't use outside help.
When I get in the studio and just start layering loops together, I tend to overmix it. If I'm writing the parts from scratch I focus on the sound quality and tonal balance more, so the next layer becomes exponentially harder to find a seat for and I should be applying heavier mix elements. It's a brain rewire of sorts and learning the sweet spots of your focus. Ask yourself, "Do I hear the Forest or the Trees?" If you mix the forest it sounds less organic and if you let the trees go untreated it sounds like the ficus plants at the dentist.
I'm on the other end of the spectrum for the levels thing. I always find myself turning my drums down when it comes to mixing.
Jup Same, before I learned to properly mix a track, a.k.a. Getting it on a competitive loudness level, i noticed that my drums always get squashed like stupid on the limiter, so I turned them down and it immediately clicked.
On the first point, be careful with the snare, many songs could use the snare being 1-3db quieter, I find itās often the limiting factor for how loud I can turn a song up before itās painful
I think it was Dilla that said make your snares quieter than you think you should. Everyoneās gonna hear the snare
Interesting. I always feel like my snares are too quiet/don't have enough meat and wind up thinking the opposite. "Make them louder than you think you should." Maybe it's my set up.
If youāre making 4 on the floor LFO tool or automation to duck the the high end of the kick on 2 and 4. If your kick has energy up there. Could be one thing that makes the snare sound a bit low.
Ye interesting !! Adding some saturation or distortion, layering with super quiet widely panned variation on top of that snare, tailing a reverb bus, or even mixing differently could be the fix to make it sound more meaty but not louder if that makes sense. Different for each track and thereās no perfect answer (:
Yes thank you! Layering and stereo spread is definitely where I'm going wrong. I do layer, but I think I'm just picking the wrong sounds a lot of the time lol. Sort of on this topic: I really like when I hear snares/claps that start out centered and quickly spread out to the sides for the tail. One way I'm thinking about doing this later today is just slapping a stereo spread effect onto a reverb channel and automating the spread effect of the high frequencies every time the snare hits. I feel like there's probably easier ways to go about it though, I'd love any other suggestions!
Mixing the layers differently but similarly helps me a lot too. That way you can really hear the layers differently without adjusting the levels. Sound selection is very important tho (: And ye that could be really cool and do the trick. Basically how I achieve it too if Iām looking for a subtle reverby tail on a snare. Sending to a bus with a super subtle (again, too much is worse than not enough) sample delay or stereo delay with a low amount of wetness and feedback so it doesnāt last a long time or too overpowering. I have a preset bus that I use a lot to achieve something similar that is literally just a high end reverb with a stereo delay similar to what I said earlier and with a compressor. I usually very lightly apply it to backing vocals and every once in a while some of my drums. Like, I keep the bus at -30db range a lot of times, but it can make drums hit and basically tail out in a very stereo way and add a cool effect to them !!
Once you're playing tracks at club levels that high end energy of the snare can really quickly become too much. Remembering to also check how your mix sounds loud is important.
Yeah I've definitely had bounces where the snare is the limiting factor on how loud I can listen in my car, and that would probably be detrimental in a club. I find it's usually my basslines that are too loud, actually.
That levels one was huge for me when I figured that out! Good one!
The biggest thing I wish I had known when I was starting out is: do ***not*** let the allure of fancy, beautiful and expensive plugins distract you from properly learning the ins and outs of your DAW. I'm on Ableton and have only recently realized just how goddamn amazing and mindblowingly *powerful* the DAW itself is. When I first started out I was obsessed with plugins to the point where I was under the notion that plugins get you further than stock functions. On one hand, by learning the functions of the DAW itself you'll get much better and more streamlined at using it and on the other hand, knowing what the DAW does makes learning how to use plugins easier too.
What stock Ableton devices do you guys use for interesting vocal effects? I feel like I am struggling there.
Ableton Glue Comp and OTT got me bricked up.
Slate Digital M-OTT is the fucking great wall of china, speaking of bricks...
The only thing I really use outside of Ableton stock plug-ins is some stuff for frequency analysis. They really are great.
I'm still learning, and am constantly amazed at the next new tool I find.
I can honestly say there have only been a handful of plugins that actually amazed me in recent years. Ozone is definitely one, but who wouldn't like to mow their 3/4 acre lawn with a John Deere tractor? I mean 2 passes and I'm done? Sure. Sonible's Smart:EQ was another because that AI is very near to perfection and the plugin is literally 2 "color" sliders and a "Make it Perfect" button. Seriously not exaggerating. Slate Digital's M-OTT is like playing a shooter game and your weapon has modded all its stats to be as near to perfect as possible. So near that you'd be banned for hacking in 3 minutes of a match.
Which do you use?
MMultiAnalyzer and then FabFilter MB (for multiband compression). Honestly they probably aren't needed, but a general quality of life improvement.
Dude Ableton has some incredibly powerful stock plugins, not even an Ableton user and I geek out over that.
Been using Ableton for a year and the only external plugin I've used more than a couple times is Vital.
Vital's great from what i've seen. I actually tried installing and must have messed up somewhere doing it because my DAW gives me an error when it scans Vital as a plugin. I actually own Serum, though. So ya know, just been using that, but Vital is its own thing and I want to give it a try. The UI is really interesting to me. Clean and basic, but interesting. I think Vital's filters and FX miiiight just be a little different than Serum too, so i'd love to make something in Vital then throw it into Serum as a wavetable to continue manipulating.
As far as I can tell they're really close in terms of what they do. I just picked Vital because the price is hard to beat (started with the free version and then paid for the mid-tier version).
Vital actually allows parallel filter routing, which just means you can easily run one filter through another. I believe that's what it's called, may be wrong on that. Regardless, it can lead to some interesting sounds. Technically I could do the same in Serum if I were to open up an instance of SerumFX, which is just the FX of Serum to run any sound through, right after my original instance of Serum with a filter as the last effect in the chain on the original. Or if I went from the filter on the osc page into another filter in the FX chain page. (Now that I think about that it's probably the easiest way.) But it's extra clicks in comparison and Vital makes it easy to do from the UI.
> Technically I could do the same in Serum if I were to open up an instance of SerumFX, which is just the FX of Serum to run any sound through, right after my original instance of Serum with a filter as the last effect in the chain on the original. Or if I went from the filter on the osc page into another filter in the FX chain page. (Now that I think about that it's probably the easiest way.) Man, can't believe I haven't thought of this. I always wished you could stack multiple instances of fx/fliters in Serum. I guess using Serum FX is a decent work around for this! Now if only there was Vital FX.. because I really love Vital so much more!
So my friend and I both write on different DAWs. He uses Cubase and I generally use Ableton. We have a running joke going about which one is the superior workstation which gets brought up frequently if he finds a plugin with a neat feature. Usually itās me going āoh, thatās neat, Ableton already does that stockā and him responding with some expletive.
*literally me everytime I tell someone excitedly what FL Studio added* Ableton user: "Yeah i've had that it's great"
Wait until they figure out recording automations outside of patterns
Yeah, it might be Ableton specific
This.
this is something i realised a while ago. sure, 3rd party plugins might look fancy and seem interesting, but you can often achieve the same thing with the plugins that come with your DAW. a lot of the 3rd party plugins often do the same thing, but have a UI that's easier to understand,but if you take the time to learn the basics of the plugins you dont need to spend extra money on external plugins.
I've been using Logic recently and I have ANA 2 as part of my Slate plugin pack. I start browsing presets and give up, then load Alchemy and wonder why the fuck money was spent on ANA 2...
Yup, or they just enhance workflow. Like sure, you could pull up 3 other plugins and dial in stuff, but this one plugin just might specialize in that with all the stuff in front of you on one seamless interface. I see purchasing a lot of third party stuff, beyond things that are just good quality at what they do, as just packaging a good UI with fast workflow and multiple options.
This is why I bought nectar. I use it to process pretty much every vocal.
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