Daw Thread

DAW Thread

Which DAW do you use?

Discuss your hardware.

Share tips and tricks you have learned through working with your DAW.

Talk about music production in general.

Other urls found in this thread:

youtu.be/yvNYSfTAg70
cotillion.bandcamp.com/
clyp.it/lzm4d2ch
clyp.it/krd0f11a
clyp.it/15vf5gfk
youtube.com/watch?v=nSH4GdKPTjQ
youtube.com/watch?v=6nq4M7QBxt4
soundcloud.com/gradient-channel/im-still-alive
twitter.com/SFWRedditVideos

pic related not my setup.

Oh yeah, share tunes you have self produced also!

One bump in case anybody is interested, if not, then I'll let thread die a sad lonely death.

go on /prod/ on mu, or join the /prod/ discord if you are into electronic music

PreSonus AudioBox USB and Studio One 3 Artist that came with it.

Studio One is pretty good I think.

FL Studio hate thread

Using an old as dirt EMU 1616 pci card with Reaper.

Computer is a 2012 ish AMD system.


How do you like the presonus AI?

beep boop motherfuckers

but seriously any clyps you guys post I will listen to regardless of genre.

>presonus AI
I don't know what that is. I'm new to all this stuff. Have been playing drums for years but only recently started recording stuff myself.

AI = audio interface

How many mics do you setup for your kit?

I don't record drums. Just some keyboards, guitar.

Ah gotcha. I program drums since I can't play haha.

Are you using virtual instruments or hardware?

I use Yamaha P45 as a midi keyboard and bought pick related recently for programming drums. I live in an apartment, so can't really use drums there.

I've been thinking about getting a drum pad like Yamaha DTX Multi Pad or Roland Octopad just for midi recording so I could use drum sticks but they are pretty expensive. Gonna try that midi controller first.

cool. have any exaples of your work?

Renoise.

It has it's limits, but I like it because know my way around.

never used that one.

I looks like it's aimed towards electronic music.

Nope. But I've recorded some gameplay using Audiobox and Studio One. I guess you could listen to audio quality youtu.be/yvNYSfTAg70

Also this is where I play drums. And all the guitars have been recorded by the guitarist at his home. He also did all the mixing and mastering. He uses some old version of ProTools. cotillion.bandcamp.com/

Hey you're a pretty good drummer!

Thanks, user.

I need to find a good drummer for this band.

Couple of song ideas from our EP:

clyp.it/lzm4d2ch
clyp.it/krd0f11a

It seems like everybody plays guitar or bass, and the few capable drummer are too few and far inbetween here in San Diego.

Op here:

A cool trick for weak sounding kick drums:

Side chain isolate kick drum to a track containing a gate and a tone generator. Get a nice low tone established, then adjust the gate to only let the tone through when the kick hits.

Really beefs up the bottom end of the drums nicely.

Well I'm from NY. I'm also looking for a band but music here is pure garbage.

sounds nice ill try that user

Another:

Bass drum and bass guitar compete for the same frequencies. Choose one to sit below the other. Carve out a little frequency on one , and increase the same frequency on the other.

Then, do a send from the kick drum to bass track. Add a compressor , and tell the compressor to receive from the send from the kick. Set the compressor to reduce the signal on the bass guitar for a split second may be 1-2 db when the kick drum hits.

Viola! no more blown out bottom end.

So sidechaining basically?

Yeah. That's the word.

clyp.it/15vf5gfk
From an upcoming electronic EP of mine. I-I'm still learning so it might not sound too professional, but hey! It's fun to make and I hope someone will enjoy listening to it too.

adtrack2.exe

how do you master your track so it all sounds "tight" and "fused" together. It's really hard to explain but most professionally produced tracks i here especially in electronic music its like there this constant "static" noise going on in the background and it helps "glue" everything together. Fuck. does anyone know what i mean? im using albeton

Mastering is the final eq tweaks and compression generally of the final exported .wav from your DAW.

That is very general of course. You should try to make your tracks as perfect as possible from the DAW, but sometimes you will have to make tweaks for track continuity etc.

The tightness you are perceiving is most likely compression. The scratchiness you are perceiving could either be some sort of saturation effect, but most likely the entire track has been compressed / limited to increase loudness, which has the effect of peaks that exceed 0, so therefore are cut off. This can create a distortion of thos peaks which manifests as a digital artifact.

In metal we do this all the time because loudness sounds better to the ear. It makes the lows and the highs sound better.

Knowing this, it is easier to get a more accurate mix at lower volumes.

so do i add compression, saturation, etc before or after i export it? and i always add a limiter just to make sure it never goes above 0 (when the bar turns red)

Not my type of jam (metalhead here), but the production is crisp and clear. Wish I had a sub here so I could enjoy the bottom end.

Sounds good dude!

There's more than one way to skin a cat, but I would add the saturation on the master bus, then export, and then tweak eq (rolloff lows / highs, mid bump etc), and then compress to taste.

Make your mastering a chain so you are not stabbing in the dark from track to track.

Also, about limiting, it's ok if you go above 0. It will just artifact, but that's the game nowadays. Open up a metal track that is loud as fuck in your DAW, and study the waveform. You will see what I mean.

On the other hand, the tracks that I make for myself, I will use the following formula. Take the average of the L/R RMS, and then subtract 16 dbs from that. Then, I would use the resulting value as my adjustment on the limter with a ceiling of -.1. If it's not loud enough, I will simply turn up the damn volume.

Tracks I make for other people are blown the fuck out because they want to compete. Keep in mind that streaming services will add their own compression to manage differing volume levels between tracks, so If you want to see what a track really looks like rip it from a cd.

>Open up a metal track that is loud as fuck in your DAW, and study the waveform. You will see what I mean.

Yeah same thing in the EDM world, an entire track thats just a straight up black bar of supposedly waveforms...

yea i think thats what im trying to get at here. Where the entire waveform is like a solid block. I like how those kinds of tracks sound. Just sounds "dirty" to me in a good way

Well it still works, it's just that the dynamics are reduced, which can have a fatiguing effect on your ear.

Admittedly in metal, where we are borderline noise anyway, this effect may not be as apparent, but once you hear the artifacting in a song it is hard to unhear, and annoying.

well shit then user, lust throw a limiter on the master buss and slam that shit haha.

A lot of EDM songs use white noise to fill the spectrum, if that's what you mean. Just don't overuse it, because it becomes really obvious and annoying when it's not subtle.

The "tightness" and pro quality doesn't come from just simply a good mastering, but from a lot of contributing factors, such as mixing, effects, sound selection/design ("you can't polish a turd" they say, as it's hard to make a perfect sounding song with shitty sounds), composition/arrangement (so each instrument has its own place), etc.

There is no trick to achieving pro quality. You have to master each of those things to make songs that can compete with people who not only mastered them, but also excel at them.

Pirate the izotope ozone suite and watch the two andivax mastering tutorials (he uses ozone 4, so for learning use that or 5, then upgrade later to the latest).

>zotope ozone
best vst ever

Are you being sarcastic?
Because it's actually very good.
You really can't do better than Ozone when it comes to in-the-box stuff.
Maybe only with single one-use pieces you select individually, but that's not an option for a beginner, an it takes many years of trying a ton of plugins to find the ones you like the best.
With oZone you get a very good all-in-one solution that's also very easy and quick to use.

>sarcastic

No...I love it, his compressors are better than the Waves ones...

Ah, alright, my bad.

Back in 2006-08 I made lots of 'music' and uploaded it all to music.download.com. The site shut down at the same time my HP Pavilion shittop went haywire. An album worth of songs gone, haven't produced any music after that.

how do i stop doing gay music

replace all the trance leads with guitar leads and pronto

totally not gay music

tried that and ruined it too

Cubase and Ableton for the DAW,

Selected hardware:
2 x yamaha o2R 1 x o3d digi desk
mackie vlz 24,4,2 analog desk
Clark tecknik large format 32,24 analog desk

roland jp8080
waldorf pulse
novation supernova
korg electribes
korg x3r
korg volkas
roland jv2080
quasimidi quasar

akai mpc 2000
akai s5000
akai s6000
yamaha a5000
emu esi

genelec 8050
naumann 0300D
monitors

Arturia plugs
Waves Plugs

Drawmer masteflow DC2476 on the mastering

MOTU 828, 2408, Focusrite saffire 4 channel and OTARI RADAR adda's on the compute in/ out.

how the phuq does one post a trak?

>clyp.it/15vf5gfk

good production and a nice sound thing going on.

But.... it's that old thing, I think it was an old time jazz musician, maybe Miles Davis said " you stick to 4/4 and I kik from 4/4 to 3/4 to 5/8 to 6/7. that's why I'm funky and you're shit"

Yeah, I ain't mastered it either but a good lesson in making things interesting.

Jazz is the teacher for all dance music, like it or not.

i like what you are saying user

look at polyrhythms, that's a good one.

I could go on all night.

please go on, im having big issues with my drums and rythmic shit

i did read something on polyrhythms, the 3 + 3 + 2 idea, or having different signatures for the diff voices, counterpoint etc

but ive never thought of changing the signature for the whole thing

>ctrl+f reaper
>1 result

what the fuck Sup Forums? you're supposed to know your shit

Ableton. FM8, Sylenth1, Reaktor.

Play with MIDI randomization, arpeggiator and some default sounds.

Route sound in, sound out. Shit ton of effects.

Spend hours hooked on this. love it

>>some default sounds
*chords

Well, for melody (counter point) use the technique called "cannons" If you want dance music.

Basically pic your three or so notes, do a 3 bar loop, overlay a 5 bar loop same root note and scale etc.

That's hypnotic long repeating dance music.

Used all the time by everyone, takes a bit of experimenting to make it sound good, but it's never boring. Change 3/4 to 5/7 or whatever works.

Drums, Polyrhythms never get boring, do a kik loop at 4/4, snare loop fills at 5/7 hats at 9/11 all looping and it never gets boring.

All of the above and cut and use the 4/4 segments that sound cool, Or just use them raw.

Try it :)

Also. I do not record any thing via mic or guitar.

So it's basically me with headphones and my computer.

Will a sound interface be a good idea?

For headphones I have some Sennheiser HD 205 II. Not some super expensive ones.

That's cool and all if you're making music for yourself (and maybe other nerds on the Internet), but if you're trying to make something serious out of your music-making, then this is going to mmake it too hard to follow for most people, and they won't like it for being "too weird" and "non-musical".
In dance music this is absolutely key. You want your listeners to be able to predict what's gonna happen, and if it gets irregular they won't like it. Especially in a club setting.

Just a heads up.

that's how all non boring music is made, mix it up, ad structure later

I agree, but your idea of non-boring is different than a normie non-musician's idea of non-boring.
They'll just think it's random shit.

With respect, I disagree.

Use the technique to make parts interesting, structure the parts into something that works.

It's an age old thing that everybody I've ever heard of uses.

Beyonce rocks the polyrhythms, so did Bach.

I'm using LMMS right now, and it honestly seems easier to create individual loops in LMMS and string shit together in Audacity. So much overflow from one pattern to another

I'm not specifically talking about polyrhythms. I'm talking about all those "experimental" things you said to borrow from Jazz, different time signatures, etc.
If you just make a normal song and integrate just a punch of them to spice things up a little bit, then I agree with you.
It's just that I read here all the time things like "if your song isn't incredibly complex and intricate musically, then you're a noob who make songs for children", and from what I often hear on Sup Forums, many of them focus more on making music like that, rather than "normal" musical-sounding music that everyone can like, so I just wanted to point out to anyone who reads here that it's important not to fall in the trap of making music that's impressive and non-boring for musicians, because to everyone else it's going t sound like shit.

But if you're talking about using them carefully in otherwise "normal-sounding" songs, then I agree with you.

>"if your song isn't incredibly complex and intricate musically
I never said that, I like simple music.
>Sup Forums
shut up
>because to everyone else it's going t sound like shit
and most things everybody makes do.......
>using them carefully
that's the key here, music is an art.

I think I agree with you too.

youtube.com/watch?v=nSH4GdKPTjQ

>I never said that, I like simple music.
Alright, sorry my bad.

>shut up
I know...

>and most things everybody makes do.......
Yeah, but simply sounding like shit is different than "what the fuck is this" "is this even music", which is what experimental-sounding stuff sounds like to normal people.

>that's the key here, music is an art.
Yeah, didn't think you meant it that way.

Yeah, alrighty m8, We're on the same wavelength, good luck with it, what are you up to musically at the mo?

I've been making electronic music on and off since 2012, but never got to actually make something "premeditated". I just see all I do as an excersize, so I just make songs with new techniques I've learned and things like that, and whatever comes out comes out (usually some sort of electronic/EDM thing). Basically I never massed the "I'm just practicing, not making songs" mental stage.
I haven't finished a single song since 2015 though. I have hundreds of started projects, but can't bring myself to actually finish them thanks to crippling depression.
ATM I've even basically stopped listening to music altoghether.

What about you?
is this [] your setup?

yeah I never made anything premeditated either, Can't imagine any other way, wouldn't want to.
Send stuff out though, I mean just send it out for the criticism/contract both usefull.

I haven't finished a song since 04, same reason.

youtube.com/watch?v=6nq4M7QBxt4

don't know if you're into this stuff but it's pretty uplifting.

Yes that's my room a couple of years ago.

get your shit together people, whats depressing you so much

success (good point)

>yeah I never made anything premeditated either, Can't imagine any other way, wouldn't want to.
>Send stuff out though, I mean just send it out for the criticism/contract both usefull.
I upload almost everything I've finished on SoundCloud and Youtube. Mainly to give myself the deadline of 1 song per month, and to get feedback from the /r/edmproduction meetups.
Here it is if you're interested:
https:// soundcloud . com / same le um

I liked the song, thank you.
Funny thing I know Clark and have two of his albums on my HDD, but never got to listen to them.

Various life things.

thx, trying it this night

>https:// soundcloud . com / same le um

Can't make it work, there's a discrepancy.

This had better be good.........................

how does this even work?

Wut?

There are spaces in the link. Just remove those.

>This had better be good.........................
Spoiler alert: It's not.

sometimes i use LMMS and sometimes i use FL via wine/playonlinux.

my music isnt good

soundcloud.com/gradient-channel/im-still-alive

got it
It doesn't, that's the problem inherent in our society.

I was hoping you had a solution.

You have to sellout by making whatever makes the most money and focus more on connections rather than on getting better at your craft.
Hire ghost-producers if possible.

sam eleum?

well, the best i can do is initiate you into the intrincancies of the Sup Forums lifestyle: "How to be happy when the jews are actively scheming to symbolically castrate you"

Yes?

good advice possibly, but I'm along way past that thanks anyway.

>but I'm along way past that
What do you mean?

i think he meant he is depressed cause he is successful

But he said he hasn't finished a song since 04.
Doesn't sound like someone who's too successful.

Maybe he's successful in other areas?

get your shit together,
That's what I was going to say, I was just going to say that.

if i am to believe all this is his , then maybe by not finishing a song since 04 he means songs he really likes to do, or he does audio work for movies/tv sth

>get your shit together,
I-is it that bad?

Until he tells us what he meant, we can only speculate.

I'm buying it, where can I buy it.

No Time.

Better than the bag of shit airfix twat just sent me.

No, really.!

Any recommendations for loonix daws? Currently trying out lmms, seems okay

Maybe it's because I'm not a native English speaker, but I don't understand what you're trying to tell me.

are you having a go at me?
I don't know what I meant, don't stress,

captcha:
Mariana CHASE

I'm not trying to tell you anything you didn't already know. Peace be with you my friend.

Alright.

work harder, come on man, we want to hear that stuff.

That's easier said than done my friend.
Thanks for the encouragement though. I appreciate it.

Who else FL Studio selling simple trap beats by the dozen?