/prod/

What's the trick to finding a good sample to use as an instrument? One with good tone and harmony (if my terms are correct)?

Other urls found in this thread:

ymck.net/en/download/magical8bitplug/
youtube.com/watch?v=UPGuqOQ_uEY
youtube.com/watch?v=RCjvWwME4Z4
youtube.com/watch?v=_Y73bq7fP2o
clyp.it/nfeuyhwv
clyp.it/yxtc4a4g
clyp.it/ycemv1yk
youtube.com/watch?v=MZzc32UfAkw
youtube.com/watch?v=tCnBrrnOefs
clyp.it/r1hsrsdk
clyp.it/si0iyc4c?token=f5371d25d21a673b363bee1b1d9be20b
clyp.it/vpqmaatb?token=ba673034b35e04c53fd871b8aacc1d07
clyp.it/yuifdz3o?token=3c91f30d037433c93fcd6fed7d7e73f5
clyp.it/h32lkjxo
twitter.com/SFWRedditGifs

record it yourself

>tfw trying to compose a piano heavy piece without any knowledge of music theory
it's fun but it's also hell

I've always had better luck using the magical 8bit plugin set to a 25% pulse wave for throwing a bunch of random MIDI notes together

ymck.net/en/download/magical8bitplug/

forgot what i was about to ask

Something without a ton of transients or weird artifacts--it can work sometimes but usually it will just sound cluttered and shitty if you transpose it on a piano roll. But basically anything will work it's all circumstantial and dependent on what you're trying to make

this is really neat, thanks

does anyone have a torrent for vulf compressor on PC?

Dead thread

sadly

fl studio or ableton?

FL Studio

any of you guys own the m audio bass traveler? thinking about getting one because my phone's headphone output is pretty weak, even for low impedance models

Both

I want to make music with synths but I have no idea how to design sounds using synth1 without just fiddling around and I have no idea about music theory/again without fucking around.
Also I'm using a keyboard as input and I find it extremely difficult to record music that sounds in time using reaper.
Any tips? Guides?

this

youtube.com/watch?v=UPGuqOQ_uEY

WTFFFFFFF when did this video come out

Can you guys help me get over this weird aversion I have toward software instruments? They sound... fine. But I have this weird mental block about using them. Like I think musicians of the past would frown upon it. Like it's dishonest or something. idk

HOLY SHIT IM HYPED HYPED HYPED HYPED HYPED HYPED HYPED HYPED HYPED HYPED HYPED HYPED

youtube.com/watch?v=RCjvWwME4Z4

Didn't see what new features are there yet, but I don't know how to feel about the visual redesign. I guess it's nicer, still, I expected it to be even more similar to that popular redesign made by that one guy a while ago. Did they change the fonts? Still looks a bit small and shitty.

OH GOD THE FIRST FUNCTION IS LITERALLY WHAT I ASKED ABOUT HERE A FEW DAYS AGO! YES, GOODBYE FL STUDIO, HELLO ABLETON, NOW THAT IS DEFINITELY SET!

sorry

Kek I tried to tell you in the last /prod/ here and here Glad you got lucky with that one user.

Lol, thanks, thread died before I saw it.

I like the redesign, would still prefer some things changed but it doesn't matter, different themes exist after all, but this dark one is pretty nice and I might not need LT anymore.

New wavetable synth seems cool. And after seeing what's new, I have to admit I still expected a bit more from them. I don't know what, but it doesn't seem as big of an update as FL12 was. Although desu I wasn't really into music production when it came out, I just remember a huge visual redesign, maybe they haven't introduced THAT many new features either.

But shitty piano roll seems to remain the same. That's a bummer. I'm staying with Ableton for sure, though. I've been using FL since I started /prod/, even have a license, but after a long period of trying Ableton and not quite getting it, it finally clicked and it works so much better for me. I feel faster and more productive like I've never been before.

But fucking piano roll man, why can't I just input a note with a left mouse button and delete it with a right, and also be able to slide it and change it's length while holding a click at the input. Like, I can do all of those, but separately - some parts work with a pencil tool, while others work with an arrow. I don't even know which one to use, but I'm getting used to it.

learn how to use a synthesizer

First ask yourself what purpose you're making the synths for i.e. what kind of sound you're after. It might surprise how simple the notes are for a lot of sounds. For example, I can name a lot of dubstep drops where all those crazy basses are just playing F

I try and think of synths as serving a couple broad categories:

Bass ("traditional")
Bass ("Dubstep")
Keys
Pads (aka soft long and evolving sounds)
Leads
And FX

Each of these get different types of notes that I send them.

Traditional basses will tend to follow the chords and focus on the 1st, 3rd, and 7th of each chord

Dubstep basses will usually get linger, simple notes aka F (I generally use a lot of these and just send F to 12 different synth s at different times)

Keys are a bit harder to set rules for, but in many situations it's just a chord with the third raised an octave

Pads almost always get either one note or a chord held for a really long time from me

Leads are difficult to explain, but are usually a melody made up of one note at a time

And a FX usually get a long C5 note

I know you said you don't understand theory, but most of these things should be easy enough to look up. After the notes comes sound design.

I usually do sound design separate from when I'm working on a song. There's a lot to it, but you should start by learning what the basic waveforms (sin, triangle, saw, square) sound like, followed by what the 3 basic filters (low pass, band pass, and high pass) sound like over them, and then from there learn about modulation (envelopes and LFOs) you might hate the simple sounds you get. But it's important to get a grasp on those first

Yeah, it wasn't a revolutionary change or anything like that, but they've fixed most of the small things that people found annoying, and although it feels more like a Live 9s (in iPhone terms), I'm still happy about the improvements, as they didn't change anything for the worse (like in 9.5 when they made all waveforms smooth and difficult to cut precisely, and now they've brought precision back with dots that appear when you zoom in).
Piano roll is still Ableton't weakness for most of us (and I'm not sure they'll change it much without drastically changing the workflow), but you'll get used to it in no time (I switched from FL too and used to keep using it for the piano roll but then stopped as I got more comfortable with Live's).
Also it's amplified by the fact that you're coming from the best piano roll, so the difference is a bit drastic, but with the Midi Effect workflow you'll be able to do the same things and you'll forget about FL's.

Furthermore, consider that going from 8 to 9 there weren't that many new features either, but they've added a lot in 9.x updates, so it's likely that they'll keep changing stuff during 10's lifetime (or during the beta period).

youtube.com/watch?v=_Y73bq7fP2o

10 minitue instrumental
>hip hop

Jorman God - Dancing with the stars

I should mention a few more things I guess.

I'm not sure what DAW you use, but if you use one that will draw chords for you, like FL does with the stamp tool, draw out an A Major chord.

If you do, you will see the notes A, C# (or Db) and E. There's a reason we get these notes for a major chord. If you highlight all 3 notes, then drag them up so the A becomes a C, you will get the notes C, E, and G. These 3 notes make a C Major chord. You can drag these notes around to wherever you want, and as long as they're the same distance apart from each other, they will always be a Major chord.

Go ahead and move them to C again, then after your chord, draw out all the white notes, so C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. Draw them out so they ascend one note at a time after the chord. If you listen to this, you will hear a C Major chord, followed by the C Major Scale. This works the same way, you can drag all notes up or down to whatever you want, and it will still be a Major chord followed by a Major scale. You will notice that if you number each letter (C:1, D:2, E:3, F:4, G:5, A:6, B:7), the C Major chord contains the 1, 3 and 5 (or first, third, and fifth) notes in the scale. So when I talked about moving the third up an octave, what I really meant was moving that E up an octave so that it's above the G. This is the same no matter what chord you are playing, so for A Major you would be moving the C#.

In order to make a minor chord instead of a major chord, you simply move the third down by one note, so A minor would be A, C, E, and C Major would be C, D# (Eb), and G.

Notice that the first and the fifth are the exact same between a minor and major chords. Minor chords put off a different sound, and when you get into writing progressions, it's pretty important to use them.

Now, through some weird thing that would be hard to explain, it turns out that in any major key, chords starting on the 1, 4, and 5 (aka C, F, and G in C Major) sound best as a major chord

ableton

while chords starting on the 2, 3 and 6 (D, E, and A in C Major) sound best as a minor chord.

The chord starting on the 7 is a bit tricky, and in most cases you can simply use a major chord, but you will notice that pretty much no matter what you use it sounds a bit off, so it's usually best to avoid it.

So let's write a simple progression, I'll give you a handy tool you can copy/paste:

I-ii-iii-IV-V-vi-vii*

(Uppercase = Major, lowercase = minor)

That's a cheat sheet for what I just told you. It shows which chords "should" be major and which chords "should" be minor. So we'll just pick 4 numbers, let's use 1,6,2,5. Looking at our cheat sheet, 1 should be Major, 6 and 2 should be minor, and 5 Should be major.\

Let's use A Major as our key. That means we get:

A Major (1) | F# minor (6) | B minor (2) | E Major (5)
| | |
5 E | C# | F# | B
3 C# | A | D | G#
1 A | F# | B | E

Go ahead and write those notes in with a simple sound out of a synth of your choice (or like a piano or something) you might notice that it sounds like something you've heard before.

You may also notice that it sounds bland, so go ahead and raise each 3rd (C# for A, A for F#, D for B, and G# for E) and see if that's better. Maybe at least a little.

Now go ahead and get another sound that is more bass like, and give it just the First of each chord (aka A,F#,B,E) and play both sounds at the same time.

Now add a sound that uses notes from each chord, but moves around as the progression goes on (so like maybe E during A Major, A during F#minor, B during B minor, and G# during E Major)

you should hopefully notice that the whole thing sounds a little bit more coherent, though maybe a bit bland.

I've posted this here before, but I've since updated it quite a bit, so I figured I'd post it again and see what you guys think?

Pic related is a screenshot of the project file

clyp.it/nfeuyhwv

First thing on /prod/ for a long time that I listened to all of the way through, nice.

thank you kind user. Anything stand out to you about the mix? Top heavy, bottom heavy, overcompressed undercompressed, anything like that?

The noise bursts at the beginning sound too loud and out of place.

The guitar in the intro is too quiet compared to the drums

The growls in the breakdown need more high end and go on for too long (maybe make a different version and alternate them).

The buildup is a bit too empty.

The drop needs a stronger hit to contrast with what was before.

The melody of the drop is a bit too repetitive.

In the drop, the interplay between the melody, the chords, and the other sounds are a bit all over the place and I don't know what they're supposed to feel like.

The transition to the acoustic part is a bit abrupt and it feels like you've mixed two similar songs instead on one song.

The dubsteppy sounds in the part that starts at 4:06 sound a bit out of place, like you've just taken them out of a sample pack and placed them in the project.
Also they're supposed to be loud and "in your face" sounds but you've put them slightly in the background (or at least it's how they feel to me), so either make them lound and in your face of turn them into ambiance (like the neurofunk guys do to have a sci-fi athmosphere with robots in the background and whatnot).
I'd fix the problem by not trying to have everything at the same time (this type of sound doesn't really work that way, and in Dubstep they usually use them on their own or with little underneath).
Also the melody is a bit too repetitive.

I wrote what in my opinion needs to be changed or worked on as I listened to it.
The rest is fine to me.

I'd maybe put a more prominent bass line into the first section (before the drums drop out and you build back up) but that's only what I'd do - there isn't one there right now and you've got to have done that intentionally I reckon so that there's more impact later on when the part reprises with a bass, but you could use the bass more sparingly at the start so there's still some of that content there.

perfect, thank you.

This is probably the first time I've ever gotten legitimately useful advice from posting one of my songs anywhere. I'll try and get as much of this done before I leave for work in an hour and a half and get it posted.

You're welcome.

God this general sucks

Making music is purely about the end product; if you can't make a quality cat sound good you're probably just unskilled

The only people who frown on software are people who are stuck in the past, fetishize hardware, or are just ignorant.

The only legitimate reason to avoid it is if you're working with "real instruments" (strings guitar arguably acoustic drums etc)

What's your opinion on synthorial?

why is it that i feel like im good with synthesizers but i constantly hear sounds that i ask "damn how ddi he make that?!". I want to have my "own" sound.

every artists will compare themselves to others. I think it's possible to have your own sound and still be moved by other people's sounds user.

is it common to "fuse" a waveform like a saw or sine into a sample and compress the hell out of it so your sample sounds better?

learn synthesis and stop using muh VST preset fucktard.

download synthorial.

I am not sure why you need the compression, but it's often to merge wave shapes together. If you are unfamiliar with this I would start looking at FM synths especially FM VST's with visualizers so you can get a good idea about phases.

Maybe you've always done "safe" things instead of trying to experiment with different new things.
Try to learn as many strange and unique techniques as you can, and as you implement them in your music you start to have techniques that you always gravitate to, and that will shape your sound, which will be as crazy as the techniques you experiment with.

Please stop trying to sell synthorial, there are plenty of ways to learn synthesis for free.

unless i completely have compression down wrong, i dont see why you WOULDNT wanna compress something like that....isnt the whole idea to make it sound more "uniform"?

It's very subjective and depends on what sound you are going for. The compression will cut into your dynamics, (which I'm sure you know), but often times when I am making music I'll "fuse" waves to get abrasive sounds, and when I use the compression feature they sound more uniform, which can be good, but in my case and in the case of generally speaking about wave forms It's better to leave uncompressed.

So here's a reupload except I tried to take as much advice from as possible. Only thing I think I really failed at was having an empty buildup section.

The rest of it is, at least imo a little bit better. I have a problem with too much going on in my tracks, so it was actually pretty interesting for me to drastically lower the levels of a lot sounds. I think that now it sounds a bit more like I tend to hear it anyways.

Lemme know what you think

Thoughts on the MiniNova?

I don't see any link.

clyp.it/yxtc4a4g

god damnit i've done that so many times now

Can a VST of harmonica imitate the real instrument?

like bending and all those modulations.

clyp.it/ycemv1yk

Thoughts or critiques of this song? Does the mix sound good? Plan on chopping up the breakbeat.

Made with MS20, Monologue, and Virus Access KB.

The noise bursts at the beginning are at the right volume, but if you want a radio interference you need a different noise because this sounds too clean and unrealistic.

Guitars are still at that spot where they're too quiet to be in the front (and get kinda covered by the drums) but also not quiet enough to feel in the background.
I'd choose background and lower volume with reverb and slight lpf (or a low high-shelf), and if you want foreground, raise its volume and use sidechaining to duck them a lot when the drums hit.

The buildup lacks something before the drum roll/break.
Usually a vocal sample is perfect for this, but if you just put it there it's going to sound a bit out of place (Like Not Butter by Dillon Francis), so sprinkle some elements of it in the buildup and if you can in the rest of the stuff before it. If available, using different samples from the same source and voice is better than using parts of the same sample you'll use before the drop, or if you can, try to manipulate them so they don't sound exactly the same (like Asteroids by Noisia).

The drop still feels a bit all over the place ("in your face" sounds playing with other high-volume stuff and melodies/harmonies too random), but you can't really change that without remaking it from the ground up, so either move on and make your next songs with this in mind, or remake it.

The transition between the drop and the acoustic part is still too abrupt. Maybe add a second calmer drop right after that contains elements of the acoustic section (like Skrillex's remix of Red Lips), or make the last part of the drop a slightly different, but higher energy part (like a buildup), that sort of "explodes" into reverb tails, and after a bit of time the new section starts (Zedd's remix of Alive).

The second drop hits too hard for how calm it is, so I'd soften the transition.

(1/2)

The second part of the second drop (4:28) is too messy. Especially the first couple of seconds.

After the drop there's a sound with a delay (note is B I think) playing just once that sounds out of key.


I think the main problem is that you're trying to have too much at the same time.
You should only have one main thing at a time (or two with interplay, like kick and bass) and the rest should be in the background to support it.
Choose what's leading te section of the song and arrange it so everything else isn't really noticeable until you think about it.

To put it another way, if I were to hum or whistle your song, I couldn't. There's too much in my face, so I don't know what's the main "line" of the song.
If you take any well produced song, even complex ones with tons of sounds and samples, you can easily hum/whistle/beatbox it because there's rarely a moment without a main element that's engineered to grab your attention.

Some times I listen to one such song, and remembering it later it seems like there was only one element yet it didn't feel empty, but when relistening to it I notice that it was full of stuff in the background that didn't get in the way of what was leading the track, so my brain caught it subconsciously but not consciously.

(2/2)

If you want the radio interference effect, I suggest using actual samples of it.
Two songs that come to mind that I think do this right:
youtube.com/watch?v=MZzc32UfAkw
youtube.com/watch?v=tCnBrrnOefs

For me, it's fear. I would really loathe the state of our art form is people begin to prefer playing iPads instead of guitars. Or Akai Pad controllers instead of drums. I'd love for them to coexist. I'm apprehensive about a future where digital instruments take over.

This is great. The mix has great space. good song writing too.

Thank you my boy

How the fuck do you do aphex twin style drums?

Very carefully.

Thanks again for the quality responses.

Unfortunately in at work for the next 12 hours so I won't get a chance to work on it for a bit, but I'm going to try stripping down elements and focusing on exactly what it is that I hear as that main element you're talking about. This is exactly something I struggle with a lot, so I really appreciate you helping me out with it. I'm thinking the first drop will start out as basically just basses and supporting sounds, then halfway through more melodic stuff will come in and the basses will get pushed back a bit so the melody takes charge. I also really like the idea of using a bit of time in between that drop and the slow part like in Zedds Alive Remix.

The static thing I actually like that it's so clean lol. I wasn't really going for a radio effect, but rather just a very sharp edit type of sound. Kind of like the pops constantly going on in Fight Club.

But again thanks for the very quality feedback man, it really is exactly what I needed

No problem my friend.

Always remember that arrangement is the single most important priority to make something sound good.
Mixing and mastering only make things sound better. If you start with problematic composition, arrangement, and sound design/selection, no amount of mixing or mastering will ever make the song sound good.
So build your songs with mixing in mind from the very beginning, and not only you'll get better results, but your mixing stage will also be so much easier, as things will already be practically intrinsically mixed.
Like an orchestra playing live that sounds amazing without anything done to the sound except thoughtful composition.

Just use multiple oscillators on the synth.

Yes, and it's called layering.
It's a staple in sound design.

nice I can listen to this lofi hip hop while I chill gaming / study beats!

I won't say anything negative about the sound design because it is probably just me, but I find these kinds of sounds extremely hurting and I can't listen to them on very loud.

Hi /prod/ i need an extra set of ears here if you have some time

I got this friend who is helping me mix a couple of tracks, however even though they sound kind of OK in his room, and louder irl, when i go home and A/B them in different gear and take volume difference into consideration, im finding that i really dunno which one is better, he kind of kills some of the original vibe through fx overuse, and also i feel like their are lacking lowend and extremely full in the highs, but i might be full of shit.


Pls help me

A clyp.it/r1hsrsdk
B clyp.it/si0iyc4c?token=f5371d25d21a673b363bee1b1d9be20b

A clyp.it/vpqmaatb?token=ba673034b35e04c53fd871b8aacc1d07
B clyp.it/yuifdz3o?token=3c91f30d037433c93fcd6fed7d7e73f5

Need quick help. New to ableton and I'm laying down a basic drum track.

Here's what happens. When I insert the drum sound on the timeline, the song plays from the point I put the drum at instead of from scratch forcing me to press STOP and then START to reset the song to hear it from the beginning.

How can I make it so the song actually plays from the beginning instead of from the point I inserted the drum sound at?

Im not sure. But you can press the home key to move the marker to the beginning, might make it a little easier for you.

click a blank space to deselect the clip first

not sure, but the line showing position dissapears when you right click, that communicates that for some reason right click is mapped to pause/jump

The reason it plays from that point is because the drum wav's selected, just double click the stop button and it will play from the beginning

1) Make a drum rack in Ableton
2) Load in 100 - 200 metallic sounding percussion and kicks/snares
3) Open piano roll
4) Place a note down for each sound, so no 2 are playing at the same time
5) Use the clipping tool to clip your pattern into however many sounds you have
6) Go back to drum rack
7) Set trigger to 'random'

Deselect the sample.

careful sound placement and analysis
after a while you will come up with some sort of algo or at least some sort of expression for producing versions of them according to some vriables, then you implement it and can go along,

but full random is recipe for disaster

cheers lads.

the home button trick is the closest to what i was after.

anyone?

Is a midi controller outside of a keyboard worth getting if I'm never going to be playing live?
Like are drum pads good for just getting a good beat?

I don't get what's so hard about music theory. Producing is a much wider field were you can make much more mistakes.
In order to write musically correct you just have to follow a few rules for voice leading

>1
I like the wideness of b and I think the creative edits are a step in the right direction, f.e. making that arabic sounding lead thing blend better with more interesting texture
other than that it loses a lot of impact on the drums with not even that much of an increased loudness

>2
here b is just complete ass compared to a, no drums, all that shimmery ambience gets lost in the squashed mix that again isn't even loud, just more fatiguing

fucking brainlets, go to rutracker, type "goodhertz", and you will see the entire BUNDLE of their plugins

thx, so in your opinion a does a lot good but sacrifices drums while doing it, and b is just fatiguing mid-high amience while it should turn the drums the fuck on and squash shit less?

i think im almost in the same place myself, but i do prefer the arabic lead blending less

sorry, replace a for 1b and b for 2b

yeah, I think 2a is a pretty solid mix as it is, b doesn't improve anything and takes away a lot
of course the lead thing in 1 is a matter of preference in the end, but from a technical standpoint 1b lacks drum volume and impact, same as 2b. other than that I prefer 1b, though.

Okay, we are fairly having the same opinions then, thanks a lot man, this is what i needed, i didn't know if i was psychologically predisposed to find problems on them or if there really were some

used to have an ultranova... was kinda fun but i ultimately got bored of it, never really got around to feeling intuitive and playable as opposed to menu-divey and awkward

Has anybody here used both Maschine Studio and Ableton Push 2? I've had the Studio for almost 4 years now and I just feel stagnant. It's such an annoyance to export tracks out to a DAW and really breaks the creative cycle. So, has anyone used both? I'm considering switching to Ableton after seeing how great 10 looks.

Not the guy you responded to, but I had an ultranova too. I thought the touch sensitive knobs we're really cool for their time, but I got bored with it too.

Where do I get good music samples?
I'm looking for orchestral samples for shitty edge music.

Jeez louis you guys don't know shit. I would highlight the FIRST top clip (African?) from where you watn to start. CTRL +L loops that clip

..if you want a larger loop, highlight CLICK first clip. SHIFT + CLICK the last clip in the series to highlight them all then Ctrl + L

brilliant my man

Or use combos of Ctrl, shift and side arrow keys

the three faces of Sup Forums

had one and digged it for the presets, but making your own patches is poisoned by menu diving and using the left and right arrow buttons under the screen. I sold it to buy a minilogue and am very happy.

more like the three faces of /prod/

learn how to make general break patterns and play with beat repeat times and "chance" then when you like what you hear try to program that sound in.

Does anyone here use Reason 8? I've been using Reason for years and don't want to switch but there's so much stuff that I still don't know how to do and it's frustrating and the youtube videos about stuff aren't super helpful for me

clyp.it/h32lkjxo
thoughts on this? any help would be great thanks

Please spoonfeed me. I want to make electronic music but have no idea where to start. Any pastebins, or recommended guides?