/Prod/

Based Mixing Guy Edition

Talk about music production, composition, songwriting and audio engineering.

Upload WIPs on clyp.it/

GIVE feedback and RECEIVE feedback.

>ATTENTION!
DO NOT post Soundcloud, YouTube or any other links where you are not anonymous (unless somebody asks you for it). That is considered self promotion and will usually result in a bad feedback.

RESOURCES:

Sound Design:

>SeamlessR (in-depth music production and sound design tutorials, based on FL Studio)
youtube.com/user/SeamlessR

>Rocket Powered Sound (Constant quality uploads of various EDM sounds in Serum with explanations that help make something unique)
youtube.com/channel/UCFReVt5TAC1zGnuNkgHw-fg

>Syntorial (widely considered the best place to go to learn synthesis)
syntorial.com/

>Mr. Bill (Ableton based, some of the best sound design tutorials on the planet. Aimed more towards IDM-type stuff. He also posts his music here)
youtube.com/user/MrBillsTunes

>BusyWorksBeats (mostly talentless hack who explains hip hop in very elaborate ways in FL Studio)
youtube.com/user/busyworksbeats

>Sadowick (mostly talentless hack who explains old school electronic music in very elaborate ways in Ableton)
youtube.com/user/SadowickProduction

>ADSR Music Production Tutorials
youtube.com/channel/UCf5UKh_cj2_5pUomhyswWYQ

MIXING:

>Point Blank Music School
youtube.com/channel/UCIWNozFjO8yVdJFsGKVmPgg

>Pensado's Place
youtube.com/user/PensadosPlace

>Samori Coles (not many videos, but a few good ones on compression and EQ)
youtube.com/user/homestudiotutor/videos

>Modern Mixing
youtube.com/user/ModernMixing/videos

FL STUDIO:

>WarBeats (Good resource for getting comfortable in FL Studio)
youtube.com/user/nfxbeats/videos

>Image Line Tutorials (for FL Studio users)
youtube.com/user/imageline/playlists

Previous thread:

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=1u7vzaqITMA
vocaroo.com/i/s02grJPWzakT
clyp.it/pips4n1t
clyp.it/m0qvofnf
m.youtube.com/watch?v=_7KZgCHt3aU
clyp.it/iapkjtxw
youtu.be/fqBeggd7P1w
youtube.com/watch?v=kvRTkJ7Qx2o
youtube.com/watch?v=SAAq_fHj-LM
twitter.com/SFWRedditVideos

What's this choir sound? It's from '75 so it pretty much has to be a mellotron right?
youtube.com/watch?v=1u7vzaqITMA

Good on ya, honestly all this eurorack stuff looks great but it's just too expensive.
Having lots of fun with a Nord Modular and Axoloti by the way.

What do you guys would think of a granular synthesis patch with grain panning controlled by other parameters (pitch, grain size or whatever)?
Thinking about doing on Max/MSP as a vacation project kind of thing. Does not sound that hard to implement.

You mean like have the high-pitched grains on the left and the low-pitched on the right, etc? Sounds pretty neat.
Does max/msp actually have a good pitch tracking component? Most of the time they're really wonky and bad from what I've seen.

Guy in the comments of that video said it was something called an Orchestron l, but I really couldn't tell ya man

Could be cool, but sounds like it might get old kind of fast

What is the best way to get stuff to sound cold? I want to make a good ol Christmas tune, and the one I made last year always makes me feel cold and I can't decide why

>and the one I made last year always makes me feel cold and I can't decide why
post it
filtered noise wind sounds, not much bass, crackles, icy reverb sounds..

Sounds like it could be either an Orchestron or Optigan, interesting..

Yes, that's the idea. I think that Mangle by Sound Guru does something like that already, but I have not used it yet.
I'm using sigmund~ for pitch tracking. It is pretty solid as far as I can tell.

Hey /prod/!
I want to learn a DAW to make music, which is the best from a newbie with a lot of good VSTS to create something unique? All i've ever been making music on is with audacity.

My work so far:
vocaroo.com/i/s02grJPWzakT

I'd say ableton because it's the most common DAW, so you're going to find the most turorials and forums for that

Either Ableton or FL Studio.
They have the most tutorials and resources, which would be very helpful for a beginner.

I'd suggest Ableton since it has more stuff available for it than FL, but FL has more plugins that are easy to use if you're a beginner (while Ableton has a slightly steeper learning curve, but not by much).
This point is moot if you use third party plugins, so in that case get Ableton (see this )

>I want to learn a DAW to make music, which is the best from a newbie with a lot of good VSTS to create something unique? All i've ever been making music on is with audacity.
It really doesn't matter what DAW you use they all do the same thing, which is let you place audio along a timeline and pitch. They mostly have audio editors built in along with some standard mixing and mastering effects units and soft synths/samplers.
Just read up on the DAW website about it then demo ones you like the look of so you can decide which ones to pirate/buy
Can some one Pls put the answer to this question in the OP so we don't have to reply to it every day?

To all the producers here: You can't do shit. I am an actual artist and going to change and mix shit with different samples etc to make not full songs, but whole albums that include bridges, intros, outros and many different technique's to approach the samples I find. To me it's disgusting how you wannabe artists come here, take three seconds from j dilla for a loop and think you're the shit. You are nothing.

Thank you, Ken-sama

The only artist you sound like is a piss artist user

clyp.it/pips4n1t

Filtered noise is a good idea, same with the crackles. Will have to try working with these

Also as a bonus, here's the dinosaur sound I was talkinmg about last thread: clyp.it/m0qvofnf

Why do people post this here?

Oh shit, I forgot to take off the name on my computer. Let's pray this doesn't derail another god damn thread

That was close "user" I was poised and about to release a shitstorm

I fucking knew someone would right when I saw it lol.

Anyways, I'd like to keep a discussion going about cold sounds. I'm curious if using strictly digital sounds and like softsynths can actually add to this, since people always describe them as being cold relative to their analog counterparts

>have a small library of things I've run through a granular synthesis program
>only used about two in a track I won't finish because composing a shit
>still keep granulating everything

Why is sound design so much more enjoyable than actually making tracks? Is it because it's easier?

>Is it because it's easier?
yes, you're playing it like an instrument

>Why is sound design so much more enjoyable than actually making tracks? Is it because it's easier?
Nope its because its more funner, some people would disagree though and just use presets and sample packs

>more funner
Carnage pls go.

is cold sounds really a thing? I guess I guess lots of bright reverb and metallic noises like already stated. can't think of much else

Cold doesn't mean actually cold.
It just means that it doesn't have that analog character that people call "analog warmth".

It's not "cold-sounding" like something a non-producer would call cold-sounding.

"cold" is also a composition style imo. think lots of mid - high range stuff, minor to major chords and other mode mixtures, jazz harmonics. but also the metallic sounds, twinkling fx, fast attack pitch envelopes on plucks etc

digital sounds are cold in a different way to me, no pitch drift/saturation/500hz bump/hi end roll off by default

>Does max/msp actually have a good pitch tracking component? Most of the time they're really wonky and bad from what I've seen.
Usually this means you don't understand what it's supposed to do. Typically pitch tracking is for simple monophonic signals. For that it works pretty well.

I can't understand why people just use straight up presets without at least doing something to them. Every preset I've ever heard sounds like shit but, then again, I am a Logicfag.

The fact that it really is a lot easier always makes me feel really unaccomplished somehow.

I honestly will probably never complete a track, simply because I'm too much of a brainlet to wrap my mind around my influences (Squarepusher, Stretch/&&&&&-era Arca, Drexciya and the like.)

Having zero background in music doesn't help either.

yeah but "warmth" doesn't mean anything substantive either

>digital sounds are cold in a different way to me, no pitch drift/saturation/500hz bump/hi end roll off by default
there's no reason that digital sounds can't have these qualities, or that analog sounds must have them

m.youtube.com/watch?v=_7KZgCHt3aU

best ep yet

I don't really know, I just really want to capture the feeling of cold in a track lol

This is kind of what I figured

That's a good way of looking at it. I remember some shitty youtube video talking about the "Christmas chord", I'll have to go look that one up again. What exactly do you mean by jazz harmonics tho? Or did you mean jazz harmonies? Also, the lack of saturation is probably what I'm really forgetting, so thank you for that reminder

It's just what you enjoy more user. I go through days where I like doing that more, but really my favorite thing is fleshing out a song that already has most parts done. I just love listening and listening and filling in those little details. But that's me

It does.
It's the imperfections that characterize analog synths, making them "thicker" and "richer".
I'm not sure how to explain it (English is my third language), but if you pay attention to the same sound made in something like a Moog and something like Massive, you can hear the difference.
Some people like that and think digital synths are too thin and perfect and lack "character".

To be honest, I'm not a synth purist so it took me a while to "get" it and be able to hear it (since I didn't even know what I was looking for).

It doesn't, but it does. There's lots of things that contribute to the warmth of analog, or similarly the warmth of vinyl, like dust and shit in the circuits, imperfect phases, the different characters of different cables, etc. There's loads of stuff that help contribute to analog warmth, and you can really notice it if you get into torrenting a lot of plugins that try to emulate that like I once did, or especially if you just get your hands on some old synthesizers. Really though, I don't think warmth is the right word, and that's why I think it doesn't work so much to try and just make "cold" sounding digital stuff to get a cold sounding track

>Some people like that and think digital synths are too thin and perfect and lack "character".
They don't lack character or imperfections. They have imperfections and character of their own.

I understand that there's a difference between a CS-80 and a rompler or whatever. But regardless, most of what people say about it, and the differences that they claim are relevant, amount to meaningless gibberish. There's nothing inherently "thin" about digital.

this is true. but you have to program that in, it's not just a result of picking it up and playing.

when most people talk 'analog' they attribute that old crusty synth vibe to it, which is just kinda there by default in older hardware

Hey /prod/, I noticed that since I got my Apollo Twin, it likes to really fuck up regular audio renders out of FL Studio. If I play it back and record with edison, it sounds fine, but pretty much everything that's MIDI and not a sample gets very strangely warped in a bad way if I use the export function. Looking at the Console software, it's set to 512 Buffer size at 44.1 KHz, with an Internal Clock, minimum usb safety buffer, and medium input delay compensation, and the alt count is at 0. FL Studio is using the Universal Audio Apollo Twin USB Driver, meaning all those settings are the same, and next to it, the sample rate is also 44.1 KHz. Any idea what's causing this?

I feel much prouder building my shitty little tracks for sure, but I have a massive amount of shame and guilt for never finishing them. I fly by the seat of my pants compositionally, so there's never really any cohesion to them. I can't break the mindset of "I want this one part to sound like this" and start thinking of a track in its entirety.

Electronic music has been the overwhelming majority of what I've listened to all of my life, even in childhood. You'd think I'd grasp the rudimentary concepts, but I definitely don't. Shit's discouraging to deal with.

I'm not sure we're arguing about the same thing here.

Digital synths do have their own characteristics (outside of their attempt at emulating analog, which many do), but they're not "those" characteristics that people who like the analog sound want.

>There's nothing inherently "thin" about digital.
Not in absolute terms, but the average digital synth is noticeably thinner than the average analog.

There is a whole rabbit hole about texture in sound where people go to extreme lengths to achieve this type of effect and stray away from digital perfection.
Some times it's because they like the sound, and some times it's because it can give a nostalgia vibe, since it applies similar qualities to those sounds typical of the 80s and 70s (look at the whole Stranger Things circlejerk going on at the moment).

>Not in absolute terms, but the average digital synth is noticeably thinner than the average analog.

The thing is, this has nothing to do with digital itself; it's more a matter of what features are implemented. A major thing that tends to make digital stuff "thin" is that there aren't free running oscillators. But actually there's no reason why they can't have free running oscillators, and actually many (like the DX7) do. And similarly there's no reason why an analog synth must have free running oscillators. These things aren't even esoteric or complicated or difficult to implement.

Ultimately it makes more sense to learn to recognize the sound of things like free running oscillators and treat that as something you can either use or not use.

>the average digital synth is noticeably thinner than the average analog.
I ran a digital synth through a fake tape wear plugin once and people on Sup Forums were convinced I could somehow afford an analog synth.

This is just wrong.
user here explained it:
For a digital synth to sound like an analog it has to be specifically programmed to have analog qualities.
Free-running oscillators have nothing to do with it (except for maybe some phasing, which is an extremely small part of the analog sound).

You have no idea what you're talking about.

You can certainly emulate it, but it won't fool any enthusiast.
People on Sup Forums are notorious for not being pros or experts.

>You have no idea what you're talking about.
yeah I'm only a DSP engineer, what would I know about sound synthesis? actually free running oscillators have a great deal to do with it

only retards care about digital vs analog

And I'm Robert Moog's ghost.

Also being an engineer in DSP doesn't necessarily imply you know about the Analog world and why people like it.

Look at digital synths that are known for emulating analog well, like the U-he Diva or the Virus TI, and see that they require a ton more processing power for the same thing, just to run the algorithms that add the imperfections to the waveforms, on top of having different waveforms to start with (more rounded, which gives them more low-end) and different algorithms for the filters (and processors) that makes them sound noticeably different.

Massive for example has free-running oscillators by default and it's nown to be one of the "coldest" digital synths.

Of course digital synths can sound like analog, but in order for them to do that, they have to be specifically made to emulate analog, and not all of them do a good job at that.

clyp.it/iapkjtxw
Starting to make some progress.
Still a pretty basic panning and it depends and all grains being made at a given time will pan to the same side. I will work on panning individual grains now.

>You have no idea what you're talking about.
>yeah I'm only a DSP engineer, what would I know about sound synthesis? actually free running oscillators have a great deal to do with it
Nice comeback user

Nice transparent samefagging user

Post some gear guys. Let’s talk about gear. Who hardware samplers here?

How would you rate Volca Sample? In some demos, it sounds fine, in other ones, it sounds terrible.

>How would you rate Volca Sample? In some demos, it sounds fine, in other ones, it sounds terrible
It’s really good for the price.things to look out for are
>A little bit gritty sample quality wise (I think it’s 16bit if I remember right). I personally like this but you may not. Drums sound good in this

>It’s a bit of a cunt to load samples into it and you can’t actually sample anything so it’s more of a romper that you can load sounds into.

>Only 2 outputs.

>bored, looking at equipboard
>see iglooghost uses a stylophone
>neat.tiff
>have a far more accomplished musician roommate who talks shit about igloo constantly
>he gets an ad for a stylophone on his phone and is obsessed about wanting to cop one

do i tell him

Buy him one for Xmas and make his year user

roads already made one

I'm already getting him an Aurora Rhythm kit and some LIFX bulbs for his music video lighting, I can't afford anything else.

>tell him that he only got that ad because I was looking at them earlier last month
>"Yeah but I would actually need/use one"
>makes fun of me all of the time because I started a few months ago and can't finish tracks
He doesn't fucking deserve any of it though.

Keep the rhythm kit and get him something shit like a crazy frog ringtone voucher instead

>crazy frog ringtone voucher
>shit
come on man, that's quality stuff and well worth the money

...

this is the quality content that keeps me coming back desu

On god, not a shitpost: how do i into juke and/or jungle?

I understand the basics of both, rhythm-wise. As far as I understand, you can easily program juke drums yourself and jungle is more about slicing breaks. But it's taking me forever to get either one accomplished.

I'm using Logic right now, which is probably why my workflow is extremely fucked. Would it be better to change DAWs, or is there something I'm missing with using Logic?

I have the Renoise demo, but I've done nothing with it yet. Please don't tell me to use Ableton. I hate Ableton so much.

Learn to not hate Ableton so you won't have a problem when you'll be using it to make music.

>I understand the basics of both, rhythm-wise. As far as I understand, you can easily program juke drums yourself and jungle is more about slicing breaks. But it's taking me forever to get either one accomplished.
So what’s the problem then?

>I'm using Logic right now, which is probably why my workflow is extremely fucked.

I very much doubt that’s got anything to do with it now user has it, just think about that statement for a few minutes.

>Would it be better to change DAWs, or is there something I'm missing with using Logic?

I would defiantly change DAWs. As far as I know no one has ever made jungle using logic. Ideally what you want is a tracker running on an old Amiga to make jungle. How on earth do you expect Logic to be able to compete with the technology from the early 90’s?

>I have the Renoise demo, but I've done nothing with it yet. Please don't tell me to use Ableton. I hate Ableton so much.
Just use Logic if that’s what you are using already. Working out how to do whatever it is your trying to do will help you understand how to use your daw

>going to
sweet let us know when you make it

Also this:

youtu.be/fqBeggd7P1w

just git gud at logic it doesn't matter what daw you use

Ableton is like watching paint dry, user. I want to take a nap every time I see that shit.

>How on earth do you expect Logic to be able to compete with the technology from the early 90’s?
lol

The only reason why I asked about changing DAWs is that slicing breaks in Logic is really tedious. Or at least it is, the way I'm doing it, which is 100% manually without Drum Machine Designer or Ultrabeat because I'm too lazy to figure out programming off-beats in the latter. DMD only sucks because I have a cheap MIDI controller with awful pads that I have to beat to death.

but i like renoise so much

Weird samplers like the Mirage and FZ-1 always interested me but I wouldn't ever buy one unless I was making industrial desu.

You do realise logic has a built in audio editor with a slicer right?
You can literally load up your break, set the slice points, cut and export it straight into the EXS24 sampler...right?

>Weird samplers like the Mirage and FZ-1 always interested me but I wouldn't ever buy one unless I was making industrial desu
Fair enough. I personally really like samplers. Soft ones, hard ones and ones in between.

>You do realise logic has a built in audio editor with a slicer right?
no

>no
Well rather than learn how to use a new DAW as the one you currently use can’t make jungle how about you sit down and learn how to use the one you have. How the fuck have you been using Logic without knowing it’s got a audio editor?
Next you’ll be telling me you didn’t know it had a manual that you can read and see how the fuck the audio editor works

I've read every manual I have except for the one for Logic. And Metasynth, but that's because it's pretty easy to suss out.

It's been on a need-basis for me to look up shit for the main DAW, but I'm really only just starting to do shit. To be fair, I do really, really like Renoise a lot more, given my limited experience with it. But I do understand the pitfalls of being a beginner and getting overwhelmed with options.

I currently use:
>Logic
>Soundgrain (yes, I know)
>Iris 2
>Breaktweaker
>Metasynth
>PD
and am toying around with switching to Renoise. I do actually use all of those non-DAW programs for sound design though.

Does anyone know if you can record video straight into Cubase (8.5)?
I want to make a few bass covers to put on youtube, do I have to record the video and drop it in after?

you have to record the video and then import

Thats a bummer, thanks.

>and am toying around with switching to Renoise. I do actually use all of those non-DAW programs for sound design though
Learn both then I guess. Theres nothing wrong with learning a couple of DAWs especially if one is something like Renoise. The point I was making is that so many people think that using another DAW will get them somewhere their DAW can't but Just learn how to use your DAW before writing it off as no good.

>Soundgrain (yes, I know)
Please elaborate.

>he uses soundgrain

Soundgrain isn't the most well-rounded program in the world for granular synthesis. It's more of a toy/intro to it than anything else, but it's the easiest granular synthesizer to use and make really great samples/textures in a hurry.

I've known a few people to look down on it because of its ease of use, like this dude: Oh man no, I don't think Logic is useless at all. I like Alchemy a lot, plus the GUI is probably one of the friendliest of all the major DAWS. I've done everything track-based (which is very little) in Logic so far.

There's just something about Renoise that appeals to me a lot. I think it's the workflow/snappiness of the keyboard commands, I don't know.

Anyone has the link for that blog were a guy posts a kind of diary made up of sounds he records?
I remember it being posted here about a week ago, when someone asked for were to find samples. I remember that the last post he made was about the shit he recorded during a flood with a hydrophone.

I must have missed that. Would be interested too.

I just got a set of hydrophones last week

I would say ableton, from what ive seen it has more sound designing options than FL and is generally a lot more quicker for work flow (at least for me). Its a DAW where you can really get creative with it

>these threads
I’d have to say that the best DAW in my opinion is the one I use. I love the ease of working with midi, the keyboard roll is silky smooth, I can input notes using my mouse or control keyboard (its super versatile like that) it detects velocity and note length too. Working with audio is a care free situation too just drag and drop audio files (no need to convert them, so you can spend more time on being creative and less time converting audio to the right format) or you can import audio straight from the library.
Every vest I’ve tried has worked so far too. The software synths are the absolute best money can buy. Overall it’s the best DAW for workflow and without a doubt the best one for me.

We re very lucky to live in this time. Gee in 2001 ram sucked and you couldn't find sounds anywhere

should i buy a humanscale freedom or a herman miller aeron, lads?

no hardware samplers anymore, used to have a roland sp808, but now mostly use ableton for that stuff.

i am looking at this though
youtube.com/watch?v=kvRTkJ7Qx2o

Never tried humanscale, but I've had my aeron for 10 years now and would recommend.

cucks

the thinking mans fetish

I just found the Stockhausen's son channel. He is /ourguy/.
youtube.com/watch?v=SAAq_fHj-LM

>tfw I will never be as good as Swire at making catchy and addictive melodies

this guy is good I like the stuff he does for padshop pro

Is that really his son or it's just someone with the same llast name (or even just named himself that on YT)?

It is him. There is even one video on the channel were he is with Mary Bauermeister.

How do chord progressions "work" so to speak? I'm having trouble writing progressions that sound cohesive and carry the emotional vibe I'm looking for. I know very basic stuff like stay in key. But after that, I'm lost.

umm one thing that will definitely put you on the right track is shooting for something with resolution

There's lots of different ways of looking at it. My personal favorite way is to divide chords into 3 main archetypes (tho this is most definitely not the only way!!!!): Major, minor, and Dominant. Major chords are built with the 1st, maj3, P5, and Maj7 intervals, minor chords with the 1st, min3, P5, and min7 intervals, and Dominant chords being the 1st, maj3, P5 and m7 intervals. These are the simple outlines, but any chord that contains the big 3 intervals (1st, 3rd, and 7th) will define which of the 3 archetypes it's in (so A minor add 9, A, C, E, D, will still be considered an A minor chord). As long as a chord is in the same archetype, and has the same root, it can be freely replaced with a different chord of the same archetype/root. Basically this means you can swap a regular a minor chord with an A minor add 9, A minor 6/9, A minor add 13, etc, and it will still Work! As a bonus, you can even have multiple of these chords within the same spot as one regular a minor chord!

That went a little bit far though, so let's get back to the main 3: Major, minor, Dominant. We'll start with dominant chords. Dominant chords REALLY like to resolve to somewhere (specifically a fifth below them or a fourth above them). You can use this to either give that resolution and release tension, or withhold that resolution and increase tension. You can also almost always swap out a dominant chord for another dominant chord that is a tritone (aka six half steps) away. There's a weird reason for it, but it usually works and is called a tritone substitution.

Next, let's talk about major chords. Major chords only differ from dominant chords in the 7th interval, so if you withhold the 7th altogether, you can really only tell if it's major or dominant by it's function in the key (i.e. what came before and after it). If you like at your regular major scale chords, you will see that only the first and the IV are major chords.

Don't do this, just feel it, whatever sounds right is, if you don't know what sounds good then you're not a musician and shouldn't try

Knowing that your "normal options are only I or IV is a great way of looking at how to use major chords. C Major 7 (or any version of it like C Major 9) will sound great after a dominant chord a fifth above it (like G13, for example) but that's not the only use that you can get out of major chords. They also work great acting as the IV. I particularly like the IV when it goes down to the iii (so a minor chord one half step down) or up to the V (one whole step up) you can use this chord a lot in like a bridge, or just to add more interest later in a song.

Lastly, I'll talk about minor chords. Minor chords are generally perceived to be more sad than either of the other two. You have three of them in a normal major key, which also means you have the most options with them! Minor chords also weirdly like to resolve down a fifth, but not anywhere near as much as dominant chords do. Because of that though, you can actually get away with replacing them with a dominant chord in a lot of situations! Jazz makes use of that a lot, where they have a quick progression that just keeps moving in 5ths, and makes them all dominant chords (even if they "should be minor chords!)

Thank you. My progressions sometimes float about aimlessly. Keeping a resolution in mind from now on.
This is great. Thank you so much user. Gonna keep these posts and refer back to them.