Music Production Stuff

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jeremyb
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Music Production Stuff

Post by jeremyb »

Now that I'm embarking on producing some of my own music (electronic mainly) I'm learning heaps about mixing and mastering etc from the tube of youse... and thought it would be cool to exchange some videos...

Tonight I'm learning about sidechain compression, so heres a good rundown on using it to help give space for other instruments and to accentuate the kick drum sound (vitally important for EDM)... but theres crossover with recording normal instruments too....

Slowy wrote: That's the problem; everything rewarding is just such hard work. Regret takes much less effort.

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Re: Music Production Stuff

Post by danmunners »

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... 2058525F1C
All of recording revolution's "5 Minutes to a better mix" videos are great. Not that I'm an expert, I get okay sounding mixes recording in my lounge. They sound a lot better from listening to this guy though. If I wasn't writing, recording and mixing the song in one day they might sound better too.

Here's my latest for reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPbPPkp ... Q0xAlIcuFN

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Re: Music Production Stuff

Post by slash-ed »

jeremyb wrote:Now that I'm embarking on producing some of my own music (electronic mainly) I'm learning heaps about mixing and mastering etc from the valve of youse... and thought it would be cool to exchange some videos...

Tonight I'm learning about sidechain compression, so heres a good rundown on using it to help give space for other instruments and to accentuate the kick drum sound (vitally important for EDM)... but theres crossover with recording normal instruments too....

Oh nice! What gear/resources are you using? I've been considering getting into EDM myself but honestly don't know anything about the production aspect and don't know where to start.
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Re: Music Production Stuff

Post by bender »

What are you using for your DAW JB? Ableton? Logic? Garageband? Reaper?

The single most useful tip I've had in the last 15 years of working in sound is to design a good workflow and build a template session (apologies for Pro Tools-centric terminology) around it. Then start every project in the same session. Familiarity breeds efficiency. Build too much into your template and just turn off/hide/deactivate the bits you don't need. It's particularly beneficial for working in Film and TV land where the sessions get up into the hundreds of tracks really quickly. Build it with sub-busses that feed the master bus, and then route the outputs of those to audio tracks to create stems of the project. It's really useful for mastering, but also means the project is self-archiving.

I also use pretty drastic processing on my master fader (or sub-busses depending on what I need to output) so that EQ and compression on the individual source tracks can be more corrective/subtractive.

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Post by jeremyb »

slash-ed wrote:Oh nice! What gear/resources are you using? I've been considering getting into EDM myself but honestly don't know anything about the production aspect and don't know where to start.
I've got an akai mpk mini mk2 keyboard and an akai midimix running into ableton live, using a bunch of plugins that came with my interface as well as Serum and some sample packs :)

The production side of it is really interesting, and I find using ableton is awesome as the bulk of the edm producer videos on youtube seem to use it :)
Slowy wrote: That's the problem; everything rewarding is just such hard work. Regret takes much less effort.

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Re: Music Production Stuff

Post by jeremyb »

bender wrote:What are you using for your DAW JB? Ableton? Logic? Garageband? Reaper?

The single most useful tip I've had in the last 15 years of working in sound is to design a good workflow and build a template session (apologies for Pro Tools-centric terminology) around it. Then start every project in the same session. Familiarity breeds efficiency. Build too much into your template and just turn off/hide/deactivate the bits you don't need. It's particularly beneficial for working in Film and TV land where the sessions get up into the hundreds of tracks really quickly. Build it with sub-busses that feed the master bus, and then route the outputs of those to audio tracks to create stems of the project. It's really useful for mastering, but also means the project is self-archiving.

I also use pretty drastic processing on my master fader (or sub-busses depending on what I need to output) so that EQ and compression on the individual source tracks can be more corrective/subtractive.
Ableton :) Mmmm I think once I get some experience that will be really helpful, a lot of EDM stuff is pretty formulaic so would lend itself to templates :mrgreen:

Hmmm can you give examples of what you would use on the master? was hoping you'd be able to give some professional tips!!
Slowy wrote: That's the problem; everything rewarding is just such hard work. Regret takes much less effort.

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Re: Music Production Stuff

Post by bender »

This is a great post about setting up reverbs:
https://www.exponentialaudio.com/pro-ti ... -any-sound

And another about reverb and delays on guitars in a mixing context:
https://www.exponentialaudio.com/pro-ti ... on-guitars

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Re: Music Production Stuff

Post by bender »

jeremyb wrote: Hmmm can you give examples of what you would use on the master? was hoping you'd be able to give some professional tips!!
My main bus chain is something along the lines of:

1) A multi band compressor and/or a presence EQ (I use the Clariphonic DSP by Kush Audio, but have also used a Pultec style EQ- anything with a smooth top end). This is to add some clarity by boosting highs and cutting lower mids
2) A bus compressor (current go to is VBC by Slate Digital- great Swiss Army Knife type of tool kit as there are three different models that all have their own strengths and weaknesses). This is to tame the dynamics a bit and give the mix a bit of punch. It's usually not doing much more than a dB or 2 of GR, but will pull a bit harder on loud sections.
3) Saturation (usually Decapitator or Little Radiator by Sound Toys or VTM by Slate Digital, but there are loads out there that sound great). This is a multi purpose tool- it mellows out the high frequencies, smooths transients, adds character and is often a perfectly good substitute for the compressor depending on how hard you hit it.
4) Limiter to catch the remaining peaks. I set it to -2dBTP out of habit from broadcast work.
5) Metering!!! I use VU meters out of habit, but any RMS, K-system or loudness meter will do. The idea isn't to watch for peaks, but to keep an eye on the average energy and to try to make every mix I do sit in the same ballpark. It's partly for consistency, but partly to retain headroom. I have my meters set to -18dBVU, which is roughly where most of the emulation style plug-ins are designed to operate. This means that all of the various meters on plug-ins in my session are on the same page level-wise (i.e. they're useful). It's also good practice to retain headroom. If you work at 24-bit (or 32-bit floating point) you can actually record at very low levels without any loss, which reduces the chances of internal clipping (unlikely in the internal mix engine, but plug-ins can definitely clip) and means you don't have to record hot. I reckon all this results in much better sounding mixes- switching to this approach certainly did for me anyway.

Don't try to create a mix that's at finished levels- that's what mastering is for (which you can have a crack at yourself). It works much better if you do it in two stages- mixing, then mastering (aka making it loudererer).

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Re: Music Production Stuff

Post by jeremyb »

Mastering sounds like a whole new level, I assume it varies depending on what format you're releasing it for?

Listening to some of the edm stuff from guys like deadmau5 etc for their recorded stuff they'll eq out stuff below 20hz as a matter of course as it won't be heard and he said it actually helps from a mixing perspective too, but for live they'll leave it in :)
Slowy wrote: That's the problem; everything rewarding is just such hard work. Regret takes much less effort.

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Re: Music Production Stuff

Post by hamo »

Currently understanding about 2% of this thread.
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Re: Music Production Stuff

Post by jeremyb »

Worth keeping an eye on this page here for discounts on plugins etc: http://www.pluginboutique.com/deals
Slowy wrote: That's the problem; everything rewarding is just such hard work. Regret takes much less effort.

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Post by foal30 »

hamo wrote:Currently understanding about 2% of this thread.
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Re: Music Production Stuff

Post by jeremyb »

Would this be a good compressor for EDM use? https://reverb.com/item/4058742-fairchi ... or-limiter
Slowy wrote: That's the problem; everything rewarding is just such hard work. Regret takes much less effort.

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Re: Music Production Stuff

Post by bender »

jeremyb wrote:Would this be a good compressor for EDM use? https://reverb.com/item/4058742-fairchi ... or-limiter
Bargain!

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Re: Music Production Stuff

Post by Capt. Black »

Hahaaaa you could make a comfortable living just renting that out to studios!

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