Post links to your favourite tutorials here

I'll start it off with one I know I've posted before but it's a great one (probably the best imo):

Noisia future music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezh2BM2dh5s

What's your favourite?

Cooking food and producing music are very similar, and I believe improving your cooking skills also improves your producing skills and here's why:

- Shopping for groceries is basically crate digging but for food. It's about finding those ingredients that work well together.

- Preparing the ingredients; chopping, processing, seasoning, marinating. These are all terms which could be applied to sound as well. Marinating in music is sitting on an idea for a while to let your brain pick out what needs changing.

- Seasoning while cooking is like the little touches of processing you add to an already processed sample.

- Timing, arrangement and layering are things you have to consider while cooking and producing music.

- When your dish is finished cooking, or your track is mixed down, you can just throw it in a bowl and eat it. Although if you're serving your dish in a restaurant, or selling your track on physical formats, it is wise to make the presentation look nice, or get your track mastered.


There is so much overlap between producing and cooking that the two definitely compliment each other. I highly recommend cooking as a boost to help you think about producing in a different light.

I was listening to this over and over when he uploaded it, so visual and evocative

We've been trying to come up with a quantifiable system for how we decide who gets verified, but to no avail. The problems we have are these:

1. We can't make it about how many followers you have, because there are artists who have acclaim, but not a lot of followers
2. We can't make it only about if you've been signed or have had releases, because there are acclaimed artists who have the respect of top industry people, but aren't necessarily signed yet.
3. For other industry people, like bloggers for example, it's extremely hard to say which blogs have notoriety and which ones don't.

For now it's going to have to be on a case by case basis, but this thread is for discussing what the criteria should be

For those of you who are new to forums, most forums have a little personal ranking system based on how many posts you make. We thought it would be cool to have ours based on the frequency range:

0-150: Sub Bass
150-500: Low Mids
500-2k: High Mids
2k-20k: Highs
20k+: ULTRASONIC!

Feel free to discuss!

I sometimes see some people ask how they can master their tracks better, but is mastering even necessary?

I thought I'd give a rundown of when mastering is necessary and when it isn't.

Firstly, lets not get confused with mastering and processing your master bus. Putting a limiter and a few other plugins on your master channel is not mastering. Mastering is a whole process. First you bounce down your premaster (just a bounce of your track with at least -3b headroom) and then you edit and process the audio separately. You can also do stem mastering which is bouncing down the different parts, then editing and processing them in the same way.

So, do you need to always master? I personally believe it's not always necessary, especially in the world of electronic music. The purpose of mastering is usually to make things suitable for release on physical media, or radio. If your track is just going on soundcloud, then I don't think it's usually necessary.

The MOST important thing is getting your mixdown nice and balanced, if your mixdown is off then no amount of mastering will fix that.

Lets say you do have to get your track/s mastered, should you do it yourself? I got a lot of stick on twitter a while ago for saying you shouldn't master you own tracks, even if you can (probably cus of the way I said it). However, I stand by this opinion, because no matter how good you are at mastering, your judgement is biased when working with music you've spent a load of time on. A good master from a new set of ears can bring out things in the music you didn't even hear. If you master your own tracks you might miss something you didn't notice because you've gotten so used to it. Also, you tend to be a bit more precious with your own work. It's your baby, and no one wants to cut and slash at their own baby.

Remember though, this is just my opinion, so please discuss if you agree or disagree!

We've been getting a lot of requests for a place where people can talk about anything, and we thought it would be a good idea to explain why there won't be.

1. This is the producer's forum, a general discussion would attract people who have no interest in music production.

2. This is the age of social media, there is enough general discussion. Back in 2004 you needed a general discussion because there weren't things like twitter or facebook.

3. Forums that have general discussion tend to be more divided, and we want everyone on this forum to participate in every part of the forum.

Thank you for your support and understanding!

We've been getting a lot of requests for a place where people can talk about anything, and we thought it would be a good idea to explain why there won't be.

1. This is the producer's forum, a general discussion would attract people who have no interest in music production.

2. This is the age of social media, there is enough general discussion. Back in 2004 you needed a general discussion because there weren't things like twitter or facebook.

3. Forums that have general discussion tend to be more divided, and we want everyone on this forum to participate in every part of the forum.

Thank you for your support and understanding!