Author Topic: Intuitive Processing, Reflex Decisions, Good Habits  (Read 21122 times)

fungsway

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Intuitive Processing, Reflex Decisions, Good Habits
« on: January 06, 2016, 03:11:55 am »
Hey All,

I had a conversation with a friend of mine and I complained that I don't always think too much about having every layer EQ'd or treated to perfection as I write because I can lose sight of the final product if I spend too much on the details early on. In fact, I remember watching a video by Toolroom that talked about the race to the final song before dealing with the small details.

Anyways, he said there are certain things that become habit over time.

I wanted to pick everyone's brains about things they do without thinking when they're creating. This can be when a certain frequency that occurs when you're synthesizing (either emphasizing or subtracting it) or perhaps using a transient shaper to crisp up those peaks on a snare or gentle compression on a vocal, or using an automated filter to add movement to a bassline, etc.

The most obvious one I can think of is high passing all of my sounds at 110-120 and adjusting to taste, compressing, and then metering to balance the gain of the channel again, but then I just move on in most cases.

Post your good (or bad) habits!

Blakelight

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Re: Intuitive Processing, Reflex Decisions, Good Habits
« Reply #1 on: January 06, 2016, 03:40:00 am »
As I'm more into sound designing things my good (and really bad Habit) is to eq compress process everything perfectly before I start even doin another thing , it's great in a way because it sound instantly proper and clean but it can be a bad habit when I'm losing the direction i was heading !

clearskys

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Re: Intuitive Processing, Reflex Decisions, Good Habits
« Reply #2 on: January 06, 2016, 03:47:36 am »
The most obvious one I can think of is high passing all of my sounds at 110-120 and adjusting to taste, compressing, and then metering to balance the gain of the channel again, but then I just move on in most cases.

Post your good (or bad) habits!

LOL, 110-120? Jeez, I do 200-250 on everything that isn't supposed to have low-end content in it.

Basically...

Good Habits: Surgical EQing
Bad Habits: ...Surgical EQing, LOL.


But all jokes aside, a good surgical EQing habit has got to be deflating the shit out of anything that's under 40Hz. I just brickwall highpass anything under that frequency point to make sure that any inaudible signal is nullified before proceeding to a master comp or limiter.
https://soundcloud.com/clearskyss (Musical Project)
https://soundcloud.com/raresfinatan (Composition/Sound Design)

fungsway

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Re: Intuitive Processing, Reflex Decisions, Good Habits
« Reply #3 on: January 06, 2016, 05:13:54 am »


Quote
LOL, 110-120?

can you tell I'm not the world's greatest producer yet?!  :'(

So I do that because sometimes I don't totally want to cut out that signal, and sometimes it adds to the overall texture of the track.

More often than not I'll end up highpassing it when I'm running through my first mixdown, but most of the time I usually EQ up until the sound begins to change (because for some reason I'm convinced that preserving the original signal serves as context and is important for its placement in the mix)

I should actually try highpassing stuff immediately and see if that frees up space for me to add other important elements... hmm thanks!

clearskys

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Re: Intuitive Processing, Reflex Decisions, Good Habits
« Reply #4 on: January 06, 2016, 05:16:47 am »


Quote
LOL, 110-120?

can you tell I'm not the world's greatest producer yet?!  :'(

So I do that because sometimes I don't totally want to cut out that signal, and sometimes it adds to the overall texture of the track.

More often than not I'll end up highpassing it when I'm running through my first mixdown, but most of the time I usually EQ up until the sound begins to change (because for some reason I'm convinced that preserving the original signal serves as context and is important for its placement in the mix)

I should actually try highpassing stuff immediately and see if that frees up space for me to add other important elements... hmm thanks!


Hehehe, it's good to keep those 110-120 frequency bands alive and well! Just make sure to kill off unnecessary content that may interfere with your bass-centric elements :)
https://soundcloud.com/clearskyss (Musical Project)
https://soundcloud.com/raresfinatan (Composition/Sound Design)

deño

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Re: Intuitive Processing, Reflex Decisions, Good Habits
« Reply #5 on: January 06, 2016, 12:08:11 pm »
The way I have my template set up in ableton it does most of the basic eq for me. I route all of my drum highs through a high pass set at 1k-ish and my claps/snares at 200-ish. Then my kick I eq that individually and usually that's just cutting out problem areas that are interfering with my mix. At the end of the day this all gets run through my drum bus and compressed+parallel compressed with a final eq at the end for nitpicky stuff. This is all done without a second thought really everything is in place already when I start a new project so it's really helpful when I get close to the end of a song because I just have to make a few adjustments.

For fx, synths and bass I eq as I go because each situation calls for a different approach and it changes from song to song.

MEDMAN

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Re: Intuitive Processing, Reflex Decisions, Good Habits
« Reply #6 on: January 06, 2016, 06:39:23 pm »
To me Eq everything is not a bad habit if you do it fast, but if you start to realize that you don't stop until sounds extra-perfect and you're losing your way is a good signal to be more moderated about this, I eqing all my tracks in the project but not in a surgical way, usually I just remove low frequencies (when is not sub bass, and kicks) and try remove some harsh and noises, and works well and I don't spend to much time in this, because ''waste'' of time I already waste in sound design haha.

PlainSimple

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Re: Intuitive Processing, Reflex Decisions, Good Habits
« Reply #7 on: January 06, 2016, 06:55:14 pm »
putting OTT and reverb  before diving more in sound design
latest antidote sample pack by whompz

sforys

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Re: Intuitive Processing, Reflex Decisions, Good Habits
« Reply #8 on: January 06, 2016, 07:03:42 pm »
I over EQ shit way too often, I honestly need to fucking chill at times cus my tracks will end up sounding kinda thin more often than not which leads to me scrapping my mixdown and going back to square one  :-\