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Messages - Mussar

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16
Mixing/Mastering / Re: I need some serious help mixing ride cymbals
« on: March 11, 2017, 06:44:48 pm »
There really is no magic, I hate to say, outside of possibly sample selection. If you get a good, high quality sample pack with clear recordings of ride cymbals or drum machines, it's just a matter of having it fit within the context of the mix.

The best advice I could give you would be to look for some songs that have ride cymbals as a prominent feature, and pull them into your DAW to analyze them. Put on a spectral analyzer and pay attention to how the frequency curve changes when the ride comes in. Use an EQ to try and isolate them. Most importantly, close your eyes and try to isolate the ride cymbals from the rest of the mix. See if you can pinpoint how they sound, and compare that with the samples you have. Think about what else is going on in the mixdown of those songs, and what they would have done to the sample to make it sound like that in that context. By studying that, you can find practical examples of techniques you can apply in your own sessions.

17
If you're using the most recent version of Logic Pro X, you can actually apply a pitch envelope in the inspector! Expand the region information tab for the song, and change Fade Out to Slow Down. You can adjust the slope with the curve automation tool, and you're good to go!

18
I do not suggest using services like FastEssay - that's like hiring a ghost producer to write your track. Do your own work, it teaches you responsibility!

19
Sound Design / Re: Zedd Shave Bass
« on: February 16, 2017, 05:51:00 pm »
Hey, that's super close! As far as how to help with your problem, why don't you walk us through how you made it and maybe we can find an answer in there?

20
Samples/Plugins/Software/Gear / Re: weird plugins you like?
« on: February 10, 2017, 07:26:12 am »
There are some cheeky little plugins from a company called Klevgrand I still haven't found a practical use for, but I enjoy them:

Jussi - a synth meant to imitate the human voice, but it does so very poorly and it sounds silly

Svep - their free chorus/flanging/phasing plugin.

Squashit - a really aggressive multiband distortion unit. I still need to figure out how this one works.

All their plugins are super affordable, with the most expensive clocking in at $50. Definitely worth checking out!

21
My best advice is to study what's out there - find songs that you're drawn to, and dissect them. Figure out why they do what they do, and find what you can steal from them to do yourself. Do as many song recreations as your mind and willpower can stand, and write down as many details that you learn along the way. Combine that with all your theoretical knowledge, and you have answers to almost every question you could ever ask.

22
Inspiration/Creativity/Motivation / Re: So I hired a ghost producer
« on: February 04, 2017, 06:47:30 pm »
Sounds like a bad break. I'm sorry you had to deal with that; I hope you find a good place, wherever you end up. Good luck!

23
Sound Design / Re: Lo-Fi Hip-hop??
« on: February 01, 2017, 03:54:56 pm »
Instead of using a bitcrushing or downsampling plugin with a low pass filter, I actually discovered something pretty interesting when trying to recreate that OVO40 sound: Actually export a bounce of the file at a lower sample rate, then re-import it. I know 40 uses Pro Tools, so one day I loaded up PT12 and started throwing drum samples and loops into a project and exporting them at all the different sample rates below 44.1 kHz. This gave me that "underwater" sound without all of the harshness you get from virtual downsampling. 22.05 kHz worked the best from my memory, but experiment with different sample rates and see what you get!

24
Unfortunately, it also goes against the intended purpose of this forum. Mat Zo decided not to include promotional sections on here because there are thousands of other resources out there for promotion. In fact, the number of songs posted in the Finished Tracks subforum with 0 replies goes to show that this really isn't going to be the place to get people to listen to your music.

If you're really interested in talking about marketing and promotion with people from TPF, there is a channel on our Slack server, as eidolon mentioned. However, The Producer's will be about Producing, not about Promoting. We hope you understand. :)

25
Collaborations / Re: Anyone Wanna Collab on a Big Room House Track
« on: January 22, 2017, 08:17:17 am »
Hi, can you please format your post to fit within the guidelines of the subforum? Thank you! :)

26
Samples/Plugins/Software/Gear / Re: Cables? Quick question!
« on: January 19, 2017, 11:36:53 pm »
No problem, and there is! Sound cards and audio interfaces use things called Digital to Analog Converters to turn the data that is being sent by a computer into an electrical signal to drive the speaker cones in your monitors. The better your DACs, the higher quality the signal sent to your monitors. If you're using your motherboard's onboard audio card, you're asking it to do a LOT of work that it was not designed to do - this will lead to a loss of audio quality and overall computer performance.

27
Samples/Plugins/Software/Gear / Re: Cables? Quick question!
« on: January 19, 2017, 07:31:20 pm »
I think it would be most worthwhile to save up and invest in that audio interface you don't have. If they come with 1/8" cables it'll probably be as good as XLR to 1/8" so there's no need to spend money on adapters you don't need, but the best option for the long term would be to buy something that's intended to work with XLR and will offload a large burden of work from your computer.

28
Sound Design / Re: Olivier Giacomotto style bass
« on: January 16, 2017, 09:22:20 pm »
You could make that bass in all of those synthesizers. The trick is to use a saw wave playing a low bass note (in Ableton, i used D0 and E0 for the first sample) put through heavy distortion or saturation, then put through a low pass filter with a no attack, no sustain, and a fairly quick release. I made it in Operator, in Analog, in Massive, in Serum, and in Diva, so if you can't figure it out just let me know. :P

29
Inspiration/Creativity/Motivation / Re: Finding ways to boost creativity
« on: January 16, 2017, 09:08:25 pm »
Thanks for the post! Those are all good ideas. To riff on your idea of a bigger screen, I think all laptop producers should invest in a monitor that they can use so that they aren't always staring down at their laptop. Craning your neck down like that for hours on hours is gonna lead to a lot of pain and potentially injury. You wanna make your production environment as healthy as possible so you can make as much music as possible.

The single biggest creative boost I've gotten has been turning my phone's airplane mode on before going to bed, and turning off the wi-fi on my laptop. It eliminates distractions, and since I forbid myself from turning them back on until I finish my responsibilities for the day, I always put making music at the top of my daily agenda. My mind is only aware of the work I have to do, rather than the millions of things competing for my attention span when i'm "plugged in".

I supplement that by creating something new every single day via a method called Pretotyping (a totally made up word). My Ableton instructor introduced me to the concept - you create the skeleton of an idea in a short amount of time, investing a minimal amount of energy. If a Prototype is a proof of concept, a Pretotype is a proof of a proof of concept, as confusing as that sounds. Applied to music, you could say a Prototype is a demo of a finished song and a Pretotype is a skeleton arrangement.

If you're working on a typical EDM or Pop song, you could say a skeleton of a completed song could be demonstrated in a 4x4 format: A Chorus, a Verse, a Break, and a Bridge; all containing Drums, Harmony, Bass, and Melody. Depending upon your genre this can be modified and tweaked (chorus for Drop, etc) but for getting out a musical idea quick and easy it's perfect. The idea could totally be applied to other DAWs, but it can be particularly effective in Ableton thanks to the Session View.

I've attached an ableton template file that should go in your Ableton->User Library->Templates folder that shows how the Pretotyping works in Ableton. You have a simple drum rack, an Analog for chords, an Operator for bass, and Electric for a lead melody. There's a basic reverb and delay on two return tracks, and you have scenes for each of the sections, as well as one to stop all your clips. I've also included an audio track for reference tracks, so you can use one as a guide if you're feeling lost. You just start filling out the sections, copying and editing as needed, until you've filled in all four sections in all four tracks. You don't need to even think about the arrangement view.

If you're in another DAW, the same principle applies - sketch out a basic skeletal structure for your song, without paying attention to arranging them or working on the fine details. Don't worry about mixing or processing or specific automation - you just want to be able to get the fundamental idea across when you play it back, and you want to be able to just bang it out as fast as possible. Ideally, you can complete the whole thing within 30 minutes.

Do this every single morning, and at the end of the month look over all the pretotypes you've designed. Some aren't gonna be worth continuing, and that's a good thing - you didn't waste any extra time on them, but you still got the experience of working on it. Just look for the things that are worthwhile inside of those projects and save them for later - like for another pretotype where you can just pull a drum loop or a chord progression that you never did anything with and give it a new life, or to help finish another song that you've put a lot more time into. All the ones you have left should be pretty good ideas, and you can just arrange them out, start making things unique, adding more fills and putting in all the bells and whistles - again, with no time wasted.

30
So were y'all just trolling me when you said you wanted this board? It's been over a week, and no one's posted anything...

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