Random Production Tips Thread™

[NinjaEdit]

Tune everything.

[moot0ne]

-listen to the mix and different forms of audio, shitty macbook speakers, studio quality headphones, car subwoofers, everything you can find."

I've always heard this bit, but how do you guys usually go about fixing what you find? Take notes? You know what I mean? How many times do I run back and forth between my DAW and monitors to the car? I mean my ear isn't quite to the point where I can say "this kick isn't gonna hit on laptop speakers because X frequency isn't present enough." And I'm not saying this in a srt-ass way, but why should I care? I guess to me if the mix checks out on headphones, a basic car system and an average h home system what else can you do? That's really two questions I guess. How do ya'll approach this issue?

[ehbes]

I usually check it on 2 different headphones, iPod earphones and at the end I'll check it on my car.. Overtime you'll get a feel for where you personally what thing to sit at... And at that point mixing becomes much less of a hassle

[NinjaEdit]

Ofcourse, you want to get it right, or as close as possible the first time. Which means using the speakers which translate the best, like studio nearfields.

You could do two mixes/masters. One on good speakers, and one on crap ones like laptop speakers. Then blend a third or something of the lofi one in.

[Attila]

Spectral analyzers.

[Smiles]

Spectral analyzers.

Helps so much. I have them on everything just to make sure everything fits, and the just subtle eq to fix things.

[deadly_habit]

head to your local thrift store and get a tape recorder
you'll thank me later

[moot0ne]

Experimental set-up: let me know if you've ever tried this and if it worked for you.

From my amp out; I've hooked up three pairs of speakers that I can either have all on (probably not useful) and can isolate each pair.

First pair: main near-field monitors for mixing as usual.
Second pair: mid-sized pair - each has 12" sub, 9" mid and 3" high range
Third pair: totally crap boombox speakers with like a 5" with 1" tweeter

My stuff will probably never see a big house system, but my theory is; if I can get a fairly transparent sound on the monitors and then sort of solo the other pairs I should be able to average out any unpleasantness that I find between the big pair and the boombox pair. I set it up last night, but didn't have time to test the theory.

Does that seem logical?

[Smiles]

Hey so lately I start tracks and work on them for like half a day and they get completely changed multiple times and then I realise I just want to keep changing it and my original idea is completely lost and start a new project. Any tips on how to get around this?

[3za]

Hey so lately I start tracks and work on them for like half a day and they get completely changed multiple times and then I realise I just want to keep changing it and my original idea is completely lost and start a new project. Any tips on how to get around this?

Become a minimalist.

[Artie_Fufkin]

Does that seem logical?

If the room you're listening in is acoustically treated correctly. Otherwise the resonances will affect all three systems. Check out this for more information: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/feb06/a ... iosos.htm/

[moot0ne]

Excellent article! Some really useful nuggets in there. Thanks for the link. Great site in general. I poked through some of the logic content as well, not your average YouTube fair.

[moot0ne]

Hey so lately I start tracks and work on them for like half a day and they get completely changed multiple times and then I realise I just want to keep changing it and my original idea is completely lost and start a new project. Any tips on how to get around this?

Usually when I feel a tune is about to take a drastic turn I will save it under a new project name. Who says you can't have multiple versions?

[Artie_Fufkin]

^^indeed, if you do anything drastic and don't know if you will stick with the change, save your version 1 and keep going with version 1.1.
And ya, sound on sound has so much great info for beginning and advanced stuff.

[hasezwei]

never start a beat when you have a pizza in the oven

[MaZa1]

never start a beat when you have a pizza in the oven

I think this is the most important tip here...happened to me too many times

I usually check my mixes with low quality headphones and then i take it to my car. And i take notes (only to my head) like hats are too loud, kick isnt enough punchy/sub is too loud etc. Then i do some changes, sometimes if i think sub is too loud i make few mixes with sub turned down db,2,3 etc and see if some of them will be just about right. Then i go back home and change the volume and save it.

[ehbes]

Not so much of a tip is it is a question and depending on answer, it could be a tip..ok

So I'm trying to get this pad in working on sounding pretty lofi, and what I want to do is play it through my car system, and record it with a field recorder, then put that back into my mix with the original being compressed and blended in so that it still has beefy frequencies to it... My question is, is the phasing going to be too much so that it instead muddies up the pad?
I know could probably fix it but u just wanted to get an idea of what I'm gonna have to do when I get home

[them]

Logic mac users - which folder do I save new instruments into so Logic uploads them upon opening? Thanx

[Kit Fysto]

I run an independent Sub Bass channel in all my mixes and I have always side chained to the kick and sometimes the snare and the other day I was tinkering around with some alternative methods to create the same result. My beef with sidechaining the sub is that is decreases the overall volume. It's not that big of a deal in the long run, but I have nothing but time on my hands haha, so I came up with an alternative solution and I wanted to see if this is something that anyone on here has ever done, or if there is some huge flaw to this method that I am just over looking.
I just open an EQ and i set up bells in the peak frequency area of both my kick and snare on the Sub Bass channel and automate them to dip when the drums hit. the result has been nice. It feels a lot smoother than using a sidechain compressor.

[Today]

i'm typically not a fan of sidechain ducking on subs
dunno why your snare would need it
kick i understand