Random Production Tips Thread™

[ehbes]

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.

A sub isn't goin to have any frequencies up the snare region....

[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.

A sub isn't goin to have any frequencies up the snare region....

i guess i should have mentioned that for verses a lot of times I will run an extra synth bass layer with some distortion that is focused more on the 100hz and up area. It is basically more of a rock/metal recording technique I guess, but I like the way it sounds in a lot of parts. It just seems to give the snare a little more weight on the hits with the little duck. There definitely doesn't seem to be any downside to doing it from what I have experienced.

[cmgoodman1226]

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.

A sub isn't goin to have any frequencies up the snare region....

i guess i should have mentioned that for verses a lot of times I will run an extra synth bass layer with some distortion that is focused more on the 100hz and up area. It is basically more of a rock/metal recording technique I guess, but I like the way it sounds in a lot of parts. It just seems to give the snare a little more weight on the hits with the little duck. There definitely doesn't seem to be any downside to doing it from what I have experienced.

If anything, you might want to duck the higher end synths just a bit to the snare. I personally don't really like anything below 150 in my snares. It just takes up needed space in the mix.

[Today]

by what they just explained, it seems that's exactly what Kit Fysto does. ducks the low-midrange bass layer. Which, technically, is a higher end synth (compared to a sub)

[antipode]

Great speakers help but they aren't a must have.

Yes they are.

This one's for beginners: Everything will need to be EQ'd. Nothing just magically fits in the mix perfectly.

Not at all. If anything I'd reccomend picking good sample sources to begin with and EQing LESS.

Having shit speakers and then EQing everything is a recipe for disaster. I found this out first hand.

today's random one............. don't be afraid to automate the volume on some shit when you need it to fit in the mix better
just allowed myself to rely less on compressing and leveling thing. when something sounds great until another section comes, maybe it just needs to be louder or softer for that part
then just do it neatly in a way it sounds natural

I would say if you've got a proper mix structure with everything sitting in the right frequency range and place in the stereo field you shouldn't need to do this imo.
Nothing wrong with automating gain creatively though, but using it as a workaround for a bad mix is just like using compressors badly.



I've got a tip, when mixing down, try turning your speakers/headphones down really quietly and you'll hear any peaks/out of place sounds in the high/midrange that your ears seem to ignore when they're louder.
Feel free to shoot me down on that

[NinjaEdit]

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

TIP: Move a track by milliseconds, and possibly invert phase, to avoid phasing issues. Try this on all tracks to see if it improves the sound.

[ehbes]

that would compound phase and make it worse....

[NinjaEdit]

Objectively, you would move the track until it's in phase. Subjectively, being a little of phase can sound good. Try it and find out.

[ehbes]

For the style I'm going for I don't want a fat pad

[JTMMusicuk]

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

TIP: Move a track by milliseconds, and possibly invert phase, to avoid phasing issues. Try this on all tracks to see if it improves the sound.

You could frequency split it so you could have the mids and high end lofi and the bassier frequencies being played by the origional part

[Kit Fysto]

After a few mishaps over the last couple days I am going to suggest hanging a sign of some sort in plain view that simply says "SAVE YOUR SHIT" or something to that effect. I had a random crash that set me back a good 3 hours haha. No fun

[NinjaEdit]

Just get in the habit of hitting Ctrl+S whenever you do anything.

On the topic of not using studio monitors, do you think it's ok to use the sound driver's EQ to compensate for bias? Like listen to music you want to sound like and EQ to make that sound good, then do your tunes.

[moot0ne]

how do you put bitcrushers only at certain frequencies?

Could you bus them somehow?

not without messing up the master with eq.
if you were to make a send track with a eq before and bitcrusher, it would just be dupliacte playing over the original sound

I think thats when splitting frequencies and multiband compression comes in. Camel Phat is very useful for this.

^This -
I did this successfully the other night in Logic - synth>send to bus (5 for example)>(in mixer)add 4 AUX>multipress and (bus 5) on each AUX>solo freq on each AUX respectively>low-mid-midHi-hi (or however you want) add effects to taste on each AUX >not< source (though you could if you wanted). If you remove the stereo output on the instrument channel strip you only get what's coming out of the master out VIA the AUX sends and you won't get doubled up on.

[RandoRando]

^^^
yeah i know how to split frequencies, but is noisia putting the bitcrushers at those frequencies on every individual instrument? or on the master, see i thought they were saying on the master channel, and i was wondering how to split frequencies on the master without making it sound horrible. But putting it on individual instruments seems like the way to do it. I wonder what bitcrusher they are using though cause redux in ableton kinds of makes it sound weird, and not "crystal clear"

[Augment]

Great speakers help but they aren't a must have.

Yes they are

Tell that to KOAN Sound, skrillex, Kill the noise etc....

[ehbes]

Great speakers help but they aren't a must have.

Yes they are

Tell that to KOAN Sound, skrillex, Kill the noise etc....

So people who have producing for 10 + years don't need them

[moot0ne]

^^^
yeah i know how to split frequencies, but is noisia putting the bitcrushers at those frequencies on every individual instrument? or on the master, see i thought they were saying on the master channel, and i was wondering how to split frequencies on the master without making it sound horrible. But putting it on individual instruments seems like the way to do it. I wonder what bitcrusher they are using though cause redux in ableton kinds of makes it sound weird, and not "crystal clear"

Oh, I see what you're saying. I'm sure there are plenty more experienced people here to answer that. Intuition tells me that effecting the master is probably not the way to go. Also, I'm pretty sure they aren't using anything that comes "out of the box" regardless of their DAWs. Which could account for your results. I mean even splitting freqs the way I described is probably the "hard way" to do it judging from the other recommendations I've seen Ohmicide, CamlePhat, Fabfilter (saturn) etc.

Hopefully someone can chime in to help out.

[Augment]

Great speakers help but they aren't a must have.

Yes they are

Tell that to KOAN Sound, skrillex, Kill the noise etc....

So people who have producing for 10 + years don't need them

the KOAN guys had just quit diapers 15 years ago, dont think they've been producing for 10+ lol
Think they've actually just produced for like 5 years

[NinjaEdit]

And Skrillex is like 25. He hasn't been producing for 10+ years, more like 3.

Just compensate for bias with EQ.

[Augment]

And Skrillex is like 25. He hasn't been producing for 10+ years, more like 3.

Just compensate for bias with EQ.

He has actually been producing for like 11 years lmao