Alright Newbies, Ask A Question

[fragments]

Cool man. Happy to be proven wrong : )

EDIT: I was always taught to turn everything in the signal chain up to around 75% of max volume...so this is where I am coming from : )

[Crimsonghost]

I just learned that I've been making dubs for along time, just never new what they were called.

[fragments]

I just learned that I've been making dubs for along time, just never new what they were called.

Pretty much all electronic music is influenced by dub reggae in a sense ;p it is music where the engineer becomes the artist...to quote some guy from some dub reggae documentary I watched recently...

[Crimsonghost]

Yeah, I just read a wiki page on dub/dubbing and it was really interesting.

I think I've only been making (electronic) music for about 3 years now and I'm really starting to see things in a different light. At first I was all about nasty bro noises because it's something I'd never heard before, but now I'm starting to understand what really gives a song "soul".

I mention this because now I see that not everything has to be rigid and sterile. Turn the quantize off and and stick with the less than perfect take. That's the great thing about dub. It's more art than music. More emotive if you will.

Or at least that's my take on it. :shrug:

[fragments]

Yeah, I just read a wiki page on dub/dubbing and it was really interesting.

I think I've only been making (electronic) music for about 3 years now and I'm really starting to see things in a different light. At first I was all about nasty bro noises because it's something I'd never heard before, but now I'm starting to understand what really gives a song "soul".

I mention this because now I see that not everything has to be rigid and sterile. Turn the quantize off and and stick with the less than perfect take. That's the great thing about dub. It's more art than music. More emotive if you will.

Or at least that's my take on it. :shrug:

Yea. I think you've got it. Honestly, I would watch/read as much as you can about Dub music. Not that I listen to a ton of Dub Reggae or make it, but theoretically it has had more influence on what I do/want to accomplish than any specific kind of dance music. Even though it is pretty different the concept of making a Dub is what inspired me to go hardware and do live takes, twist knobs and generally get away from making "point and click" music--to be clear I love lots of music by what I would call point-and-click artists...but my hardware setup is a studio instrument I am learning how to "play" just like someone learns guitar, bass, drums etc.

Keep learning more. Make nasty bro noise, make "deeper" ones, do it with quantize on and off. It's all good. You've got to find the Dub. It's like chasing a shadow yea? If you can capture that, in whatever way makes sense, then you have something.

I know this is all metaphoric BS, but that is how I operate and think. I don't know another way. I don't do well with the super technical engineering stuff. I'm not a sound designer, I'm not a mix engineer or mastering engineer, I don't technically play an instrument. But I have a studio full of tools that make noise and I strive to harness the noise into meaning. Find the Dub.

[nowaysj]

It's more art than music.

[nowaysj]

What about this though?
This basically speaks against the last post in every way.

Listen dude, we have to have a heart to heart here.

What is the problem? Like, why do you want to mix up at 0db? There is no upside to it at all, only downside, and it is the easiest thing in all of production to do right. It is like there is some battle against gain staging properly. Like, "I heard you can do x and y and z and prqs to fix it when you are at 0..."

Just gain stage properly.

[bouncingfish]

What about this though?
This basically speaks against the last post in every way.

Listen dude, we have to have a heart to heart here.

What is the problem? Like, why do you want to mix up at 0db? There is no upside to it at all, only downside, and it is the easiest thing in all of production to do right. It is like there is some battle against gain staging properly. Like, "I heard you can do x and y and z and prqs to fix it when you are at 0..."

Just gain stage properly.

I get it guys. It's not hard. I'm not saying I really really have to mix loud, I won't. I'm just interested that's all.

"You have to gain stage"
"This video says you don't have to"
"Why do you want to mix at 0db anyway just gain stage"

I can see the real point in an analog or 24 bit environment but I just want to know what you guys are saying - is the guy in the video wrong or not? Is seamless an idiot for clipping his channels and turning the master down or is that a thing you can do (without clipping)? Because I heard his tracks and well, I can't hear clipping.
I'm not saying I'm going to do what he does, I just want to know if the video tells the truth because this has always been hard for me to understand.

Thanks guys!

[NinjaEdit]

It's not clipping, it's just the algorithm used. Try it yourself.

[cyclopian]

just gonna leave this here for the dub-wise conversation:

[Dub_Fiend]

Tune! And a free d/l too nonetheless!

[RKM]

noways as someone who used to play in bands do you not find it incredibly frustrating how much time it takes to do all these processes and how much equipment and tweaking it takes to make a tune, when you can finish a guitar song in five minutes?
it's something which puts me off producing, the lack of spontaneity

[Crimsonghost]

noways as someone who used to play in bands do you not find it incredibly frustrating how much time it takes to do all these processes and how much equipment and tweaking it takes to make a tune, when you can finish a guitar song in five minutes?
it's something which puts me off producing, the lack of spontaneity

A few days ago I wrote and recorded a song in about an hour. Quad tracked guitars, bass, drums, vocals, and a lead. It was some sludgy metal thing si I didn't even have to mix it much

Otoh, it took me about an hour to find a decent kick drum for a now electronic song I'm working on. What up wit dat?

[nowaysj]

I have heard will respond later.

[legend4ry]

noways as someone who used to play in bands do you not find it incredibly frustrating how much time it takes to do all these processes and how much equipment and tweaking it takes to make a tune, when you can finish a guitar song in five minutes?
it's something which puts me off producing, the lack of spontaneity

A few days ago I wrote and recorded a song in about an hour. Quad tracked guitars, bass, drums, vocals, and a lead. It was some sludgy metal thing si I didn't even have to mix it much

Otoh, it took me about an hour to find a decent kick drum for a now electronic song I'm working on. What up wit dat?

I used to find this hard but I did the following....

Trimmed my drum samples down from about 50gb down to a 10gb pack and each of those categorized into Battery kits as well as able to be grabbed individually outside of Battery.

I only use the following synths :

Sylenth.
Omnisphere.
Nexus.
Reaktor: Prism, Spark, some other user-made ones. Photone is a great one!

So if you will look at it in the concept of a band.

Sylenth is my lead guitar/bass
Battery is my drum kit.
Omnisphere & Nexus are my keys/rhythm guitar/bass/ post-composition production
Reaktor is my "other" stuff. Like borrowing a mates guitar or using a new piece of kit.

I can have a tune written in about 30 minutes. My default project loads up all those stated above and I have generic sounds that I know what together as default patches, like you would have your guitar set to your favourite amp settings.

Its all about setting up an environment where you can jump in and write, like picking up your guitar and strumming. Thats probably where the issue lies.

[DrGatineau]

Alright Newbies, guests, lurkers, those hidden in the shadows.

Time to register and get involved.

I've been making music for a long time, in 90's I was signed to Interscope in a grunge band, Nigel Harrison's hot topless Slovakian girl lived with me for a summer, I used Flstudio in the 90's, back when Deadmau5 was just a pimply dude who smoked too much, I built a recording studio with my bear sweaty hands, I've used every major daw, I've been a pro sound designer (meaning I stacked that cash, knuckkas!), I've got an assortment of hard and soft synths and samplers, AND I'm only 1/2 full of shit.

So, I'm answering production questions, none too basic, fire away

bare*

[RKM]

interesting legend4ry thanks, would you say the tweaking little elements to make your track sound right is a necessary evil or something you enjoy?

[legend4ry]

I have an awkward work flow and through looking through those master classes and stuff a lot of people tend to have this process of elimination, where you'd find the right kick, move to a snare, then get some hats, find a groove, fill in spaces, move to bass - find that perfect bass then move to the next sound.

I like to just have a 808 kit or a real drum kit, a piano patch, some pads and jam, once I have a vibe in my head then I work everything else around.

I think personally that I am at the point where I know what sounds I want.

I'll have a melody or something going and I know that Sub/808 kick 15 will layer perfectly with real kicks 20 because it has that quiet splash sample which covers a space and rises up the tension towards the snare.

The snare feels like it could either be really organic from a break with maybe a bongo or tambo layered on top for snap and fidelity...You get what I mean I am sure.

I don't tweak, really. I know every sample I have is of high quality and at least have a kick, snare, few hats and some percussion to fit 90% of styles and vibes that I want and if not, I have around 800 breaks that I can chop up and sieve through.

I am much more excited by composition and a general vibe so I don't tend to swap samples and sounds until I have burned out with where to take the track further - which usually then with some changes helps me finish the track.

I realized that the other day that a lot of music, especially lately kind of showcases a groove or a moment where all these sounds come together and how I can approach that idea in as many different ways with still making it 'listener friendly' so my work flow advice is probably terrible to 90% of people.

[RKM]

cool cool, well basically i've had an idea in my head for if/when i start producing, to use entirely sampled drums (from listening to other genres i feel there are a lot of bands whose drum sound would sound fantastic) found in 90s stuff like jungle and hip hop where they're all sampled the drums just hit so much harder, just wondering how achievable that is, i feel in making dubstep it would give my tunes a lot more impact, or is it just an insanely long process to do it that way

[nowaysj]

noways as someone who used to play in bands do you not find it incredibly frustrating how much time it takes to do all these processes and how much equipment and tweaking it takes to make a tune, when you can finish a guitar song in five minutes?
it's something which puts me off producing, the lack of spontaneity

It is very apples and oranges. Totally different musical process. I'd really like to be playing band music in this day and age though. It would be so fucking easy. You have no idea how hard it was back in the day. And how shitty things sounded. I cant tell you how hard it was just to get a place to play... The effort we used to go through... We were so fucking strong from loading and unloading all that gear... and fucking drummers... motherfucking drummers.

There is a liveness to what you're referring to as guitar music. You just plug it in and strum. But you can get that in this day and age.

You need to take responsibility for your process. You've got to find a way of working that you like. Not just a way that produces good results. I've found various ways, but I don't like them. I can get good results, but it is onerous nearly the whole time. Fuck that, life is too short, and I'm not being paid to make songs.

So templating is one way to do it. I do personally like a blank slate. I also like fl, the fastest daw. So I can orchestrate what I need to on the fly, very quickly.

But I really like a hybrid approach. I like working with the sp 404sx, a playable kind of hand sampler. It has that liveness and spontaneity of instrument based music. It is an instrument, you play it. There is no grid. Shit is funky. So for me, finding a way to work with the 404, and other hardware synths, with vinyl, that was my quest, my search, to find a way that I like to work, to find a way to get back to a place where I can spend a few hours just lost in music. Rather than pushing blocks of audio around a screen and checking my email every 5 minutes.

Also of note, this choice of instrumentation has foreclosed certain genres or types of music. The control is too granular/too macro, the sound is too rough. I guess you could make, like dubstep, on the 404... but it is going to be rough stuff. What I'm saying is you've got to accept you're going to go down a path with your process, not everything will be open to you. But that is what process is about, it is your process, your way of making music, that leads to your music, your particular voice in music.

Past a certain level people should get pretty meta and think about what they are doing with music, think about how they are thinking about music.

And most importantly, don't sacrifice the enjoyment of making music for a sound or a genre or a scene or a release opportunity. Stay with the enjoyment. It will show, and if not, who cares, you enjoyed it.