Help out a young aspiring dub producer!
Posted: Thu Feb 03, 2011 8:02 am
Hi all,
My name is Sam Vogel. I have had a love affair with dubstep for the greater part of my high school career, and as that is coming to a close I have found myself with lots of time on my hand. I have played music for years and am familiar with music production/DAW's, and decided I wanted to seriously begin the journey of becoming a dubstep producer. I have (almost) all the tools laying before me - Mbox 2, Reason 5, Live Suite 10 (or 8, whatever the newest one is... keep getting the program numbers fucked up), many hours already devoted to learning the craft, and countless more ready to be thrown at it. I have already began going through the production bible as well... the one thing I am truly lacking is some much needed guidance, advice, and confidence from experienced dub producers like you guys.
As I said, I have already spent a fair amount of time learning both Reason and Ableton. I can now get a pretty nasty dubstep tone using Operator in Ableton and put a heavy sub-bass on it, and am working on perfecting my craft with Reason. My one main issue is: I can get the sound I want, but then can't do jack shit with it. I am constantly struggling without a keyboard to change LFO rates when I want to, much less even record on time with the lag-time between the on-screen keyboard and the programs (ableton at least.) Yes, I have considered both clicking in the notes by hand (or, should I say, mouse) and attempting to mess with the LFO on an envelope, but whenever I input the notes without actually playing them the switch between the notes seems much to mechanic, even with the glide turned up. As for the LFO, I seem to spend hours on :05 of a song getting the LFO envelope just right, and then when I play it back realizing its not quite at 1/8,1/16, 1/6, 1/12, etc etc etc. and ragequitting.
What is the best solution to this? I assume it's going to be buying a keyboard... I have beenlooking into purchasing an Axiom 25 or 49, or something of that caliber. Would that solve my problem and allow me to freely express my musical creativity? Or is there something I'm missing here? I'm sorry if this is a complete noob question, but I've been struggling with this for months, and after countless tutorials and forums I decided to come post here. Thanks in advanced.
Sam Vogel
My name is Sam Vogel. I have had a love affair with dubstep for the greater part of my high school career, and as that is coming to a close I have found myself with lots of time on my hand. I have played music for years and am familiar with music production/DAW's, and decided I wanted to seriously begin the journey of becoming a dubstep producer. I have (almost) all the tools laying before me - Mbox 2, Reason 5, Live Suite 10 (or 8, whatever the newest one is... keep getting the program numbers fucked up), many hours already devoted to learning the craft, and countless more ready to be thrown at it. I have already began going through the production bible as well... the one thing I am truly lacking is some much needed guidance, advice, and confidence from experienced dub producers like you guys.
As I said, I have already spent a fair amount of time learning both Reason and Ableton. I can now get a pretty nasty dubstep tone using Operator in Ableton and put a heavy sub-bass on it, and am working on perfecting my craft with Reason. My one main issue is: I can get the sound I want, but then can't do jack shit with it. I am constantly struggling without a keyboard to change LFO rates when I want to, much less even record on time with the lag-time between the on-screen keyboard and the programs (ableton at least.) Yes, I have considered both clicking in the notes by hand (or, should I say, mouse) and attempting to mess with the LFO on an envelope, but whenever I input the notes without actually playing them the switch between the notes seems much to mechanic, even with the glide turned up. As for the LFO, I seem to spend hours on :05 of a song getting the LFO envelope just right, and then when I play it back realizing its not quite at 1/8,1/16, 1/6, 1/12, etc etc etc. and ragequitting.
What is the best solution to this? I assume it's going to be buying a keyboard... I have beenlooking into purchasing an Axiom 25 or 49, or something of that caliber. Would that solve my problem and allow me to freely express my musical creativity? Or is there something I'm missing here? I'm sorry if this is a complete noob question, but I've been struggling with this for months, and after countless tutorials and forums I decided to come post here. Thanks in advanced.
Sam Vogel
