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Hey DSF,

A few of your production forum regulars will probably remember seeing this conversation about this idea pop up in a couple threads so I'm kind of collecting all that thinking here. The idea of this challenge is to inspire creativity through limitations. The modern DAW is a playground of unlimited possibilities that we've all gotten used to, but what if we limit ourselves by limiting our digital setups to mimic the setup of a small, all-hardware project studio?

This challenge isn't competitive--there is no deadline and no winner. This thread will be a place to discuss the challenges of the proposed limitations and to share our tunes and discuss them. I will try to make the suggested limitations as clear as possible. These limitations are only suggestions, however I encourage everyone to give it a shot even if it seems "impossible" to do what you normally do with this restrictions. The suggested limitations come out of the somewhat minimal hardware setup I've been mixing on.

To make sure you are really limiting yourself, avoid abusing things like racks in Ableton and patcher in FL Studio--again only a suggestion, but the idea is to push yourself through limitations.

Use only 8 Mono mixer channels/midi channels/audio tracks.

If you want a stereo channel you have to use 2 of your 8 mono channels.

2 stereo aux sends (you can put whatever VSTs you want on them as long as it abides the other limitations).

One EQ per each mono mixer channel and one EQ on each the two aux sends.

One each of any given kind of FX; and only one "live" instance at a time.

Resampling/recording things to audio is OK as long as it abides all other limitations.

2 synths and only one "live" instance of each at time.

Drums/percussion/samples can be handled however you want, but must abide all other limitations.

This is a really cool idea. I don't know how many times I've been stuck on a track because i have too many options.

I also think this could be a fun comp also.

fragments wrote:Resampling/recording things to audio is OK as long as it abides all other limitations.

Does this mean you could bounce 7 tracks down to 1 track, and then have 7 tracks left for everything else? Like what the Beach Boys did with their vocal harmonies. Or can you only bounce 1 track to 1track?

3za wrote:

fragments wrote:Resampling/recording things to audio is OK as long as it abides all other limitations.

Does this mean you could bounce 7 tracks down to 1 track, and then have 7 tracks left for everything else? Like what the Beach Boys did with their vocal harmonies. Or can you only bounce 1 track to 1track?

Yea. You could bounce 7 tracks down to one if you want. Big up the beach boys reference : ) Again, these are more suggestions/guidelines for limitations than rules. But I'm glad to see that maybe there is interest in following the fairly strict suggestions I made in the OP.

Reason has it easy

ehbrums1 wrote:Reason has it easy

I'm curious. Care to explain? Someday when I have way more the fuck time to spend on music I'd love to invest in Reason.

fragments wrote:

ehbrums1 wrote:Reason has it easy

I'm curious. Care to explain? Someday when I have way more the fuck time to spend on music I'd love to invest in Reason.

It's already modeled as a rack, that and the endless routing option

ehbrums1 wrote:

fragments wrote:

ehbrums1 wrote:Reason has it easy

I'm curious. Care to explain? Someday when I have way more the fuck time to spend on music I'd love to invest in Reason.

It's already modeled as a rack, that and the endless routing option

Ah. Fair enough. Sounded like you were get at something very mysterious, lol.

fragments wrote:

ehbrums1 wrote:

fragments wrote:

ehbrums1 wrote:Reason has it easy

I'm curious. Care to explain? Someday when I have way more the fuck time to spend on music I'd love to invest in Reason.

It's already modeled as a rack, that and the endless routing option

Ah. Fair enough. Sounded like you were get at something very mysterious, lol.

nah apart from reason adding three inches to your member no real "mysterious" stuff

ehbrums1 wrote:

fragments wrote:

ehbrums1 wrote:

fragments wrote:

ehbrums1 wrote:Reason has it easy

I'm curious. Care to explain? Someday when I have way more the fuck time to spend on music I'd love to invest in Reason.

It's already modeled as a rack, that and the endless routing option

Ah. Fair enough. Sounded like you were get at something very mysterious, lol.

nah apart from reason adding three inches to your member no real "mysterious" stuff

I'm rocking the analog hardware hard-on myself

I move into my new place next saturday and then playing a festival a few days later, once I'm back and my studios set up I'm on this.

dublerium wrote:I move into my new place next saturday and then playing a festival a few days later, once I'm back and my studios set up I'm on this.

I'll be a minute myself as I've a heap of projects at the moment and I'm working 7 days straight starting Monday.

ehbrums1 wrote:

fragments wrote:

ehbrums1 wrote:

fragments wrote:

ehbrums1 wrote:Reason has it easy

I'm curious. Care to explain? Someday when I have way more the fuck time to spend on music I'd love to invest in Reason.

It's already modeled as a rack, that and the endless routing option

Ah. Fair enough. Sounded like you were get at something very mysterious, lol.

nah apart from reason adding three inches to your member no real "mysterious" stuff

It's 3 inches on the end that points inward though so it's almost entirely imperceptible.

have been producing with just ableton live for the past 9 months. My production has stepped up a notch as a result.

Care to elaborate on this: One each of any given kind of FX; and only one "live" instance at a time.?
What i dont understand is the last part, one live instance at a time.
So automation is off limits?
Or does it mean that you can only use like one delay on one track and not on the other 7 at the same time?

I'll give it a go following the guidelines as strictly as i can so i'd like to get this straight.

Looking forward to hear peoples outcome from this btw, great initiative

Mehlovich wrote: Or does it mean that you can only use like one delay on one track and not on the other 7 at the same time?

I'll give it a go following the guidelines as strictly as i can so i'd like to get this straight.

Looking forward to hear peoples outcome from this btw, great initiative

Yes. You've got it. You can use the Delay VST of your choice on as many things as you want via resampling, but you can only run one instance of the delay at a time. So you could not have a delay on each of the 8 tracks at the same time.

Yea. Hoping to start mine soon!

So...challenge I'm finding already. If I use the channel eq in fl studio only as discussed above, where does the eqing appear in the signal chain? For example if I was using para2 as my eq I could place it wherever I wanted ahead of reverb etc to get the desired sound.

This is ore of a voicing out loud comment, guess one if the fun bits is working out stuff like this. Will get my temp,ate finalized today and chuck up an flp file in vase peopl want to see how I'm approaching it.

fragments wrote:So you could not have a delay on each of the 8 tracks at the same time.

In theory you could have all channels sending to the delay at the same time, or indeed you could have the delay on the , master, if you wanted to.

wub wrote:So...challenge I'm finding already. If I use the channel eq in fl studio only as discussed above, where does the eqing appear in the signal chain? For example if I was using para2 as my eq I could place it wherever I wanted ahead of reverb etc to get the desired sound.

This is ore of a voicing out loud comment, guess one if the fun bits is working out stuff like this. Will get my temp,ate finalized today and chuck up an flp file in vase peopl want to see how I'm approaching it.

fragments wrote:So you could not have a delay on each of the 8 tracks at the same time.

In theory you could have all channels sending to the delay at the same time, or indeed you could have the delay on the , master, if you wanted to.

Well the EQ is either going to be pre or post fader, pre/post insert FX, and pre/post aux. I'm guessing it's pre fader for sure. Wonder if the manual or knowledge base addresses this?

And yea, delay on an aux bus, or delay on the master, but you could only have one instance of your chosen delay VST running at once.

I'm taking a week off before the semester starts so I'll be doing my challenge tune then.

I'd love to load up the FLP file myself. You running 11 these days?

Nope, still on 8...if it ain't broke

Anyway, FLP file is as follows;

http://www.sendspace.com/file/5cij7f

With a screenshot as is;



Setup Channels

1) FPC
2) Slicex
3) TAL Elektro 2 (seemed most apt as an old school emulator style thing)
4) Morphine
5-8 ) Audio clips

All routed through to the mixer with their own channels as listed. For the Sends, I've got TAL-Reverb for that nice plate sound, and FL Delay 2 as it's a very simple no frills delay

All channels on the mixer are set to mono as shown.

big ups fragments for this brilliant idea. for me it was the light in the dark, the one that i was waiting for.
i'm now in love with the new drums that i create. and everything that follows. and my project is also lot cleaner.

cheers!