Got an ARC ON ear while it's on sale. It's a little pricey for what it does but it is convenient. Nice to not have any extra CPU load from correction/emulation because it's all on separate hardware.

i'm not sure why, but it seems some music I produced is getting a niche in nusantara

The biggest change of my mind that made music more enjoyable was not being a mix perfectionist. I’m a musician first, engineer second, so I know I’m not that great in the second department.
I’d spend months on a song only to have a subpar mix and never move on. At this point I just stylistically do the best I can do and move on and I think that’s a faster way to improve.
So my question for you guys : can a mediocre mix ruin a good song? Are mixing engineers the true kings of music production?

>>130425819
the mix in the strictest sense of the word only sets the ceiling of quality/enjoyability.
yes, *the worst* possible mix can ruin a song, of course. a great (and aesthetically appropriate) mix will bring out the best in it.

as soon as you start blurring the line of production vs mixing it’s a different question.

>>130425819
A bad mix can ruin a good song but a good mix can't save a bad song. It doesn't have to be super complicated, though. Just find a bus routing setup that works for your style and then massage everything closer to a fletcher munson curve.

>>130426018
Speaking of aesthetically appropriate, I find that amateurs can put out those type of mixes, but not scenically sound mixes.

There’s tons of great songs where there frequency balance sucks, mediocre low end mixing, etc, but interesting vocal mixing and arrangement happen.

If youre a budding artist, I think aesthetically appropriate mixes are primary over technically sound mixes. Of course, you can improve both at the same time.

>>130426144
completely agree.

that ties into what people mean when they talk about having a "good" ear, or talent.
imo it's really just the result of having good taste, which is something that can be attempted to be discussed or understood, but can't really be taught.

my new track is so fucking good what the fuck

i'm trying vocals but i'm so bad, old folk song

https://vocaroo.com/1lwVuPMjr3OS

>>130427292
can't hear shit, cap'n
your guitar occupies the same frequencies as your voice. no beuno.

when does compression go too far? ive been re-evaluating my mixing and mastering process and ill use try to even out (a vocal take, for example) within a few db of each other, then light compression and then something to catch the peaks. i think reacomp and then fabfilter pro l or loudmax depending on the application is what i use.

>>130428763
> within a few db of each other
this makes me think you’re fucking up
real pros edit that gain manually, or use the waves thing if they’re a lazy old head.
*then* do your peak control with a limiter. or none at all and then do that on a buss down the line so your vocal ducks other instruments at that limiter (again, like the pros).

ime still most people far overestimate what counts as “too much” compression.

>>130423743

My new song

https://vocaroo.com/14TWOkpyky6B

https://vocaroo.com/1iy9NfAq55YU
making a rap/trap cover of this https://youtu.be/tOzOD-82mW0?si=PWgfT4oxYttNyU01 (not mixed)

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qtgoth hit me up last night and then never responded i'm despondent.,,,,,,

https://vocaroo.com/1desAWFTe63E

fm8/massive but not like that THOUGH

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https://vocaroo.com/1hwAvCZjP3Ds

What think? Also, the choir is a sample that I chopped up because I didn't feel like buying a choir plugin and I couldn't find a quality free one.

I've gone as far as I can go on my own, gonna have to look up tutorials. From Vital, to Serum 2, to Massive, I couldn't figure out how to make sounds like the ones I love listening to. It may as well be magic to me at this stage.

>>130430497
Download live sets of songs you like and see how they work.
>>130429634
Everything's a bit too quiet innit. Just make it sound like a Mick Gordon track in terms of space and it's good.
>>130429246
What exactly did fm8 do for you that massive could not? Just curious.

repostan

>heard alor on danse
>decide to make a dnb remix

so far i got this
not too d'accord with the sub bass line

https://voca.ro/191fzgwh1v1B

>>130431029
Any tips on how to make it sound more Mick Gordon-y in terms of space and on how to make it sound less quiet? The whole thing peaks at about -0.29 db, so I don't have a lot to work with.

https://vocaroo.com/1djJHJ94UgSq

>>130432408
yuh, yuh
finna suck my dick
finna suck my dick
Got a fag on my dih
her name's op
and she's
finna suck my dick
finna suck my dick
I'm not gay
but OP's a fag
and she's fuckin'
finna suck my dick
finna suck my dick
Maybe I'm gay
But so is OP
And I'm finna

It's good.

>>130432598
>yuh, yuh
>finna suck my dick
>finna suck my dick
>Got a fag on my dih
>her name's op
>and she's
>finna suck my dick
>finna suck my dick
>I'm not gay
>but OP's a fag
>and she's fuckin'
>finna suck my dick
>finna suck my dick
>Maybe I'm gay
>But so is OP
>And I'm finna
https://voca.ro/15chQnkOV013

>>130433518
Bixed my nood to this.

>>130428763
I use compression in an incremental way, never 100% wet, like on 1 track it might be 50% wet, on another 40% wet, then on the master it might be 25% wet or whatever. Never go full WET, that's my suggestion as someone who's never released music

>>130434765
cringe

>>130431029
>What exactly did fm8 do for you that massive could not? Just curious.
in this song it's FM from multiple oscillators, so that mainly.
that main sound is a couple layers but one thing that makes it that generally gets overlooked ime is the noisiness added by the "digital" parameter- when most people are making dubstep or any bass sound with similar techniques they'll typically reach for ableton's erosion or a ring mod (kilohearts especially) to get that part of the sound, but what digital adds is specific to fm8.

>>130429246
Absolute seggs.

I want to buy a rack multieffects unit as my first piece of hardware because doing everything with plugins is getting boring to me. What are some decent options in the sub $1k range? I'm into 90s electronic music so I was thinking Midiverb II, Quadraverb, or saving up for Ensoniq DP/4.

>>130437271
just get a zoom pedal lel

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I need someone smarter than me to help. Been teaching myself Massive X, and I ended up with something I sorta like in the vein of hardcore techno, but I want to give it an initial oomf or thwack when playing a note. Or is what I'm after a distorted kick drum that would play with the synth? I know nothing about how edm songs are made. Here it is as a download:

https://mega.nz/file/fZsVWLIK#v2NcrjPvO48LLJ9WqO0JyXwMLtzGbHGJTJbtzjLMoNM

Feel free to turn off the Flanger; I'm not sold on it.

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>>130437991
Sorry, I don't have Massive X to test this, but try putting an envelope on the pitch (either one or both of these idk)

>>130437991
no clue what you're intending with these parameters.
after messing with a it a couple minutes i do hear a noisey mid-bass type sound but hm

pitch envelope is an option as the other anon said, as is using a transient or whatever from the noise section (i'd reccomend routing that in parallel and then distorting/compressing together in the xyz section etc and then maybe separating reverb.
separate sub heavy kick is definitely more typical though.

i adore massive x but *for me* it's way too finicky to just raw dog stuff with transients like that; i avoid it for percussion in general honestly unless it's just straight noise/filter stuff.
particularly for techno you resample resample, unless it's that raw morphy stuff you're into

>>130438013
Before
https://voca.ro/15EsLIiy3ZfK
After
https://voca.ro/19VsplRQLiAN

Although it's kind of cheating because I turned off the Flanger. It's definitely closer, ty for the idea. Still plenty of mucking around to do.
>>130438168
>no clue what you're intending with these parameters.
I'm completely novitiate but I do know what I want, it's just forcing the synth to get there that's hard. I've been to a few 190bpm hardcore shows and I want to make a noisy bass sound that would play in time with the kick drum. I don't know if that's called a stab or not.
https://vocaroo.com/1kwXAeO6xJFu
^Same settings as the second vocaroo above, played at a higher pitch. I'll take your advice into account but won't report back unless I can make it work. Not a reflection on you.

>i adore massive x but *for me* it's way too finicky to just raw dog stuff with transients like that; i avoid it for percussion in general honestly unless it's just straight noise/filter stuff.
It's mostly sunk cost fallacy. I got Massive X without knowing its abysmal reputation among the greater edm community. But I imagine it's not tooooo dissimilar on a base level from the popular Vital and Serum 2. I'm chaining myself to Massive X until I can make a few decent songs with it, because if I can do that, then other synths should be incredible.

>particularly for techno you resample resample, unless it's that raw morphy stuff you're into
True. For instance the kick drum in that vocaroo is from a generator run through Reason 14's Scream 4 Distortion. I've got nothing against sampling and resampling I just want to know what I can do from scratch, but maybe I'll get bored of this and finally just take the preset plunge for good.

>>130438476
hHomework uses no original sounds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVsJRzJTnx4
the preset or sampling argument died in 1997. do whatever you want.

>>130438476
> abysmal reputation among the greater edm community
1000% a skill issue on their part.
hands down the biggest complains were about “visual feedback” and no custom wavetables.

>sample and resample
to clarify, i meant “sampling” from whatever you make with massive x, so from scratch, just more controlled.

>>130438565
I was huuuuuuge into Homework last year. I'd never heard it before but had Discovery since I was a kid. Head and shoulders I prefer Homework, incredible album. I knew about that video and others showing the samples, but I did forget. Ty. As long as it sounds good who cares.
>>130438604
I did notice no custom wavetables but being so new to this I'm not sure what that'd do for me anyway.
>to clarify, i meant “sampling” from whatever you make with massive x, so from scratch, just more controlled.
Oh true. I can become the preset.

Also, what do you use for percussion out of curiosity. I'd love to be able to reliably create Walker & Royce kicks. Fucking love those guys.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C36kV528QaA

>>130438684
>what do you use for percussion
i rarely synthesize basic kick/snare/clap/hats myself, but when i do it's almost always vital.
for standard sounds it's really just preference, but i opt for vital because once you have a standard patch it's very quick to get something much weirer with the oscillator warp section etc.
being able to accurately tune your filters instantly (you would think this is a common feature but it's not for... reasons. filter types or whatever boring technical stuff probably).
replicability is very important to me because autism, and vital excels at that.

... but yeah just use what's comfortable.
there's a series of sound on sound articles about how the roland tr-808(?) drums are synthesized that i would highly recommend for starting if you want to know like, how those cymbals were synthesized etc.
very foundational stuff that's applicable outside of drum synthesis once you get into the real shit.

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What you working on /prod/?

Right now I'm trying to ID this loop or style from a Yamaha piano that I think is from the mid 90s to mid 2000s.
https://voca.ro/1eKT5nly34u1

I know its some type of intro beat, and its from that era because this recording comes from a cassette I have. Ive scoured YouTube trying to find it, do any pianochads recognize it? Even the style it's called would help.

I also finished reorganizing my music folder which took several hours so I got that going for me...

SP-404 MkII

https://vocaroo.com/1hEtSSOMTwtb
thoughts. not mixed yet

>>130440027
I did some ambient I'm too lazy to record for vocaroo just now. Ambient is so easy to make but I don't see people doing it the way I do, which is just holding down notes for 20 minutes at a time. It's so fun.
>>130440479
Video game bar music where you're a detective in the future investigating an AI murder spree and there's this beautiful dame barmaid who's had it rough her whole life but never let that stop her vanity so she looks incredible and has her guard up but if you play your cards right she'll give you the information you need about a sleazeball snooping around about the murders and maybe flirt with you.

https://vocaroo.com/146WQaM3k3c3

i like kids

>>130435415
why

how do i break it to my brother having a midlife crisis that his reaper production and songwriting skills suck? i want to help him but he said he "doesn't want to worry about music theory" but none of his tracks are even in the same key, which i have no idea how he can't hear that

>>130442087
also he wants to quit his job for this

>>130442087
>>130442099
Let him ruin his life for the sake of his art like the rest of us.

When a prod trans Lain thread is more active than this general you know this board is dead. Not that I care

>>130442280
>more active than this general
It's not, you fucking tard, that thread is 10 days old. We have been through a 300+ post general in the time that one thread has got to 80.

>>130442416
Yeah with half being a retard spamming John Mayer glazing

Shut the fuck up

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https://vocaroo.com/1hLqnYK0yNnW
house-style beat i whipped up with some po-12 drums

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>>130437991
For an initial oomf or whoosh, I started with adding quick envelopes on the noises pitch and volume in your patch
fyi Massive X has some weird default routing, noise 1 being before the filter and noise 2 being after, so I changed it to have everything before the filter
and also those noise channels are samplers btw and you can use custom samples if you just want to throw a hardcore kick in there

Drastic initial movement is probably what you feel is missing, play around with the Performer 3 shape to your liking, you can try adding it or the E3 envelope to any of the pitches too like the other anons said


https://mega.nz/file/0UwhmJZR#X_Hv8KjVVkT8oajvt3Fj6_YiQS-KVoWMnitKqupirCM