Has anyone noticed that the main difference between amature and professional tracks (aside from mixdwons and mastering) is that they have a huge knowledge of a TON of different ways to keep variance?
I find that there are so many ways that pro’s add modulation and ear candy to keep it amusing for the listener. I find I’m restricted by the fact that I never remember all these techniques and then I end up using a lot of the same ideas in every track…
Is this just me? I hope there’s others to make me feel a bit better
Any suggestions on keeping tab on these kind of things/ being able to remember them when you actually need it? I seem to keep going back to dropping drums out for a couple bars, then reverb sweeping to create mini re-drops. Also, I always end up just using a pitched up sweep, with an lfo here and there. Gets dull and old quick…
If you have any pearls of wisdom, I’m sure I’m not the only person with this on their mind so share please!
But my problem lies more in remembering all of these techniques. Cause I can listen to a song or watch a tut for example and be like “o cool, okay so reverb, delay automation here and this there blah blah blah” but I dont remember to apply them to tracks or even where to apply them!
I feel like my knowledge always gets narrowed down to whatever things I use on a consistent basis, which makes my tranny’s and breaks and builds all the same… (sadface)
Personally when I listen to a professional track the main thing I notice is how well done the tracks structure is and how cohesive everything is.
They flow so perfectly, every transition, every 16 bars or so just has something going on.
Sometimes the sound design is nothing special at all (kinda poor even at times), the melodies arent the greatest (Deadmau5 comes to mind here (not crap melodies but not great either) yet he is my favourite artist after the gooch (Feed Me/Spor/Seventh Stitch)), yet everything still works and it still ends up sounding like a fantastic track.
Thats where I work my music towards. Just work hard on making sure everything flows well and everything is cohesive. (Its really not working out for me lol).
And what j said is also useful, listen to a track from the start and listen to that same element (gonna have to concentrate a bit since the difference is suttle) at different points in a track and a lot of professionals have this suttle modulation going on keeping things sounding just that bit fresh. You dont want your audiences “mind” adapting to a sound, you want it always working in absorbing your music, keep a sound the same for too long and the “mind” gets bored.
Same can be said about note placements, just moving them of a bit here and there and changing things, like tweaking the shuffle of your perc could keep things interesting. (I say these things but never use them in my own tracks lol…)
[quote]FlyingYeti (26/11/2011)[hr]So ICN do you setup up crazy audio effect racks all the time?? Or do you have like a default with all your nifty macro’s mapped and whanot?[/quote]
First off - I aint no pro… but I’m getting happier all the time with what I’m doing.
That coincided with actually thinking about how I was using synths & fx… rather than just fkkn about & hoping something would happen.
I dont have any racks owhich I pull in when I want to make something… its more a case of that I normally know what things I need to make the sounds… and where i think they sound good in the chain. Very often its just a case of tweaking the parameters in one or 2 plugins, or using the filter in the synth. I think when you start adding heaps & heaps, that when you start losing the sound (and destroying it) - unless you really know what you’re doing.
Mightnt be suitable for every style of music - but I usually have lots of different length bars looping in my stuff.
bass - straight
shaker pattern - looping over 5 bars.
perc thing - looping over 3 bars.
fx - looping over 5/7/10/14/15 bars.
synth - looping over 10 bars.
I’ll make slight changes in the pattern, or small velocity changes - some which affect the filter, +/or have a autofilter going over it on a 2 or 4 bar setting… bit of light chorus too. Keeps it from sounding too repetitive.
All that is happening with other stuff playing in normal straight bars. It makes it sound like its constantly changing. Sometimes stuff clashes - but you could always find the sections up to where its fine, then loop that section out.
I like it - Your ear catches onto something, then its gone - then its back again. Mightnt be suitable for all music - but its interesting.
[quote]ICN (26/11/2011)[hr]Mightnt be suitable for every style of music - but I usually have lots of different length bars looping in my stuff.
bass - straight
shaker pattern - looping over 5 bars.
perc thing - looping over 3 bars.
fx - looping over5/7/10/14/15 bars.
synth - looping over 10 bars.
I’ll make slight changes in the pattern, or small velocity changes - some which affect the filter, +/or have a autofilter going over it on a 2 or 4 bar setting… bit of light chorus too. Keeps it from sounding too repetitive.
All that is happening with other stuff playing in normal straight bars. It makes it sound like its constantly changing. Sometimes stuff clashes - but you could alwaysfind the sections up to where its fine, then loop that section out.
I like it - Your ear catches onto something, then its gone - then its back again. Mightnt be suitable for all music - but its interesting.[/quote]
Pin point advice man esp the odd bars on fx looping
also you can modulate the hats with a filter so it rises and falls in frequency also the same thing as icn said you can use odd settings on higher frequency sounds hats etc try looping them at 1.3 instead of a bar but the main thing everyone should be on especially in dance music is parallel compression it separates the weak from the solid imo try it on bass/ kick /toms you’ll see the difference in your sounds straight away !!
Just set up a super heavy compression plug on one of your sends and start sending to it (Max Release, low threshold, keep make-up gain on, something like 4 or more for the ratio).
What its basically doing is making all the “softer” parts of a sound louder and more audible, so it thickens the sound.
So instead of just a powerful transient on that kick your also boosting the parts after it (the bassy part).
You can also use Saturation to do this, its difficult to get right, but I have noticed it really boosts percieved loudness!
[quote]FlyingYeti (26/11/2011)[hr]I’m glad you brought up parallel compression. Cause I don’t fully get it. Any articles out there that are a good read?[/quote]
There’s a tut on parallel compression in the early techno tutorial
if you want your track sounding professional, automate. I mean everything, hats,toms,bass,lead,drums. automate compression,reverb,delay, volume, more reverbs
use highpass,lowpass, bandpass, notch /whatever
automate. even if its just a little bit. it helps.
When i started automating everything, things got weird. Everything just sounds cleaner,perhaps more refined.
Automation is key into creating a track that sounds more professional.
[quote]Walshyyy (26/11/2011)[hr]if you want your track sounding professional, automate. I mean everything, hats,toms,bass,lead,drums. automate compression,reverb,delay, volume, more reverbs
use highpass,lowpass, bandpass, notch /whatever
automate. even if its just a little bit. it helps.
When i started automating everything, things got weird. Everything just sounds cleaner,perhaps more refined.
Automation is key into creating a track that sounds more professional.[/quote]
Definitely - Automate.
But - dont forget to try & have the core effects too, which dont change. Turning sh!t up & down / on & off is only 1/2 of it
Getting the contempory sound from the get go is the holy grail. Sometimes its hard to get beyond that. Beyond having good quality sounds - the other 1/2 is having width & depth in a mix. Thats the groundwork that you can branch off from.
Wow thanks for all the explanations guys! and I will definitely check that out in the techno video!
So basically with regular compression it lowers peaks and raises the average volume but with parallel compression it just fills in the gaps so that the lower volume parts become closer to the peaks but the peaks remain the same volume?
Technically a compressor squashes the signal, a lot of people add attack to their compressor so the transient becomes stronger (for kicks or hats or what not, kinda cleans up the sound by reducing the volume of the tail).
Parallel compression is without the attack so everything becomes squashed, by keeping make up gain on (or use your own judgement and add gain yourself) your gonna raise the volume of everything not being squashed out (anything under the threshold) which tends to be the quite bits (the tail on the kick for example).
By using a send or just a dry/wet signal on a heavily compressed compressor what your doing is beefing up the sound so the quiter bits become louder, everything therefore sounds thicker.
