Sweet - I’ll rewire a few tracks over to you… Are PC’s still RCA only? 
Making Variations / Keeping stuff Interesting.
Fcuking 'ell! I cant believe that I’m actually quoting myself here. The world is gonna stop turning… quick - grab hold of summat! :hehe:
Heres a post from the Subscribers Forum that I wrote ages ago. I’m posting it here now, not only cos it might help someone & save the Planet by Recycling - but it would be v.fkn cool if y’all chipped in with what you do in your own 4 walls.
The original thread was called “A Newbie needs help” or something… so please remember that when you are reading some real obvious sh!t here 
Would be nice to have a discussion on how to keep on the fresh side of repetitive… 
[quote]ICN (13/07/2010)[hr]In regards to melody… Sometimes the tune sounds ok by itself - but obviously will start to sound brain numbing after 1000000times on a loop.
Assuming that you’ve got a bit of movement in your sound - a little bit of chorus, little delay, lfo & maybe a bit of sidechaining: Theres still plenty that you can do.
Try chopping it up. Literally… If its an audio part (or you could always replace a bit of midi in a section with audio…) you could reverse it or timestretch to fcuk it up completely - or generally destroy it as a bit of a break.
Also, automation is probably goin to help a lot - You can hit the release & make the sound longer or shorter - you could also automate the filter to sweep up.
If there isnt a Humanize feature in your DAW for midi, try going into the midi file & altering the velocity values & note lengths. Better if you do this over 32 or 64 bars. If you change your synth patch to filter based on note velocity - or release on note length etc… you will get a more random, suppose human inputted feel.
Quantise your head off when you want things tight - but sometimes for melodies & other parts, its cool to play in the stuff & record it over 32bars. At least its unique & a little random & takes a while to repeat. Fix the notes after. Try duplicating the notes into chords etc… and adding voices in your synth to make the sound fuller.
FX wise - you could add delay / reverb washes at sctions before breaks & changes in your arrangement to keep things interesting… or even when there is no change at all apart from a new drum element being introduced. Find out about using a Gate to make a stuttering melody out of a Pad Chords. You can use anything to trigger it & it can sound really cool… Like a drumpart or a spoken phrase or a programmed midi part. My Sampler takes a siidechain input, so recently I’ve been messing around with bringing in different patterns into it, triggering the Cutoff or Pitch… Sounds cool (though not always useable…) - Much better that drawing in Automation.
Sometimes its just as handy to duplicate your synth track & make a bit of a variation of the synth patch (save automating LOTS of stuff…) and have that play a couple of notes here & there that you’ve muted on the other part. You could even automate 2 different filter sweeps on the 2 patches, change the glide / release - the possibilities are limitless… just a case of doing it! LOL
Call & response stuff is cool with melodies - you can always drop or higher it an octave in places for a bit of variation - or do it with a pitchbend for interest. You also have the option if it works out - to double or half the notes (speed it up / slow it down) so that the melody repeats twice in the same length of time it normally takes to play - or twice as long etc… You can even repeat parts of your Midi region or Audio file by chopping it up…
Experiment with moving your notes around on the grid. Moving things left or right a bit can add a whole new dimension to the groove. Sometimes you’ll accidently begin listening to the whole track from 1/2way into the bar etc… & it sounds even better than playing from the 00:00:00. Its pretty easy to move the melody around to where you caught it. Always happens to me 
Mess around - It mightn’t sound great repeated over & over, but as a variation it might just be considered somewhat perfect! :)[/quote]
[quote]ICN (24/07/2010)[hr]
I started off with a basic stabby riff today.
Made 4 copies of the same channel & cut up the Midi, dragging a note or two down on each.
Make changes to each of the synths… sounds pretty cool. As Major or minor a variation as you want.
Try it on anything.
[/quote]
[quote]ICN (25/07/2010)[hr]
Theres really nothing in particular that I have seen, apart from in FM Mag they touch upon applying different fx to different drum sounds etc… in a loop. But its the same idea. Its a collage of different sounds. You definitely hear the technique being used, whether its intentional or not.
Take a Bar of a Kick & a Bass synth… with the synth playing a note on the off beat between the kicks. Simple riff.
Copy the bass synth 3 more times.
Now… Change each of the 3 a little from the original. You can do a new preset if you want. However, try changing the cutoff on one , the release on another and maybe do something with the lfo or maybe add an fx or something - anything, on the last.
I like doing a copy track for a synth or sound that I am opening up or fx’n. Just keeps things seperate & easier to mute. Nothing stopping you drawing in a little bit of a pitchbend on one of the notes if you want or panning them all seperately.
If you had a bit of audio, you could reverse some sounds in the riff as well.
The key here is experiment. Maybe you dont know for sure what it’ll sound like… but what you’ll be getting is a groove/tune that cannot be achieved with just one sound. I think it sounds best with quite subtle, but obviously different variations.
But we all probably use the same technique when doing Perc for tracks, you might choose different sounds, but they’re all part of the same groove. It depends on how stand out you want it to be… and that will influence whether you use it making your lead, or bass or perc or hats… whatever. The SA Techno Tut shows this when making the drums / bassline…
Just experiment… Nothing is wrong. :D[/quote]
Just stumbled across this site, haven’t had chance to fully get stuck in yet cos I’m in work ;)… interesting concept though having professionally mixed track templates to use as carcasses or just to learn from?
What you guys think?
http://beatelite.com/Landing-Pages-Ableton/ableton-general.html?gclid=CPWEm_3ImqQCFd392AodtmVjGQ
[quote]gavisthename (22/09/2010)[hr]Just stumbled across this site, haven’t had chance to fully get stuck in yet cos I’m in work ;)… interesting concept though having professionally mixed track templates to use as carcasses or just to learn from?
What you guys think?
http://beatelite.com/Landing-Pages-Ableton/ableton-general.html?gclid=CPWEm_3ImqQCFd392AodtmVjGQ[/quote]
Welcome aboard - and too answer your question - yep
[quote]slender (22/09/2010)[hr][quote]gavisthename (22/09/2010)[hr]Just stumbled across this site, haven’t had chance to fully get stuck in yet cos I’m in work ;)… interesting concept though having professionally mixed track templates to use as carcasses or just to learn from?
What you guys think?
http://beatelite.com/Landing-Pages-Ableton/ableton-general.html?gclid=CPWEm_3ImqQCFd392AodtmVjGQ[/quote]
Welcome aboard - and too answer your question - yep :)[/quote]
Has anyone got some cash to burn and wanna test it out for the group? 
Ok I’m on it! I’m sucking a template down now. Cost about 17 English bucks! Hope its worth it! :w00t:
…> Dun bother!!! What a rip-off! … I feel sick! :sick:
[quote]gavisthename (22/09/2010)[hr]
…> Dun bother!!! What a rip-off! … I feel sick! :sick:[/quote]
Really? What’s the story?
[quote]TheAnt (22/09/2010)[hr][quote]gavisthename (22/09/2010)[hr]
…> Dun bother!!! What a rip-off! … I feel sick! :sick:[/quote]
Really? What’s the story?[/quote]
Well I just bought the minimal tech “template” and it sounds very basic. No plugins on the master / Just two reverbs and a ping pong delay on the return tracks / no separate eq’ing on the bass and drum channels.
This ain’t no finished article! Don’t expect to use this as a shell to start with before sending off as a completed production. 
Maybe this is something that Sonic Academy could provide to subscribers? Actual finished, polished productions, with all the different plugins such as vintage warmer etc. If people have missing plugins then they could download demos and then re-open the file to see what settings are used etc? Just a thought…
Well I may have been too hasty…
Had a nice reply from my complaining email as shown below:
Hi Gavin,
First off, thank you very much for your business. We truly appreciate it. To us, it shows you somehow trusted the idea and our site enough to spend your hard earned money and I’m truly sorry your experience with that particular template has at all broken that trust. However, we really appreciate you coming forward and speaking your mind. That really means a lot to us.
The minimal template is pretty minimal. It was one of the first projects we released (we opened in last January) and at the time, we were still working out how much of the song to have our producers complete without missing the idea that it was meant to be a starting point and a template. However, since the site has grown and evolved, our research into what people want as well as the detail of our templates has also grown tremendously.
We are confident you will find the other projects on this site up to snuff. In fact, we are giving you a credit for your file and then some. I personally recommend getting the Felipe Senne Tech house template with the $35 coupon code credit below.I think he’ll be closest in style. Not to mention his production is super clean.
We’re confident you’ll like it and we hope the gesture will win you back. Also, in the interim, we’ll be sure to go through and revamp some of those earlier files. We’re still working out the bugs :s
Thanks again for your support. Please, let me know if you have any other questions or suggestions. I’m honored to help.
Chase Harding
Director of Customer Service
Pretty decent response I thought
Thats how all customer service should be ^^^^^
let us know what that other template is like
has anyone tried any of the beat elite templates
[quote]jon_fisher (22/09/2010)[hr]has anyone tried any of the beat elite templates[/quote]
LOL - err Jon please refer too the last 8 posts
[quote]slender (22/09/2010)[hr][quote]jon_fisher (22/09/2010)[hr]has anyone tried any of the beat elite templates[/quote]
LOL - err Jon please refer too the last 8 posts :D[/quote]
hahahahaha oooops 
maybe i should read the complete thread before replying lol. now being a mod i could go back and delete my embarrassment but i won’t.
[quote]jon_fisher (22/09/2010)[hr][quote]slender (22/09/2010)[hr][quote]jon_fisher (22/09/2010)[hr]has anyone tried any of the beat elite templates[/quote]
LOL - err Jon please refer too the last 8 posts :D[/quote]
hahahahaha oooops maybe i should read the complete thread before replying lol. now being a mod i could go back and delete my embarrassment but i won’t.[/quote]
Just can’t get any good staff these days
haha there are some videos on my youtube page and it gets updated now every time i’m off work so if there’s anything of any use on there or you’d like me to have a go at doing something then please let me know.
Cool Jon I forgot about your yt page
another two videos on their way up now and then i’m off to bed for my 4 am start and i’ll see you guys in another 7 days.
[quote]jon_fisher (22/09/2010)[hr]another two videos on their way up now and then i’m off to bed for my 4 am start and i’ll see you guys in another 7 days.[/quote]
Yipee - 7 days off forum chaos :D:hehe::P:cool:
[quote]slender (22/09/2010)[hr][quote]jon_fisher (22/09/2010)[hr]another two videos on their way up now and then i’m off to bed for my 4 am start and i’ll see you guys in another 7 days.[/quote]
Yipee - 7 days off forum chaos :D:hehe::P:cool:[/quote]
Slender just for that i’m holding you responsible now
[quote]jon_fisher (22/09/2010)[hr][quote]slender (22/09/2010)[hr][quote]jon_fisher (22/09/2010)[hr]another two videos on their way up now and then i’m off to bed for my 4 am start and i’ll see you guys in another 7 days.[/quote]
Yipee - 7 days off forum chaos :D:hehe::P:cool:[/quote]
Slender just for that i’m holding you responsible now[/quote]
I feel a ban comming on