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Post by weepingforest on Feb 12, 2020 12:41:35 GMT -5
I've been using a lot of Synth1 for the most part with the help of a few Kontakt libraries. My Korg Monologue should be arriving early next week, very excited to see what DS can be made with it! I also found my dad's old Yamaha PSS-570 recently, I think some great sounds may be lurking in there.
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Post by imp on Feb 24, 2020 9:15:07 GMT -5
Any beginner tips regarding mixing and mastering? I've started to get a grasp on VSTs and Reaper but mixing and mastering is giving me some trouble. I've read a about eq, compressing, limiters and even perceived loudness but any tips would be appreaciated.
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Post by stormcrow on Feb 24, 2020 9:26:35 GMT -5
Any beginner tips regarding mixing and mastering? I've started to get a grasp on VSTs and Reaper but mixing and mastering is giving me some trouble. I've read a about eq, compressing, limiters and even perceived loudness but any tips would be appreaciated. Tip number one: buy a pair of good studio speakers and learn to know them in-depth. It could sound as a strange advice but, believe me, it's the best I can give you.
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Post by imp on Feb 24, 2020 10:33:24 GMT -5
Any beginner tips regarding mixing and mastering? I've started to get a grasp on VSTs and Reaper but mixing and mastering is giving me some trouble. I've read a about eq, compressing, limiters and even perceived loudness but any tips would be appreaciated. Tip number one: buy a pair of good studio speakers and learn to know them in-depth. It could sound as a strange advice but, believe me, it's the best I can give you. Figured as much, I have good speakers which I use to listen to records but I have only headphones on my PC. They're good headphones but they sound so different compared to speakers.
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Post by stormcrow on Feb 24, 2020 12:53:23 GMT -5
Tip number one: buy a pair of good studio speakers and learn to know them in-depth. It could sound as a strange advice but, believe me, it's the best I can give you. Figured as much, I have good speakers which I use to listen to records but I have only headphones on my PC. They're good headphones but they sound so different compared to speakers. I never felt comfortable mixing with headphones. I did it just once and absolutely not happy with the result. What I meant is buying good active monitor speakers, which are different from HiFi ones of course (generally more flat sounding). I never studied as a sound engineer, so I can only trust my ears. That's why I learned to listen to my speakers as much as I can, and you can hear the result in my retrospective album "Among the Ruins (2017-2020)"...if you like it, maybe I'm starting to know my speakers rather good
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Post by andrewwerdna on Feb 24, 2020 22:54:39 GMT -5
First off I'll say I don't really know much about all this type of stuff, so take everything I'm about to say with a grain of salt, but here are my general feelings on the topic. Firstly I couldn't imagine mixing, mastering, or doing any music production with speakers rather than headphones. I know all the professionals say that's the only way to do it, and I'd like to own some studio monitors someday just to check if there are any issues before releasing an album, but I'd never use them for anything else. I personally prefer headphones for pretty much everything, so studio monitors are too expensive for me for just that one purpose. Would much rather put that money towards new synths. I'll generally listen to my albums once in my car before releasing them, just to make sure there aren't any major issues heard on speakers but not headphones. As far as mixing, I think getting the balances right when mixing is very important. It's crazy how much slight relative volume difference between layers changes the feel of a song, so one should keep tweaking sliders at least until a point where any further tweaking is making it sound worse rather than better, maybe use some EQ on certain individual instruments when necessary (very lightly and for specific purposes, not just because using EQ is "expected" or whatever). Also I'd recommend using a spectrum analyzer to get a visual idea of what's going on with the mix, there are plenty of free ones out there. When it comes to mastering, I don't really do that at all. The only thing I do after mixing down is trim and adjust relative volume levels. Every time I've tried using compression I've always regretted it, but that's probably because I don't know how to use it properly. Is compression even necessary? It seems like its only real purpose is to boost stuff as loud as possible, but that loudness war stuff has no place in DS imo. If there are peaks preventing you from boosting the volume to a reasonable level without clipping, go back and fix it in the mixing stage. Compression can really kill the dynamics of a song if you don't know what you're doing and apply it to the entire mix. At the end of the day I think what's cool about DS is most of us are pretty much agreed that it's a DIY thing, so I doubt many people are having their music "professionally" mastered, or mastering it at all. I think it's totally appropriate to say "fuck it" to that stuff. And I think early-on one is more likely to make mistakes and do harm rather than good with mastering attempts, and would be better off not mastering at all, but making those mistakes is the best way to learn so I guess it depends on how important that is to you. There are a few production problems that bug me though: 1. Clipping is one production mistake that in my opinion never sounds good, is impossible to truly fix in some cases, and there's no reason it should ever be occurring except for ignorance (or I guess if one is intentionally using it to try and create distortion or something, but there are better ways). 2. The stereo is totally unbalanced to one side, like this album for example. Nothing else to say about that, think everyone can agree there's no special lofi charm about that particular production mistake.
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Post by element0s on Feb 25, 2020 2:10:40 GMT -5
I throw on headphones to check on low-end. I've got good monitors but no subs so it's easy for bass rumbles to get out of control on some of my more densely-layered tracks. My headphones tend to be more transparent on that end. As a rule I always start a new mix in mono. If I can create an accurate picture of how I want the song to sound in mono, then I'll feel like a god the instant I switch to stereo
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Post by stormcrow on Feb 25, 2020 3:58:07 GMT -5
I throw on headphones to check on low-end. I've got good monitors but no subs so it's easy for bass rumbles to get out of control on some of my more densely-layered tracks. My headphones tend to be more transparent on that end. As a rule I always start a new mix in mono. If I can create an accurate picture of how I want the song to sound in mono, then I'll feel like a god the instant I switch to stereoΒ This is an interesting tip. Do you mean mixing with all tracks set to center?
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Post by Morphic Sun on Feb 25, 2020 4:31:06 GMT -5
When it comes to mastering, I don't really do that at all. The only thing I do after mixing down is trim and adjust relative volume levels. Every time I've tried using compression I've always regretted it, but that's probably because I don't know how to use it properly. Is compression even necessary? It seems like its only real purpose is to boost stuff as loud as possible, but that loudness war stuff has no place in DS imo. If there are peaks preventing you from boosting the volume to a reasonable level without clipping, go back and fix it in the mixing stage. Compression can really kill the dynamics of a song if you don't know what you're doing and apply it to the entire mix. I think compression isn't really necessary for this kind of music. Synths and vsts tend to have a relatively limited dynamic range anyway, and that awful over-compressed pumping sound associated with most popular music is as you say, completely inappropriate.
That said, I do like using compression myself. I use it sparingly and always with a fair amount of uncompressed signal mixed in (parallel compression) as I find it helps bring out the subtle details in a mix, allowing me to use sounds and textures that would otherwise be lost. The main reason I do this is because all the music I loved growing up was recorded in studio to tape, which introduces a subtle natural compression. I'd assume most are like me, recording digitally to a laptop or something similar. I really just use compression (and also various kinds of soft distortion) to recreate the sound and feel of tape into my digital masters.
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Post by imp on Feb 25, 2020 5:47:33 GMT -5
First off I'll say I don't really know much about all this type of stuff, so take everything I'm about to say with a grain of salt, but here are my general feelings on the topic. Firstly I couldn't imagine mixing, mastering, or doing any music production with speakers rather than headphones. I know all the professionals say that's the only way to do it, and I'd like to own some studio monitors someday just to check if there are any issues before releasing an album, but I'd never use them for anything else. I personally prefer headphones for pretty much everything, so studio monitors are too expensive for me for just that one purpose. Would much rather put that money towards new synths. I'll generally listen to my albums once in my car before releasing them, just to make sure there aren't any major issues heard on speakers but not headphones. As far as mixing, I think getting the balances right when mixing is very important. It's crazy how much slight relative volume difference between layers changes the feel of a song, so one should keep tweaking sliders at least until a point where any further tweaking is making it sound worse rather than better, maybe use some EQ on certain individual instruments when necessary (very lightly and for specific purposes, not just because using EQ is "expected" or whatever). Also I'd recommend using a spectrum analyzer to get a visual idea of what's going on with the mix, there are plenty of free ones out there. When it comes to mastering, I don't really do that at all. The only thing I do after mixing down is trim and adjust relative volume levels. Every time I've tried using compression I've always regretted it, but that's probably because I don't know how to use it properly. Is compression even necessary? It seems like its only real purpose is to boost stuff as loud as possible, but that loudness war stuff has no place in DS imo. If there are peaks preventing you from boosting the volume to a reasonable level without clipping, go back and fix it in the mixing stage. Compression can really kill the dynamics of a song if you don't know what you're doing and apply it to the entire mix. At the end of the day I think what's cool about DS is most of us are pretty much agreed that it's a DIY thing, so I doubt many people are having their music "professionally" mastered, or mastering it at all. I think it's totally appropriate to say "fuck it" to that stuff. And I think early-on one is more likely to make mistakes and do harm rather than good with mastering attempts, and would be better off not mastering at all, but making those mistakes is the best way to learn so I guess it depends on how important that is to you. There are a few production problems that bug me though: 1. Clipping is one production mistake that in my opinion never sounds good, is impossible to truly fix in some cases, and there's no reason it should ever be occurring except for ignorance (or I guess if one is intentionally using it to try and create distortion or something, but there are better ways). 2. The stereo is totally unbalanced to one side, like this album for example. Nothing else to say about that, think everyone can agree there's no special lofi charm about that particular production mistake. Thanks, this helps a lot. I totally agree about the loudness wars but I'm curious about what tools you use to increase the overall level if you don't use compressors? Limiter or some volume booster? Even though I've played bass for around 15 years, this side of music production is totally new to me.
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Post by andrewwerdna on Feb 25, 2020 11:18:56 GMT -5
That said, I do like using compression myself. I use it sparingly and always with a fair amount of uncompressed signal mixed in (parallel compression) as I find it helps bring out the subtle details in a mix, allowing me to use sounds and textures that would otherwise be lost. The main reason I do this is because all the music I loved growing up was recorded in studio to tape, which introduces a subtle natural compression. I'd assume most are like me, recording digitally to a laptop or something similar. I really just use compression (and also various kinds of soft distortion) to recreate the sound and feel of tape into my digital masters. Ok, that does sound like a good use of compression. Have you ever tried the Izotope Vinyl VST? It's what I've use for a long time to add some lofi crust. Not to say it's better than using compression for that purpose, just that it's free and cool and I recommend it. Thanks, this helps a lot. I totally agree about the loudness wars but I'm curious about what tools you use to increase the overall level if you don't use compressors? Limiter or some volume booster? Even though I've played bass for around 15 years, this side of music production is totally new to me. Oh, yeah, you might want to get a more general audio editor to use outside of your DAW. I've used Goldwave for almost twenty years now, since I was a kid, and it still serves me well (though I got a good deal on Sound Forge Pro 11, so now I'll use that for certain tasks as well). So I recommend Goldwave, but there's probably plenty of other good free options. To do a general volume adjustment in Goldwave you're going to want to go to Effects-Volume-Change Volume. If you boost it too high with that method you might end up clipping though, so you might want to instead use Effect-Volume-Maximize Volume. This is called "normalization." If you look at the presets for Maximize Volume you'll see one that says "Full Dynamic Range," this will boost the volume as loud as it can go without clipping. I recommend doing this initially, because if it doesn't change that means you might already be clipping and so should go back to your mix and reduce levels there. But then I'd suggest undoing that Full Dynamic Range after, or just using the general volume adjustment to reduce it slightly. I've heard it's good practice not to normalize to exactly 0db because it can cause some weird issues on certain platforms that use their own compression, like spotify or whatever. But also I'd recommend adjusting the volume track-by-track, by ear, because normalizing to the same peak level is not the same as normalizing by average volume of the tracks themselves. So what I mean is I used to just normalize all my tracks to 0db, and in hindsight some tracks are definitely louder than others when I did that.
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Post by skirmisher on Feb 25, 2020 11:56:42 GMT -5
Any beginner tips regarding mixing and mastering? I've started to get a grasp on VSTs and Reaper but mixing and mastering is giving me some trouble. I've read a about eq, compressing, limiters and even perceived loudness but any tips would be appreaciated. Here's a couple of helpful starters. I will try to order my thoughts according to my process. 1. Gain staging. Be mindful of your gain at all stages. Record with low enough gain (-12db is a popular threshold for example) so that you will preserve maximum dynamic range and won't clip your stuff. You can squash and distort it later if you want to. This is considering digital stuff. If you are using analog gear, you might want to drive it on purpose. Just don't clip your DAW, your sound card inputs etc. Digital clipping sounds like shit and not in a good way. If you follow this rule of thumb you will have a lot less problems in the mixing stage. 2. The first thing I like to do is clean up the individual sounds. I usually start from the "main" sound that feels dominant in the song. Usually there's some bass rumble that sounds bad, maybe muddiness in the 200-300hz department, with FM synths especially I often get very high and loud squeal kind of sounds in the treble. I usually start by fixing these with and EQ. Remember that even if a sound is good on its own it doesn't mean it will sound good in the mix. Think of sounds as layers that need to give room to each other. Usually a huge sounding individual track will smother everything else. A very common thing in metal music for example is that guitarists crank their low end because they want to sound huge. They might be used to this while practicing on their own. The problem is that the bass and guitar (and bass drum most likely) will be competing in the low frequency territory and there's no way in hell you can make all of them sound good at the same time if they are all blasting on same frequencies. Usually you just won't hear any bass unless you crank the mids of the bass amp and this is when it starts to overrun the guitar and everything is just one big mess. There are more advanced techniques to make room for adjacent tracks like volume ducking / side chaining but don't worry about these for now. When you feel confident in your basic mixing capabilities you might want to look into these so keep them in the back of your head. This being said there is nothing wrong with blasting an absolutely massive track of synth and then working your song around that. Just remember this mindset when you start mixing because if your mix is muddy, messy and you can't get your sounds to cut through, this is probably the reason. 3. While mixing only set the relative volume levels right, don't worry about the mix being loud enough, that stuff is for mastering. If your master bus is clipping, lower everything down so you have headroom for mastering. You don't want your mix to be too loud at this point. It won't help anything. A good way to find the right level for each track is to slowly move the fader up until you're certain it's too loud and then lower it until it's definitely too quiet. This gives you two points of reference and you'll now know that the right spot is somewhere in between these spots. 4. MIX QUIET! This is very important. If you are blasting your speakers you will get the illusion of everything sounding amazing. Try to mix on quiet volume levels so you can realistically hear everything and set the relative volume levels there. If your mix is bad, it will sound bad while playing it quiet and you will also protect your hearing. It is good to check the mix on loud volumes on occasion but don't take a habit of blasting your speakers while in mix down mode. The psychological effect of loudness will only cloud your judgement. 5. Mix in mono as far as possible. This one is up for debate but I feel it has helped me a lot and I got the tip from a pro. It is in my opinion good to try to get your mix as right as possible in mono and do all of the panning and the finishing touches your tracks might need while panned last. Panning your sounds might give you the illusion of tracks sitting right in the mix because they get sort of "separated" but in some cases it's also a cop out and the mix might end up messy and confusing. I feel you can get a more dynamic and breathable mix if you fix your problems in mono and then pan only to get the stereo image you want. 6. Get to know your speakers. Listen to a lot of stuff on your speakers and maybe compare them to some others. See how they differ compared to some other speakers in their sound. Once you know their sound you'll do better mixing on them. 7. Use many speakers for reference if possible. This is especially true if you have consumer grade headphones or speakers that aren't flat in their frequency response. They will over emphasize some frequencies and soften some to make your music seem more exciting. The problem is they will lie to you. Everybody's speakers sound different and it's very difficult to judge how they will sound on anything else. This is why it's good to check your mix on multiple speakers. In the end the same applies for flat studio speakers because most people won't be using those for listening to your stuff so it's not much use if your mix sounds bad on their speakers. In the end most people have rooms that sound like crap, some use cheap earbuds, laptop speaker etc. so you can't account for everything. This is why it's best to check with multiple speakers and try to get it to work with all of them. This is why many studio guys do the "car test" where they take the mix or master to their car and play it there. If it sounds like shit in the car and great in their studio, it's probably not a very good mix after all. So mix on the speakers you know but check on others when you feel your mix is done and see if you can hear something that you need to go back and fix. 8. Do not alter anything you don't think needs to be altered. If something sounds good as it is then just leave it alone. There's no reason to compress and EQ everything just because somebody else does that. Just listen and trust your ears. In the beginning you might want to muck around with stuff just to see what happens but once you get the hang of it it's usually better to go with your gut and commit to your choices. Otherwise you will have a hard time finishing anything. 9. When your mix is done you probably need to get it loud enough so it's time for mastering. Many people say they don't do mastering at all in diy music scenes but they still set their loudness right and thus... master it. Mastering is when your mix is right and you will do the final touches you might need necessary. Some might use a subtle compressor to "glue the tracks together" and make the whole package sound cohesive. Some might throw and eq on the master bus to tweak the overall sound just a tiny bit. But the most important part is to set the loudness right and this is where you'll most likely use a limiter. Compressor is not the right way to set your loudness right because it will squash your dynamics at the same time. These are two separate steps. This being said you can get your perceived loudness higher by squashing the shit out of your music and making it sound like shit but hopefully you don't want to do that. Just don't worry about any of that nonsense. Use compressor for compression if you need it. The most important thing is that even when getting your mix loud don't clip it in the master bus. I usually compare my master to the stuff I've done before or an album I like and feel sounds right in the loudness department and use that as a reference. Nowadays loudness doesn't matter that much and even in the pop world the loudness war is old news. Nobody cares. Except for the EDM crowd. They are still crazy. Now if you read all this forget everything I said and just do it. The most important part is to just get it done and don't fuss over the details. You will learn along the way and find a process that works for you. Every time I've tried using compression I've always regretted it, but that's probably because I don't know how to use it properly. Is compression even necessary? It seems like its only real purpose is to boost stuff as loud as possible, but that loudness war stuff has no place in DS imo. If there are peaks preventing you from boosting the volume to a reasonable level without clipping, go back and fix it in the mixing stage. Compression can really kill the dynamics of a song if you don't know what you're doing and apply it to the entire mix. Know that I mean absolutely no disrespect when I say this but I feel this is one of the most common misconceptions in music production. Compressors are a very versatile and valuable tool that can be used in any form of music. You can actually make stuff appear more dynamic with a compressor by playing around with the settings. A good example is emphasizing the transient "crack" of a snare drum with a slow attack time. The transient goes through unaltered but the peaks after the transient get trimmed down thus making the crack seem louder and make the snare drum more in your face. You can also side chain a compressor so that your bass track will automatically lower it's volume every time the bass drum hits to make room for the bass drum to be heard better and make the drums "pump." This is called volume ducking. You can also color your sound by driving a certain type of analog compressors hard. There are a million ways you can use a compressor but you are absolutely correct when you say that you can kill the dynamics with it if you don't know what you are doing. Compressors are probably the hardest aspect of music production to get a grasp of. I'm by no means an expert and I have a LOT to learn about compression but I've experienced some moments of enlightenment with them, understand the basic concepts and use them regularly. I would say that if you don't hear any benefit while trying out compression then just leave it be. Now to answer your question about compression being necessary. No, not in this kind of music in my opinion. Especially not with synthesizers. Synths don't usually have enough dynamic range that it would make any sense to compress it any further. I use compression in my synth music very sparingly if at all. I might throw a compressor on percussive sounds and maybe just a tiny bit on the whole mix but just maybe. The situation is very different if we are mixing rock music with drums and vocals for example. That's where you will be relying on compression to get it right. All the classic 70's albums we love (well I do at least) are compressed. Distortion is a form of compression. Driving a cassette recorder hard is compression and thus the classic gritty and charming tape releases we love are often very compressed. Well you probably get where I'm coming from. There's no need to make compression an enemy. I feel like compression gets a bad rap because of the whole loudness war nonsense. That being said if you don't need it then you don't and it makes just as little sense to use one just because.
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Post by Morphic Sun on Feb 25, 2020 12:16:24 GMT -5
That said, I do like using compression myself. I use it sparingly and always with a fair amount of uncompressed signal mixed in (parallel compression) as I find it helps bring out the subtle details in a mix, allowing me to use sounds and textures that would otherwise be lost. The main reason I do this is because all the music I loved growing up was recorded in studio to tape, which introduces a subtle natural compression. I'd assume most are like me, recording digitally to a laptop or something similar. I really just use compression (and also various kinds of soft distortion) to recreate the sound and feel of tape into my digital masters. Ok, that does sound like a good use of compression. Have you ever tried the Izotope Vinyl VST? It's what I've use for a long time to add some lofi crust. Not to say it's better than using compression for that purpose, just that it's free and cool and I recommend it. Oh yeah, I do use Izotope for the exact same thing as you, it's a really great plugin, perfect for taking the hard edges off of sounds that are too clean. If you are running a 32 bit DAW or can run 32 bit VSTs, you'll have a lot of fun with the variety of sound stuff (if you don't already have it). Their Density MkIII is my go to for master compression, and they have loads of other great character plugins, all free too.
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Post by andrewwerdna on Feb 25, 2020 23:07:27 GMT -5
Know that I mean absolutely no disrespect... No disrespect taken. I actually agree with all of this, at least as far as what I understand and have experience with. I wasn't trying to say compressors are all bad, just that they can easily be misused, especially by dummies like myself, and that they're not some necessary requirement, especially in the case of DS. And the rest of your post is excellent too, going to have to try a few of these tips myself, like I had never heard of this mixing in mono thing, but that does make a certain kind of sense. So would you even say to record in mono as well, if one is using a hardware synth for instance? I'm assuming you mean do all the composition and synth tinkering in stereo like normal, then switch the playback to mono for the straight-up mixing stage, and then switching the playback back to stereo towards the end of mixing. Or do you mean one should record in mono as well and just do all panning by hand? I feel like the synths themselves can do a lot of interesting stuff with panning that may not be quite the same or sometimes even possible with just the DAW. Also I love that you said this: Reading through your post I was thinking "This is all really great info and suggestions, but I can easily see this being overwhelming for folks new to music production." But you were already one step ahead there. Good stuff. Oh yeah, I do use Izotope for the exact same thing as you, it's a really great plugin, perfect for taking the hard edges off of sounds that are too clean. If you are running a 32 bit DAW or can run 32 bit VSTs, you'll have a lot of fun with the variety of sound stuff (if you don't already have it). Their Density MkIII is my go to for master compression, and they have loads of other great character plugins, all free too. Nice. Yeah, I recognize the names of a few of those plugins on there, so I think I tried them out in the past but they never became part of my workflow, going to have to give it another look, and both you and Skirmisher are convincing me that I need to make the effort to actually figure out how compression works, haha. Speaking of free bundles of these types of plugins, I really like the Melda Production stuff. I mentioned using an analyzer, and the one I use is from there, although the screenshots look a little different from the version I have so they might've changed some things.
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Post by skirmisher on Feb 26, 2020 2:42:56 GMT -5
Know that I mean absolutely no disrespect... No disrespect taken. I actually agree with all of this, at least as far as what I understand and have experience with. I wasn't trying to say compressors are all bad, just that they can easily be misused, especially by dummies like myself, and that they're not some necessary requirement, especially in the case of DS. And the rest of your post is excellent too, going to have to try a few of these tips myself, like I had never heard of this mixing in mono thing, but that does make a certain kind of sense. So would you even say to record in mono as well, if one is using a hardware synth for instance? I'm assuming you mean do all the composition and synth tinkering in stereo like normal, then switch the playback to mono for the straight-up mixing stage, and then switching the playback back to stereo towards the end of mixing. Or do you mean one should record in mono as well and just do all panning by hand? I feel like the synths themselves can do a lot of interesting stuff with panning that may not be quite the same or sometimes even possible with just the DAW. I mostly use quite simple mono patches so I just don't do any panning until I feel it's time but if I use something with some kind of stereo movement then I do exactly what you said. I just play everything back in mono when I start mixing. I used to mix "on the go" while composing trying to make everything as ready as I could before moving to the next element and I found this to greatly hinder my creative process when writing so nowadays I touch tracks as little as possible when composing and arranging and have a proper mix down session when the tracks are ready. Sometimes I even go as far as making every sound work without any reverb etc. I've found the sounds are nice together when they're dry, they'll be amazing once processed. I have to admit though that sometimes I get a hunch like "ok this will probably be good once I add reverb", I then slap some reverb on and compose the rest of it with the reverb there but yeah.. Most of the time it works. I did a similar kind of thing in the past where I composed distorted guitar music on an acoustic thinking "wow, once I add the amp to this.." It's like trying to make sure my music is musically solid and not just a gimmick. Granted I have moved past being this black and white and nowadays I realize the value of "playing a sound." Like a certain sound will inspire you to play a certain way so yeah. Shrug. Went a bit off topic there, I just love music production so much I can't stay in my pants when talking about it. Anyways regarding the mono thing I think it's something worth trying out and seeing if it's for you. I'm pretty sure not all sound guys do this so it might not be. Still a very interesting concept I have found helpful. Also I love that you said this:Reading through your post I was thinking "This is all really great info and suggestions, but I can easily see this being overwhelming for folks new to music production." But you were already one step ahead there. Good stuff. Cheers! I acknowledged the length of my post and felt like it was time to get back on the ground. I can't emphasize this point enough since the whole point of DIY is that you can just go and do it your way and fuck conventions you know. both you and Skirmisher are convincing me that I need to make the effort to actually figure out how compression works, haha. Speaking of free bundles of these types of plugins, I really like the Melda Production stuff. I mentioned using an analyzer, and the one I use is from there, although the screenshots look a little different from the version I have so they might've changed some things. Here's a very basic rundown of how compression works. You probably know most of this but I'm laying it out since I have no idea how well versed people are here. -Compression will only make sound quieter, nothing else. It will only trim down the peaks, not make the quieter stuff louder. It will allow you to make it louder if you want to because the peaks will be lower, but alone it does nothing other than this. -Attack is how long it takes for your compressor to kick in and start making the loudest parts quieter -Release is how long it takes for your compressor to "let go" and let the signal come back to normal -Ratio is the amount of compression being applied (how much quieter will the peaks be) -Threshold is the point where the compressor starts compressing. The lower the threshold the more of the sound will be compressed. If you set the threshold very high you'll only compress the very peaks of the signal and nothing else. -Makeup gain is just output gain. Compressing will make your signal quieter so you need to use the makeup gain to get it back to where it was. So basically if you want very subtle musical compression you should start with a fairly slow attack and release and low ratio. If your attack is short and tight it will start to pump and sound unnatural. This is something you might want to try out with percussion. It's best to exaggerate stuff to see what does what. The problem is that words don't help much when it comes to compression, it's very hard to hear the nuances of subtle compression and every case is different as to what kind of compression the track needs. There are great tutorials on youtube but it's a little bit difficult to follow them since you can't hear the difference in their examples because the compression and loss of quality in the audio stream is so ridiculous. Oh and thanks for the tip for the Melda Production stuff. I have to check that out too. Another nice free analyzer is Span by Voxengo. Pretty lightweight, simple and clean. That's what I've used when I needed one. Handy tools for sure.
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