Musicians, Songwriters and Studio Geeks Thread

reply to post by subject x


SubjectX and SantaClause,

The topic you're discussing there is analogue to digital conversion (ADC).

For those not in the know, ADC is the conversion of acoustical energy into digitally recreated code, which is then translated back into a wave form.

But - as much as i'll agree digital recreation of analogue sound is not perfect and can sound lacking due to the inability to fully map a wave form (depending on the bit depth and quality of the sampler/recorder) ...

But on the other hand, certain VSTI technology, as mentioned doesn't actually try and recreate a 'piano' sound, via code, it literally plays a very high quality sample recording back at you... So, yes in this day and age you could possibly not notice a VSTI piano over a real one (if the mixing and after touch was done to some sort of quality).

Just my two cents...

reply to post by TheAssociate


Totally true. But recording at home, you have total control in the final mix. In the studio, this has happened to me countless times in past bands, my guitar tracks tended to get slightly buried in the mix. To the point where when I listen back, I have to isolate the left speaker to hear what my parts sound like.

I also have one of those Walmart brand First Act guitars, and I have to say that it has a truly amazing sound. I also have an Ibanez RG-220 that has long been retired (broken neck on various occasions) which I may have to take to get repaired and brought back to life, and a vintage Ibanez X series (looks like the dimebag darrell model) that needs lots of work.

I've also had various amps throughout the years (mostly stolen from rehearsal spaces). Of them, a Marshall JCM 800, a Crate 2x12 combo amp, a Behringer, a Crate Blue Voodoo halfstack, and currently my Line 6 Spider 3. I really loved my crates as I love my Line 6.

just thought I'd throw that out there.

I am an audio engineer, but I haven't done anything professionally in a few years.

1. Favorite effect- vocoder, yeah.... I'm old school.

2. Favorite music software- Pro Tools with cSound close second.

When I am composing and finalizing works I use a Pro Tools, FLStudio, and Reason trifecta. They all talk well with each other.

3. Songwriting process- jamming out. Inspiration through chaos.

4. Instrument- Yamaha DX200

It is not a widely used machine, but I find it an amazing tool for jamming out. I use this as the clock for all my machines because of its amazing tempo controls.

5. Home Studio or Professional- My home studio is good because of the fact I control everything. Also, I can do mixdowns on my home computer of audio recorded in a professional studio.
The professional studio I use is my buddies, so it is kind of like the best of both world.

MY favorite mic?- Shure sm57... This mic is the workhorse of the audio engineering world.


MY music is whatever I feel. Drum and Bass, Trance, downbeat, IDM, techno, and I have even done folk music.

The DX200 utilizes Frequency Modulation synthesis. It makes the sound unique.

On the production side I use a MicroKorg, DX200, FLStudio, Reason, Csound. Then I record the loops and entire tracks.

When playing live, I use turntables with M-Audio Torq plugged into a USB mixer, and the DX200. The DX controls time and I use Torq to mix my own wavs.

I am out of practice at the moment. I moved and have yet to set any of the stuff up.

Break Beat, Breaks, nu-skool-Breaks (whatever ya wanna call it) Producer here, been releasing music for ten or so years on record labels in the UK and the US,

My favourite effect/hardware has got to be my Access • VIRUS C, just love the sounds I can produce using this synth! Even some of the presets are usable! Next to that my RME Multi sound card… fantastically clean…

Favourite software has got to be the Waves plugs, I’ve been using Cubase for many many years, first started out on an Atari ST with Cubase in black and white! So I also love it as a DAW but I’d say Waves plugs are my favourite…

My song writing process can differ depending on what I’m doing, for instance if I’m doing a remix for another artist I’ll go through the samples provided and create a tune around these or reproduce them to my taste, if I’m creating a tune from scratch I’ll usually sample some vocal’s (spoken speech etc) and go with the feel and subject of the sample and produce a track around that.

My Favourite instrument is my 82’ Fender Strat, beautiful instrument that never lets me down with sound quality and playability…

reply to post by DINSTAAR


Cool stuff, thanks for the reply!

I've been obsessing over FM synthesis lately, myself. I got a Yamaha TX-81Z, it can make some pretty wicked/harsh/distorted/digital type tones.

Haven't tried Csound, but I but I do like playing with Native Instruments Reaktor, which is kinda similar, I think.

Thanks again for the reply, and please stop by again sometime.

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reply to post by Majestic RNA

I’ve been using Cubase for many many years, first started out on an Atari ST with Cubase in black and white!

Impressive! Thanks for replying.

If Digidesign doesn't hurry up and make a 64-bit version of Pro Tools, I may switch to Cubase, myself.


The Waves plguins are pretty awesome, especially the various compressors.

My Favourite instrument is my 82’ Fender Strat, beautiful instrument that never lets me down with sound quality and playability…

Sounds like a really stellar guitar!

Thanks again for the replies, and stop by again sometime.


TA

1: I guess I don't have a favorite effect, but I tend to use lots of distortion (I write mostly rock and metal). I like a slight venue-style reverb to be present, also a soft compressor that keeps the levels nice and even.

2: Favorite music software hands-down is FL Studio. I have V9 now and it is awesome. I have been using FL Studio for about 6 or 7 years.

3: Songwriting process goes something like this: Play the guitar for about 5-10 minutes to warm up. If anything really cool comes out of that playing, I record it. Then I just write a song on that theme. That's how it works most of the time. I usually do an Intro-Verse-Chorus-Verse-Chorus-Bridge & Guitar Solo-Chorus-Ending. My songs usually last between 4 and 5 minutes.

4: Favorite instrument is electric guitar for rocking out, and piano for relaxing or letting my emotion flow into music.

I also write Classical/Film Score style music. And that process is much more complicated and difficult...

reply to post by OrphenFire


Cool, thanks for the reply!

FL is a pretty neat program. I remember waaaaaay back when it was freeware and under a different name (I think), and it's really evolved since then.

I also write Classical/Film Score style music. And that process is much more complicated and difficult...

Funny you should mention that. I'm about halfway through A Treatise Upon Modern Instrumentation and Orchestration by Hector Berlioz , and yes: that is some seriously complex stuff, but fun too.

Best of luck in you creative endeavors and thanks again for the reply.


TheAssoc.

[edit on 6-4-2010 by TheAssociate]

reply to post by TheAssociate


I haven't read that book. I may pick it up.

Thanks

Hiya,

I write Record & produce everything in my bedroom studio, my fav place to be :-)

mixed style between electronic & alternative ,rock , sounds like a mix of nine inch nails mixed with porcupine tree. with a dash of aphex twin & pink floyd with a slice of TooL .

Dark & depressing without being silly is usually the tone of things.

my main pieces of gear is

BADCAT hot cat30R Head with matching 2x12 cab
lots of guitars but my fav is my PRS custom 24 artist.
RME-fireface 800 interface,

ADL 600 Tube preamp (amazing peice of kit to plug mic's into also you can run your whole mix through it to analog it up as warm as you like.. both of the 2 channels both go through there own 3 tubes on each channel. glad I bought that! that really slammed my bank balance though!

I use a custom Macbook pro with 8gig ram & a ssd
Cubase 5 is my software of choice. also plugins intruments & effect from NI, waves, aturia,

I have the Grand 3 which is awesome Piano! that is controlled by an italian made NUMA midi keyboard controller, which is a fully weighted the same as a concert grand piano with proper keys. & for controlling synth's & drums I use an M-audio axiom pro 61.

I have yamaha hs120 speaker monitors & also a pair of high end AKG headphones for reference monitoring & recording uses.

I have a lot of mic's a shure sm57, Royer r-21 , SE r-1 ribbon and an SE Condenser.

oh and an ashdown mag 2-evo 300 bass amp,

Thats mostly it!



I don't have a method of songwriting, I should have, but I don't I just do whatever feels right when I can be bothered.

I do struggle with it. I find it sometimes the hardest thing in the world.....& other times it just kinda spills out of my head.

even though It can be impossibly hard & frustrating to get my feelings down on tape,

I would never give this up. its my Love.


I wish you all on here to have a good & productive time writing :-)

trev

reply to post by TrentReznor


That's one helluva setup, man!

Sounds like you and I make similar styles of music (great minds think alike ).

Thanks for replying and best of luck with your creative endeavors.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To all my fellow musically inclined folks, nefermore is looking for original songs for ATS Live, if any one is interested:

www.belowtopsecret.com...

TheAssoc.

Never knew there were so many producers on ATS.

I use Ableton live 8, i started on Reason 2.5, which is a great DAW to introduce you to sampling and synthesis, I know some producers who soley use Reason and make music i could only dream of. I just found Reasons sequencer to be a little too fidly, I started to rewire my reason in to ableton, but never really use it. ableton has pretty much everything I need, especially as i use a lot of audio.

My favourite effect is a filter delay and I also like the beat repeat effect in Live just turning it on for breaks and drops.

I usually get my inspiration from having a listen to some new tunes on beatport or cosmic disco.

I probably smoke too much, which can effect the creative process and can find myself listing to a beat and bass loop for an hour.

The tracks I have had released have all been taken in to an engineer who mixes and masters them, which is something I'm getting better at, but still needs the polish of some good mastering.

[edit on 16-4-2010 by woodwardjnr]

reply to post by woodwardjnr



Cool, man. Thanks for replying.

Originally posted by woodwardjnr
I use Ableton live 8, i started on Reason 2.5,

I use Reason a little more than I use Live. The newest version of Live just isn't quite as stable as previous versions, and it's been giving me trouble when rewired into Pro Tools.

Don't get me wrong, I like Live a lot, but with Reason and a few (well, actually way too many) ReFills, I just seem to get a lot more done in a lot less time.

But hey, as long as it rocks, who cares?

Thanks again for the reply, and best of luck with your music!


TheAssoc.

[edit on 17-4-2010 by TheAssociate]

1- delay- I have a solid state echoplex- amazing. I use it live as well as for recording
2- I use pro-tools LE. with an M-Box. not my drool method, but it does sound good, and I know how to use it.
3- usually i get a mood in my head that I want to re-create musically... I tend to start with some bass lines/ drum ideas... work on sounds for both..... and let it go from there.
4- Sequential Circuits Prophet One.

Anyone else here build, circuit bend, etc???

I am just getting started, and have many projects on my list for the summer.
the first being to bend a recently found Casio SK-1.

reply to post by bakadesu


Hi, and thanks for the reply.

I use the Mbox and PT LE in my home studio, too. It gets the job done, and you get access to all the nifty RTAS plugins that you don't get with other DAW's.

Originally posted by bakadesu
Anyone else here build, circuit bend, etc???

There's a really good book on that I read a while back called ExtremeTech Circuit Bending Build Your Own Alien Instruments. I haven't tried anything like that myself (the only hardware synths I have are a Juno-106, a TX81Z and a TR-505 and there's no way I'm gonna mutilate any of those ) but that book was pretty interesting, and the guy (Reed Ghazala) seemed to know his stuff.

Thanks again for the reply, and good luck with both the frankensteining and your music.


TheAssoc.

Yea, I have seen that book. I am sure I will check it out when i get around to it. For now, I am getting all the parts I need.... resistors, transformers, etc.... all very cheap but gotta buy bulk... it adds up. Just picked up a book called Handmade Electronic Music. Super cool book. lots of diy projects, and a good place to start thinking about how to mess with stuff.... just got done putting together a little 1W test amp.... my soldering needs some work, but its crankin! hehe.
love the 505 btw.

[edit on 22-4-2010 by bakadesu]

I guess I can join this thread now since I actually have my instrument. With the help of some great people on this forum, I was able to shop smart and I bought my new guitar. I haven't played for nearly 20 years, so I'm still forming calluses, but having a great time doing it.

Originally posted by TheAssociate
1) What is your favorite effect (hardware or software) and why?
...
2) What is your favorite music software?

I haven't explored the software or hardware side of things. I may at some point, but for now, It's just me, the guitar, a LightSnake USB Cable and the computer. I'm using Audacity to record. It serves my purposes for now.

I also just got a new Dell with massive sound upgrades and some Boze speakers. Looking forward to setting that up.

3) What is your songwriting process? (i.e. what do you do before you go into the studio to get the creative juices flowing?)

Most of my songs have started in the shower. I just start humming or get a word phrase going and build it from there. Then I have to hurry and get out, grab a towel and come in here to get it down. So, I guess I get clean to prepare. It's best if the dogs are tired and hubby is gone or at work, and the kitchen is clean, so I can work uninterrupted, without feeling guilty.

4) What is your favorite instrument (hardware or software)?

The above mentioned guitar. I'm in LOVE!

Now, I'll go read this thread and see if I can understand anything.

reply to post by Benevolent Heretic


Cool stuff, thanks for the reply.

That is one cool guitar.

I've never tried Audacity, but I checked out the website and it looks pretty neat. Pretty much all open-source software is okay in my book, and if you can make noise with it: all the better.

Best of luck with your music, and thanks again for the reply!


TheAssoc.

Originally posted by TheAssociate
1) What is your favorite effect (hardware or software) and why?

most of the fx I do are for ambiance i.e verb & delay, eq & pitch, but when i do use fx its usually a flange/phaser/chorus on a synth used like a filter, sweeping wet/dry in time with the tempo.....it usually works best with synth that resembles the sound of vowels at times....If I knew how I'd replicate the time-shifting fx used on 'the matrix' when neo swallows the green goo stuff....

The pattern based combinator fx on reason 4 are wonderful. because you can get rhythms out of it that I think would be impossible do as a human....I've also had MEGA fun with the vocoder and some pre-recorded vocals....seriously if you never configured a vocoder & mucked about with it you're missing out...

2) What is your favorite music software?

I use reason 4 & sony acid pro 7, though I have LE. I find acid 7 an easier layout & less hassle to do simple tasks, less 'fluff'.... that said there are virtually no good plugins that come with it. I program my own delay's so the delay plug is adequate but the verb plug is crappy, distortion plug awful. the things that prevents me from seperating from 7 & adopting LE is a compressor from sony Vegas called Wave Hammer Surround that can be used with acid 7. It took me a year to develop a way of mixing which makes use of those compressors, and gets a good mix at the end result, so as I can burn it to CD & sell it straight away...

3) What is your songwriting process? (i.e. what do you do before you go into the studio to get the creative juices flowing?)

sample based - let the samples do there thing, find a nice drum loop mix & stir.....stir & blend....
traditional - pick up the guitar and start playing.

with regards to juices, other music can be inspiring, on the rare occasion - life, usually I'll smoke some of this plant that grows in the ground....

4) What is your favorite instrument (hardware or software)?

the sample. I like to take a dozen short samples of a track & chop them to buggery, rearrange them & form new jerky mechanical rhythms and melodies. But that is a different kind of music...I like many of the reason4 combinator synths being used with a midi keyboard that has bend & fx wheels.

I think something interesting is how when I have a mix of audio tracks -A=440, then I drop every audio clip in pitch by 0.318 cents, and with the slightly reduced pitch, everything suddenly sound more rich & warm & seems to blend better.

or that african tribal secret societies have 'magic' rhythyms to aid in trance....

-B.M

check out the true temperament 'necks' you can get hand made & installed on guitars...or you can buy them complete.....I think we're talking 5,000-15,000 just for a fretboard, but the frets are wobbly, they have been adjusted to compensate for the 'spiral' way that pitch increases, i.e there is an increase in acceleration simultanious to there being an increase in pitch. In other words, equal tempered scales - equally spaced frets on a guitar/piano can never be ALWAYS in tune as you play different notes. On a guitar, if you tune to 'open' all chords will be slightly out of tune, if you tune to a c chord near the head, a c chord near the bridge/pickups with be out of tune.

-B.M

P.S)utube it - true temperament, watch the steve vai videos on it...

1. recently been rocking a t-rex reverb pedal, cannot be beaten on reverb

2.i dont really use them much but garage band is always REALLY handy when putting down ideas and demos, usually just sing and play to laptop, records everything.

3.when weve got the band all together and someone has a thing then we just jam it and work on it, but usually that "thing" will come from strumming something round for a while and basically just developing it into something solid with a real vibe, i think its most important to have that vibe, because you can change the chords around a bit and be more flexible with your lyrical direction, as long as theres a really solid vibe its good, i think.

4. Gibson Les Paul gold top, with the p-90's on it, but i guess the es 335 is also a real contender for me, tone central man!

this is great, i can never find enough muso's to talk about it with.