Collider

Wow some great tips there!

Just off the top of my head and may not relate directly to your question but.

Take plenty of breaks when producing I usually try have a 5 minute break every hour to rest my ears.

Spend days making just samples to use later in tunes. specially drums as they are very transient instruments that I find are taxing on your ears. Once you are ready to start writing a tune you don’t have to spend 3 hours getting your drums tight and then start writing a tune with tired ears.

Spend time analyzing tunes from artists you like in a frequency analyzer and rms meter. It is a great tool to help improve your productions. you can really pick apart tracks and basically see where they are placing all of their instruments and how loud they are.

I think finishing as many tunes as you can is a very good exercise even if it is wasted time as they sound terrible initially, over time you will improve in the other areas. But if you are not finishing tunes you dont even have the chance to improve in that area. As the genie said its just finding a balance.

Most of all enjoy the journey.

Struggled to understand most of the things he was saying also. Obviously the english is just something there is no way around. I guess its good for the guys in FL but he did go on about odd things that happen in Fl when bouncing that chewed up a lot of the time, I feel could have been spent talking about techniques instead. The voice recording in all of his tutorials has been very muffled. But just tried to pick out what I could. Would be pretty awesome if he could do a exclusive Q&A for the sample genie members.

Yea man that would be cool. Ive seen that bse video also it was pretty sweet. Another video is the rockwell one from digitallabz and then the one from icicle on loopmasters i think.

Hey Blackart, I think the problem with tuning to the root key is that you are so limited to certain frequencies. I was having this problem a long time ago where i was tuning them to the root like you but it was not the frequency that worked for that drum hit or the drums as a whole, So from some analysis i started seeing that producers were pitching there drums to other notes within the key signature for their song. I think most use either root or the perfect fifth and that generally gives you a enough options maybe a third too not exactly sure. But for me just having the root and the fifth is enough. I think maybe even doing it like this using different notes can thicken up your mix as playing one note on a piano then playing a chord on a piano. But as others say if it sounds good it is good 🙂

Hey Zac, Welcome to the forums homie!

1. If your reese patch is good enough it shouldn’t need eq. It totally depends on the source. You need to figure out what YOU like in a sound and then make it that way. Sometimes you might want to add top end to a reece. But then an exciter is probably a better option as its adding new harmonics instead of boosting the lacking frequencies. Sometimes scooping the mids can sound cool making it sound further away. If you are having trouble with your reese design try opening up a frequency analyzer when your making it and look for where it is lacking across the spectrum and then boost those parts..even better play around with the patch to get it more even across the spectrum. For the sub it will usually bounce up and down in level because of the detuning. Some limiting with a slow release can help here to get it more constant in level.

2. Never believe what you are told. Yes that is probably the right way and it will save on cpu. But as you say different sounds call for different reverb. If you are trying to glue things together the same verb can help achieve that though. on your drum group. or on your mids maybe.

3.Making an intro that fits the drop is hard work man and i have a lot of trouble doing that also. you want to use elements from the drop so your preparing the listener for the drop. Sometimes when i have no idea on what im going to do for the intro i will Drag my drum loop from the drop to the intro and delete most of it keeping some hats or whatever i think works without giving it all away to quick. then other parts pads or stabs sometimes putting these on a new channel then mess them up with reverb and turn them in to distant pads as to set the tone for whats to come and just keep adding layers and slowly you start getting more ideas and figuring out how you want to structure it. make that drop add more layers than you need then move on to the intro man just do it!

What you are describing sounds like a persons taste to me. It is just learning how you want to tell your story. and where you want your samples to sit to create the groove you want.
If you are really unsure just study some tracks you love and then copy those patterns.

Moving samples off the grid can work wonders sometimes.. subtle with drums usually but you can be more extreme with bass stabs. Adding that human element can make things sound more natural.

Sometimes that simple drum beat and your bass is enough its just you need some other sounds in with it to provide more depth and excitement(get a vibe going) and then making variations of that.

The Silent witness bass one is cool for bass design he talks and shows how he uses fm synthesis in ableton to create his basses. The Insideinfo ones are really good and the Fre4knc one on drums is really good too. there is so many good ones tbh.

Really nice job on that track man it has potential for sure. Couple things i think you could improve on. there is that bass sound that is in the intro then comes in on the second section of the drop. I personally dont think thats quite working yet. in the intro there is two basses building that one and the one that actually carries into the drop. I would just keep the one that is going to be in the drop and let it take up more space. also think there might be a stab sound from this bass that i think is a bit problematic layered with the kick at the start of every second bar in the drop that sounds a bit too direct and jumps out too much and also masks the kick. That rhythm that it plays in the second section of the drop is cool and a nice change up just needs tightened up a bit and should come across nice. You have nice clarity in the top end which is great but i think you could get a bit more punch and weight into the whole production with not to much hassle. I would even just try doing a bit of master processing for a start, midside eq cut all the side info around 120hz and below as its a nice wide mix so there could be some side bass info causing problems. then play around with some subtle boosts in the 125hz-50hz areas to increase the punch and weight. Ideally you would just go back to the mix and fix these but sometimes you can just fix it up on the master this time and work on bettering this stuff in your next mix. This is just what i would do though so take it with a grain of salt. Hope this helps in some way. keep mixing bro