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NEOGAF's Official Music Production Thread: calling all producers

F

FloatingDivider

Member
Trap snares are a science to get right. More than any other genre, and yes I'm including dubstep, and glitch hop, and the koan sound shit, a trap song needs a good snare. Everything in trap runs to and away from that snare, especially the hi-hats.


And getting that perfect snare isn't even about having it sound like someone is trying to put his whole fist through a snare drum. I personally really like low fi almost clap/fingersnap/woodblock sounding snares for (chill, everything I do is chill lol) trap, I also really like a short 2 and long 4, where the snare that lands on the 4 has a distinct reverb tail or tailing element and the snare on the 2 doesn't and is a shorter clickier type of sound(2&4 if you're looking at like it's a 75 bpm thing and not half time). That being said I've heard people phrase their snares in all sort of ways and while it's the most prominent thing in most trap mixes outside of the 808 bass it's also usually not the snare but everything around it that makes a snare work. A lot of people also really like 808 snares for trap but I only like 808 snares when they're rolled, they're weaksauce in virtually any other scenario, and while I used to do it I'd die before I'd put an unlayered 808 snare anywhere near the 2&4 (or 3) now.

Edit: Unless it's rolled, I roll them everywhere all day long because it's fun. I also didn't do the long 4 thing on the last trappish thing I made so what the fuck do I know. Please resume normal activity.

I'm now making a solemn vow to return to this thread tonight and give all of y'all some feedback starting with ozfunghi who I think is a cool dude and I made him wait like a month because I'm an asshole who gets all depressive imposter syndrome about things. And then I fuck off and go grind some games for a few weeks, until the mania returns and actually makes me do shit. Let me go take a shower, give the lady some attention and then I'll do my feedback thing for all of y'all.
 
F

Falk

that puzzling face
Oh man yes.

Different snare (or composite or whatever) on 2 and 4

Lesson #1 in an interesting beat really.
 
K

Kwansu Dudes

Member
Kenshin001 said:
Thanks very much for the replies, Really appreciate it. I'll try out your suggestions tonight.
Click to expand...

I'll see if I have any presets I can share with you. I hope you have at least FL 11 cause I don't have anything older than that.

Saw Bass Demo
I think the saw is a bit too distorted, but it's a good starting place. The original sound sounds almost like a reese/detuned saw without the crazy LFO crap.

FL 11

FL 12
 
A

AyzOn

Neo Member
I didnt know that either and when I tried replying last time I just went ahead and started multiple replies and copy and pasted the quotes out of them lol
 
I

Intheflorsh

Banned
A

AyzOn

Neo Member
Nyx said:
Just wanted to share another work in progress, even though I'm quite sure I'll be ''stuck in the loop'' soon and never finish it... ;-)

https://soundcloud.com/nyx_1978/officer-jones
Click to expand...

That sounds pretty good to me. I feel like it could have some more progression but I guess that is the nature of house, being bit repetitive.


Intheflorsh said:
I made a thing:

https://soundcloud.com/florsh-558501827/evil-eye

It might be disco?
Click to expand...

Nah, that isn't disco. :)

It sounds a lot Lazerhawk-ish to me and I really like that kind of music.
If that is what you were going for, you almost nailed it in my opinion.




I also started working on something new.

https://soundcloud.com/ayzon/018-2-master/s-cR1GN
 
N

Nyx

Member
Intheflorsh said:
I made a thing:

https://soundcloud.com/florsh-558501827/evil-eye

It might be disco?



I must have made a dozen useless loops over the past few months, you just got to power through bruh. House isn't my thing, but you sound like you know what you're doing.
Click to expand...

Your track gives me 80s vibes, ''electro/synth'' , I like it! :)

I started producing in 2008 and have 259 saved projects in Reason of which perhaps 10 are ''finished'' tracks. Not that much now that I checked it but I guess that is due to my previous relationship taking away a lot of time to fiddle with Reason!

AyzOn said:
That sounds pretty good to me. I feel like it could have some more progression but I guess that is the nature of house, being bit repetitive.
Click to expand...

You're absolutely right about it needing more progression and it being repetitive atm.
 
O

ozfunghi

Member
Nyx said:
Just wanted to share another work in progress, even though I'm quite sure I'll be ''stuck in the loop'' soon and never finish it... ;-)

https://soundcloud.com/nyx_1978/officer-jones
Click to expand...

Cool, sounds very good. Obviously, you're far from done, but what you have so far gets a big thumbs up from me. For being (deep)house, i don't feel you need to "add" stuff on top, but rather bring in variation after a while.

Intheflorsh said:
I made a thing:

https://soundcloud.com/florsh-558501827/evil-eye

It might be disco?
Click to expand...

No disco :) But it doesn't matter. It's cool, that's what matters. Could still use some tweaking though.
 
I

Intheflorsh

Banned
Hah, I know what synthwave is. I tried to put some italo disco sounds in there, but I guess that didn't come through at all.

Sadsic said:
two things i did today after not making music for a few weeks:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/40086894/Decision Tree.mp3

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/40086894/Infinite Bridge.mp3

the first one has a specific thematic that im not sure is obvious
Click to expand...

These are fantastic man, damn. Really like how you split up the structure in the first one.
 
N

Nyx

Member
ozfunghi said:
Really not digging those Rhodes or whatever. The rest is top notch, but i'd ditch the Rhodes personally.
Click to expand...

Ghehe, that Rhodes sound was actually the first thing I made before everything else.

I ditched the highest tone of it in the meantime though, that didn't ''click'' anymore after many listens...
 
K

Kwansu Dudes

Member
Here's my try at Flume music. I'm terrible at mixing and my composition is pretty basic so any tips would be greatly appreciated. Still haven't uploaded the final version but hope to do so soon.

Edit: I've made some progress, woo.
 
R

Rösti

Unconfirmed Member
Here's a simple track I put together over the weekend: https://soundcloud.com/rostineogaf/r61njrsxqkdc

It's outside what I generally do, so I'm not sure what to call the genre of this. Also, the quality of this presentation is not at high as I would like, but I don't think there's much to do about SoundCloud's compression.

Kwansu Dudes said:
Here's my try at Flume music. I'm terrible at mixing and my composition is pretty basic so any tips would be greatly appreciated. Still haven't uploaded the final version but hope to do so soon.
Future Bass Thing
Click to expand...
I like this, but perhaps you could do something about the lead parts (first at 00:48-01.10). They sound very sharp. Perhaps lower volume a bit, add a tiny amount of feed and reverb?
 
K

Kwansu Dudes

Member
Rösti;199978920 said:
Here's a simple track I put together over the weekend: https://soundcloud.com/rostineogaf/r61njrsxqkdc

It's outside what I generally do, so I'm not sure what to call the genre of this. Also, the quality of this presentation is not at high as I would like, but I don't think there's much to do about SoundCloud's compression.


I like this, but perhaps you could do something about the lead parts (first at 00:48-01.10). They sound very sharp. Perhaps lower volume a bit, add a tiny amount of feed and reverb?
Click to expand...

Thanks, that's probably my biggest obstacle right now. I'm still trying to figure out how to make it less harsh and sharp but if I cut away the high frequencies, it loses a lot of its character. Maybe it's a problem with the synth itself. I'll try it out.

Regarding your track, it's certainly not my style of music but I think there's some cool melodies there that could be used in other genres. Almost Flashbulb-y without the drums too. Sorry I can't be more constructive.
 
Tokubetsu

Tokubetsu

Member
Anyone here fully familiar with Maschine? Particularly ver 1.8. Buddy of mine gave me his track's stems so I can remix it but I'm just wondering the best way to go about it in maschine. I know how to build tracks in maschine of course, but stems are all sequenced out already but my workflow is more 8 bars or so oriented. Do I just have to go in and chop it up myself?
 
X

Xun

Member
I bought a pair of Yamaha HS5's, but I don't have them set up yet unfortunately.

Chances are I'm going to hook them up to an interface, but since I don't have a decent one just yet I'm looking for suggestions!

Currently I've narrowed it down to either the Saffire Pro 24 or the Scarlett 2i4, but any suggestions would be more than welcome.
 
V

Voidguts

Member
hey guys, I'm looking to finally ditch Reason and jump into a better DAW. the lack of VST compatibility/other issues are killing me. I've narrowed it down to Ableton Live 9 and Cakewalk's Sonar. for someone who is planning on recording a lot of vocals, guitar & using midi keyboards for pretty much everything else, which would you guys lean towards?

this is the most recent song i've done, all of it was done in Reason. which DAW - Sonar or Live 9 would be better suited to making that kinda music?
 
R

Rösti

Unconfirmed Member
Voidguts said:
hey guys, I'm looking to finally ditch Reason and jump into a better DAW. the lack of VST compatibility/other issues are killing me. I've narrowed it down to Ableton Live 9 and Cakewalk's Sonar. for someone who is planning on recording a lot of vocals, guitar & using midi keyboards for pretty much everything else, which would you guys lean towards?

this is the most recent song i've done, all of it was done in Reason. which DAW - Sonar or Live 9 would be better suited to making that kinda music?
Click to expand...
I would go with Ableton Live 9 due to Max for Live (Max 7). It's great if you have large setups but also if you want really deep controls. Both Live 9 and Sonar work well though, so it's more of a personal preference. But I would, as said, go with Ableton Live 9.
 
K

Kenshin001

Member
I have a mixing question. I make house and techno, when I upload to Soundcloud the tracks sound kind of quiet and poor quality compared to other people's stuff. Sounds OK on my computer. I have an old computer I make music on, maybe that's part of the problem.

My question is about the kick though. I have a compressor on the kick,, attack 6, release 200, 3:1 ratio, threshold -3.0. On the volume for the kick it is pumping out 4.0 in the red. The other tracks don't go in the red and the master stays at around -3.0, ie. never in the red. Does the kick going in the red affect the overall sound quality of the track when I render it or is it only the master track volume? Thanks.
 
O

ozfunghi

Member
Xun said:
I bought a pair of Yamaha HS5's, but I don't have them set up yet unfortunately.

Chances are I'm going to hook them up to an interface, but since I don't have a decent one just yet I'm looking for suggestions!

Currently I've narrowed it down to either the Saffire Pro 24 or the Scarlett 2i4, but any suggestions would be more than welcome.
Click to expand...

Does it have to be Focusrite? I've heard from more than one source that they are overhyped and overpriced. I was looking for a good affordable interface this time last year too. Read that the Focusrites generally have latency issues. In that regard, the UR22 scored very wel and was a lot cheaper too. There is a UR22 II now, that will work on iPad as well. The Mark II version is a bit more expensive though. Still cheaper than Focusrite.

If you want to get more serious, you may want to look into RME. Also, is it just to connect to your monitors, or also for recording? If it's not for recording, maybe a DAC might also be an option in your case.
 
T

thezerofire

Banned
ozfunghi said:
Does it have to be Focusrite? I've heard from more than one source that they are overhyped and overpriced. I was looking for a good affordable interface this time last year too. Read that the Focusrites generally have latency issues. In that regard, the UR22 scored very wel and was a lot cheaper too. There is a UR22 II now, that will work on iPad as well. The Mark II version is a bit more expensive though. Still cheaper than Focusrite.

If you want to get more serious, you may want to look into RME. Also, is it just to connect to your monitors, or also for recording? If it's not for recording, maybe a DAC might also be an option in your case.
Click to expand...
I love my Focusrite, sounds great. I'm probably getting a more robust one soon too, 18i20 probably
 
O

ozfunghi

Member
thezerofire said:
I love my Focusrite, sounds great. I'm probably getting a more robust one soon too, 18i20 probably
Click to expand...

Good to see you're happy with yours.

Also, the 2i4 and saffire pro 24 only support up to 96kHz. The UR22 does 192kHz. How important this is to you is not up to me to decide, just giving the info.
 
S

shagia

Member
Kenshin001 said:
My question is about the kick though. I have a compressor on the kick,, attack 6, release 200, 3:1 ratio, threshold -3.0. On the volume for the kick it is pumping out 4.0 in the red. The other tracks don't go in the red and the master stays at around -3.0, ie. never in the red. Does the kick going in the red affect the overall sound quality of the track when I render it or is it only the master track volume? Thanks.
Click to expand...

Do you have headroom on all of your tracks, or just the master? Separate tracks will have their own meter listening 'post-fader', so if your kick is going over 0db, your kick is going over 0db until it reaches the master bus, which I assume has headroom seeing how your master isn't finding its peak to be 4.0dB. I don't think it'll affect your "overall sound quality" (I'm actually not sure what that defines), but I can say that if you find that your kick is completely louder than everything else (it should be louder, but there's a point where you have to pull back), I'd see what I can do about getting that corrected if it sounds out of place to myself. Try leveling the kick's output gain down a bit just to be safe.

Sadsic said:
my label dropped my album today without telling me lol:

http://store.collectiveres.net/album/bodyload-special-edition

its really intense overloadin stuff
Click to expand...

wishlisted, Lay Down And Let Go is so goddamn good, I also love the detail that you have with vocal tracks here, really nice trip hop stuff

side note, I'm gonna take a second to plug my own album, it's a 10 track electronic album that I've been working on for about 2 years now (2013 - 2015), it would have been released earlier but for about months, I was sending it to labels that either just weren't digging it, or just didn't respond. I soon just got tired of looking at it sit in private, so I just planned on releasing it the same week on a friday.

I don't think it's completely representative of my current production, but I really, really still absolutely love it, and I'm really thankful for the people who helped by providing some artist features and brought them to a whole new level.
 
N

Noclue

Neo Member
Hey guys! I haven't been here in a while but something weird happened!

The description of a facebook event (for an underground party) was asking in the description if we have "beats" to message him. I messaged him and after a few messages he invited me to a group chat with a few other producers that would be playing at the event. This means I will have my first gig soon, which is CRAZY, right? For that, I tried to go away from my more mellow and orchestral sound to something you would hear at an abandoned building party. It has been crazy hard and right now I have 8 minutes worth of party song.

Since then I became friends with him on facebook and he also invited me to a music production "thing" where 8 people bring a track and we all give feedback to it. I brought a track specifically made for the party there and people were so encouraging and helpful, ended up keeping int touch with most of the people there, and they give me very helpful comments.

This is when I realized I might be a fraud. I do most of what I to do based on what I feel sounds right. They were talking about a lot of things at the event, and I got feedback like "love the syncopated drums" or "the ring mod was awesome" which I don't even know what it means. A friend told me that the transition from major to minor was nice in a song and I was like "yeah totally" even though I don't do scales in my songs knowingly and just watched a video at work about scales yesterday. To me it's just what feels right and the kind of songs I would listen to. I even made a joke after that workshop telling everyone "Have a sidechaining night" which implies I just heard the word now and tried to fit in but I'm using it wrong. I thought I was/am hilarious.

Now, to some actual questions: I need to make around 30 mins worth of stuff for the concert. I still can't believe that I started making music less than a year ago and I have my first gig!! Imagine that kind of underground club with "distorted" basses music and so on. Some people at the workshop told me to add more variety, but I feel that "party" music like that should not change too often, it should let the people listening/dancing gradually "feel" those keys more and more. Is that a good approach to making music for such an event or is it stupid? I could drop what I have right now here if you guys would be interested.

Thanks for the input!

TL;DR : I feel like a fraud, I know very little technicalities, have a gig soon making very different music from what I normally do, do you think that going for a "let the people listening get to enjoy the beat" approach for this would work? I'm not saying I will keep the same beat 10 minutes or even 5 but it is not a symphony.
 
I

InaudibleWhispa

Member
Noclue said:
Hey guys! I haven't been here in a while but something weird happened!

The description of a facebook event (for an underground party) was asking in the description if we have "beats" to message him. I messaged him and after a few messages he invited me to a group chat with a few other producers that would be playing at the event. This means I will have my first gig soon, which is CRAZY, right? For that, I tried to go away from my more mellow and orchestral sound to something you would hear at an abandoned building party. It has been crazy hard and right now I have 8 minutes worth of party song.

Since then I became friends with him on facebook and he also invited me to a music production "thing" where 8 people bring a track and we all give feedback to it. I brought a track specifically made for the party there and people were so encouraging and helpful, ended up keeping int touch with most of the people there, and they give me very helpful comments.

This is when I realized I might be a fraud. I do most of what I to do based on what I feel sounds right. They were talking about a lot of things at the event, and I got feedback like "love the syncopated drums" or "the ring mod was awesome" which I don't even know what it means. A friend told me that the transition from major to minor was nice in a song and I was like "yeah totally" even though I don't do scales in my songs knowingly and just watched a video at work about scales yesterday. To me it's just what feels right and the kind of songs I would listen to. I even made a joke after that workshop telling everyone "Have a sidechaining night" which implies I just heard the word now and tried to fit in but I'm using it wrong. I thought I was/am hilarious.

Now, to some actual questions: I need to make around 30 mins worth of stuff for the concert. I still can't believe that I started making music less than a year ago and I have my first gig!! Imagine that kind of underground club with "distorted" basses music and so on. Some people at the workshop told me to add more variety, but I feel that "party" music like that should not change too often, it should let the people listening/dancing gradually "feel" those keys more and more. Is that a good approach to making music for such an event or is it stupid? I could drop what I have right now here if you guys would be interested.

Thanks for the input!

TL;DR : I feel like a fraud, I know very little technicalities, have a gig soon making very different music from what I normally do, do you think that going for a "let the people listening get to enjoy the beat" approach for this would work? I'm not saying I will keep the same beat 10 minutes or even 5 but it is not a symphony.
Click to expand...

If you have created music that people enjoy it doesn't really matter how that music was created (as long as you're not stealing someone else's, obviously) or how technically minded you are. Knowledge is useful as a producer and will help you overcome stumbling blocks and problems but you don't need to know everything to write a good beat and plenty of musicians in plenty of genres get by with limited music theory. Learn at your own pace, often too much emphasis is put on learning sick mastering techniques but creating a good song is most important and if you're doing that you're doing well. There's every chance the people who were throwing out terms you didn't understand simply had a rudimentary grasp of them they learned from some Youtube tutorials (which isn't a diss; that's part of how I'm learning and I'm pretty much in the same boat as you (but without a gig lol)).

As for your question about variety, I guess it depends on the genre. A lot of club music does rely on a repetitive thumping beat with a couple of builds and drops; I guess you could add a bit of movement to the bass/synths by adding some sweeps, filters and FX and a bit of beat variation every 8-16 bars with some simple fills. Even something as simple as changing/introducing hats and shakers can make a big difference to the rhythm and feel. It's hard to say what might be missing without hearing it though; maybe it's fine as it is.
 
L

lazygecko

Member
The only problem is that you don't yet have a good grasp on standardized terminology. That has little to do with skills and talent. It's just a form of non-degradatory ignorance. Ultimately, theory is just about musicians being able to effectively communicate ideas with eachother. Everyone knows their own personalized theory, regardless if they've read up on academic theory or not.
 
A

AyzOn

Neo Member
It got pretty quiet in here. :/

I can't really contribute to what has been discussed before, I don't have that much knowledge either (I can't even read notes). Also I don't know what "Kick 2" is, sorry.

Finally got my speakers back and right now I'm just messing around with different stuff.

Some work in progress files.:

House-Ish/Electro
https://soundcloud.com/ayzon/aerodramatic/s-4k10T

Trap? At least that was what I was going for, second half doesn't exist anymore.
(Voice is by Jeff Gerstmann)
https://soundcloud.com/ayzon/023a/s-biwTi

Comes the closest to being a full song, not exactly sure what genre it is.
https://soundcloud.com/ayzon/024-3a/s-It4ay



Let me know what you think :)
 
T

thezerofire

Banned
AyzOn said:
It got pretty quiet in here. :/

I can't really contribute to what has been discussed before, I don't have that much knowledge either (I can't even read notes). Also I don't know what "Kick 2" is, sorry.

Finally got my speakers back and right now I'm just messing around with different stuff.

Some work in progress files.:

House-Ish/Electro
https://soundcloud.com/ayzon/aerodramatic/s-4k10T

Trap? At least that was what I was going for, second half doesn't exist anymore.
(Voice is by Jeff Gerstmann)
https://soundcloud.com/ayzon/023a/s-biwTi

Comes the closest to being a full song, not exactly sure what genre it is.
https://soundcloud.com/ayzon/024-3a/s-It4ay



Let me know what you think :)
Click to expand...
It's a kick synth, I found out about it from Fusebox I think. I've been pretty busy with non-production stuff and non-recording-into-a-computer production stuff so I haven't been here much, but trying to get back into the swing of things. I'll take a listen to your stuff
 
N

neos

Member
I think i've finished a track (my first on the rap side)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xbd0rl73d2ygcim/8w8.mp3?dl=0

A little backstory:
a couple years ago i did this silly thing on facebook in which i challenged my friends in writing a story, 8 words per post. I used the resulted text as lyrics for this track, so there where no rhymes nor metrics and i sung while reading the text. (it was too long and i was not willing to memorize it)
i know it's so long it becomes boring, but i'm quite happy with the music itself, shrinking it to a 3' track and giving it a proper singer (which i'm not) and some adeguate lyrics would surely help.
So if someone wants to rap, i can provide this beat.

I'm looking for some feedback before passing this track to a friend who's going to make a basic video for YT.Let me know what you think!
 
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