Musicians Off-topic Discussion Thread v3 - Now with less dubstep and more trap - General

[img]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BTkZ1UXIcAAbSiC.jpg[/img] running my analog synth off a portable battery. feels weird using it without being tethered to a wall.

Don't you love it when you forget that you put a certain feature on and do something which fucks up the entire project and you end up accidentally saving with no backup? Yeah. [t]http://i.imgur.com/dNBHTl1.png[/t] I assume a grid of lines shouldn't look like this. [t]http://i.imgur.com/rva2IjO.png[/t] No way to revert changes, so time to remake everything I have done! Fucking hell, why does FL Studio let you stretch with the same tool that you resize things with?

[QUOTE=thisispain;42038733]after learning temecula sunrise in its entirety, tempo and signature changes and all, i finally figured out that songs dont have to be the same tempo thats kind of a revelation to me for some reason rofl[/QUOTE] it's still weird for me, living in Temecula, to hear that song.

[QUOTE=The freeman;42137068]Fucking hell, why does FL Studio let you stretch with the same tool that you resize things with?[/QUOTE] For quick access, although after a while I learned to always remember to check if it's on stretch or not

[QUOTE=The freeman;42137068] Fucking hell, why does FL Studio let you stretch with the same tool that you resize things with?[/QUOTE] This has happened to me multiple times, I need to start remembering the binds and combinations...

Been a while since I've heard a band that has such a distinctive and unique sound. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxDvaYJaci0[/media] Balls be sweating while listening to this. Fucking great.

Hey guys, do you know the origin of professional drum samples (where they come from, who does them)? I mean like EDM ones. I'm just wondering how they create them. I've been synthesizing my kicks, snares and a few other drums with software VST plugins (Massive, etc.) but some drums, like crash cymbal, are too hard to get right. I'm pretty sure they play a crash drum acoustically though, and then layer and edit them heavily.

[QUOTE=Martti010;42199460]Hey guys, do you know the origin of professional drum samples (where they come from, who does them)? I mean like EDM ones. I'm just wondering how they create them. I've been synthesizing my kicks, snares and a few other drums with software VST plugins (Massive, etc.) but some drums, like crash cymbal, are too hard to get right. I'm pretty sure they play a crash drum acoustically though, and then layer and edit them heavily.[/QUOTE] For drums (i.e. snares, kicks, toms, etc.) they record/sample acoustic sounds and layer them with synthesized/already made samples and then process them to make them fit. For crashes they do the same except with cymbal recordings and white noise, sometimes just crashes. Though making a good kick is extremely difficult

It's all about layering samples that compliment eachother. Have a snare sample that has a sweet high-end smack to it, but lacks low-end? Then layer it with another sample that has that low-end and lowpass it. Then you can try compressing or distorting them together, or layer with even more samples.

i finally got around to putting most of my stuff on soundcloud, hit the 2 hour limit pretty fast [url]https://soundcloud.com/tylercbrown[/url]

[QUOTE=Dead Madman;42199607]For drums (i.e. snares, kicks, toms, etc.) they record/sample acoustic sounds and layer them with synthesized/already made samples and then process them to make them fit. For crashes they do the same except with cymbal recordings and white noise, sometimes just crashes. Though making a good kick is extremely difficult[/QUOTE] Yeah, so they could use modified 101-909 etc kicks to fit with the acoustic ones? Just wondering how the synthesized part of a kick would sound like. In other words, over few years' experience I've managed to make near-professional sounding kicks and snares that's fully digital. Although I still find it hard to do more varying drums (the current ones are dubstep/electro house kinda ones) and I still haven't gotten around to problems with resonances in mid-high range. [sp]If you want to, check my soundcloud, nearly everything you hear is synthesized by me[/sp]

Yeah it's easy to get unwanted resonance by synthesizing drums. I guess you could just keep processing your drums up until it starts giving you unwanted frequencies and then just dial it back and maybe layer an acoustic percussion sample on top of it to fill the gap.

Everytime I try to make something in FL Studio I'm disheartened by the complexity of the program. Anyone know any good tutorials? I've seen the tutorials that show up on top of the youtube search a thousand times, though not to completion.

[QUOTE=NateDude;42230638]Everytime I try to make something in FL Studio I'm disheartened by the complexity of the program. Anyone know any good tutorials? I've seen the tutorials that show up on top of the youtube search a thousand times, though not to completion.[/QUOTE] Just experiment. Try to recreate melodies/sounds/whatever from songs you like, trying to find a new way to do it each time you try. tutorials are good, but they teach you the way that the tutor is doing things, and often I find this silly because looking back on who I learned from, he still does alot of bad shit in FL.

[QUOTE=healthpoint;42212700]Yeah it's easy to get unwanted resonance by synthesizing drums. I guess you could just keep processing your drums up until it starts giving you unwanted frequencies and then just dial it back and maybe layer an acoustic percussion sample on top of it to fill the gap.[/QUOTE] Suppose so, there are actually MANY ways to fill the gap and it would take me weeks to try them all and find the best option :v: One way I started building a drum (tambourine) once was, I took white noise (with another acoustic tambourine side-to-side), then equalized carefully while looking at acoustic tamb's spectrum, to get similar spectrum and envelope to acoustic tambourine. The results were good but synthesized tamb didn't differ a lot from acoustic anyway. It's pretty complex way to do things, I recently started attempt on synthesizing crash cymbal the same way, but eh I gave up quickly.

[QUOTE=Martti010;42235753]One way I started building a drum (tambourine) once was, I took white noise (with another acoustic tambourine side-to-side), then equalized carefully while looking at acoustic tamb's spectrum, to get similar spectrum and envelope to acoustic tambourine. The results were good but synthesized tamb didn't differ a lot from acoustic anyway.[/QUOTE] Don't take this as an insult, but what a waste of time haha. If you're going to go as far as copying the spectrum of the acoustic tamb, you should probably just use that sample.

How is that a waste of time. The point is that he [I]doesn't[/I] want to use the tambourine sample. He's analyzing the spectrum, so he can figure out how to synthesize and process his synth samples. It might seem a waste of time now, but in the long run he'll be able to quickly make himself any kind of drum sound he wants, rather than looking for the right sample. By the way Martti, if you're realize serious about synthesizing your drums, you should check out FM8/Sytrus or any other FM synth out there. You'll probably get better results by shaping the overall sound straight away with just frequency modulation, rather than cutting/shaping with subtractive synthesis.

I dunno if any of you are aware of what it is, but I just ordered a Fractal Audio Axe FX and I think I might be suffering from priapism as a result...

[QUOTE=healthpoint;42236682]How is that a waste of time. The point is that he [I]doesn't[/I] want to use the tambourine sample. He's analyzing the spectrum, so he can figure out how to synthesize and process his synth samples. It might seem a waste of time now, but in the long run he'll be able to quickly make himself any kind of drum sound he wants, rather than looking for the right sample. By the way Martti, if you're realize serious about synthesizing your drums, you should check out FM8/Sytrus or any other FM synth out there. You'll probably get better results by shaping the overall sound straight away with just frequency modulation, rather than cutting/shaping with subtractive synthesis.[/QUOTE] It's not a total waste of time if you're just doing it for shits and giggles, but if you're like "I like this tamb, I am going to synthesize it" instead of just "I like this tamb, I'm going to pitch and eq it a little bit so it fits with my other drums more" it's kind of a waste. I will admit it's a good learning experience though. You don't have to spend that much time looking for the right sample if you keep your sample library lean and clean, and I think it's always easier to start with a drum sample and shape THAT than it is to synthesize from scratch. You tend to get more interesting tones from sampling as well because if you learn to synthesize something, you generally do it almost the same way every time, and I think that gets boring pretty quick (for me at least). Synthesized drums just never sound quite as organic, which is how I prefer my drums. I also find that I finish more songs instead of just making loops that never turn into anything if I don't worry so much about making every single sound in the tune myself.

can someone help me find different types of software for creating music?

Eh, I've actually used that synthesized tambourine in my tracks. Also I could make a lengthier tamb straight away if I needed to, just by changing the envelope. It's not completely pointless, I just like to get more technical than just using samples and presets and call myself a producer even though I wouldn't know how these work. [editline]20th September 2013[/editline] Also: [QUOTE=thisispain;41669563]funnily enough the DX7 and the FM8 which emulates the Yahama DX7 arent even FM but phase modulation so rofl[/QUOTE] Do you still think I could make use of it? Another thing, Z3ta+ 2 can be an above average tool for drum synthesis since it has powerful wave shaping tools. Used it for drum synthesis before though.

whoops

[QUOTE=OrkO;42249987]can someone help me find different types of software for creating music?[/QUOTE] The main type for creating music are DAWs (Digital audio Workstations: FL Studio, Cubase, Ableton Live, etc.) There's also some software for creating chiptunes, I think they are usually referred as "trackers".

can i utilize my roland rd700nx keyboard with any of that software? i'm looking for software which makes creating music played on my keyboard easier it's hard to explain, but i want to be able to have a convenient way to create music with my keyboard, like, by playing each instrument as a track and then combining each track [editline]21st September 2013[/editline] i tried to do that without aforementioned software and the result was abysmal [url]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1439792/what.wav[/url] [editline]21st September 2013[/editline] i made the piano track more confident and maybe that helped but it still isn't very well composed [url]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1439792/what%20v2.wav[/url]

[QUOTE=OrkO;42266144]can i utilize my roland rd700nx keyboard with any of that software? i'm looking for software which makes creating music played on my keyboard easier it's hard to explain, but i want to be able to have a convenient way to create music with my keyboard, like, by playing each instrument as a track and then combining each track [editline]21st September 2013[/editline] i tried to do that without aforementioned software and the result was abysmal [url]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1439792/what.wav[/url] [editline]21st September 2013[/editline] i made the piano track more confident and maybe that helped but it still isn't very well composed [url]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1439792/what%20v2.wav[/url][/QUOTE] With patience, it can be executed in the free software, [url=http://audacity.sourceforge.net/]Audacity[/url]. However, if you are the impatient type and are looking for more organized and are also interested in mixing each track, I'd recommend a DAW (as previously mentioned) like Ableton, FL, Cubase, Pro Tools, etc.

Find a way to plug the audio outputs of your keyboard into your PC - Usually done with an audio interface but because your keyboard will be line level you could get away with using the line in of your computer until you get something more suited (I'm currently recommending the [url=http://uk.focusrite.com/usb-audio-interfaces/scarlett-2i4]Focusrite Scarlett 2i4[/url]). Grab a copy of [url=http://www.cockos.com/reaper/]REAPER[/url] (Cheap, worth every penny) and go from there. If you later want to experiment with software based synths you need a way to plug the MIDI outputs of your keyboard into your computer, The scarlett has a built in MIDI interface.

Either get the scarlett or the roland ua55 - both have great pres, advantage of ua55 is it has midi ports which is nice

I hope the Volca series will be ready for the holidaze.

I only really screw around with electronic music for funsies but can somebody recommend a good drum sound pack/VST for modern hip hop?

I'm doing some research into hearing damage, I wouldn't usually do this but I want some more diverse responses. If any of you have any spare time could you fill in my survey? [url]https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1jAAQrdoAlSHz-blBz_AJ2Ah_xgOv-PYPUzqmpaM6so8/viewform[/url]