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Rowan Morrison

By Rowan Morrison
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U2031

U2031

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I don't actually use acappelas, I prefer to make mashes from the recorded versions of things. If they work, they work, if they don't, they don't. I think you get a much better mix if they were supposed to mix.

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rundll

rundll

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That's nice overall diggler. Shades of AFX & U.Schnauss in the production but a bit 'straighter' with the composition.

It stays quite constant although it does evolve. Perhaps drop or change the drums for a few bars here and there?

toe the line wip 3

updated toe the line remix again. The very end is slightly messed up compared to how it originally was but it's more 'mixed' now. Still with a few issues I'd like to fix.

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Magoo

Magoo

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That's cool diggler, nicely produced. The arrangement could do with a little work, maybe drop the reverb in the middle section and reintroduce it again at the end with a more minor chord progression under pinning the main motifs.

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John0

John0

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I'm not exactly sure this is the right place for this, but I don't think there's anywhere else so here goes.

Always

This is one of the songs I have recently put on my computer. Nothing fancy, just me, my guitar and a karaoke mic, hence the bad quality. I've been writing songs for ages, just messing about really, never played or sang in front of anyone so I'm not really sure exactly how bad my voice is yet :) .

It doesn't really fit in with the stuff the rest of you seem to be doing, but as I said, there isn't really anywhere else. I have clicked on some stuff randomly throughout the thread but wouldn't like to comment as I don't know absolutely nothing about that kind of music. I did enjoy a few of the tunes though. ^_^

Any comments, tips or severe criticisms are welcome.

Ps. Sorry about the indirect link, I'll sort out a google page or something soon.

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Magoo

Magoo

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I finally got around to slapping up the two DJ sets I've done so far. While not strictly my own compositions I am slowly trying to push things into the remix/mashup arena. They mostly consist of left of centre hip hop, electronica and indie as well as a few classics. Any feedback would be most welcome.

DJ Sets

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Shoes

Shoes

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Very cool beans. The production is some sweet shit, especially the vocal/vocoder effects. The main pad melody is fantastic too. I love a slice of trance, especially breakbeat trance that's really, really phat. Lovely stuff.

smurfs

its something?

... ;) I quite like it! I like the beat, and the dry clap.

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Magoo

Magoo

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A remix I just did for the Akanda competition. A bit Lemon Jelly, a bit Bonobo, a bit Keith Harris.

Overall quite pleasing, the bass in particular was fantastic. It can be a bit hard to judge remixes when you have not heard the original due to the fact that you don't know what is sampled and what is new. However if I had to hazard a guess I would say the programmed drums, string/synth thing and brass pad are all your additions and frankly it shows. Particularly in the outro you should look to alter the rhythm of the break more significantly and program the sounds so that they are more in keeping with the original.

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Belbo

Belbo

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I just bought a new M-Audio soundcard without checking whether it was Vista supported.

Is anyone good at writing drivers?

Seriously though, I'm in the process of setting up my new home studio. It is definitely lacking in the way of any solid hardware, but I have a nice software situation set out in front of me with some handily accessible MIDI controllers and some new, decent monitors which should make things a whole lot easier. One thing though; changing machines is a nightmare if you ever attempt to go back and finish work you did ages ago (which I do). Trying to relocate all my VSTs on the Internet is an absolute joke. I'm getting there, but seriously, from now on I'm keeping all my install files.

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Magoo

Magoo

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Trying to relocate all my VSTs on the Internet is an absolute joke. I'm getting there, but seriously, from now on I'm keeping all my install files

Having just had a hard drive failure I don't think the importance of keeping all important files seperate from your system drive can be understated. Along with backing up onto an external HDD once a week and onto DVD every few months. Thinking about getting an image making program to make the process even similar. As for Vista I don't think I'll be making the switch for a while and may just hop over to a Mac then anyway.

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U2031

U2031

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I've just been working on a new mash, for all my high falutin' talk of making pure mashes from recorded versions of things, I've used an accapella!

Have a listen, I won't say what the two tunes are

Clicky!

EDIT : Added more beth, more holly, more kick, more compression, and a change to the end

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Belbo

Belbo

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I'm having a bit of trouble with drums lately.

Does anyone know of anywhere that houses some decent tutorials for dealing with drums at all? Preferably with provided samples, etc. Do you all sample your drums from existing tracks or use in-built drum machines (Impulse, etc.)?

Or, if anyone could share any EQ'ing tips that would be great.

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rundll

rundll

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Drums. I have loads of samples but I predominantly use the ones I like. but with subtle layering to make them a little different. (909 snare ftw!). I use pretty much every technique. Simple arrangment of sampled hits, Drum machines (impulse, redrum etc) and breaks. Sometimes I've just used my laptops built in mic to quickly record tapping on things.

There's a brilliant ableton live macro/rack thingy called 'Drumstack'. Which is a presetup drum/layering and mixing utility. http://sonictransfer.com/ for download and some tutorials.

I would also strongly recommended that you keep everything sub-mixed. For the most recent thing I did, the mixing stage was easy because I was really anal about submixing.

Think I had the following submixes.

DRUMS (with seperate submixes for Kicks, Snares, Percussion (hats, claps etc), Breaks).

SUB-BASS

BASS

SYNTH

VOCAL

ORCHESTRAL

PADS

For EQing I would suggest only EQ subtractively. The main area which makes a track sound muddy is around the 150-300hz area. So on most of the submixes I would just EQ that out completely. That way I could be sure that nothing would be intruding on the kick drum and the bass. The two elements which I consider the hardest parts of the track to mix together. After that the snare is probably the trickiest.

This is just general spiel. Maybe I"ll write a better post later about things I try to do.

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Belbo

Belbo

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This is just general spiel. Maybe I"ll write a better post later about things I try to do.

Please do.

That was pretty insightful but I am massively interested in learning as much as possible in this area so anything else you or anyone could add would be fantastic. As for sub-mixing, I take it you just mean keeping each individual track properly mixed and well-organised so that putting it all together at the end isn't a total nightmare. I think your reference to layering pricks my interest. Yes, the 909 snare is fucking ace, but HOW do you go about getting it sounding differently each time. I'd be interested in knowing your techniques in this area, as a lot of the time I end up bunging the Auto Filter effect on it in Live and adjusting it slightly that way, which I suspect isn't what Rick Rubin would do.

Thanks again.

: )

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Rowan Morrison

Rowan Morrison

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Drums! I love drums, I regularly spend hours pissing around with a couple of drum loops and have nothing to show for it at the end.

You've got Live, and that's a great app for checking out the effect of effects, because you can drop them in and shuffle them around so easily. If you haven't checked out the compressors yet, make a beeline for those - they're important when it comes to drums and you'll be able to hear their effects immediately. I'm still not 100% sure of what they do exactly, but I know what effect they're going to have.

Rundll's got good advice with the submixing, though depending on the setup you have Live isn't so good for that (Reason is a lot better there). Sound advice for a clean mix, but there are alternatives, of course; a lot of AFX / Paradinas tracks use distortion to great effect on the drums. Say you've got a long 808 kick followed by a snare, then a shorter kick before the second snare. Under distortion the tail of the 808 will screw up the first snare sound, which can lead to some excellent and easy variation in the rhythm. Compression applied to a whole channel of drums will give different results to compression applied to individual hits - again, it depends what results you have in mind.

Getting fresh sounds out of elements like the 909 snare? Grab the free download of Rebirth if you haven't already, which will give you lovely 909 emulation so that you can tweak the snap and tone and see the results (it'll let you play with distortion and compression, too, as well as a filter similar to Live's Auto Filter).

http://www.rebirthmuseum.com/

If you're using samples, try to check out Battery from Native Instruments (not free, but there is a demo download). That'll give you massive scope for tweaking a drumkit, from simple things like changing the playback starting point (which can be surprisingly effective) to granular meddling. Standard effects like a flanger can have a great impact too - the presents might sound naff, but play around and you can get some interesting results. With any decent sampling engine you can layer several sounds into one, so that for example you can play a slightly different sample (brighter, longer, different FX applied) depending on the velocity of a note, and mix them accordingly. Set that up and then apply a random factor to your velocity and, again, you can get easy and impressive results.

Throw every effect you have at a drum sound, basically, and stick with what sounds good. Bitcrushers win me over every time, even if I only use them to cut a sample down to 12 or 8 bits. Redux is a good tool for this in Live, and as with any Live tool remember you can apply complex parameter envelopes, which can bring an effect you didn't think much of to glorious life. Also useful in Live for drums and loops is the Erosion effect, and Dynamic Tube and Saturator. Stick 'em all in a big chain and get to work.

For breaks, I like to play around in Renoise - again, demo only but the full version is very cheap. That uses a tracker interface rather than piano roll, but once you're into that you can hack up beats really quickly. I won't got into that now, but with very few basic commands under your belt (two is enough, really) you can have chopped, reversing, skittering beats up and running in seconds. It's the weapon of choice for the el cheapo drill & bass crowd because you can reach a stage where you can arrange loops like a touch typist.

You can also get some excellent loop results in Live, of course - fiddling with the warp markers can transform samples radically.

Every program I use offers something different drumwise. Live is great for quickly throwing effects around and meddling around, well, live. Reason's modular interface can lead to some interesting discoveries and I like programming with the Matix every now and again. Renoise is a joy to work with loops and breaks in, maybe a bit daunting if you're not used to trackers. NI stuff like Battery and Reaktor are unbeatable at throwing up bizarre results, great places to piddle around in in the hope of knocking up a useful loop.

Another exercise that can give you some good insights into drum use, at least in my experience, is to forget about samples and construct a loop solely from synthesised sounds. Live can be good for this if you have Operator installed, but I prefer Reason - again, because I love working with the Matrix device. I just set up an array of Subtractor synths and construct everything using mono patches - the restriction can be very liberating.

Anyway, that's some of my advice and experience with drum sounds, based on nothing more than years of tossing around, so maybe they're of some use if tossing around is your goal. Have fun!

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Belbo

Belbo

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Wow, Rowan; massive thanks for that.

I'm going to have a week dedicated to just sitting in my room messing around with drums, I think. They normally play a pretty central role in each track I produce, and so I feel I should definitely get more confident with them, if only to do my work some justice.

Thanks again.

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Belbo

Belbo

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Can anyone provide any insight into when exactly it is OK to sample classical music? As far as I can tell:

- It is OK to sample classical music as long as the artist/author has been dead for 70 years.

- It must be an 'original' recording or re-created by yourself from the sheet music (sampling, for example, an orchestra playing the piece would infringe on their copyright, therefore making the sample illegal).

- If the sample has been re-created by yourself, YOU OWN the copyright to that sample.

As far as I can tell from trawling the Internet those are the rules that I can make out. Does anyone have anything to add/take away from that?

I really would appreciate it.

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