Music Making

[Dusty Chalk]

https://www.behance.net/gallery/113377671/EuroPi-Making-EuroRack-Affordable

[ironbut]

Native Instruments and iZotope will share the same corp roof!

https://www.musicradar.com/news/native-instruments-and-izotope-come-together-to-create-an-unprecedented-alliance-to-shape-the-future-of-music-making-and-audio-production

Pretty big news for me (I'm in Deep with both companies software).

There's the usual Panic/Excitement arc running like wildfire on the creators forums.

Only time will tell if the update sales that I have been betting on this summer will be better or worse and how this will effect future software?

[grawk]

that explains all the recent izotope sales...

[Dusty Chalk]

🤔

Interesting.

I’m not sure if this affects me, since I’m only starting out in the plug-in universe.

Did just buy Trash, though.

[ironbut]

I've been a happy consumer of plugins for quite a while.

I have around 300 and that's not counting the ones that come with my daws. 

That was over a decade of fooling around with these things and I've learned a few things about buying these things.

Maybe I sound a little like a character from a Woody Allen movie but "never pay retail!"

There are a few companies that sell their software for pretty reasonable prices (Valhalla DSP for instance) but for the most part, plugin developers big and small have regularly timed sales and many have "flash" sales that exceed 50% .

Take Native Instruments.

I bought their Ultimate Komplete bundle back when I was in school.

It retails for around $1k but I picked it up for half that much (if you want to do the same PM me for the trick to doing that).

Same for iZotope.

I bought Rx 1 when it was first introduced for about 40% off and I just upgrade it every other year (up to Rx 6 Advanced now) when they have their half off upgrades. I have Ozone Advanced, Iris, Trash, Insight, Breaktweaker and some others I can't quite remember right now (you get the idea).

Same for Komplete Ultimate. This summer they'll have a special upgrade sale for half off so I'll upgrade form Ultimate 11 to 13 for about 100 bucks instead of 200.

There are several "brokers" that discount plugins from lots of developers and it's well worth registering with them and getting their spam. 

Plugin Boutique is one of them https://www.pluginboutique.com/

Just don't go down their rabbit hole or you'll end up with a bunch of expensive stuff that you'll never or seldom use.

That's kind of the trick here.

Think about what you NEED to do what you hear in your head.

Of course it's up to you if you want to buy a bunch of stuff and I think that the industry counts on that to keep the ball rolling.

[Dusty Chalk]

2 hours ago, ironbut said:

Just don't go down their rabbit hole or you'll end up with a bunch of expensive stuff that you'll never or seldom use.

That's kind of the trick here.

Think about what you NEED to do what you hear in your head.

Of course it's up to you if you want to buy a bunch of stuff and I think that the industry counts on that to keep the ball rolling.

Yeah, all great advice and I really appreciate hearing it again, as I’m one of those people who needs to hear things multiple times and needs constant reinforcement of lessons.  I’ve been pretty good so far, only have Trash, Arturia Collection, and a basic orchestral collection from VSL.  But yeah, I need to learn those 50% or less tricks, will DM you this weekend.

[ironbut]

As far as the Native Instruments crossgrade trick goes, I don't know why I shouldn't just post it here since it isn't like some kinda big secret.

It has changed a bit since I took advantage of it a long time ago.

The idea is to get a free or cheap Kontakt instrument that comes with the full version of Kontakt (there is a Player version which is always free).

When I did it, I used the free Senheisser Drum Mic A instrument but I guess that no longer works.

Anyway, once you have a full version of Kontakt, you can crossgrade that to a Komplete bundle during a half off sale which is usually a month long during the summer (or something like that).

Here's a thread from 2020 from the Reaper Forum (best computer music forum ever IMHO) where they are talking about it.

https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=238076&highlight=drummica

Like I said, it's been a long, long time since I did this and IIRC I had to do a crossgrade for about $200 and an upgrade for about $200 and in the end I had Komplete Ultimate which was twice that much retail.

This can only be done during the summer upgrade/crossgrade sale.

It's possible that they may have sales on Komplete bundles that are close to this these days.

 

[acidbasement]

Another rough-ass demo of a song I plan to record properly soon.

[Dusty Chalk]

Very nice!  That's a fully formed song, and you've only been doing this for how many months?  

Unrelated:  has anyone used this?  I'm tempted to get it just to get "that sound".
https://www.uaudio.com/uad-plugins/channel-strips/neve-88rs-collection.html

[HiWire]

How to play funk clav (he got the funk):

 

[ironbut]

13 hours ago, Dusty Chalk said:

Unrelated:  has anyone used this?  I'm tempted to get it just to get "that sound".
https://www.uaudio.com/uad-plugins/channel-strips/neve-88rs-collection.html

I've never owned any UAD plugins but I have used some at studios with their cards.

Be aware that their plugins require the use of one of their Apollo interfaces or a computer with one of their DSP cards installed.

I'm not so sure how relevant these systems are anymore since computers are much more capable than they were when these systems were developed.

Still, putting cpu intensive software on another computer or another processor system (DSP cards) makes a lot of sense if you do a lot of laptop work or just want to load up a ton of plugins/processing.

There are other non-UAD options to get that Neve sound.

I have the Slate Digital virtual mixbus and Waves virtual mixer.

Both have Neve settings.

I prefer Slate.    https://slatedigital.com/

I believe it is easy to get a demo or try Slate's for a month or so.

Channel strips are nice for mixing and probably half of the plugins I own are primarily for mixing.

I haven't done very much mixing in the last couple of years so I don't find myself using them that often anymore.

For music production I try to make the tracks sound the way they should in the first place but sometimes I do try console type modeling to add a little something.

All a matter of taste I think.

 

[VPI]

I have all of the UAD Plugins and the 88rs is one that I use quite often for non-musical vocal work.

[Torpedo]

1 hour ago, HiWire said:

How to play funk clav (he got the funk):

 

Want!!!

[ironbut]

2 hours ago, HiWire said:

How to play funk clav (he got the funk):

 

His videos are completely addicting (once you start,..)!

[HiWire]

Yes, and now I want a Vibanet! And he's so good at playing. Going to watch more of his videos.

Edited March 15, 2021 by HiWire

[Dusty Chalk]

I want to buy a stereo bar for my unmatched NT-2A's -- anyone do much stereo recording?  What's the best way?  It looks like most would be able to use a standard stereo bar like the Rode SB-20 except for the Mid-Side technique.

I assume not, but thought I'd ask.

[grawk]

it depends a lot on what you're recording, the sound of the room, and what works best for the mics in particular.  For recording in a studio space, I don't think I'd use a stereo bar, I think I'd just experiment with where you place the mic stands... ORTF, DIN, XY, Spaced Omni...

[Dusty Chalk]

Okay, that makes sense.  I read this thread:
https://www.gearslutz.com/board/so-much-gear-so-little-time/510274-would-you-record-stereo-unmatched-pair.html
... and in the first post, the guy says he gets decent stereo with two completely different microphones.  I just didn't want that "lopsided in the head" sound when listening back on headphones.

Also in answer to the other question, I just don't like that "island in the middle of the head" sound, I just want it to sound slightly more natural when playing myself back.

[ironbut]

A quick look at that GS thread,..

It sounds like a some folks are comparing recording an instrument like guitar with 2 mics (super common) with one mic on the neck and one on the body and stereo recording. In that case, matching really doesn't matter. You just move the mics around until you get what sounds best to you with those mics, instrument and room.

 

grawk is right about using a stereo bar. It all depends on the kind of recording you going to make on what technique you employ.

IMHO the best way to do a stereo recording of a room and avoid any of the typical headphone issues like you mentioned is M/S. 

You're working with 3 channels mixed down to stereo ( 1 mid with 2 sides).

I guess you could use a bar with the mic's lined up back to back (instead of side by side) but if you have two boom stands, the one over the other (one upright and the other upside down pointed at each other) is what I've always done for M/S.

 

If you plan on doing much recording, I think it's worth picking up Bobby Owsinski's book "The Recording Engineer's Handbook.

It has examples that make great starting points for recording setups for most instruments and ensembles.

Just add time and patient listening and you can make great recordings with very humble gear IMHO. 

[ironbut]

Stumbled across a great video on M/S recording and processing.

The example is done in FL Studio (I think) but you can do this in Cubase just as easily.

I sure wish I'd seen this when I first fooled around with this technique! It kinda messed with my head just reading about it?

 

[Dusty Chalk]

Much obliged to both of you, thank you.  

I was fortunate while researching this topic to run across this page early, which explicitly calls out the NT-2a in the Mid-Side section at the end.  This reinforced grawk's early response of not needing a stereo bar and just playing with mic placement, so I opted not to get a stereo bar, as I do have a boom floor stand as well as a boom desk stand, so I should be able to experiment with exactly that...once I clean up a little bit.  (Kinda hard to put both in the same place, currently.)

But it always helps to hear  the explanation multiple times in multiple different ways, so I really do appreciate the conciseness of that video.  I'm pretty strong in math and DSP, so I didn't really have much trouble wrapping my head around the concept, but I have to wonder how they figured this out in the early days (pre-DAW).  Probably just some really smart people who were into music and music making.

[grawk]

back when I did most of my concert recording, I used a schoeps mid/side rig.  Boy I miss that setup.

[blessingx]

Thought this free Sunday program might be interesting for some. 

https://silentfilm.org/making-music-for-film/ 

Our next free online masterclass features DJ Spooky in conversation with Carter Burwell and Graham Reynolds. These three extraordinary musicians (and friends) will talk about composing for film—touching on the similarities and differences for silent cinema.

Paul D. Miller (DJ Spooky) is an artist and composer with an affinity for silent film. His live remix of D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation—Rebirth of a Nation—premiered in 2004 and Miller went on to score Dovzhenko’s Earth and Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, among others. He executive-produced the Pioneers of African-American Cinema box set, which features his scores for two Oscar Micheaux films. Miller performed at SFSFF 2017 with his score for Micheaux’s Body and Soul and there are plans afoot to bring Miller to San Francisco to perform at SFSFF’s next in-person event.

Carter Burwell is known to anyone who’s seen a film by the Coen Brothers—his ineffable touch is on everything from Blood Simple to The Big Lebowski to The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, not to mention his scores for films by Todd Haynes and Spike Jonze!

Graham Reynolds composed the elegant music for Richard Linklater’s A Scanner Darkly, Before Midnight, and Where’d You Go, Bernadette, among his many other film scores. Reynolds got his film-composing start by scoring silent films!

[ironbut]

20 hours ago, grawk said:

back when I did most of my concert recording, I used a schoeps mid/side rig.  Boy I miss that setup.

Love Schoeps!!!

I used to use a matched pair for recording ensembles and overheads/room sound.

You get that "light as a feather" super clear sound with the omnis I used to use.

Used a Grace 808 pre or an early SD 702. 

Either way, it has that audio jewelry feel!

[grawk]

yeah, I started out with their ORTF mic, the mstc44, then several changes later had a film sound setup (vms02 preamp with mk21h and mk8, and an apogee ad500).  I got busted with that setup once stealth, and the guy who busted me was confused how I snuck it all into the club