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[PROTOTYPE]

Can I get some feedback, please?

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No real feedback, because I know jack-all about music, but I liked what you linked to, and am now 'following' you and your progress.

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schwerpunk said:

No real feedback, because I know jack-all about music, but I liked what you linked to, and am now 'following' you and your progress.

Thanks! So am I! So WTF, make some music then if you got a Soundcloud!

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Aside from my website, I post stuff to Soundcloud and YouTube.

Prototype, the "Trip" song you have on your profile is really good. At first I wasn't sure there was going to be any cohesive theme with how it kept changing, but then I realized exactly what you were doing. The way the styles blended together was especially nice IMO.

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I have a soundcloud, but I haven't actually uploaded anything significant to it yet. Got all sorts of projects planned for this summer though. Last week I finished some chiptune jazz fusion for a compilation album that's being finished up, and hopefully I have enough material to finish for my own fusion EP or album. Also been tackling some prog rock/metal throughout the year.

Tindeck is my toxic dumping ground mostly for sketches/proof of concept or shit I can't be bothered to finish.

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yukib1t said:

Aside from my website, I post stuff to Soundcloud and YouTube.

Prototype, the "Trip" song you have on your profile is really good. At first I wasn't sure there was going to be any cohesive theme with how it kept changing, but then I realized exactly what you were doing. The way the styles blended together was especially nice IMO.

Ah, so you're Partition 36! Damn, I really like your style! Like, sort of Kraftwerk, and I really like your vocoder from Optic Nerve! Is that your voice? And I'm just curious, what DAW do you use? Oh, and the mastering on your songs is top-notch, I forgot to ention, you use compression or some dynamic enhancers or stuff like that?

EDIT: Oh, I think I made a song like this a while ago... http://soundcloud.com/xtremedooomer/transition

GeckoYamori said:

I have a soundcloud, but I haven't actually uploaded anything significant to it yet. Got all sorts of projects planned for this summer though. Last week I finished some chiptune jazz fusion for a compilation album that's being finished up, and hopefully I have enough material to finish for my own fusion EP or album. Also been tackling some prog rock/metal throughout the year.

Tindeck is my toxic dumping ground mostly for sketches/proof of concept or shit I can't be bothered to finish.


Well, I'll be damned... your songs sound really punchy and got real quality! Nice work! Same sh*t goes to you... What on Earth do you use to produce your music?

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[PROTOTYPE] said:
Ah, so you're Partition 36! Damn, I really like your style! Like, sort of Kraftwerk, and I really like your vocoder from Optic Nerve! Is that your voice? And I'm just curious, what DAW do you use? Oh, and the mastering on your songs is top-notch, I forgot to ention, you use compression or some dynamic enhancers or stuff like that?

Yep, that would be me! The voice on "The Optic Nerve" is not, however (except the vocoded part). That's Rodleen Getsic, who had released some audio on archive.org under a CC-BY-NC-SA license. I took it and then cut it to fit into my song. My (unfortunately rather manly sounding) voice can be heard during the "speech" sections of Cyberpunks, though.

I use SONAR 8.5 as my DAW, though occasionally I'll dabble with Reaper or Renoise for fun. I also use Reason, but only when I'm working with my friend on our collaboration project, treeFungus. There's a listing of software and hardware on my website.

As far as compressors and stuff like that goes... I tend to use some compressors on individual tracks, but not many. Mostly they get used on bass lines and pads to control their dynamics more. Then I use a multiband compressor (usually one from Sonitus:fx, though occasionally the one that ships with Reaktor) on the master bus right after a harmonic exciter and before the final EQ and limiter (which usually uses pretty mild settings). Then I do the rest of my mastering in GoldWave. I've been experimenting with side-chained compression lately, too. Somewhere in my head I have a theory that I can use it to control the bass frequencies to keep it from getting too muddy, though ideally I would be doing this using a side-chained multiband compressor, which I don't have >_<

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Stubborn FLStudio user since 2001. These days I rely on sequencing tricks more than post-processing effects for my sound, inherited from my tracker roots.

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Shtbag667 said:

I have an account:

http://soundcloud.com/rs1981

It's all hit or miss I think but whatev.

You have a new follower...

esselfortium said:

I have a SoundCloud account, but I don't use it much.

I do have a website with a music section, though, and lots of stuff to listen to on there.

I really like your site!

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http://soundcloud.com/theprimallaw/sets/main/

Just a scrap-book. I don't really use Soundcloud too often, just to upload tracks to send to people if I need to. I have somewhere in the realm of 2,000+ songs on my computer that I've done or worked on. The stuff on Soundcloud is mostly industrial circus music that I've done lately.

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GeckoYamori said:

I have a soundcloud, but I haven't actually uploaded anything significant to it yet. Got all sorts of projects planned for this summer though. Last week I finished some chiptune jazz fusion for a compilation album that's being finished up, and hopefully I have enough material to finish for my own fusion EP or album. Also been tackling some prog rock/metal throughout the year.

Tindeck is my toxic dumping ground mostly for sketches/proof of concept or shit I can't be bothered to finish.

Hey, I remember you from OCR. Yeah, this guy is good, you guys.

This is JM_Zen, by the way, if you remember me at all.

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yukib1t said:

Yep, that would be me! The voice on "The Optic Nerve" is not, however (except the vocoded part). That's Rodleen Getsic, who had released some audio on archive.org under a CC-BY-NC-SA license. I took it and then cut it to fit into my song. My (unfortunately rather manly sounding) voice can be heard during the "speech" sections of Cyberpunks, though.

I use SONAR 8.5 as my DAW, though occasionally I'll dabble with Reaper or Renoise for fun. I also use Reason, but only when I'm working with my friend on our collaboration project, treeFungus. There's a listing of software and hardware on my website.

As far as compressors and stuff like that goes... I tend to use some compressors on individual tracks, but not many. Mostly they get used on bass lines and pads to control their dynamics more. Then I use a multiband compressor (usually one from Sonitus:fx, though occasionally the one that ships with Reaktor) on the master bus right after a harmonic exciter and before the final EQ and limiter (which usually uses pretty mild settings). Then I do the rest of my mastering in GoldWave. I've been experimenting with side-chained compression lately, too. Somewhere in my head I have a theory that I can use it to control the bass frequencies to keep it from getting too muddy, though ideally I would be doing this using a side-chained multiband compressor, which I don't have >_<



Your mixes sound pretty solid, I wouldn't worry too much about going crazy with comps.

Heh, another Denver industrial / electronic musician. There's a few demi-famous acts in that town (Velvet Acid Christ, Boyd Rice/NON, RevState). I hear the scene is dead as disco though. Could be just the old-timers talking.

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I have a soundcloud thingo here with a few songs I've written/recorded. Haven't actually done anything new in a while (I have some newer stuff written, just can't record anything currently).

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Fredrik said:

I've put a handful of my musics on the tube.

Not necessarily intended to be listenable.

Your "Castle of Eternal Carrot in the Sky" level song is a masterpiece.

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Memfis said:

Your "Castle of Eternal Carrot in the Sky" level song is a masterpiece.

Why, thank you! I ought to put up the music for the never-finished sequels as well.

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yukib1t said:

As far as compressors and stuff like that goes... I tend to use some compressors on individual tracks, but not many. Mostly they get used on bass lines and pads to control their dynamics more. Then I use a multiband compressor (usually one from Sonitus:fx, though occasionally the one that ships with Reaktor) on the master bus right after a harmonic exciter and before the final EQ and limiter (which usually uses pretty mild settings). Then I do the rest of my mastering in GoldWave. I've been experimenting with side-chained compression lately, too. Somewhere in my head I have a theory that I can use it to control the bass frequencies to keep it from getting too muddy, though ideally I would be doing this using a side-chained multiband compressor, which I don't have >_<

This was absolutely painful for me to read, mostly because it reminded me of myself in early 2004. Why on earth are you putting compressors on synth pads? You're killing your mixes with this stuff.

This article puts it better than I can:

Things like multi-band compression, aural exciters, sonic maximizers [...] were created to give mastering engineers more flexibility when they didn't have the luxury of going back and fixing the individual elements in a song. They were forced to work on a single stereo file of the song, and couldn't adjust anything in the mixdown.

Everything you need to do to make a song sound polished and balanced can be done in the mixdown, and this is where you should focus 100% of all your attention.


What you're doing is seriously overkill, especially with the harmonic exciter and all. Unless you're trying to give your mix a very unusual color (like using an obvious tape saturation effect, for instance), this sort of sound shaping is usually best done to your sounds individually; trying to force it on the entire mix is just going to cause issues to have to work around.

There are far easier and more effective ways to get mud out of your mix. Multiband compression isn't going to eliminate mud in the bass range, but EQing some bass cuts in all your instruments that shouldn't be occupying that range will.


For my own mixes, I mainly just use a little bit of compression with a limiter and softclipping on the output.

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esselfortium said:

Why on earth are you putting compressors on synth pads? ... Unless you're trying to give your mix a very unusual color (like using an obvious tape saturation effect, for instance), this sort of sound shaping is usually best done to your sounds individually; trying to force it on the entire mix is just going to cause issues to have to work around.

It actually is for the unusual color.

I put them on synth pads because I tend to use pads that have a lot of beating frequencies in them, which I've found can sometimes make frequencies flow in and out far too much when I don't want them to. Sometimes this works in the mix, and other times I can just reprogram the synth or effect I'm applying to it, but sometimes it just doesn't work and so I'll lightly compress them.

The use of side-chaining to control mud is just something I'm experimenting with. I don't do this on the master bus; in fact, I do very little on the master bus and instead do most everything on individual tracks. It's also definitely not a replacement for EQ or good synth programming. My idea is that you can get a more solid sound by having certain slices of parts cut out whenever, say, a kick drum with some similar frequencies hits. I've read a few other articles where they basically describe the same thing. But again, I don't have a multiband that supports side-chaining, so I was never able to really test this idea and instead recently used some normal compressors and some luck. I normally try to avoid using more than one or two compressors in an entire song unless I absolutely need them.

Also, to paraphrase another sound engineer, "there's no right way to do sound; do what sounds good to your ears."

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The Lag said:

I've used every major DAW and sound editor from amiga fasttracker, Cubase, Logic and Renoise to Soundforge and Recycle, but for the past 10 or so years it's been nothing but Protools for serious work. Then, fairly recently, I purchased the Ableton Live 8 suite because some of my producer and dj friends have been singing its praises for awhile now.
If you've never used it before and are an electronic music producer, then seriously check it out. It's just such a great creative tool and now my favorite DAW...and then there are the controllers (launchpad is fun and inspiring) and the ease-of-use in live situations.

No, i do not work for Ableton. I just like to give advice to people interested in music production, because there are far too many people who dream of producing their own music who never get over the initial hurdle or who get discouraged for 1 of a million reasons and go on with their lives never knowing.

10 bucks says FL Studio is better. You haven't mentioned it, and if you haven't used, you should seriously go check it out. It's true though, that it's not a live oriented tool like Ableton, but for a exclusive studio editing DAW it's creative possibilities are pretty much unlimited,IMO, not only because of the stuff such as Toxic Biohazard and VSTs like that that come with it, but because it's got some really intuitive Playlist+Pattern editor, I mean, anything you want, you can make. But, go check it out by yourself, don't just listen to my words... Or maybe you are just the type of person that prefers live, it's just a matter of personal taste...

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I've used Pro Tools a fair amount. People say it's unparalleled when it comes to handling recorded music, and that may very well be true. I find it pretty lackluster when it comes to extensive MIDI editing though, which is inevitable if you're doing electronic music. I've experienced all sorts of weird bugs with it. Pretty much the only ting I prefer compared to FLStudio is that I can snap note offs right to the grid, while FL is always in relative snap mode. It's useful since I work a lot with mono/portamento sounds.

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If you have a work-flow that you are happy with, and are pumping out tracks without feeling that the program is getting in the way of your creativity or limiting you in any way, then by all means stick with it.
I have used FL studio a bit and I know it is very easy to use. I felt the same about Protools since I used it for so long. Then Ableton decided to do a 35% Off sale one weekend and I jumped for it, got the whole Suite, and everything just clicked between us. No looking back...except I still do mixdowns and mastering in Protools.
All midi and composition is in Ableton, (except I use my MPC and ASR10 for sampling/working with samples, and laying out the beat) and for live performance nothing beats Ableton and some controllers (unless you put together a bunch of people and play everything live of course.)

Anyway, on topic: I'm not on soundcloud yet and I don't want to link to any of my old projects, but I'll throw some stuff up on soundcloud when I get around to it.

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Wait, I have another question. I've noticed that people around here do their mixing inside their DAWs, but they master their tracks by exporting them to a WAV file or something, and then processing them into some editor like GoldWave... I'm seriously trying to fix the clipping problems that I have when I finish songs, so I'm looking for an alternative to the personal method that I have for ''mastering'' (1 param EQ for each track to cut the unnecessary frequencies, and 1 multiband compressor on a master bus, with the limiter at the end)/

So what is it that you people usually do with your WAVs inside ProTools or GoldWave, or whatever?

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