Ok so something has happened with me in terms of my music production in the last couple of weeks. I've experienced a revelation of sort you can say, and I thought I'd share it with you guys in the hopes of putting some minds at ease when it comes to choosing the right tools for your productions. I've been producing for about 4 years now, and my main focus has been (attempting) to conquer the quest of mixing and mastering. Also, like many other producers, especially electronic producers, I do everything "in the box." I did what every other producer in my situation would do, tried every single eq, compressor, saturator, and fancy gadget ever created. I would spend hours fiddling around with new plugins, I became a junkie. I was infatuated with the attractive graphics and vintage looking emulations that I had on my screen. It made me feel like a real audio engineer of the 21st century. Over time my production techniques and sounds improved drastically. I would spend (and still do) no less than 10 hours a day mixing and remixing, mastering and remastering, tweaking and re tweaking my own tracks until they were perfect to my ears. I won't lie, the process was extremely frustrating at times. However, it was not because I didn't know what I was doing in terms of eq'ing this or compressing that, it was because of the sheer amount of plugins and tools I had to choose from. I would spend more time deciding which eq plugin to use rather than actually eq'ing. Until last week I decided that enough is enough. I had to find out once and for all whether the improvement in my productions was due to the tools, or my ears, skills and techniques. Were those fancy plugins in fact getting me closer to that "pro sound," or actually hindering my progress with false hopes and placebo? I had to find out.

So last week I decided to produce an original track, using only the plugins and effects within my DAW (ableton live). I made a promise to myself that no matter how tempted I was to reach for that pultec eq plugin or that 1176 vintage compressor emulator, I would not do it. I would only use whatever Live provided for me. It was time to go back to basics and use basic tools to create a masterpiece.

The result completely blew me away. I was astounded. Not only was I able to focus magnitudes better than I did using my army of expensive plugins, but that track has now become the best track I have ever produced sound quality wise. It was like a truckload lifted off my chest. It was such a relief knowing that I really didn't need any "secret weapons" to get my music sounding like my favorite producers. It was all in my head. It was all that marketing and advertising doing its job. And that, my fellow music producers, is my revelation. Please, stop worrying and debating with yourselves and others which plugins will make your music sound better because it all has to do with your skills, techniques and passion as a producer. Learn to train your ears when it comes to mixing, and acknowledge that there is no magic plugin that will transform a bad mix into an awesome track. Put your minds at ease and just do what you love, which is make music. Focus on your sound design, eq and compression techniques, and when to use saturation and distortion. And rest assured that everything you need to create amazing music is right within your DAW. Even when I mix and master for my clients, I will do it using only Live's plugins unless my clients specifically ask me to use certain plugins. I mean seriously, the sound difference between your built in plugins and other "pro" plugins is miniscule, if there is any at all. I read somewhere that one of the vintage eq's adds a 0,2% harmonic distortion factor to the sound. 0.2%! That's what all the fuss is about. Not worth all the worry to be honest.

Wow this was a long post wasn't it? But I just had to share my experience with everyone because I'm sure many of you guys are going through the same things I did. So stop worrying and go back to the basics. Make music.

 

hey fuad!

I'm into production for a while now and...

Thats is the same what I've experienced
Now I only have FM8, Zebra and Diva and one of each (favorites) Audio effects. But sure. I have some variations like IR-Reverb and Algorithmic reverb, Tap, simple and everything else delay. one band saturator and ms saturator, one band limiter and ms-Limiter and so on.

NOW, after deleting distracting plugins, I can totally focus whats most important to all of us. Making music. Expressing our feelings instantly, without thinking whether taking Albino, Absynth, Zebra or Massive for a specific sound. Or which one of the hundreds of compressors...
Just stick to a few Plugins that theoretically fulfill your needs and satisfy your ears and learn how to max them out.

This is definitely one of the best decisions that I've made in terms of workflow. :dancing:

all the best

Jay Soaring

 

it really is the best thing you can do for yourself when it comes to production, especially for producers who are just starting out, so much time is wasted messing around with plugins instead of actually making music.

thanx for the wishes, best of luck to you cheers to making music

 

A little off topic but...
I started music from Module trackers and my instincts are to avoid effects unless absolutely necessary.
I still wish my DAW (Reaper) had a Modplug like MIDI editor for rapid music composition, nothing is more faster than that.

 

You can't avoid to work with effects. Be it a little delay for a synth to give it some motion, an EQ for cleaning your frequencies up or some BUSS treatment to give it "that sound".
Just divide your workflow into logical steps to concentrate on stuff that matters in that particular step. *yes*

I havent tried Modplug or anything like that...I am totally satisfied with the piano-roll in Ableton. For MIDI editing I avoid plugins. And when I use MIDI-Plugins, I reroute the MIDI information on a new MIDI-Channel and record it, to have total control over it.