I find it's better to sniff glue after you've got the mix to see how the general public may hear the track.

 

The ups and downs of drugs is another discussion that I'd rather not rehash here, but there's nothing like really nailing a bit and thinking "wow, that's the shit, I really went out there, lets hear it back!" and noticing that a) you've accidentally recording the chain with an absolute mess of a pile of FX printed and b) you forgot to press record in the first place.

Moral of the story: get a sober person to handle the recording and keep to just playing.

Not that it has ever happened to me, no siree, no...

 

Are you looking to collab any time soon? Asking for a fiend.

 

what kind of drum loop if i may ask? tribal? electro? house? or just some weird drum loop yes

 

There's also the flip side to that coin.

I've heard friends (not me, no, definitely not) telling me about the times they were absolutely SMASHED on drugs, just improvising with whatever a-bit-more-than-rudimentary-basics setups at hand (say, like, VCV Rack ?) and listening to it the next day to realize they made incredible soundscapes and impossible rhythmic permutations they couldn't even dream of while sober.

But, as always, say no to drugz

 

5 ways to take your mix from amateur to professional | iZotope

Getting stuck in muddy mixes? Missing punch and power? Vocals sounding separate?
Check out these 5 pro ways to refine your mixes with Neutron, Ozone, RX, and more.

00:00 - Intro
00:57 - Master Your Balance
04:15 - Control Dynamics
08:55 - Vocal Presence
16:01 - Tame Harshness
21:17 - Ensure Translation

 

this "jedi mindtrick" might help you here.

at the beginning of youre next session, ask youreself:

do i want to make drums?
or
do i want to make music?

youre answer informs you where the focus should be for the session.

as inspiration,
for the initial stage of a new tune (still talking drums) instead of "making a beat", per say,
limit yourself to "find the pulse" - "the heartbeat" of the song. using minimal amount of sounds.
you dont HAVE to use drumsounds, you can create/find the pulse/hearbeat with almost any instrument if you play around.

from there, you start playing/vibing/jamming/noodling away

 

You might try inverting you process. for example Choose a scale you love and just tinker a little piano with it, choose what you like and then put beats.

 

Not quite right (and not funny unless you enjoy what you do anyway): A multiband processor with an internal sidechain doesn't need a different bus/source to be triggered. It is sufficient to adjust the sidechain bandwidth to the fundamentals of the kick. So, the triggered mids will glue the entire rhythmic performance of the track together.
The dynamics of the kick itself remain untouched. That's correct.

 

When it comes to compression, specifically attack and release times, this one simple tip was a game changer for me - made me much more confident and closer to straight-on-point of what I'm trying to achieve. It came from one of Kush philosophical talks, and it's just this - listen at really low volume. Funny how effective and profound that turned out to be for me, and how it wouldn't even cross my mind otherwise.
If you're not familiar with Gregory's "laid-back philosophy chat" approach, it might be work checking out - it's a love or hate kind of thing. I'll at least give it points for originality and being different from other channels on the same topic.

 

Look at your meters but trust your ears.

In Cubase, if you turn loop function arse about face the gap turns an orange colour and it jumps that gap, from one marker to the next instead of looping, so you can try out diff arrangements of a particular section, I use it all the time, speeds things up considerably, loop has to be enabled for it to work ...

 

Here are some actual production ideas that have worked multiple times for me:

• EQ - Layer or double sounds or instruments instead of EQ-ing
  - first tune I produced had fat analog synth and bright slap bass together (except the pops which the bassist alone handled)
  - carried this over to drums (sample the drummer's alternate snares or use your own, layer them in the DAW)
  - and keys (especially in the early days of sampled pianos)
  - one excellent and little known example of this is Stairway to Heaven; JPJ plays a Fender Rhodes throughout
  - after which, it's just a balancing act (to brighten, or fatten, or strengthen a part). Little more of this or that.
  
  
• Distortion - Never leave a guitar solo in the hands of the guitarist
  - I ask guitarists who play with distortion to play (solo I mean) clean: they articulate different, come up with new ideas
  - conversely, I'll add distortion (after the solo's been laid) to, say, the solo of a jazz guitarist who plays clean
  - similarly, I'll write out a specific electric bass line that's "keyboard" based and ask the bassist to slap it
  - but not before I've gotten a couple of takes of the bassist's own ideas, and transposed them as a part for horns (e.g.)
  
  
• De-Essing - Taming cymbals / Programming
  - most great drummers know how to self balance their kit - three good mics and you're done (e.g., John Bonham)
  - I like to present some inexperienced drummers with the opportunity to overdub their hat and cymbals
  - a side benefit of iso track for cymbals is that drummers will listen more intently to the music and play differently
  - where a certain "sound" (sampled drums) is required, I hire a drummer and record them playing a MIDI drum pad
  - this way I get the intelligence, taste, and experience of a real drummer, and I can always quantize later if need be
  - I never had to quantize later.
  
  
• Reverb
  - I always set up two reverb sends: a plate and a room/hall (size matters)
  - the trick is that I often feed one into the other
  - you can keep them separate, and I have, but having a reverb reverb a reverb for reverb, well...
  
  
• Record
  - this has surely been mentioned before, but I've been doing it from day one (on tape-tape, not DAW-tape)
  - whoever it is that I've hired (sax, guitar, bass), I tell them to "run through" the song, to get their bearings
  - I always record that, or the band rehearsing through the chart. 90% of the time, that's the take in the can
  - I sent a sax player home after his first run through. He was so relaxed, so chill, I didn't need to waste studio time.

Not very DAW-ish, but not not-DAW-ish either. Hope you find one (or more) useful.

 

Sleeping, phone/s charging in a different room and out of sight, watching youtube with fullscreen avoiding suggestions.

 

Use Reaper..

 

Sometimes, I use his videos to fall asleep. And, Yeah! his videos are best, what sets him apart from other channels is that he doesn't show daws, knobs etc just pure applied and philosophical approach/knowledge.