Hi everybody,

i'd like to suggest a new subject : the ideal (i mean useful and practice) essential and basic MAO station. For instance i've got a Mac and Protools 7.4. What are the best plugins and the best wave samples that will complete and optimize that MAO platform ?

 

Upgrade to PTLE 8.0.5 and use Waves 8r6. It's a killer combo. There are tons of other fantastic mac rtas plugins for mac! R

 

I use Izotope ozone 4 & a lot of psp plugins you can find substantial amount of plugins for free on "Don't Crack". or use a vst' unwrapper like I do..I have wave plugs but way overrated Imho there are plenty free RTAS if you look at the site I gave Abby roads & ssl have some great plugs also.

 

In my mind there are few "bad" plugins... It just depends on how you use them

I have the Waves diamond bundle and other high end plugin packs but I still use izotope ozone for some projects, mainly because I have used it for a LONG time.

Btw: Loving the forum!!!

 

Hi everyone!

This is going to be my first post on this forum, and I just wanted to say how thankful and excited I am for this place to exist.

We have a lot of great members at audioZ, and the community behind the board are some of the most chill people I have come across in the scene.

We are lucky to have an admin as knowledgable and understanding as SAiNT, and I think that there lies some serious potential in creating a great forum where people can come to research and learn!

I hope I can become a source of this contribution while being able to learn and share my experience with others who have a similar passion


Anyways!

As far as basic essential equipment goes, it really doesnt take much these days to make some really amazing music.

If you are into the electro/dubstep/complextro scene, there are many young artists our there creating MASSIVE bangers with very little in their "studio"

Skrillex for example...

Huge crazy tracks with a style and sound like no one before him, yet he is producing on his 2009 Macbook pro with Ableton and a couple of third party VST's.
His monitoring setup is a pair of blown out KRK Speakers which he mixed his whole ep on and took over ALL 10 of Beatport's Top Charts!!

Other great examples are Porter Robinson (18) and Madeon (16).... both young producers are taking over the scene and are not using one piece of external hardware to create their intricate sounds. Links to both producers Soundcloud page are below.

http://soundcloud.com/madeon
http://soundcloud.com/porter-robinson

So when it all comes down to it... and I know this from experience now... is that it does NOT matter about what tools you use.. but HOW YOU USE THEM!!

I know this is very cliche and you have probably heard it 1000 times, but its the honest truth. You do not need a multi-milion dollar...or even multi-thousand dollar studio to make amazing music.

However, this was not the topic of the post which is *Essential Basic Equipment*. So, lets talk about essentials.

ESSENTIALS:

1. A Computer - Self Explanatory. YOU DO NOT NEED THE MOST POWERFUL COMPUTER ON THE MARKET TO MAKE AMAZING MUSIC! Some of the most amazing music was made on computers 15x less powerful than the ones we use today, there are creative ways around CPU issues. However, you should get a computer you are comfortable working on. If you hate Apple, maybe a macbook isn't for you. If you love Apple, maybe a PC will be too much of a hassle for you to try switching to. Just understand that their are percs and downfalls to either one. The choice is yours.

2. DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) - This could be Ableton, Cubase, Logic, Reason, Pro Tools, Reaper, Garage Band, FL Studio, Cakewalk, Acid, just to name a few of the top commercial ones.

3. Audio Interface - This will provide you with a higher quality sound card than the one in your computer while also giving you imputs and outputs for your audio sources

4. Monitors - YOU DO NOT NEED EXPENSIVE $1000 MONITORS TO MAKE GREAT SOUNDING MUSIC! All you need is *somewhat* accurate way to listen to your music. As time goes on and you begin to learn your monitors or headphones, you will begin to gain wisdom as to how they sound relative to other sound systems and will be able to adjust your mixes accordingly. Not monitors sound EXACTLY the same, so trying to make a perfect mix without using other speakers as references is what will greatly hinder your progress, not your monitors. Learn your monitors!


Now, as far as recommendations, everyone will have their own and I am no exception. However, I do much much experience with many pieces of hardware, software, and have worked with many world renowned mixing engineers and producers so I feel I have a bit of wisdom to share with those looking for "The answer to what they should get".

As far as computers go, I love my Macbook pro. I have owned 3 of them, as well as 4 iMac computers (when I was teaching music production in my studio). I can safetly say that not having to worry about drivers, viruses, freezing, compatibility, etc, is a great relief and allows you to focus more on making music than on your hardware functioning properly. I had some issues with Ableton's animations running smoothly on the i7 computers, and really don't know what that was attributed to. All I know is I returned three i7 Mac's because of this choppy graphics issue. I am currently using my 3.06 C2D Macbook Pro Mid 2010 and it runs great with everything!

The DAW I use is Ableton live. Ableton is one of the most inspiring DAW's I have ever used and has allowed me to come up with ideas in seconds that would have otherwise been a long drawn out process or maybe not even possible in other DAW's. I can safetly say that after working in Reason, Logic, Cubase, Protools, and Ableton, that Live is capable of everything you could possible want to do and MORE! And if you cant do it in Live.... there is probably a plugin for it! ....Or, just create your own in Max4Live.

As for audio interfaces, I use a Duet by apogee. The converters are amazing and the portability of it is great. Not to mention it sounds awesome!.... its a bit pricy and probably not "essential", but its what I have, and its what I am VERY pleased with for producing ITB (in the box).

Last but not least, my monitors are Adam a7x.... they seem to translate very well for me, but once again, its really just because I know them and have been using them for years... you don't need expensive monitors. Just remember to check your mixes on multiple sources. Ie.. Headphones, iPod earbuds, car stereo, etc.

***********************

Yea, so thats pretty much it. I hope some of the above was worth reading, and that you took something away from it (maybe new music?).

Just remember, that its not about the tools, its about how creative you can be with what you are given!

Anyways good luck guys and I cant wait to see this board grow to an amazing community of producers, engineers, programmers, sound designers, and people who want to learn!

-BudZ

 

I made some typos... may I edit my post SAiNT?

 

budzmaster
Thank you for sharing this! And yes, there seems to be a problem with the edit function.

 

Great post Budz. Seems like many people get expensive gear and don't know how to use it properly then just toss it aside due to frustration. You don't need complex hardware or software to create good music. Most DAW's are pretty similar I find, once you've used one and got it down you can pretty much use any. The only one I need to take a good look at is Ableton, it seems to be growing in popularity!

 

I think you are mostly speaking about producing electronic music here.

If you want to produce music with lots of analogue, real sound sources, then some really good instruments, microphones, pre-amps, converters, studio-monitors and headphones, and not to forget an acoustically treated room is essential, to obtain really professional results. And that are just the basic requirements.
All this things cost fair amounts of money... you can spend many thousands just on the acoustic treatment of a room.

For electronic music, it is true that with very small investments you can achieve professional results, but surely not for acoustic music.

 

Unsure if that reply was aimed at me but if it was:

Yeah, thats true. Should have made it more clearer in my post that I was talking about purely electronic. Analogue is quite the opposite.

 

Good point, Budz. It's great you wrote it because people need to know the basics - the gear doesn't play for itself, it's all about you. It means nothing if you have some fancy piece of software and expecting wonders from it. Any DAW or gear will not make you a composer or producer. For example, I have the MS Word installed but it doesn't make me a writer. Hence, any software or hardware won't make you a composer/producer. Never. You must be one. Learn, grow, develop your skills etc. Gear is just a tool.

Guliver, yes, for recording vocal and instruments, you need more.

I'd like to state another thing here. Some music knowledge is very helpful in making electronic music, to say at least. For other styles of music, it's obvious that you need some sort of music education, formal or not. Nowadays, when we have computers and stuff, some of us think it's redundant in process of making modern music. Who needs music education anymore? Well, if you know musical forms (shapes or so), you'll know how to make a listener interesting to your work, if you know how to build melody, chords and harmony, you'll be much more successful than somebody else who never heard of it. So, knowledge in music, playing of instrument is essential. Chances to be good in music (good doesn't necessary means successful) without knowing all of these are compared to the chance to win a big money in a lottery. Some of the biggest names of electronic music are good musicians - Astral projection, LTJ Bukem, Moby...

 

Sorry, it was aimed mostly at budzmaster; because in his list of essentials, things such as instruments and microphones are not even mentioned.
And even for electronic music you need at least a keyboard, if you don't want to use loops only

@ felino

Absolutely agree, a little bit of music theory can do no harm to anybody, I suppose

 

Just to add a little bit...why it's easier if you know some of a music theory and playing of an instruments? If you have some tune in your head, it's easier to put it into your composition if you play an instrument. You can record or you know what notes you have to put into a sequencer.

People who depends on loops only (talking here about electronic music only) are somewhat limited. Yes, I know, you can stratch it, change pitch, use some FXs, but composing using loops is like writing a novel using other people's sentences. You can write like that, of course, and you get a novel but it's not a REAL novel. Or is it? To accurately transfer the mood and the ideas from your head to paper, you should run through infinite number of loops. Doing so, you can never end your task. If you end it, it will be only of "sufficient quality", nothing more. So, the point is, feel free to experiment, play some keyboard, type some notes into sequencer, learn some of the theory, record sounds from your environment, play with sounds...it really helps.

 

I can definitely agree with the fact that if you are looking to record acoustic/analog instruments, then that is a whole different game as far as hardware is concerned.

However I should have been more clear in that I was referring to *mostly* just electronic music. However if you have a decent mic and decent interface, you should be able to make some pretty awesome recordings.

I have made HUGE basslines from sampling things around my house and then processing the shit out of them in my DAW.

If you are looking to do high quality recordings, you will want to make sure that you choose the right Mic for the job and make sure your Pre-amp does it justice as well.

But as far as outboard compressors and eq's... they are simply not *Essential* to making great tunes.... which is what this thread was originally about right?

Some people think that if they get a badasss outboard rack of gear, that finally their productions are going to sound 'expensive'.. which is not the case.... whatever 'expensive' means lol

 

Me again. More often than not, I get the certain type of questions from novices and they can be reduced to just one: "Where to click in order to get this and that?". It's perfectly legitimate question for starters and everything's fine with that. (I'm not talking here about that we all should know everything about every software we use, nobody knows that). But, as the time go by, some of these people keep asking that question over and over again. Well, knowing software is not the point. You must learn the matter. If you are in audio production, you must learn the audio production, not learn the software. It reminds me of a scene where graphic designer in a magazine desk (I used to write audio sw/hw reviews) told me that he knows stuff about audio too, but he's not know very well Sound Forge and he's got to learn that piece of software better. You see, now? He thinks that knowing audio is just knowing software! Wrong!

You must learn from beginning, you must learn what is sound, how human hears, what is musical pitch, what are harmonics, what differs guitar tone from flute from drum, what is frequency, what is wave length, bit depth, sample rate, what AD and DA converter does, connection types, what is dynamics, compression, expansion, EQ, FM, DC offset, how various FXs works, what is effect and what is process, etc. You must sweat, you must go through numerous frustrations, you must make errors, be devoted, that's learning process. Knowing where to click is just a side effect of learning process.

Question of 'Where to click' type sometimes has another meaning. People ask 'where to click to make my bass sound good' or so. There's no "magic button". Don't expect from sw/hw to just flip the switch and voila! problem solved or now sounds great! sort of thing.

P.S. On a forum, one "producer" asked: "Why we use 44.1 kHz sampling rate at all, human can hear only up to 20 kHz?". That guy is working for years and has a small studio. Yes, he charges customers...

 

Great post Felino, i think you really nailed it with "Knowing where to click is just a side effect of learning process." This is so true of many aspects of life, and have had to learn this the hard way. I have been, like many people, caught up in the endless cycle of buying gear, buying software, downloading every plugin i could think of, reading every computer music magazine, and watching tutorial after tutorial on everything audio. And in the end, all of those 'OTHER ACTIONS" really didn't give me any more of a better producer. They were other actions, they were not the action of making music.

Putting in countless hours in your DAW, with a limited amount of plugins, and just working... hour after hour, day after day, for many years on end, is what will take you to the place you want to eventually achieve as a producer.

I am glad I have realized this now and have started on the path to limiting my tools and staying dedicated to remaining focused and completing tracks... I know this is what will help people progress and stay moving forward, rather than getting caught up in which tools you use.

I have been reading this blog for about a year now, and I can honestly say that even will all of the knowledge I have managed to acquire through the years of practice and research, the gems on this dudes blog have probably been the most useful pieces of wisdom I have ever read. Check out the blog post about making not great but 'AMAZING' music; I have it on my bookmarks bar labeled "read once per day".... and thats exactly what I do ;)

How to make amazing music : http://kimlajoie.wordpress.com/2011/03/21/dont-make-good-music-make-amazing-music/

Then check out the rest of his blog... there really are some really awesome gems on there. He is a wise grasshoppa

 

Thanks, Budzmaster. Also, thank you for the link. It's really great! I'll pass it to all people I know.

Sometimes, people who are novices ask me to show them a trick or two (regarding audio production, of course). Well, I usually reply:

"What you're good at? Maybe basketball, ah?"

They reply: "OK, let it be basketball. I'm good in playing basketball."

Me again: "All right. I'm a lousy basketball player, really. I was never interested in playing basketball, I've played but never put enough time and effort to learn it. I didn't play it for years. I'll play basketball tomorrow with some folks. I'm shaming because I know very little of it and I don't want to make them think that I'm schmuck. Please, show me a trick or two so I can play better tomorrow and not embarrass myself. You can do it, right? Please, show me!"

Some of them instantly know what I was trying to explain to them. Some don't. Well, the point is, not a single skill in the world consists of tricks. Knowledge is not a bunch of tricks. You might be excellent in something without knowing a single trick. Or you might know them without being aware that this is a trick. If you're not good enough in something, tricks won't help you at all. Little advices also.

Let's see an example. You regularly bump on something like this: "Vocal: apply the compressor ratio of 2:1, threshold set at -10 dB etc." Fine. Great. Now people know what to about compressing recorded vocal track. Or do they? Let's suppose somebody recorded vocal with peaks up to -10 dB. You might think it's low in level. Not necessarily, if you record at 24 bit and/or for some reason likes the school which said that you should record at low level because of intersample clipping that might occur. Or you're just rookie who doesn't have a clue how hot levels might/should be.
You apply compressor with threshold set at -10 dB. What you get? Nothing. No compression at all. You just get worse sound because the signal is altered by going through a compressor but there's no compression. Maybe there is compression but you don't know because you don't know what compression is at the first place. You might lower the threshold and find that it affects the sound. You get compression. But, recorded vocal is so vary in level because of inexperienced singer. You changed threshold but you are scaring to change the ratio parameter. You don't know what it does and guy in the magazine said that vocal should be compressed with 2:1 ratio. You can't argue him, he's well known producer. You already disobeyed him regarding threshold and you won't get further than that. Hey, what are these Attack, Release and Make up gain knobs doing here at my compressor? I won't touch them, I already compressed my vocal.

The same with basketball. I play bad and few tricks won't help me in tomorrow's game. I can't use these tricks in real game because I'm not skilled enough to use them properly. If I start to think how to use them, the other guy will take the ball from my hands.

(If there's) No pain, no game.

Basketball star is not a star because he knows more tricks than you do. He's star because he committed his life to that (to game, NOT to be a star), he sweats for hours every day and every day in the year, year after year. You see only his playing at the game and you see him at the magazine's cover and on TV smiling. You never see him cursing and sweating at his training. You never know what he had to abandon, what he had to sacrifice to his playing. You never know that he hasn't enough time to take a girl to the dinner and his relationships fails and he suffers. Yeah, bitter taste of success. Same thing with producing audio.
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Once, a neighbor guy asked me to give him a lessons in audio production. He knows nothing and he is a lousy guitar player. All right, I said, but only if we do it proper and start from the beginning. He agreed. I've started to talk him about sound, about hearing, about frequencies and a little bit of EQs. It's a lot of stuff. It lasted two hours. I didn't talk him about compression, mixing and stuff. He paid and never came back. Why? I was boring him? Might be. It was boring to him because he expected me to tell him where to click a few times and in what software to get a good sounding song. And good sounding song makes a hit. And hit gets you a lot of girls. For Christ sake, he is an absolute beginner! He will NEVER make a hit with attitude and thinking like this! He'll never make anything in his life with it!
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TO MODERATOR: Maybe, if you find it suitable, you could refer, copy or move posts like these in some other part of forum, learning or something.