i was playing around with some vst effects today, notable something called an 'upward expander' when it struck me how little i know about some of this stuff, indeed i do not even know what the wherefore and why. ( i am STILL trying to learn the subtleties of compression), but, i find it hard to admit i know f**k all. quincey jones i am not. i wonder if there are others out there who, like me, stubbornly resist reading manuals and therefore probably waste a huge amount of time banging their head against a padded wall praying that it just turns out alright.. or do you do what a i also do which is sit tweaking a tiny inconsequential detail for hours only to come back from a break only to realise it sounds like .. shee-yite : )...there is still SO much to learn... your stories please? x
I don't resist putting in the time but I still struggle with a lot of music production. I think to some degree we all do. Some maybe less, some maybe more but it's an art that takes a long time to master. Also remember the average producer is now practicing subjects that multiple people would usually study long years for and practice individually. A producer these days has to be a swiss army knife of skillsets, not an easy thing to be. Have you checked out AudioSex Academy? That section of the forums is really great. Here's the Table Of Contents for my series there. Me I struggle with playing the piano and some of the more difficult music theory stuff like counterpoint but I'm working through it. I also have trouble producing some genres that I'm still new to and haven't gotten enough practice and there's not many materials available to help with them.
I am a producer, musician and engineer. But i do all that for others. But when it comes to personal releases, im a very strict critic. If i dont like it i dont release it. I have to love it. And thats why i have yet to release a personal album. But ive sold countless productions to groups big and small. By contract and agreement i cant exactly disclose who what or how, but i find it a shit ton easier to do productions or engineering on someone elses track, aside my own. My styling is so complex, i dont even know what i want! And 'genres' just make it all the harder to find my place. I have my place, but i know how music works. For example: When dubstep became big (years ago), people looked for other 'dubstep' artists. Me (not dubstep AT ALL) being in my own weird ass sub category, wouldnt get as much exposure in this weird genre. And Genre-flopping seriously hurts your fan base. Thats why people saying Flying Lotus's new album was all the same dont see. You cant leave that style, or you lose your fan base of the style. Its not easy. Thats why i made three personal release name. Each will release its own styling. Again, like Flying Lotus and Captain Murphy (get to release two different styles without poisoning each other). But i understand compression, what i dont get is some of the samples these people use! Just some crazy, find it in the woods kind of samples. Beautiful, but damn its alot of time to do a proper sample of vinyls or some types of foley. To get it just as you want it.
start reading manuals, and everytime a manual says 'with these x settings, y results apply to the sound' or something like that, try it immediately on a loop or something. when i open the manual i always try what i read simultaneously, having my DAW open and a loop of drums or so ready. when you do this,x and y mentioned above are imprinted into you very, very nice. basically, thats how i finally understood compression, because seing a video or reading an article about what it does is an other thing. when you hear what a plug-in does by applying and CHANGING the settings while the sound plays,every time you do that it gets even more familiar. just read a little,and instantly apply the knowledge so its imprinted. for 4 years i had a very old and slow system, and i could only work with 3-4 instrument tracks(kick n bass,something else aaaaaaand when i go for the next thing,cpu peaks.full.i mean full,DAW making crackling noises etc) that was a period i learnt TONS of stuff about various synthesis techniques, sound design and other stuff because i was working with only a few stuff so i constructed a sound, a style. reading and imediate application dude, thats what they trynna do at schools.if they fail or not is an other story. now,for over 2 months,i have my beloved system updated and hot running like a charm ready to help without leaving the race in the first round. ill probably buy some good monitors, im thinkin about a pair of Focals, and some good custom room treatment. the knowledge you get by reading and applying fails to erase because not only you understand, but you see(in our case hear) for a while, stick with a few plugs, save presets that you like, read a little bit, tweak again and the time you spent for this is goin to be much much less that randomly tweaking(i believe we all did and do that in certain cases). peace n love to y'all
As for reading manuals and other research, it's best to do so when not in the midst of producing music – the potential for frustration, self-consciousness and loss of creative momentum is too great. Try things out, see if they sound good, and later, refer to the manuals to see why they had – in addition to learning the other way around. Identify the basic qualities of audio and principles of mixing, and address them at each step of the way. Above all, bear in mind that learning, knowledge and wisdom are cumulative; one thing feeds off another thing you had learned, sometimes by surprise. You'll make more progress in a shorter period of time by just maintaining the momentum and keeping the juices flowing – and sometimes learn things without even noticing.
really like what stevich said. just want to add that i think the trick to mixdowns is in knowing what you're goal is. so like, take a reaaaaall good analytic listen to one of your favorite mixes (with the help of a visual aid if your monitoring setup isn't "pro"), and try to get a better understanding of why that mix sounds so good to you. there's no need to understand everything there is to know about upward/downward compression/expansion. you just need to understand the destination you intend to reach, and then fiddle around till you get there. sounds silly, but it's the fiddling that gave me the experience to hear what eq's/compressors did to the signal. and now i'm much quicker and know instantly (90% of the time) how i want to process a sound. never learned that from a compression tutorial. and when your knowledge of a certain tool isn't sufficient for the task at hand, then reach for a manual. don't read a whole manual before getting your hands dirty
This OP remembers me a funny thing i learned years ago. When you compress, you are supposed to reduce dynamic. But in fact, you can recreate some dynamic on over-compressed sounds by using a compressor, too. Just by using the attack setting. It will let notes attacks pass, and just after start to lower gain. And so, you create a kind of expansion by contrast from reducing the other part A compressor to recreate dynamic like an expander ? Yes, it is possible sometimes. And more strange "at first sight" tricks. Happy accidents, like Zenarcist said, becoming well known tricks, sometimes. And a (weird ) track i learned a lot from, dynamic wise : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4F-CpE73o2M
Filtersweep, if you fill a small bowl with strawberries and you squash them down with the palm of your hand until it's a mush, you are 'compressing' the strawberries to the same level. In audio the simplest way to understand compression is, the quiet parts are raised and loud parts are lowered, so that all the sounds are squashed to the same level. The compression that we are all most familiar with (but probably don't all realise it) is radio broadcast compression. In radio, the compression is at the transmitter or racks room, not the desk. This is how quiet parts of songs sound great and how loud parts of songs can sound normal and not louder, and it also allows DJs to shout without over-modulating the mic (sounding distorted). People say that music sounds better on the radio, and this is probably why - compression. It's easy to think about why radio stations love the transmitter compression, it solves all their level problems (ads being recorded at different volumes, songs having loud and quiet parts, some jocks fiddling with their mic gains and so on). If you then apply this to music production, you can see that compression is essentially a tool to solve a problem. However, some producers wanted to get that 'radio sound' and started to heavily compress their music, and unfortunately, those heavily compressed songs might sound good in a club, but sound awful on the radio, because by the time you hear it on-air it has been compressed twice, so you get this in-out/coming and going effect, Michael Gray's The Weekend does this, on-air it sounds like the effect has become more important than the music if you know what I mean. I'm sure there's more creativity to be done with compression in music production, but this is a an introduction anyway. There are some things that need compression desperately... night-time TV! You know, when you're watching a movie, you've set the vol just right so it doesn't wake people up, then wham! in comes an ad-break that's way louder. Image then, if that channel compressed their overall sound, so that loud bursts of sound wouldn't happen. But TV won't do it.
I'm trying to complete a mix without any compression at all these days as I think it's a vastly overused/ abused effect in modern music production. I think there is a tendancy to just 'go through the motions' and automatically start whacking on effects without really listening to what the individual elements need. My first commercial release was recorded without any compression as I couldn't afford a compressor back in the mid 1990's! The mastering company did tweak it a little before release though. Sometimes less is more
That is one of my favorite tracks. Fever Ray is great stuff. Droney, Ambient, Focused, great great work. Definitely one of the hundreds of influences of mine.
hmmmm.. ok, i was being quite jokey when i posted,just pointed out that i have a 'tigger' bit that always wants to dive in and run before i can crawl. on the other hand, i do have a folder full of manuals that i browse quite often and i also watch a lot of tutorials etc every day. i have definitely improved a lot, but there is always stuff to be learned, i am never arrogant to ignore that. i should have specifically pointed out stuff i really DO have difficulty with i.e. rapidcomposer, improvisator etc. : D that is a man after my own heart.
