Thursday, March 4, 2010

NOTES FOR 3.5.2010 (General Track Making)


Todays Session Above

Well, a good 6 hour session on a new track today. Learned a few things. Here are my notes.

Be really careful when making basses...sometimes you dont notice little things wrong with it especially when adding delays to one of the layers. Its hard to go back and fix it...and, mendokusai!

Breakdowns with everything out of key can be really spacey and cool. Just dont stay there too long, cause it can seem really seem dark. But you can bring it back up.

Today I used a sample of a friend of mine singing. Sounded beautiful. A great technique to make rhythmic vocals is to take a 4 or 8 bar clip, and then remove either 2, 4, 6 ,8 OR 1, 3, 5, 7. Makes a really nice effect.

When making a track, its almost better NOT to side-chain your bass and kick, because it can really change the sounds of the other sounds, at least to your ears. Usually when you sidechain in production, unless you are using it as a STRONG effect, just leave it out, and wait until the end to side-chain it. You can get a better understanding of how much threshold, ratio, and knee to use. Also, if your speakers arent professional speakers (like mine....ugh i need new speakers)...you will never get the side-chaining right anyway. Most speakers just dont go low enough to hear it. Also, living in Osaka downtown, you can never really PUMP the speakers for fear of getting evicted...at least in my situation. Best leave it to a professional.

Using a combination of delays at different speeds alternating quickly can make for some really unique sounds. Just throw in 2 delays, especially on a melody. Try 2 a different speeds, then alternate the envelope between one and the other.

Also, make sure your delays end exactly where you want them to. They can really fade out nicely if you set it JUST right.

Doubling up your high hats and snares can sound really nice. Especially if you put a 2nd snare on the the 2nd or 4th hit only. Gives a more bouncy effect.

Its nice to find a nice SLAMMING sample for you big hits. Tune it up of course, but it can really add to a sweep with a nice WAM on the hit.

One general rule im learning too....DONT RELEASE YOUR TRACKS RIGHT AWAY. Wait a few days, weeks, or even months, and come back to them. You will always be surprised and what you have learned since making that track, that you could add to it to make it a lot better before releasing it. In my case, im just building a backbone to my production, and can go back to any track anytime, and decide to release it when I feel its up to par. Dont rush, fresh ears on a track after not hearing it for a while can make a world of difference in hearing mistakes or improvements.

Well thats it for today. Time to go outside and join the real world for a bit. I feel like a robot...or a frobot.

Peace!

FroBot

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