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One more thing. Another reason to consider the ivy-bridge stuff over bulldozer/piledriver is the availability of triple-channel ram architecture. Definitely something to consider and it will certainly make a difference.

Also, make sure you either get a pci-e firewire card or that your mobo has built-in firewire as really you'll want to try to stick with an interface that is either usb or firewire. Do not by a pci-based interface unless you're talking something like RME that has a good breakout box. You don't want to have to futz with the back of the computer everytime you need to change a connection of some kind. I've gone this route and it is a huge pain in the ass. Get a decent small 5u rack and patch everything from the back of your interface into a decent patch bay. Label each patch with one of those nifty electronic labeller devices.

At 11/12/12 02:42 PM, MetalRenard wrote: Ok thanks, I'll look into other cards, though M-Audio is out of the question because of bad specs (unless you can point me towards a good one...?).

I don't know what "specs" could possibly matter in this type of case. This is similar to the headphones bunk marketing that you run across it's become so rampant. "Specs" nowadays for most any manufacturer is some bullshit totally unverified and honestly pretty much totally made-up set of numbers. When you see a $15 set of headphones advertise: "Bandwidth: 8hz to 35khz", yeah that's pretty much total bullshit lol.

Oh look, the a-weighted noise spec is -108db !!! DAMN. That means it's totally BETTER. lol

No, not really. Where the hell did they get that number? That's the real question. Oh, your jitter rate is down in the hundred pico-second range? Right, I'm sure your engineers even know how to use equipment that sophisticated in a way that would even provide a reliable number on that front. Seriously, it's a bunch of marketing bullshit. I worked for a company that made up stupid-ass numbers like that all day for their products. Beyond that, basic specifications often mean absolutely nothing. Did you know that the Behringer 2031a active monitor has nearly a totally flat frequency response curve per their own provided data-sheets which are unique to each monitor? Except, the Mackie HR-824 is also slated to be one of the flattest monitors available as well... which should mean they should sound identical! Right?

Totally wrong. A single measurement like 1/3 octave resolution frequency response tells you fuck-all about how the speaker will actually sound. I've owned a number of m-audio interfaces and they have all been fine. The real things you should be concerned about are details like, how powerful are the built-in headphone amplifiers? Are there a lot of cases of poor drivers causing system instability? How low can you get the latency while near full load on your processor? How much gain do the built-in microphone pres provide? Do the mic pres sound like shit? Do the onboard converters sound subjectively good?

Stuff like that is way more important.

At 11/12/12 11:35 AM, MetalRenard wrote: As for the sound card, I compared it to m-audio and it beat their cards in every aspect I could find. When I record I use a different interface anyway, one I have already. I want something to work with sound efficiently and to the highest quality I can get for that price, and that card is the best in that price range.

lol, you want an card specifically meant for production because of the latency and ASIO drivers. Without a card meant specifically for low-latency tracking your ability to use a decent amount of CPU at a low latency will suffer greatly.

At the very least buy a Lexicon Alpha.

Also, don't buy an expensive 256gb SSD drive. Buy two sata III 128gb SSDs and then do a raid 0 of them (gives you twice the read speed of a single drive, which is no small boost). Use that config for the OS/programs/and raw plugin with maybe a of your small highest used sample banks (if you have a rompler that you use a lot for example). Use a 1tb 7200rpm conventional hard drive for storage for everything else.

I personally would recommend the FX-8350 in terms of cost/performance for multithread usage (the latest gen high-end AMD chips actually outperform the ivy bridge stuff in a number of multithread specific benchmarks) with a decently rated AM3+ mobo. Make sure the mobo has sata III support (you want at least 3 ports that are sata III).

You always want two identical sticks of ram so you can take advantage of dual-channel architecture. Don't ever just do a single stick even if the timing is technically better. The difference is huge.

The ivy bridge stuff is awesome, no doubt - they use less wattage than the AMD bulldozer/piledriver chips and offer the very top tier of speed on pretty much every benchmark, especially single-threaded. The price can be prohibitive though.

At 11/9/12 06:54 PM, dem0lecule wrote: About.com has good and user-friendly definitions for both.

The lines are blurred nowadays with this kind of thing. Mixing typically now just points to pure production and creative/artistic song building and fx processing.

Mastering would be taking something that sounds "complete" from an artistic standpoint and applying processes (viz. eq, stereo-width tricks, compression, harmonic distortion/saturation, emulative processors of analog gear, limiting/clipping) that allow the song to translate as best as possible to the widest variety of systems. True "mastering" is really only done on a full-range (20hz to 20khz+ max 3db deviation) reference system in a large tuned room that utilizes (normally) both extensive RTA room correction (digitally or otherwise) and broadband diffusion/absorption and minimizes the level of early reflections. These types of goals make very accurate referencing prohibitive for most people that don't have 100k to dump into a dedicated room with high-end mastering equipment.

At 11/7/12 07:27 PM, Slipstreamer wrote:

At 10/28/12 06:24 PM, MetalRenard wrote: Damn it man... Good luck getting a new one. Have you considered formatting it and starting from scratch with a fresh hard drive? That might speed it back up.

HDD's don't effect how fast the computer is.
Buy a SATA connecter to power your drive and extract the data, then invest in a better CPU/GPU.

Uh, well that's not true at all lol. You HDD is a huge limiting factor of data throughput on pretty much every front. For instance doing a Raid 0 of a set of SSD (sata III) will give you around 1GBps read rates from the set of drives. Which means how fast the OS and programs of any kind load, react and save data will be lightning fast.

At 11/7/12 07:22 PM, Slipstreamer wrote: Save up 1 grand and drop some $$ for a good mobo and CPU, buy a cheap GPU and you can have a nice build for music processing.

You really only need $500 to do a relatively very nice computer build.

At 11/7/12 06:40 PM, guitarmandan wrote: I think it all goes back to using Occam's Razor ... the simplistic way is usually the best...

Uh, this really doesn't hold true for most mixing/mastering duties... which can involved a pretty extensive array of equipment and software. The sound design for Inception for instance was no small feat but the immense time and effort poured into the most intricate ways of developing the signature sounds that were employed paid off.

Also, I just picked up a new mobo (AM3+) and the latest FX-6300 chip from AMD, which is really pretty cheap for the processing power it affords you. I'll let you know how much better it is than my current q6600 (i'm expecting a ton and I've seen people very happy with the particular upgrade).

At 11/7/12 04:13 PM, 5tarboy wrote: You lack much knowledge about your craft and are to close minded to discuss a different perspective. I don't know why I waste my time.

Wow, so I and some of the others posting here lack knowledge about this music production stuff huh?

Well, you got us guys all figured out. I'll go back to typing notes in my "Fruityloops" and making money from it.

If you can write something that sounds better than this, then I'll concede that you win the thread 5starboy.

At 11/7/12 03:27 PM, 5tarboy wrote:

At 11/7/12 02:58 PM, RampantMusik wrote:

And I'm sure it will sound just as good as someone who has been honing their audio skills for years.

I'm sure it will being I actually play instruments rather than pushing buttons in Fruity Loops like you guys.

I'm sure it'll sound nice on your tape recorder.

At 11/6/12 05:39 PM, The-iMortal wrote: Don't put effects on the master. When your mix is done, export that as a .wav, and bring that into a new FL Studio file, then do your mastering. Much, much more CPU savvy. Plus, with all the automations and everything, each mixdown will have subtle differences. When you're mastering, you can hear EXACTLY what you're dealing with.

Also, put a limiter at the very end of the FX chain.

Usually I ascribe to this but I've found (on occasion) for some pieces putting FerricTDS on the master bus with a slight amount of saturation/dynamics boost during the final mixing stages can be really helpful to getting an idea about how the final tweaks will work with the particular instrumentation I have going on.

At 11/7/12 02:22 PM, 5tarboy wrote: If I was submitting a game I would just make the audio myself rather than have amateur composers take a cut of my work.

Right, well it sounds like you've solved your own problem then. I'm sure it will sound every bit as good and be every bit as rewarding to listen to for the end-user as something you pay for from someone with the proper tools.

At 10/30/12 08:02 PM, samulis wrote: stuff

Valid points, but the problem is when someone makes $20 an hour from their normal job then it's silly to accept anything under say $60 per minute of decent composition. I know there are plenty of people here who would accept $10 per minute of music composed but I certainly wouldn't... lol

This isn't my studio anymore but this is what I used to rock not too long ago (unfortunate events left me in a kinda shitty place with nothing but the plugins I own and the computer). If it wasn't something I was just writing for my self, I definitely wasn't going to accept doing a project for less than $30 an hour equivalent.

At 10/30/12 05:46 AM, TroisNyxEtienne wrote: I see where you're coming from, but really, how short or long is this track? 37 seconds?
Considering I did this in four days, and that while I was still learning, I still stand by what I said. And if you didn't already know about the 800+ soundfont thread on the AP forums, you'd do well to check it out.

I've used soundfonts for quite a while. Most of them are technically illegally acquired samples stripped from other previously available commercial soundbanks. Anyway. The song you linked to is good, and certainly well composed... but the instrument quality is still a world apart from most anything you'll hear from a guy like Gareth Coker.

At 10/29/12 10:33 PM, TroisNyxEtienne wrote:

At 10/29/12 10:16 PM, joshhunsaker wrote: Try making a piece like this with less $1k in plugins:

http://audiojungle.net/item/orchestral-trailer-finisher/1495 31?sso?WT.ac=portfolio_item&WT.seg_1=portfolio_item&WT.z_aut hor=garethcoker

Tools definitely define what a musician is capable of accomplishing.

Give me time, and I assure you, I can. Perhaps I can even surpass it. I'm saying this with confidence even if all I have is full FL Studio, a computer keyboard and a mouse.

Well, the issue is that if you're getting paid good money to write music - you don't have unlimited time. You might have 10 hours to spec a track for a client that requires you have some extraordinary mock-up skills and high-quality libraries on your hands. A lot of what clients end up paying for is the level of the libraries that you own. Talk to anyone that makes a decent amount of money from licensing their music and they will tell you having a number of very high-quality usable libraries on hand is critical to getting the job done at the end of the day.

$100 per minute of custom music is pretty standard for a seasoned composer with a broad array of tools as his disposal.

At 10/29/12 01:29 PM, dem0lecule wrote: Tools do not define the musician's product. It's the musician defines the product by his own creation. The OP right now can throw out a grand to get Komplete, and in the end, his music may still sound like shit.

In a sense that is true but at the same time you will never make tracks that will compete with what a-list film score composers are doing if you're using GPO and Sampletank.

Try making a piece like this with less $1k in plugins:

http://audiojungle.net/item/orchestral-trailer-finisher/1495 31?sso?WT.ac=portfolio_item&WT.seg_1=portfolio_item&WT.z_aut hor=garethcoker

Tools definitely define what a musician is capable of accomplishing.

This myth is still going around?

http://www.image-line.com/support/FLHelp/html/app_audio.htm

Yikes. I'll never understand people who think they know more about programming than actual programmers.

Neophyte, the generic computer user: "bu-bu-bu-bu it HAS to be different"
Person-with-half-a-brain, the audio programmer: "no, it's actually really basic math and DAWs don't have their own 'sound', the end"

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At 10/25/12 02:32 PM, MetalRenard wrote:

Not really an "industry standard", directors who know about music don't do this.

Uh, yes. Actually it definitely is an industry standard. Hollywood directors that don't do this are the exception. lol

http://myvst.com/vst-instruments/synthesizers/list-by-popula rity/1658-triangle-ii-free

BAM, you're welcome

Really you have to just try it so find out. I stack tons of processors that use some form of non-linear processing (harmonics, distortion, saturation, tube emulation, whatever you would like to call it) to very good effect. Sometimes it can become too much but it depends very heavily on the source material, your signal chain, the strength of the fx you've dialed in, and the input gain. All those things come into play and it becomes a very dynamic system of interactions. This is really why achieving a very well balanced "warm" sound that doesn't become "distorted" is such an artform. You have to get a feel for what "bad" distortion sounds like and what "good" (or "warm") distortion is...

If that sounds totally abstract it's because it very much is extremely abstract. Anyone that tells you good mixing is some easy thing is full of shit.

At 10/22/12 04:48 PM, Back-From-Purgatory wrote:

At 10/22/12 04:13 PM, joshhunsaker wrote: I do it for money

XD

We can't be friends anymore...

Hmph...

lol awwww

I do it for money

XD

Dang, dude. I can't believe you own reaktor without ever using it...!! The available user library has like 1000+ synths that you could load as ensembles in reaktor. Some of the coolest sounds I've ever gotten have been from user-built ensembles within the reaktor environment. I would check it out if I were you.

http://www.native-instruments.com/index.php?id=userlibrary&L =1

At 10/13/12 12:06 AM, The-iMortal wrote:

At 10/12/12 11:51 PM, SineRider wrote:

Just bounce/freeze some tracks.

Hah, I froze Maschine and the CPU usage is down to around 25%. I believe it's either an issue with Maschine or I just have too many effects loaded within Maschine. I'm gonna look into it.

Maschine is likely not be utilizing all the cores, a lot of plugins are single-core only and then the DAW itself does the multi-core management for how those plugins are distributed among the available cores. Inherently multi-core plugins are rare.

At 10/17/12 09:30 PM, The-iMortal wrote:

At 10/17/12 09:14 PM, joshhunsaker wrote: It's the same reason that something like sknote's Stripbus plugin can take a mix from "meh, that's good" to "holy-f**king sh*t how did that start to rock so hard".

You should check out The Glue as well. A fantastic bus compressor. I haven't tried out Stripbus, but I will now. Can't get enough compressors in my plugins folder.

I tested out the Glue on quite a few tracks but really wasn't very taken with it. Honestly... I actually prefer the bus comp from Stripbus (helluva deal too for what you get... best $30 I've spent). I would even say that Thrillseeker LA with the transformer saturation mode on beats the glue in overall usability and sound.

At 10/17/12 09:18 PM, joshhunsaker wrote: Tsar-1 is incredible:

Quite pricy too. Something to put on the wish-list.

Yeah, it is definitely some coin.

At 10/17/12 07:48 PM, The-iMortal wrote:

At 10/17/12 07:30 PM, SpaceWhale wrote: do I really need to spend $200 on a plugin that can do it, just so it can have that "professional quality"?

It depends on how seriously you take your music production (and what you can afford, of course).

Josh, what other Softube products do you use/recommend?

Tsar-1 is incredible:

http://www.softube.com/tsar1_reverb.php?p=tsar1_sounddemos

At 10/17/12 07:30 PM, SpaceWhale wrote:

At 10/17/12 04:12 PM, joshhunsaker wrote: Well, if you really want to get "that sound" you'll typically have to use "those tools" that were used to achieve that sound.

I think of it like a saw wave. There are so many plugins out there that can make a saw wave, do I really need to spend $200 on a plugin that can do it, just so it can have that "professional quality"?

Just sayin'

Hnnnnggggg

But it's really nothing like a saw-wave ... that's the whole point. It's extremely subtle ways that distortion, compression curves and phase non-linearities are handled that can have rather drastic effects on the overall character (timbre) of a signal. Show me a comp that sounds as good as what softube does for under $50 and I'll go buy it right now lol.

It's the same reason that something like sknote's Stripbus plugin can take a mix from "meh, that's good" to "holy-f**king sh*t how did that start to rock so hard". Good plugins often cost good money. You'll never get the sound of a Bricasti M7 from a cheap payware plugin. And there is a serious difference to be had. I bought Overloud's Breverb for example and the difference between that and so many other cheaper or free reverbs is ridiculous. It gets used on every track I do.

Will you ever get 3xosc to sound like Vember audio's surge? Hell no you won't. Doesn't mean you can't be creative but there is a very good reason for that level of sound. You don't see Hans Zimmer screwing around with say fl keys and slayer lol.

Softube makes bangin stuff.

At 10/14/12 10:11 PM, SpaceWhale wrote:

At 10/14/12 09:50 PM, The-iMortal wrote: Why don't you try out the free demo anyway?

It's just... I don't want to seem really pretentious and elitist saying this, but I really don't feel like it'd be worth the time setting up a compressor, an 8-band EQ, and a 3-band EQ. If I was going to even consider dumping THAT much money on an equalizer (which, pro tip, I won't), I'd buy the Pro-Q from FabFilter, which can have up to 24 bands, has a gorgeous UI, and is 40 dollars cheaper. Plus, if I need a compressor, I can always use the handy-dandy free VST CamelCrush, which sounds awesome as well.

Well, if you really want to get "that sound" you'll typically have to use "those tools" that were used to achieve that sound. Just sayin'