Hey all,
I'm eventually going to be writing up a how-to on the whole home studio/samples/synths/DAW/etc thing. But to get started, I'd like to know what subject matter you guys would like to read about.
What questions would you ask?
What subjects do you think should be covered?
Things like that. So ask away. I won't answer in here, but it will give me ideas to run on.
Some info on monitors and the whole setup including room acoustics, optimal placement and sound treatment would be greatly appreciated!
At 6/21/09 02:46 PM, gregaaron89 wrote: Some info on monitors and the whole setup including room acoustics, optimal placement and sound treatment would be greatly appreciated!
Cool. I can do that, but not so much intro acoustic treatment honestly. I haven't gone that far yet.
At 6/21/09 02:50 PM, nathanallenpinard wrote:At 6/21/09 02:46 PM, gregaaron89 wrote: Some info on monitors and the whole setup including room acoustics, optimal placement and sound treatment would be greatly appreciated!Cool. I can do that, but not so much intro acoustic treatment honestly. I haven't gone that far yet.
Ok, I guess that won't be relevant to me or many other people here... but what I'm mainly interested in is what you would do if there's windows in a room, or how far to put the speakers from the wall, or what to do if you're in an oddly shaped or small room. Stuff like that.
Hey nathan. I would say, for my sake, any facts about sound engineering would be greatly appreciated.
Also, just a suggestion, but it would be really awesome to watch a video of you making a song. And the song doesn't even have to be like your best song, just something that you can use to show as an example for how you record. I am a very visual person, so when i see something, i never forget it. Im sure there are many people who would respect that.
Very tall order. Screen capture at 2860 is a CPU and HD hog.
I need more than this if possible:
For instance, if you were to have a table of contents of your choosing, what would it be?
i think it'd be helpful to begin each section with a list of basic terms with definitions for people who are unfamiliar with the terminology that will be used in that section, for example: controller, synth, DAW, monitor, etc. that's all i have for now, hope that helped
maybe you could explain and help people find the sound they want, and what setup of hardware/virtual hardware to use. like, a heavy death metal sound that doesnt sound distorted or like shit, or a punk rock sound like blink 182, or explain how to edit vocals to make them sound well.. not like some guy in a room recording his voice, like i try reverb, chorus and compressor and it just doesnt sound right i dont know what im doing wrong
then maybe you could just give a short explanation of what each tool does, like noise gates w/ decay, what the best virtual amp sims are to use like in a pod farm, you know just random stuff that can add your own uniqueness to the sound u make.
then at the beginning you have to have a message saying not to use pre made loops or any copywrighted material when submitting to newgrounds, and be like "EVEN THIS is copywrighted/a loop and is NOT OK!"
if i think of more ill come back : ) thanks for makin this man i have a feelin this will help me out
I would kill to know more about how to make my instruments sound more real. You already gave me great tips with proper panning, etc.
Hmm you could start with.
1. Recomended system specs
2. Program Installation
3. MIDI hardware setup and installation
4. Identifying important tools and features.
5. Seting up your VST libraries
6. Recording and playback of VST instruments.
etc....
A few things I would write if I were making a howto for newbies:
1) A basic guide to theory
-Scales
-Chords
-Time sigs
2) Audio Resources
- Where to find free stuff (my personal favorite)
- Where to find low-priced good stuff (another favorite)
- Top-of-the-line equipment
3) Basic composition
- Melody
- Harmony
- Bass
- Playing techniques for instruments (such as legato, staccato, portamento, arpeggio, whatever ends in the letter o)
4) Drums
- this section would be reserved for discussion of drum types, like bass drums, snares, hi hats, cymbals, and their applications. I separated it from #3 because I think this needs its own section
5) Song Aspects
- Texture
- Dynamics
- Unity
- Variation
- Beginning and End
- Whatever else I missed
6) Specific help
- For acoustic music
- For electronic music
7) External links
- Basically I would use this section to link to helpful audio resources, such as:
musictheory.net
soundtempest.net
kvraudio.com
Just to name a few.
BTW, I wrote this on the fly, so don't expect it to be a good template for a manual.
Stuff on that circle of roman numbers thing with the chord types or something... I never did learn that :c
At 6/22/09 08:53 PM, xKore wrote: Stuff on that circle of roman numbers thing with the chord types or something... I never did learn that :c
To be fair, I didn't really get a good feel for that stuff until about 4 months ago. By that time, I had been making music for 10 years (recording music seriously for 8 months at that point). Then I reinforced it by going to musictheory.net.
It would have really helped me out though if I had known that stuff before though....
At 6/22/09 09:05 PM, blackattackbitch wrote:At 6/22/09 08:53 PM, xKore wrote: Stuff on that circle of roman numbers thing with the chord types or something... I never did learn that :c
Modes are more useful in jazz than most other styles of music.
Er...assuming you were talking about that.
MOTHER FUCK!
I was just about to write up a topic about my new project I was working on.
Its the Fruity Loops Studio e-Bible.
I already have a dick load of samples I made to include, as well as a dictionary Im working on.
The bible Im making will include a Library of Congress size collection of tutorials as well.
Good luck with your How To though!
-Instrument Panning (stereo field)
-Dynamics
-Composing Orchestrated Percussion (This ones killing me right now)
-Convolution Reverb
-Acoustic Mic'ing ie. Acoustic Guitars, Violins, etc...
-Reviews?
There actually all factors that I'm dealing with lol.
At 6/22/09 09:55 PM, alcatraz5 wrote: MOTHER FUCK!
Do it anyway. Shoot, I'd be willing to help out as much as I can.
And no, I wasn't talking about jazz. I was talking about music in general. Listening to my old recordings, most of my stuff had unharmonious melodies. In addition, even the melodies that did have harmony were melodies that I used over and over again. Hell, I used to use a natural minor and harmonic minor literally at the same time, and usually only when I had progressed to a 5th. It took me 42 songs to learn how to make atonal music.
Thanks for the responses. It'll be a bit before I try this.
And for the person making the FL Bible, that is different than what I'm doing. So continue to do so. I dont' use FL, so I can't provide that.
I think the suggestion of a video of you just making a simple song would be helpful. It be the closest thing to a hands-on demonstration that we could get.
-i'd love to see a guide where you explain how to take a short melodic theme and make a full piece out of that idea.
-What instruments sound good layered together, how to spread chords across several instruments
-Proper panning and how to spatially locate instruments
Those three I'd personally like to see the most. Thanks for doing this. It's always nice when an artist takes the time to write up a guide.
