The Music Making Discussion Thread!!

The drums sound really flat, think I need to up the volume a bit on them, maybe add a little bit of reverb or something.

Also, there's too much background 'hiss' or 'static'. How do I get rid of that? Is there anybody on here whose profession is 'Music Producer'? I could do with some tips tbh

I like your sound Tucks, you definitely have certain eerie quality to your stuff, on this, I would stick a tonne of reverb on the drums and maybe even mix them lower and have them panned slightly to the side, everything else is soaked in reverb except the drums, I would almost have them as a background kind of after thought sound, thats me though..

Cheers Kev!!

I'll play around with it tonight. I've been using something called Sonar LE and it puts more reverb on than I'd like. There is a control panel where you can alter different things and change the reverb but I haven't got a clue about all that (yet)

I normally use Audition but now I'm recording directly into the PC with a mic my sound card doesn't work too well with it but Sonar can handle it. Might look into getting an external sound card or summat.

That sounds very promising tucker, good work.
That drum would sound less out of place if you could add a bit more reverb to it, make it sound a bit deeper or "wetter". A muddier drum sound would add a lot to the song's atmosphere I think.

And I don't know if it fits your style, but I would add at least a chord after the third two-chord sequence (is it Em A right? I don't have a guitar here now) to give it a bit of "airiness" and split that "6 two-chord progression" in two. So you'll have your two chord sequence repeated three times, add a chord to uplift the melody a bit, again the two chord sequence three times and then you launch that chorus. I know it sounds awful in print though but I hope it makes sense.

Are those sequenced drums?

Yeah

I downloaded a program called Addictive Drums because I wanted to try recording with drums instead of just guitar and vocals.

Appreciate the input, cheers.

Do you record at home? What kind of equiptment do you use to do so? I'm thinking about getting an external sound-card but for what I'm currently using (acoustic guitar, drum track, piano/synth from iPhone) I don't know if I'd really benefit. I'm looking into getting a new electric guitar soon and probably a keyboard.

They don't sound too bad tbf Tucks, they do a job certainly.

Good thread title change, well i'm currently working on two projects, my fourth album, which i must admit Ive really been a bit slack with, I have the music for about 12 songs written but i've been a bit slack with the lyrics and have kind of put it to one side for the last few months, I really need to kick myself and get concentrating on that, its going to be full band arrangements but I'm unlike my others i'm not going to use a proper studio, i'm attempting to record it using my 4 track recorder...



Hopefully it will have a more organic and natural old sound, thats the plan anyway.

I'm also about to start helping a friendm record an album/EP, playing some drums and other bits and doing a bit of production, i'm really looking forward to that, helping someone else colour their songs as apposed to writing and recoring everything myself, should be liberating.

yeah I do record at home but not with the computer (I've never learned how to do it!). I use a digital portastudio. My first recordings (there should be a thread somewhere if you want to check a sample) have been done with a Boss Micro-BR which was very good and really, it was just a matter of pressing a couple of buttons - record, add reverb, convert to wav - even I could use it. It has a lot of built in features (tuner, drum machine, multi tracks, effects etc), but beside the reverb, I didn't really used them. Now I'm using a Zoom H4N



I got it second hand, very very good aswell, although it doesn't have the same built in features the BR has. I really recommend you to buy a portastudio, they are always ready, easy to use, you can carry them around etc.

Yeah, I'm no expert when it comes to drum sounds, far from it, but, thought they sounded pretty good tbh. It's a decent tool for somebody like me whose just starting out with drums. You can choose between different styles (Standard, Vintage Years, Live Performance, 70's etc) and can also choose different pieces of kit. Then there's a loads of pre-set drum patterns to choose from which you can slow down or speed up. Once you've chose your style and kit you can play the beat and 'Mute' or 'Solo' different parts of the kit. You can also add effects and stuff to change the overall sound of the drums.

What kind of setup do you use for home recording, Kev?

addictive drums is really good tbh, used it a lot in the past. what i usually do is i just load some of the preset drumloops and then modify them. they're in midi so it's a piece of cake. stick with it and learn it properly and you're gonna get a great sound

How do you modify the loops, babs?

erh, i can't remember exactly anymore since it's been ages i last used it. there's that menu isn't it with a long list of different loops? i think i just dragged the premade loops to the sequencer in fl studio. then it shows up as a pianoroll data and then you can drag and drop and add/remove notes.

no idea how it would work in the whatever software you're using, but i guess it can't be that different

Well, I've got Fruity Loops, too. Will have a look into it. Cheers.

check out some of my (demo)recordings I put on soundcloud:


soundcloud.com/jesse-johan (!!)

Good stuff, very jingley-jangley

Can I use this thread too?

soundcloud.com/snowwing

I'd like opinions on this idea/concept.


It's just a raw demo, so I'm not really interested in excecution. But I'd appreciate some input

No, Supernova, you can't, go away.

Only kidding, of course you can, it's for everyone. I look forward to giving this a listen.