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-- how do you get the pro sound?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: how do you get the pro sound?

quote:

Originally posted by RickyM How long have you been producing for? It really is just practice I think, there's no magical plugin or anything. Although a good mastering really will help.

About 3 years now. I know that is not that long, however I really want to get into the hardware processing part now.

Can you seriously post a sample?

Analog gear does reduce the coldness/digitality, but it doesn't make it professional. That is down to sound engineering, mixing and mastering. If you could post a sample, we could help you to get that sound.

This thread is an abomination along the lines of the magic preset that makes the shit tune great. It doesn't work like that.

Perhaps you should consider using your �1400 Virus TI? More specifically, not dismissing it for being a shit preset factory (which it is) and start programming your own sounds (which it is good at).

It really beggers belief that anyone could have the gear that you have and yet have so few ideas about how to use it. If you are relying on presets, stop it and start programming. You will suck at first but you get better and you will eventually get good at it and have control over every aspect of the sound that comes from it.

If you think that 10s of thousands of bucks worth of analogue gear and outboard will suddenly make your average tunes sound great, you need to wake up and stop fooling yourself that gear makes great music.

You use your gear to make music and plenty of people, like Whitetown have proven you can make great music on free software and a 30 dollar microphone (no.1 album in the UK charts no less).

You need to stop fooling yourself that theres some magical process or preset that will suddenly make you a 'pro' and start taking the iniative and do the learning yourself.

Do not get it into your head that you can just send an average mix off to a mastering studio and then boom! like magic, a pro tune gets sent back to you. Again, it doesn't work like that and mastering never made a mediocre tune particularly good.

Finally, you need to stop obsessing over your tracks in comparison to Armins because quite frankly you will never be as good as Armin at being Armin. Armin is the best at being Armin. Krispy Kreme is the best at being Krispy Kreme.

You can sort of mimic his tunes for learning purposes but unless you have the exact gear that he has and the knowledge of how to use it that he has, and the people that he knows who can touch it up for you - you will never sound the same.

Hate to be so negative but fuck...I'm amazed people still post topics like this in this forum.

You still have never met my request to post a sample of your work up
For all your intelligent posts we are still yet to hear anything!

My work is in a permanent state of being unfinished which is something I work on in my own time and ask for no help regarding. Funnily enough I don't make excuses for the things I suck at - namely getting anything finished.

I fail to see how that is relevant to this thread, the millions of others like them or people in general that try to find magical solutions for why they suck.

Just stop kidding yourselves and get practicing.

You guys didn't get the new pro sound plugin with Ableton 6?

Must have missed that. Fucking H2O not including the plugins in my warezed copy.

I have to agree with Derivative on the point that learning to create sounds on your hardware it the only way to go. Very rarely will you find a preset that sounds exactly like you want it, but many times you can find a preset thats a good "jumping-off" point for a sound you are wanting to make. How many time have you found a preset thats really close, but just needs a few tweaks here and there to fit in your mix? That Virus TI is an extremely powerful synth, and if you learn to program it, it can meet a large number of your needs. I have a Virus B, and I use it for bass, pads, leads, almost everything. The only thing that sucks about the B is the 24 voices, I often run out of voices and have to bounce, but that TI has 80 voices! You can almost hammer out an entire track framework without bouncing! Thats a powerful thing.

Learning to make your own sounds, I believe, is vital to having a good sounding finished product. Not only do you get the satisfaction of knowing that its "your" sound, but it's a lot easier as you add parts to your track to tweak the sound to fit just right. I have found many times that a bass sound I have made will sound great when just the bass and drums are playing, but once I start adding my leads/pads/etc., I often have to tweak it to get it to "sit" right in the mix, and having made the sound on my own, its a lot easier to do that. I know what it is made of and why it sounds like it does.

So much of this is just simply practice, paitence and reading. My god, you can find SO much information out there. There have been very few questions that I havent found the answer online. Bookmark every tutorial you find on the web or print it out and make a folder. I have a folder filled with print outs from tutorials I have found.

Also, do not dismiss buying a book or two from amazon on whatever subject you are confused about. Power Tools for Synthesizer Programming is a great book to learn how to program your own sounds and the Dance Music Manual are great books that will give you tons of baseline information that will answer your questions. Read and apply the techniques you learn, and all of it will fall into place at some point. Eventually, if you are committed enough, things will just start to "click". You'll just get it. Then you'll be the one doing the teaching.

OK, I have to get back to work now.

Get Izotope Ozone 3 :Izotope Website

Read their dithering and mastering guides: Guides Page

quote:

Originally posted by RickyM You still have never met my request to post a sample of your work up For all your intelligent posts we are still yet to hear anything!

Will get a sample posted up later tonight when i get back from work

wow you had a virus and a jp8080? some good money right there..

quote:

Originally posted by Derivative This thread is an abomination along the lines of the magic preset that makes the shit tune great. It doesn't work like that. Perhaps you should consider using your �1400 Virus TI? More specifically, not dismissing it for being a shit preset factory (which it is) and start programming your own sounds (which it is good at). It really beggers belief that anyone could have the gear that you have and yet have so few ideas about how to use it. If you are relying on presets, stop it and start programming. You will suck at first but you get better and you will eventually get good at it and have control over every aspect of the sound that comes from it. If you think that 10s of thousands of bucks worth of analogue gear and outboard will suddenly make your average tunes sound great, you need to wake up and stop fooling yourself that gear makes great music. You use your gear to make music and plenty of people, like Whitetown have proven you can make great music on free software and a 30 dollar microphone (no.1 album in the UK charts no less). You need to stop fooling yourself that theres some magical process or preset that will suddenly make you a 'pro' and start taking the iniative and do the learning yourself. Do not get it into your head that you can just send an average mix off to a mastering studio and then boom! like magic, a pro tune gets sent back to you. Again, it doesn't work like that and mastering never made a mediocre tune particularly good. Finally, you need to stop obsessing over your tracks in comparison to Armins because quite frankly you will never be as good as Armin at being Armin. Armin is the best at being Armin. Krispy Kreme is the best at being Krispy Kreme. You can sort of mimic his tunes for learning purposes but unless you have the exact gear that he has and the knowledge of how to use it that he has, and the people that he knows who can touch it up for you - you will never sound the same. Hate to be so negative but fuck...I'm amazed people still post topics like this in this forum.

No offense but i think this post is full of shit. , I have read your posts before and yes you know your stuff, however when it comes down to it. I dont see you getting pro sound either. I just see a post like this more as just beating around the bush rather than helping. Yes I agree if I somehow master the virus ti , I can get sweet sounds out of it, but will that get me the pro sound? no. Will it give me original sounds that I made myself that other people havent heard before... yea sure, but in the end it still wont get that pro sound. Now lets think out of the box here for a second. You said that mastering never made a mediocre tune turn good... pretty much the "you cant polish a turd" theory. Again, I find that to be bullshit as well. The fact is a sweet engineer CAN make a shit sound turn gold. Now lets go back to the virus ti. You could take a preset, run that through a neve preamp, use pure analog power , badass tube compressors and all that good stuff and make that crappy preset sound 10 times better (and almost pro)... however why doesnt anyone talk about the analog processing side of it? It is because its a well kept secret. That is where all the magic happens and I am gonna try to learn as much as I can about that side of it. Lets take soft synths for example, there are many ways I studied that allows you to get the life and air into them. However people do not discuss that part, they talk about layering, building a good sound phatening inside the box. However to get the true depths, it has to be just more than 1s and 0s. I think it is more than that. I think once you bring it out of the box, then you will get the life and air it need. Again, I agree with you that if I become an awesome sound programmer and learn the virus ti , i will get the exact soundbanks i want. However , where do you go from here? Lets say I can program stuff as well as rb2k1, yes i can start getting my own sounds but then to get that extra magic.. that is where it stops. The post was not asking how to program a synthezir, it was how to make rb2k1 pad sound like armins pad. They are both just wave forms of saw waves. However armin has that extra juice and mojo that makes the sound straight up pro.
Also, I am just using armin pad for example. I am not obsessing over him by any means... but is a good reference so someday I can learn the secrets and get that sound he has. Sometimes I dont even reference armin, I may listen to hip hop or rock music. It doesnt matter what music it is, its the pro sound that they have. Listen to dr. dre stuff.. he has the pro sound. Listen to Bon jovi... pro sound. It is not about creating your own soundbanks, its how every track just jumps out and has that umphh and bonds together like glue.

I will post an example later tonight.

I would agree with you KK that a lot of the sound you are looking for will be made from high end outboard gear, but, I think Derivative was just making the point that it all starts with a good source sound. If it sounds good coming out of the source synth, then it will require a minimum amount of post processing to get it to sound "pro", so to speak.

Steve from Thrillseekers even pointed out on his forum that he takes a very long time to pick out good kick samples and craft a proper sounding bass in his tracks. He even mentioned that a lot of his kick drum samples are completely unprocessed because the source sound is so good, so it doesnt need a lot of extra stuff thrown on top of it. He just finds a good sounding kick, and uses it mostly as is. Someone else already made the kick drum sound good, so he doesnt have to. Thats a common technique, I've used it before as have other producers.

It all starts with good source sounds, and being able to program those sounds in a powerful synthesizer like the TI brings you a lot closer to the sound you are looking for. That is not, however, where it ends. Its the entire process from the start of writing it to mastering it that makes it sound that way.

What you say is true, that you can take a thin sound out of a soft synth and fatten it up using lots of analogue gear, but I have seen a lot of interviews with "big name" producers that say their tracks sound very thin when they are writing them and that its the post production/mastering process that can give it that extra "something" to make it sound good.

I think its just like anything else, it's the sum-total of parts and techniques that can give it the overall "pro" sound.

quote:

Originally posted by Krispy Kreme You said that mastering never made a mediocre tune turn good... pretty much the "you cant polish a turd" theory. Again, I find that to be bullshit as well. The fact is a sweet engineer CAN make a shit sound turn gold.

You're wrong.

quote:

however why doesnt anyone talk about the analog processing side of it? It is because its a well kept secret. That is where all the magic happens and I am gonna try to learn as much as I can about that side of it.

It's not a secret. There's not much talk about that side, because most producers of today use software (also professionals). Running signal trough analog equipment doesn't make as big difference as you seem to think. It just gives a certain character, and is definitely not where all the "magic" happens. A lot more important is to have good sounds to start with, and the skill to mix.

quote:

Originally posted by Krispy Kreme Will get a sample posted up later tonight when i get back from work

I was referring to derivative , but would still be good to hear a sample from you as well.

And derivative, you don't have to post a sample up because you need advice, you could post it up because I'd like to hear it! Surely one of the best parts of making music is allowing others to hear it...

quote:

You could take a preset, run that through a neve preamp, use pure analog power , badass tube compressors and all that good stuff and make that crappy preset sound 10 times better (and almost pro)... however why doesnt anyone talk about the analog processing side of it? It is because its a well kept secret.

You're on the right track man!
Did you guys read my post on page 2 of this thread? The whole secret is right there. People can argue and all, say this and that.. I tell you from 16 years of experiance with audio, synths, that the things in my post well pretty much cover it. I just skipped one thing called Talent.

quote:

Lets take soft synths for example, there are many ways I studied that allows you to get the life and air into them. However people do not discuss that part, they talk about layering, building a good sound phatening inside the box. However to get the true depths, it has to be just more than 1s and 0s. I think it is more than that. I think once you bring it out of the box, then you will get the life and air it need.

I'm with you on this one.. I am looking for a new stereo analog preamp to run my hardware and soft synths thrue, and last saturday I went to a friend's house to check out a nice API 3124+, and an A Design's Pacifica. So we run NI fm7 with some of the presets from Adam Baker's soundset first straight from fm7 and than from fm7 running out to a preamp, and back in. And what did we pick, The sound run through the preamps, It's a big diefferance, But to hear it as a big diefferance, instead of subtle, you need proper monitoring, and good converters. The fm7 thrue the preamp didn't sound like an fm7, it sounded better. It sounded like a virus Ti. Hey I woudn't eaven be able to tell the diefferance if it was a soft synth or a hardware unit. We run other soft synths thrue the preamps, and it's amazing, in fact it's enough for me to run and buy a high quality preamp. You see a $500 dollar preamp is just that, might add more bad than good.. a $3000 dollar preamp is a diefferent story. Anyways we could talk about this forever...

About mixing in quality - recently I upgraded my converters, finally.. So back in the day I was running M audio delta 66, <--(sorry but they are crap..They are good for begginers. And please don't say: this and that artist uses them and his track's rock, well if he ever decide's to upgrade to some better quality converter, he's music is going to be rocking and sounding better than before)... Went to rme multiface. It was a huge diefferance.. especially when I got myself Dynaudio bm6's monitors. But now I tried about 4 diefferent A/D D/A convertors last month. Mytek, Lavry blue, Apogee Rosetta, Universal Audio 2192 which i still have at home for another few days, evaluating.. Let me tell you I picked apogee rosetta 200, It has the sound I like.. But the big WOW was when I compared rosetta to my rme, side by side. The jump was like something I experianced before with maudio to rme. Rme is great but Apogee rosetta blows it avay, It's like someone just lifted the blanket from my monitors again lol.

Anyways, once you're in this for a while you'll understand what's it all about.. And people please stop saying that the gear dosn't matter, It does. It's 50% of the getting that magic sound.
One more thing.. A good engeneer with some high quality analog/digital mastering equipment can do wonders. I know, I've hear it myself on countless ocassions. Have you ever been to a $50,000+ mastering facility with one pice of gear that costs more than your entire studios? Well I have, and I learned quite a lot from thease guys. Sure you can't make a shitty mix sound good, you can make it average, But most of the time You can make an average mix sound pro.

And Krispy Kreme, If you wanna read some more how to get that pro sound, I sugegst a forum where the real pros, engeneers and people that run the studio industry express their opinions and share their knowlege. http://www.gearslutz.com/board/


And here is what i posted on page 2...

quote:

Originally posted by DJDIRTY - get some good monitors, and converters, cables, room acoustics to accually hear what you're mixing. - begin with quality samples - get some good plugins if you're mixing ITB - for hardware synths get a high quality stereo preamp (you can also run your vsti synths thrue that to give it the extra edge, fullnes, bottom end that's ussually missing) - read a lot about mixing - when you're not making tunes just throw some stuff you made in the sequencer and mix (try to improve it, or try new techniques).. try to make it best as possible. - make friends with someone who accually makes great mixes and watch him and learn from him.. <-- this is one of my favorites. - leave mastering to someone who knows what they are doing,(if you have no clue) and have the right equipment.

the pro sound refers to that perfect mix followed by that perfect master.

i mean listen to tracks made in the 80's. they didnt have lots of amazing technology like we do. they didnt have hard drive based recording. it was all done on far less advanced equipment through low quality cables (in a lot of cases). yet the sound is still way more powerful than the 'good but not pro' producers on here.

the pro sound comes from a good mix. thats it. once you have a good mix then the masterers get as much as they can from the good mix. which equates to a pro sound.

i wish someone would post a mixing level chart on here. one that allows you to step by step create the perfect mix. then you can tweek it accordingly to taste.

eg.

kick :- solo'd takes up -6db
bass :- solo'd takes up -9db
snare :- solo'd takes up -8db
main lead :- solo'd takes up -7db

etc etc until once the bass/kick is comped to a certain set rate, and lead is sidechained to snare etc.. it all equates to 0.0db. how hard can a tutorail like this be????? - it would be a few samples and a txt file in a zip for petes sake. i wish some pro would make one!

Thanks for that gearslutz link.

Your level settings will be dependent on what frequencies different elements take up; that won't be a constant.

a lot of interesting points here, i wish i had time to discuss...

quote:

Originally posted by richg101 i wish someone would post a mixing level chart on here. one that allows you to step by step create the perfect mix. then you can tweek it accordingly to taste. eg. kick :- solo'd takes up -6db bass :- solo'd takes up -9db snare :- solo'd takes up -8db main lead :- solo'd takes up -7db etc etc until once the bass/kick is comped to a certain set rate, and lead is sidechained to snare etc.. it all equates to 0.0db. how hard can a tutorail like this be????? - it would be a few samples and a txt file in a zip for petes sake. i wish some pro would make one!

Atlantis AR has been practically telling people something like this on this board and other boards for ages.
Solo'ed kick at approx. -8dB then start bringing in all the other elements and make sure it all doesn't go over approx. -3dB to ensure you leave enough headroom for post-processing etc. Just do a search on him.

- farris

Re: how do you get the pro sound?

quote:

Originally posted by Krispy Kreme whats the secret?

IMO you're on the right path, definately. It's not a secret though, more just a bit of a taboo subject for some reason.

It has been mentioned that this thread is full of shit, so how come it's provoked some very interesting discussion then?

Because KK is on to something, something you can't claim is purely down to skill. Two simple tracks (e.g Kick, Snare) of a pro tune sound fat as hell and he want's to f'ing know why!

I've heard two big trance names say how just running their audio through a desk really thickens the sound up. You hardly (or at least I don't) hear trance pros talking about production techniques either, so I see the fact it's been mentioned twice as meaning it will most likely contribute towards a 'pro' sound.

Valve compressors distort the signal slightly and add second order harmonics to the sound, which many pros find desirable.

Software convolution reverbs like the free SIR and Waves IR1 do sound bloody nice. The limitations are that they are CPU heavy, pretty much preset based and you are relying on others to capture the reverb well. A Lexicon unit or similar would certainly do you no harm.

Then like Derivative mentioned, you have distortion. Distortion is one of the most sexy fx, can make a weak kick solid as a rock. I don't know for certain but I imagine that the lead in Sister Bliss - Sister Sister is distorted and is much the warmer for it.

Synths. The virus, JP8000 and Nord are certainly no secret as being the synths for trance. I've used the SH-201 for a couple of weeks which is essentially a JP-8000, I've got a Virus Classic and a Waldorf Pulse. I either mess around from an Init patch or tweak presets (e.g. vengeance) and to be honest I feel it's hard not to get good sounds out of these synths.

I'm just scratching the surface here, when it comes to gear that contributes towards a 'pro' sound. You could go on forever.

The thing is, this all costs a lot of money - a hell of a lot. It takes years to aquire, learn and understand.

I see some pros talk about how software is capable of producing decent sounds, but I'm not daft - I notice how they'll add phrases like 'with the right processing' or 'it just requires more work'. Then when you actually look at what they use it's all sexy hardware. This is just to avoid any debates/annoying advocators of software, in today's day and age I wouldn't see it as wise for a pro to go around saying software is shit.

I started off with with Reason, no other samples and a two octave keyboard. My tunes were shit and so was the quality.

Now I have a Waldorf Pulse, Virus Classic, EMU 1820m audio interface, Cubase SX3, decent samples, four octave keyboard. My tunes are much better quality now.. erm.. but they're still pretty shit.

Great way to end this post.

One thing that helped me alot to improve my sound was to look how the lows, mids and highs are balanced in the tracks of "pros"... and the "frequency scheme" often looks the same!

Beginners often emphasize the mids too much... try to use EQs to balance your sound!
Try to work with good samples and use compressors with smart settings - i think, the biggest mistake of beginners is that they use exaggerated settings - too much often destroys the sound!

Cheers,
S-Tune

quote:

Originally posted by Krispy Kreme I try many ways and still am missing that juice and magic. The pro sound have something that some of us dont have. I think I have some ideas on what may help. Im gonna try everyway possible because I am losing sleep over this. I will report back to you guys if i find out the key.

I think you try to find out how to be an artist. This can't be learned. On the other hand, your sound can be "pro" for a noob, so all is relative.

quote:

Originally posted by RickyM I was referring to derivative , but would still be good to hear a sample from you as well. And derivative, you don't have to post a sample up because you need advice, you could post it up because I'd like to hear it! Surely one of the best parts of making music is allowing others to hear it...

You are right but I make no excuses for why I haven't done so. Why? There are none and I ain't fooling myself about it. You shouldn't either.

Feel free to ignore me but I guarantee you will just buy 1000s of pounds worth of gear and have nothing to show for it if you don't know what you are doing. Feel free to fool yourself about that fact forever too. Its your loss.

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