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Originally posted by lowski ok thats twice ive heard that in this thread, so no eqing my kicks or my basses? , that seems a bit wierd to me cuz i almost always use 2 basses traditional trance style. one that more mid ranged that fades in from the 17th measure to the 32, then a lower bas (usually and octave lower) that comes in at the 33rd measure. with most of you being into trance im sure you know what im talking about.

If a bass and kick clash, I usually swap out the kick. I find a kick that doesn't class with the bass. I don't like cutting any lows out of my basses, I'm afraid they will sound weak. I master with a 20hz roll off, so that's enough low cut already. I'm always learning and finding better ways to do things, so in a year I might do things totally different.

I don't produce trance, but I do use 2 basses sometimes. I usually put a wide stereo spread on one, and put the other in the center of the mix. One of them is usually is a sub bass, so they hardly ever clash.

There's no rules. Every one does things there own way. I will only EQ basses or kicks as a last resort.

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lowski, weigh up the pros and cons of each mixing decision you make. Where do you personally want your hihats and snares to be, frequency-wise? I can't look into your head and tell you your musical preferences.

If you don't want to use any eq because you don't want the negative effects of the eq, don't use them. But you really need to weigh it up for yourself - does it sound better with the eq (even with the negative side-effects) or not?

Yes, there are engineers who over-use eq. But you'd be hard pressed to find an engineer who NEVER EVER uses ANY eq. Every engineer weighs it up on a case by case basis. In the end, you make your own decisions for your music.

An issue with Reason and whether or not to punch in the 30Hz cut is that there's no way to attach a detailed frequency analysis VST to a particular instrument to see whether or not the cut is required. (Unless you rewire the instruments into a DAW. Then you'll be able to see what's going on. But don't misunderstand me - your decisions should be based on what the music requires, not what a frequency analyser tells you. They're handy tools for picking up small details which may otherwise escape your attention)

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Originally posted by derail Yes, there are engineers who over-use eq. But you'd be hard pressed to find an engineer who NEVER EVER uses ANY eq. Every engineer weighs it up on a case by case basis. In the end, you make your own decisions for your music. An issue with Reason and whether or not to punch in the 30Hz cut is that there's no way to attach a detailed frequency analysis VST to a particular instrument to see whether or not the cut is required. (Unless you rewire the instruments into a DAW. Then you'll be able to see what's going on. But don't misunderstand me - your decisions should be based on what the music requires, not what a frequency analyser tells you. They're handy tools for picking up small details which may otherwise escape your attention)

Less is more. EQ is a tool. Use it too much of anything, and you run the risk of ruining something. Carpenters don't keep hammering the nail once it is already in the board do they?

I would really behoove you, (when you are comfortable) to try rewiring Reason into a different DAW. Like ProTools, or Cubase.

When you do. Start a whole new project and do it this way. Don't take your current project and ruin it by trying to rewire everything, you'll give yourself a headache and you'll have a bad time.

You sound new to engineering. Don't get me wrong, just because I just graduated and have a piece of paper saying I can tweak audio doesn't make me a veteran by any stretch. All the elders here will tell you to just stick to one thing and learn it really really really well.

Stick to Reason for now, and learn it like your own genitals. Then try other stuff. Best of luck.

----Adam

(ps, sorry for being all over the map with my thoughts, I'm sure you've heard a lot of this already)

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My best tutorial has been the 'trial and error'-type, but I think the Vengeance ones are a good start...

It never hurts to put some more EQ on an already EQ'ed kickdrum, just trust your ears and make sure you can trust your audio output system (headphones and/or monitors)

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This is a link to an article called 'Thinking inside the Box - A Holistic Guide to Equalisation'

It is in PDF format so get Adobe Acrobat Reader if you haven't already. It is basically the only guide to EQ you ever need to consult because it doesn't tell you what you should do. It tells you the basic mechanics of EQ, a good way to visualise what you are doing to sound when you equalise it and then leaves the ball in your court.

This was originally posted on www.dnbscene.com but its been down for years so I had to find another link. Fortunately, its all over the place.

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Originally posted by Icone My best tutorial has been the 'trial and error'-type, but I think the Vengeance ones are a good start... It never hurts to put some more EQ on an already EQ'ed kickdrum, just trust your ears and make sure you can trust your audio output system (headphones and/or monitors)

Vengeance tutorials, do you have a link for this?. also , i was first putting EQ on my vegeance kicks and percussion. the thing was though i could eq a my drums all of the place and i can make them sound good together. but once im further in the song and theres more sounds like synths and stuff thats were i seem to get into trouble because my once good drums, are now taking up too much space in the mix.

when you say i never hurts to put some more Eq on a kick how much are we talking about , in db boosts or cuts.

basiclly im leaving my kicks as is, maybe cut at the 30Hz mark but thats about it. i need a solid foundation to start from. and im hoping that the vengeance kicks untouched will do that. plus i fugure if the song need to be fattened up at the end i can just do that in mastering?



also, Derivative. im gonna read that tutorial right now. big thanks for the link


also i think im gonna need something like cubase to rewire in to. after watching that AndiVax mixing secrets, i see that guys got tons of control over his sound. i need a visual frequency analyser, and a better EQ the MClass sucks i think , its hard to get the right shape im looking for, which brings me to another question. in that AndiVax video, is all that stuff hes using part of cubase?

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Originally posted by lowski Vengeance tutorials, do you have a link for this?. also , i was first putting EQ on my vegeance kicks and percussion. the thing was though i could eq a my drums all of the place and i can make them sound good together. but once im further in the song and theres more sounds like synths and stuff thats were i seem to get into trouble because my once good drums, are now taking up too much space in the mix. when you say i never hurts to put some more Eq on a kick how much are we talking about , in db boosts or cuts. basiclly im leaving my kicks as is, maybe cut at the 30Hz mark but thats about it. i need a solid foundation to start from. and im hoping that the vengeance kicks untouched will do that. plus i fugure if the song need to be fattened up at the end i can just do that in mastering? also, Derivative. im gonna read that tutorial right now. big thanks for the link also i think im gonna need something like cubase to rewire in to. after watching that AndiVax mixing secrets, i see that guys got tons of control over his sound. i need a visual frequency analyser, and a better EQ the MClass sucks i think , its hard to get the right shape im looking for, which brings me to another question. in that AndiVax video, is all that stuff hes using part of cubase?

I didn't mean Vengeance tutorials as such, just the sound libraries they're sharing. For example, the sound effects CD is already pumped with effects (reverb/delay). But still, you could add more things to make it more 'unique'.

Cutting a kick at 30Hz is OK. Though it depends on what kind of kick you started from.

A final mastering isn't exactly the real medicine for what could be a bad 'in-process' tuning of your different synths/percussion. You'll need a good basis to start from if you'd put many hopes on the end mastering...

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quote:

Originally posted by Derivative This is a link to an article called 'Thinking inside the Box - A Holistic Guide to Equalisation' It is in PDF format so get Adobe Acrobat Reader if you haven't already. It is basically the only guide to EQ you ever need to consult because it doesn't tell you what you should do. It tells you the basic mechanics of EQ, a good way to visualise what you are doing to sound when you equalise it and then leaves the ball in your court. This was originally posted on www.dnbscene.com but its been down for years so I had to find another link. Fortunately, its all over the place.

i just read this article, and although i had the general idea down, this guy explained it in simple yet very effective terms for me to understand more in depth. thanks again for this link it has and will help be out hugely. im wondering were you got this from?. he was about tostart explaing compression which im very interested to learn more about. if you have that article could you post it as well. it would be much appretiated. thanks


Icone. ok i understand what your saying now. i like to use the 30Hz cut if it makes my kick louder, other then that i guess there isn't really a piont to it. and with the FX cd i usually aad reverb, delay and other effects just to try and make it more interesting and to give it my own sound. still im unclear, is there a tutorial about the vengeance cds?. i was wondering because some of the kicks have a letter in there name , like A for example and i find the the kick is tunned to fit a song with the root note of A. but some kicks just have numbers and verious letters, so i was hopeing to find out what root note some of the other kicks were.

thanks

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Originally posted by lowski he was about tostart explaing compression which im very interested to learn more about. if you have that article could you post it as well. it would be much appretiated. thanks

As far as I know the author never got around to it or never made it public. At least, I don't know of its existence. I can write a tutorial on compression though if folks around here want it.

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Also, Icone mentions something which bothers me about Vengeance and a number of other samples on certain other sample CDs - alot of the single shot and looped sounds already have a tonne of effects on them making them somewhat awkward to use in mixes where you have global effects. I found several kicks on VEC-1 to be practically unusable for several reasons such as:

1) Kick drum is rendered with a snare/hat striking at the same time.
2) Kick drum has a stereo reverb on it, meaning that if or when you want to sum it to mono, it sounds different (because of partial destructive phasing when summing both left and right channels).
3) Kick drum already has a tonne of distortion applied and clipping artifacts which is sometimes desireable but the point is you dont have any control over when you want it overdriven - it already is.

I get the impression that many sample CDs are designed in a way that makes them sound kind of nice on their own or in a predefined 'demo' but as soon as you sling them into your own mixes you realise theres not really that much you can do to them without turning them into shit.

The kicks I end up using on VEC-1 are usually the clean ones with nothing on. The high hats that don't have a tonne of distortion/reverb on them. I don't use any of the claps/snares because nearly all of them are distorted drum machine snares and theres really not a whole lot you can do with those unless you use it in your mixes all the time.

Derivative i agree with all almost 100%. alot of the kicks have to much added to them, plus there not even the kicks im looking to use. i like the uk trance kicks on vec-2, there some really nice samples in there. the club or hard kicks i pretty much never use. i do like some of the claps though. i mainly the ones from 1- 10 or whatever, but any higher and they start to sound wierd. the snares are as you said mostly distorted, and aren't even the sounds im looking for. i usually like a quick hitting snare to layer under the claps just to give it a bit of punch. as for the fx, i like to use the uplifters and downlifters, but i never thought of the effects on it in terms of how it relates to my global reverb. i haven't noticed anything to akward but i will play closer attention from now on.


and yes please, i would really like to read this tutorial on compression. i had read one before, but i didn't get a full and propper understanding on it.

Yes, the UK trance kicks on VEC2 are nice. I haven't dipped into the other kick folders for quite a while.

lowski, regarding your earlier question about Andi Vax - most of the plugins he was using aren't in Cubase. Cubase does have some very nice plugins that come with it, but depending what you want to do you may want to add something else. I may look at investing in a UAD card at some point, though I do like the fact that I can use my Waves plugins on my laptop as well as my main music computer just by sticking the ilok key in my laptop.

If you're working with the latest version of Reason you should qualify for the crossgrade deal (check the steinberg website), meaning you can buy Cubase 4 half price.

Try a demo or read up on it. Even if you still do most of your mixing in Reason, you'll have audio tracks and other ways of doing things faster. (With audio tracks, you can see the waveforms of those uplifters and downlifters, you can see where the sample ends, so you just drop them on the audio track in the right place. No loading them into an NNXT and trying to work out where they should start!)