Think you could isolate the witch for me in an example Eddie? something quick and dirty, doesn't need to be fancy.

I'm interested in understanding what it does, but for some reason am having trouble hearing what's happening in the context of the track. I guess it's because everything in the track sounds natural to me and the aural illusion is masking what's going on.

And thanks for the link alvin <3.

Hmmmm... having had a quick read back over this thread, I'm not sure it really panned out in the direction I was thinking of. Everyone seems to be talking more about their own particular tips and tricks rather than the sort of things I was talking about, which are the tools that lots of engineers use day to day but rarely get discussed on here.

I guess I was envisageing a new group of advanced tutorials to tack onto the end of the basic mixing tutorials. But I'm not sure theres actually that much interest in that sort of thing on here. I'm getting the impression that the reason why no one ever talks about ms mixing and multiband compression is just because people just aren't that interested!

Things like sends and returns, vocal chops etc seem a bit basic and are often discussed around the place, and things like Eddie's trick are interesting but not applicable day to day.

So what I think I might do, is keep this thread rolling for sort of interesting tips and tricks that people might have, and then just start a new thread about the stuff thats interesting me lately regarding mixing techniques, which is very self indulgent, but I think some people might get something out of it.

Theres definately some cool stuff coming out of this thread, so I might have a look through my patch library for some interesting techniques I've used and throw some of my own little tips in here too.

___________________
New Mix: March 2010 Promo
Soundcloud|Facebook

it's all about catchyness

quote:

Originally posted by jupiterone it's all about catchyness

yes
and using your ears to find out whats right

[QUOTE]Originally posted by kitphillips


I guess I was envisageing a new group of advanced tutorials to tack onto the end of the basic mixing tutorials. /QUOTE]





It's difficult to give examples because it would run to many pages and be largely irrelevant to the reader as in my case I do it on the fly and spend say an hour manipulating the fx inside a soft instrument (let alone send to other fx) and it really is a case of using your ears as you minutely adjust dozens of parameters. Writing that up would take thousands of words.

TBH I think M/S is basic in esscence anyway and same for multiband compression.

For me at least it's about spending weeks to find a killer original lead and then offing it for a better one, rinse and repeat. Nothing special - just a lot of hours.

___________________
https://soundcloud.com/butlerrichard

quote:

Originally posted by kitphillips lol, I was the OP, maybe re read the thread Eddie, thats an interesting little trick there... I'll have to try it some time...

Haha...sorry I'm slow.

___________________
http://www.soundcloud.com/d_Verge

New Deep House release out now: d_Verge - Morning Light EP [Kynatix] Beatport

quote:

Originally posted by sako487 Here's a tip I could give about brightening up your snares

That's the old "preverb" trick! That one works with loads of stuff, and can sound really good on vocals or the last sound before a breakdown or drop.

@eddie - I don't think there is a name as such for that one (so you get to coin it!) but AFAIK, it's an old reggae/dub trick. Infact reggae and dub engineers are the masters of delays and were doing it 20 odd years ago.

@kit - I suppose one of the problems is that the moment you get past the basics, the techniques become more specfic or niche as they get more advanced, and so are in some respects harder to use in as many circumstances.

One trick I like to do which is great for drums: this works great with my electribe and generally works well with simple delays.

Basically, you turn the wet (amount) knob all the way up, then take the feedback (length) down to zero. Then just add the tiniest amount of feedback and you get a chunkyness layer effect added - it's like a chorus effect but a fatter and not as clean. This works great on mid and hi perc.

Another one (that I *think* this may have been posted at some point on here) is the drum room simulation. The short description is to create an aux send for your drums and send a small amount of each sound to a group fader (with no FX or anything on it) and mix that return back with the originals.
This simulates drums as if you were recording them with mics and got a little bleed from each of the mics in to each other.

You can then add a reverb to the group if needed to give a bit of room ambiance but I prefer to do this after so I can hear the "bleed" by itself first.

quote:

Originally posted by sako487 Here's a tip I could give about brightening up your snares Get your snare sample, reverse it, place in on a mixer channel Add slight reverb with a short tail Bounce out should sound like this [[ LINK REMOVED ]] Place the sample on a track, reverse it should sound like this [[ LINK REMOVED ]] Pair it with a nice crunchy snare, and it should sound like this [[ LINK REMOVED ]] Just my 2 cents!

Damn that's clever.

Nice contribution!

___________________

quote:

Originally posted by dj_alfi change your avatar for fucks sake.

quote:

Originally posted by kitphillips Yeah, interesting effect chains could be a part of it I guess, doing cool stuff to parameters with automation is definately worth looking at...

well, once you get your weird chain (even without it), don't overlook the automation. it's not just one automation, it's once you get 5 or 6 on the same synth or chain or patch, the automations tend to interact with each other in wild ways.

the coolest stuff i've ever done was all purely by accident. setting out to make strange sounds can produce good results too.

also, if you are making music and you are doing something you've already done, or are going about it the same way you have been, do it differently. try a fresh approach. try compiling parts to a track in random order, or starting a track with just one weird sound.

original sounding synths with original character

quote:

Originally posted by DJ RANN Basically, you turn the wet (amount) knob all the way up, then take the feedback (length) down to zero. Then just add the tiniest amount of feedback and you get a chunkyness layer effect added - it's like a chorus effect but a fatter and not as clean. This works great on mid and hi perc.

Consider that idea nicked.


I like that one. I like it a lot.

___________________
Soundcloud

Ok, so heres my little tip;

Don't be afraid of fucking up your percussion. Ableton live is great for this since you have the drum racks, which allow you to put a different instrument or effect on each sound. I like phasers and flangers on hats, saturation on snares, hipass filters on EVERYTHING, pitch modulation on some sounds, an instance of corpus running after a reverb strapped on to a send buss. Its awesome.

On a similar note, if you feel like you need some cool percussion sounds, the easiest way to make a loop your own is to throw an instance of corpus on it and play with the settings. Chop it, rearrange it, gate it, rinse, repeat. Its honestly the best effect in live.

___________________
New Mix: March 2010 Promo
Soundcloud|Facebook