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This whole concept of "finding sounds that work"...
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| DJ Robby Rox |
I want to look at this from a different angle for a minute.
One thing that is regurgitated on these forums is the importance of finding "the right sounds" for a mix and if you are having issues equalizing a sound so it sits well in a mix then chances are someone will tell you that you have the wrong sound.
But one thing I have noticed is anytime I make a project, it is VERY difficult to find the "right sound". And I'm trying to look at this from a more holistic perspective than anything else and am realizing some things.
I do *NOT* have an "evolved" sample library. My library is about 50gigs of random sample packs I have either found, bought or dl'd as a crack. I had bought a lot of packs from VIPZone before I found this place and am now realizing that between them and my VEC packs that I just have A LOT of generally crummy sounds.
I do not like the way they are organized. Nothing is pitched in their percussion pack that I have so almost no sound ever fits. And then when a sound fits its not the type of sound I want. Or I have to pitch it and then it tends to lose is magic or adds a different dimension to the track that I do not like.
But my point is basically when I produce I spend A LOT and I mean A LOT of ing time browsing samples. It almost doesn't seem normal.
And something is just not sitting well with me about this.
I have never really spent a lot of time focusing on my samples and presets. But I spend tons of time just browsing through them.
What I'm noticing is I also have a lot of average sounding, familiar, boring sounds. Some of my better more unique sounds are not from nexus or even pro presets they are soundfonts I made myself a while back that I layered in chainer. Isn't that interesting? My best sounds are ones I actually layered myself. They always tend to fit better and although there is nothing special about them they are just solid trance worthy sounds.
I think I really need to redo my entire library.
I have so many preset packs for z3ta and one thing I have always hated about preset packs is how sounds are organized. They are scattered ING EVERYWHERE. I have about 50 packs that are just a random mess of sounds and then just a few where they are actually organized. Like the Adam Von Baker packs those are organized by sound. But even that can sometimes be an issue and I'll explain why.
I would prefer that I had entire preset packs with one specific type of sound rather than a mix of sounds. Like one pack for just bass, one pack for just syncs, one pack for just plucks etc etc.
Does anyone organize their sounds like this?
Also. I'm honestly not sure about this but all these useless presets in z3ta that are more filler material I have no idea wtf to do with them?
I have issues deleting presets because every single preset is like a map to me that shows me how to get a certain sound. But at the same time they are a distraction if that sound was added just as filler material or doesn't have any practical use.
How do you guys handle this? Should I literally just make my own pack with "filler presets" or "showoff sounds". Sounds that might give me inspiration but for the most part are distracting when it comes to production?
I also notice in general I don't have a lot of the "right sounds". I have been into tutorials again lately watching 1 after another after another and am finding some of these "pros" just have ing awesome samples to work with. Unique rich inspiring samples. Or maybe they are not unique and are just unique to a certain synth who knows. But one thing is for certain a lot of the samples I hear as they browse DO NOT sound anything like my samples.
They literally sound like every single sound they have was cherry picked down from millions of samples and presets almost like the ones I'm working with.
But my point is I think the way you organize your sound palette has a lot to do with how your music sounds. My sounds are not organized, my production process is not organized. I feel like I do not have enough good sounds beside my sonic canvas to work with. I have sounds that I hear repeatedly everyday... and now its like I almost can't even distinguish what is a good or bad sound anymore. Its more like certain sounds just work better in certain settings and certain contexts.
Anyway to end this god awful rant I guess my question is how important is this? I would assume any pro would have a superbly organized library with some of the rarest and most equisite sounds in the world. And yeh I know I sound like an idiot I'm well aware of that. I refine my sounds about as good as I refine my words lol. I can probably spend a good month just organizing and updating my library but is it really worth the effort? I just do not feel organized when I work even if I have goals in my head I don't feel like I have enough good sounds to make those goals a reality. Or like I have too many filler sounds that wind up distracting me and I always wind up going on these "side projects" where I find myself working on something I wasn't even planning on working on. But because I think it sounds better it just becomes my new project.
How do other people see this?
I know someone is going to come in here mentioning those who work with no sounds and make all their own but really I am not that type of person. I need to hear creativity first before it inspires me to make something creative second. The better a sound is that I hear, the more creative I feel, and the more creative I feel like I want to be. And it seems like production is so much about creativity.
But how do you organize your sounds so you can be both creative and stragetic? I feel like I need more of the best sounds I can find, and less of these overshared presets that likely everyone on this forum has heard. This is also what kills my creativity the most is when I browse through a certain preset for the 1,354,938,123 time it just rips the emotion right out of my brain. Like "oh, that ing sound again.. maybe we can do something different with it this time". But it never ing happens.
Man I just need to get this settled and do not know how to go about it. I think I will definitely start by going through every single one of my preset packs and seperating bass into bass, lead into lead and what have you. No more of this mixed preset bs. There nothing more I hate then when I'm working on a certain sound say like bass, and want to look for more bass sounds for inspiration, but have to open up 10 other packs just to do it. When the pack I have has 20 lead sounds and 10 pad sounds and 5 fxs sounds and the bass should just all be in there. So I think this will be a good starting grounds maybe.
And then after that I need to find a higher quality sonic pallete. I'm not sure precisely how I'm going to go about it I guess the only real way to ensure this is to download every single sound on the internet and then refine it down. Thats basically what I've been doing for the last 9 years anyway I think the problem is I just never delete any sounds lol. I had tried fixing this issue a year ago by reformatting my computer and getting rid of hundreds of cracked synths I never used and it DID help a ton. But now I just do not have access to enough inspiring sounds. I'm bored of nexus, I liked trilogy for a week and then after that am positive something doesn't sound right about it. Then recently I found Kompakt and have been loving some of these East West sounds. I mean this is ideally how all my sounds should be in terms of quality. I just wish I had more better sounds not even to use just for inspiration sometimes. The best Z3ta pack I have is the Adam Von Baker one and its a shame how often I am opening that pack.
Theres gotta to be better ways to go about this all idk but I should really end this rant I am terrible with this . Doubt anyone actually read all of this thats fine I'm sure you understand the issue anyway. I'm just not happy with the majority of the sounds I work with and I seem to get bored of new sounds way too quickly. This has to be a quality issue I can't think of anything else it could really be.
Any other thoughts on this though would really be helpful.. |
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| Looney4Clooney |
why not just organize by genre and type ?
For samples, have a folder with sounds you've considered using or used before sort of like a favourites. You will have to spend the time to go thru each sample library, pick what you find interesting and put it somewhere you can remember. The task is laborious but there isn't really a way around it.
I use this
http://store.soundminer.com/macintosh-products.html
but it is rather expensive. But it allows you to imbed meta data in wav files. That is the best solution in my opinion. I'm sure there must be some free thing that does something similar.
And you should have your own personal preset library which you should be using more than pre made stuff. IE every second day make sounds, keep track of those sounds, and allow you to develop your own style instead of using other peoples sounds.
I think your issue is that you are mainly a hoarder. Stop collecting presets. Start making music. Stop trying to find the perfect preset. Start every track with a init patch. And produce. Listen to music, retain the stuff you like in your noggin, and it will come out while you make sounds that please you.
There is a reason you never actually make songs. You are stuck in this never ending feedback loop. You feel like you never have the right presets or samples so you hoard samples and presets but it is never gonna in end. Same with vsts. I bet you have ever vst uner the rainbow.
How many EQs do you have ? Be honest. I don't care if you have cracks. I mean if you were to load up your vst list , how many of those do you use , how many have you never used.
I think this is one of the benifits of buying stuff. You lose that hoarding aspect because things are no longer free. But you soon find out that you don't need 90% of the tools you have.
if you want to be a great producer, you need to make tracks. Lots of them. Quantity trumps quality when you are starting. In the last 5 years, how many finished tracks have you made ? Ask the same question to any succesful producer they will tell you a very different answer.
Stop ing about and make a song. You approach music like weightlifting and I know enough of them that they are never satisfied. There is no end . If you want to produce , you need to stop this hoarding and just do it. |
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| DJ RANN |
me, that was one Hench post, to ask How do you organise your samples?
Richard (or is that Dick?) is right.
You should keep sounds that you like in a master pool, then separated by type (i.e. Bass, lead, fx etc), then in that folder, listed in terms of key for each sample.
If you've got that many samples, my advice is to just dump the ones that you can't instantly identify or categorize easily.
Just chuck em. They didn't cost you anything and it's not worth trawling through hours of one shots, loops and weird sounds just to figure them all out.
My advice: Create a folder that will contain all your "preferred" samples.
Now as you "aquire" samples, only add ones that you can A) quantify easily/fast and B) really like or may have a use for.
Dump the rest in another folder or on another drive and you can always revisit it if needed, but it doesn't bog you down as a thing you have to wade through.
You may not have many samples to begin with after dumping them but it's better to have a few good samples at your fingertips, than thousands out of easy reach. |
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| Looney4Clooney |
oh i should mention my maid Consuela does the organizing with soundminer. Have you considered hiring banditos? For 30 $ a week, she cleans, organizes my computer files and does about 25% of my mixdowns. And she has a tomato garden.
There are actual people you can hire tho. Might want more than 30$ but it is an actual job people do all day. |
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| DJ RANN |
Actually, how the does soundminer add metadata to Wavs? That's technically impossible without converting it to AIFF or MP3 etc. The wav format does not support metadata or tags?
Does it just store info in soundminer itself, like filemanager? |
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| evo8 |
I think your right about the old Zeta, presets are a bit all over the place - if its any help the new presets in the recently updated version are categorized better.
Same with Alchemy, ACE, PolyKBII - everything spread out into Arps, Basses, Pads etc.. thats the way it is for most synths out there i would have thought??
Honestly if you use sample packs like for example Wave Alchemy - to me those samples sound excellent, i dont know what more you would want?
I see you say you used Trilian for a week but didnt like the sound???
I think Trilian is absolutely fantastic, really really excellent piece of kit. I think of it as more than just a standard bass synth, you make all sorts of weird and beautifully crystal clear sounding textures with it - i think it took me about a year of constant use to really get into it properly
oh and good point there about buying stuff - after spending €200 or whatever it was on Trilian theres no way i would stop using that.
my advice - just nail down some quality synths/samples - lose the rest. Then constantly use those synths/samples until you really know them.
After all if the top guys can make great tracks with them, they should be good enough?
What way do you start tracks? Are you starting with say a lead preset every time? Because if you are and you are using the same bank all the time (did you say Adam van baker?) you can see how thats gonna get old |
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| DJ Robby Rox |
No I know you are right (about approaching producing like weight lifting). But I go for long periods doing nothing but opening FL and consistently producing. It is definitely good every so often for me to step back and do other . Like I've been neglecting my computers speed lately so started doing virus checks. Figured my pc would be handicapped so good time to step back and focus on something else.
Opened up my library and just realized it is no where near what it can or should be in terms of sounds and overall organization/easability. I just can't help but be convinced it is having a major impact on my producing.
I will prove it to you by doing this. Taking a picture of what the contents actually look like. They are a joke and extremely weak overall. I've always known this but told myself its not important. Still for some reason today I just feel its important.
You can't deny there is a *large* margin for serious improvement there. I have so many duplicate folders for samples its not even funny. Kick drums are in like 10 different folders. It goes that way for a lot of different samples. I need to "elementize" my library then have it further divided into more specific contexts for each instrument or sample. Like speed or key, but genre would be useless for me because I don't make other genres I would rather have instruments like violin or guitar (in their own folders) rather than a rock or orchesta folder. And then my presets folder is nothing but scattered random folders of banks. No organized presets and none of my own sounds in my own folders. Thats another big thing that bothers me. I *should definitely just have days where I focus on programing and making my own sounds. I do it far too seldomly. I also think it will help nurture more cohesive productions too. This has to be an important thing even though you talk it down.
But aside from that you all make a lot of excellent points and I am absolutely putting them to work next time I sit down. I don't feel serious enough in terms of my producing and it has to have a toll on my inspiration to wanna make serious music. |
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| DJ Robby Rox |
| quote: | Originally posted by evo8
Honestly if you use sample packs like for example Wave Alchemy - to me those samples sound excellent, i dont know what more you would want?
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They're extremely limited you can't do much with them. Not in terms of the fx but for the intruments you have no real ability to manipulate certain parameters of the sound just because they are samples.
That is my problem is samples always tend to sound better and some of my best sounds happen to be samples (not presets) but in terms of manipulating them I can't adjust the samples the way I need so they do what they need to do in a track.
Or maybe I'm just not a skilled sampler myself who really knows. They are excellent sounds no doubt but once you hear them over and over and can't changed them the way you want I tend to ignore a lot of them. |
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| Looney4Clooney |
would you like me to send you a hardrive with all the libraries in nicely organized ?
how many hardrives do you have ? Man just that folder and the programs I see around it make me clausterphobic, And your wallapaper is not cool/
And why do you have files on the desktop. Verboten. Only links to programs. Come on robby. Is your room that messy?
Spend a weekend organizing . Like really go thru everything, |
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| DJ RANN |
| quote: | Originally posted by Looney4Clooney
Man just that folder and the programs I see around it make me clausterphobic,
And why do you have files on the desktop. Verboten. Only links to programs. Come on robby. Is your room that messy?
Spend a weekend organizing . Like really go thru everything, |
He's absolutely right Robby, but I'll go one step further; dump all that and start from fresh.
It would take hours to wade through and sort that crap out. I don't want to get all Spock on you, but there's no file structure or logic to your folders there.
I think it's a discipline thing though - the fact you have so many random files on your desktop indicates that you're not orderly when it comes to organisation as a base level. I'm kind of saying it's a mindset thing. It's like not leaving dirty dishes in the sink overnight: if you just do it as you go along, it never happens and you never think about it ever again.
Same with file organisation - if you just do it one way and make that you're only method, you'll always know where everything is, and it goes from simple text files, all the way though to entire drive management. Even if you don't know where one particular file is, you can just apply your set out logic of where it should be and you'll hopefully find it where it makes sense to be.
Hope I'm making sense now :crazy: |
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| Excess |
600 ING DRUM LOOPS
PLEASE SEED THIS |
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