TGF Do Something Bi-Weekly Challenge Week 1 Thread

[Mongillo19]

I keep hearing that, but at $500 Ozone is above my pay grade lol. I noticed that SoundCloud will “master” your tracks now, but my spidey sense says NO.

See my edit to my last post: I also cheated, with Ableton’s mastering rack. Just a glorified compressor and eq, really.

Yeah I'm kicking myself for not snagging that in BF sale. I think it was like $300 maybe $200? Maybe next year lol

They have a trial version if you are ever interested

 

[mbenigni]

They have a trial version if you are ever interested

Definitely interested - thanks for the heads up! I meant to look for one the other day and it slipped my mind.

 

[DrewJD82]

I can “mix” up to the point where I personally like what I hear on the system where I’m mixing

That’s really the core idea of mixing. The only other aspect of it that comes along and f*cks things up is getting that mix to translate to other systems, which just comes from learning the room your mixing in. When I first started this I’d be running to my truck checking mixes, I actually finished a couple mixes via aux cable into my stereo with a laptop, sitting in my front seat, then running back into my studio and hearing how the changes I made sound.

Then one magical day I bounced a mix down and went to check it in my truck and it was about 98.5% of the way there. I was looking to get new studio monitors at the time and immediately changed my mind. You end up picking out little things like “The cymbals sound really dull in my car but really bright in the studio” or “the bass and kick are way too overpowering in my truck, I should adjust my monitors so it reflects that” and eventually you waddle away the differences.

We’re extremely fortunate with gear these days, we’re getting the refinements of nearly a century of recording audio when ease of use and availability are at a max. The sh*t we can do with plug-ins now takes so much guess work out of the equation. I might tweak a lot for guitar/bass tones, but I’m totally the opposite with recording plug-ins, I use presets all over the place.

 

[DrewJD82]

Yeah my mixing is essentially on unit for the most part lol as far as mastering it's probably considered cheating but that Ozone AI slapped on the master track just feels so right

Hahaha I don’t think it’s cheating. While the part of me that wants to understand the whole process much better for my own enthusiasm of recording makes me avoid it, the part of me that only cares about the end goal overrides that voice in this case. Like I said in my previous post about reaping the benefits of years of other people’s experience creating these plug-ins for us, it’s pretty badass.

To someone whose goal is to become a mastering engineer, sure it can be considered taking the easy way out, but for the average home studio musician whose goal is to release music they’ve recorded, the end result is all that really matters. And that’s a whole rabbit hole into itself because you can end up in some gotcha’s along the way, IE- auto tune will obviously help a not-so-great singer present a song with the vocals all in key much more efficiently than just the person singing it themself a million times, so if getting to the end result is all that mattered, then slap the auto tune on. Thus the rabbit hole I’m speaking of. There aren’t many in our circles who will sing the praises of auto tune, I personally f*cking hate it on recordings, but I use it when trying to figure out harmonies or which notes I’m going for, I just sing along to the auto tuned track then delete it once I nail it. I’m starting to ramble….

There is no cheating if you have an end result you’re happy with.

Sorry…..I hit up the edibles early today.

 

[mbenigni]

When I first started this I’d be running to my truck checking mixes, I actually finished a couple mixes via aux cable into my stereo with a laptop, sitting in my front seat, then running back into my studio and hearing how the changes I made sound.

I've done this a few times myself. :) Now, with SoundCloud uploads and Bluetooth integration in my car, I could walk out there and at least hear a playback without even bringing any gear. Of course, yesterday my main objective was to upload whatever I had and post a link here ASAP, just to get a sense that I'd brought something to a completion (of sorts.)

This exercise - and working inside a fixed schedule - made me aware of some other strange stuff that happens when I'm recording: I'll track a relatively small amount of actual playing, and then take the guitar off to start trying to put a production together, and then I'll go way too far trying to make those initial tracks work, whether they're actually any good or not. I'll start nudging and stretching things, playing with automation, etc. when it would be WAY easier to just strap the guitar on again and do another take. There's something about that transition from engineering to playing that I resist for whatever reason. And I have this weird tendency to want to use everything I track, as if it were "canon", instead of just deleting the duds.

I have some "workflow" ideas about combining an external looper and a DAW, so I can focus more on the playing. We'll see how that goes...

 

[la szum]

Nice work, @mbenigni . Great job busting through that wall, too. That's the hardest hurdle,
in my opinion. It's more of the challenge, to me, than what the music is or isn't. Just putting something up.

It's like diving in headfirst into the water on a not so warm day. Once you're in, it is not so bad. Then it becomes
a different day and you are suddenly standing at the water's edge again, and contemplating the should or the should not.
Look forward to hearing more.

 

[mbenigni]

Nice work, @mbenigni . Great job busting through that wall, too. That's the hardest hurdle,
in my opinion. It's more of the challenge, to me, than what the music is or isn't. Just putting something up.

It's like diving in headfirst into the water on a not so warm day. Once you're in, it is not so bad. Then it becomes
a different day and you are suddenly standing at the water's edge again, and contemplating the should or the should not.
Look forward to hearing more.

Thanks, @la szum! I feel like I'm stuck about half way through that wall, but I'll just keep hitting the record button and see what happens.

 

[Whizzinby]

@mbenigni

Great stuff man.

 

[mbenigni]

@mbenigni

Great stuff man.

Thanks so much, @Whizzinby! I just tweaked it again and flew it back up to SoundCloud. Time to put this one to bed and move on to the next one, I think.

I need to learn how to use Ozone before my 10 day trial is up.

 

[Whizzinby]

Thanks so much, @Whizzinby! I just tweaked it again and flew it back up to SoundCloud. Time to put this one to bed and move on the next one, I think.

I need to learn how to use Ozone before my 10 day trial is up.

I was in the same boat with Ozone, and of course didn’t entirely figure it out in the window, so when the trial ended I just decided to go with their Elements bundle, which includes the Elements versions of Ozone, Neutron, RX and Nectar. ($199) I went that direction because:

• These aren’t exactly cheap and there was no way within 10 days I could “know” if I was pissing money away.
• That suit covers all their mixing and mastering offerings so in theory it should be all I need to go from tracked, to “plug my nose and let other people hear this”

The Elements versions are basically just the AI assistant, with their front page of global controls. (Width, punch, gain, etc) You don’t have the ability to go into the advance screen where you can tweak the full chain of individual plugs they assigned during the AI process. (Or run those sub-plugs in isolation)

I also figure that the upgrade path if I end up wanting to go to the advanced versions will be a lot more tolerable from the Essentials versions, rather than from ground level where those prices can get a little eye watering.

 

[DrewJD82]

I played with a few mastering plug-ins last night, Ozone 9, Brainworx Masterdesk and one other one, I can’t remember what it was. Definitely prefer the results with Masterdesk, it’s a lot more subtle when adding it to something; you’ll hear a volume boost or maybe some frequency changes, but nothing is ever over the top unless you hit the Death Magnetic preset, which I think they put in as a joke or an example of what NOT to do to a mix.

One thing that I certainly have an issue with is hearing when something is getting overly compressed on my monitors as it doesn’t always translate to what I hear on other speakers. It’s like I have all the headroom in the world on my HS-5’s. Definitely been tricky learning where the smashing is coming into play.

 

[TravisG406]

Dumping this one here

 

[TravisG406]

 

[TravisG406]

Wrote this one when my grandma passed fifteen years ago

 

[TravisG406]

Just keeping this going