Producing Music
My little flash based site dedicated to Reason.
General tips:
These tips are all very general and must only be considered as a
starting point for someone new in this field. Try them out and adjust to
taste.
Compression:
-
Drums: Big live sound
Double the drums onto a separate track, compress heavily and add
this track slowly into the mix
-
Drums: Hard studio beat:
Double kick and snare onto a separate track, compress heavily and eq
with a big smile
add this track slowly into the mix
-
Bass: kick and guitar lock:
Compress both using the same stereo compressor: short attack times =
more kick, longer attack times = more guitar, set release to 1/8 for
starters
-
A compressor enhances the already dominant frequencies
EQ:
-
Two types of using eq: corrective vs shaping
use corrective eq (f.e. removing bass-rumble from vocals) before
dynamic fx,
using shaping eq (f.e. adding some weirdness to a electric guitar) after
dynamic fx
-
You can't raise what isn't there to start with, f.e.:
Adding air to an acoustic guitar recorded with inferior mics is
almost impossible
-
Cutting is better then raising
-
Cut narrow, raise wide
-
it doesn't matter if an instrument sounds bad when soloed, so
feel free to cut a lot of low end out of an electric guitar so it
doesn't conflict with drum & bass
-
If you want an instrument to cut better through the mix don't
raise the fundamental freq, but instead decrease it a little and
raise the overall level of the track
-
If you want more more kick / bass in your mix you probably don't
need eq but more compression on these (and only these)
-
Instead of adding f.e. 6 dB at 1 kHz, try adding 4 dB at 1 kHz
and 2dB at 2kHz
Pan / Stereo:
-
try panning stereo tracks a little different then hard left and
right,
try f.e. 9 and 2 o'clock
-
instead of using 'fake' stereo fx like chorus on a mono source
(most keyboards work this way),
-
instead of 1 double delay of 3/16th on a stereo track, try using
3/16 - 1/128th for one side and 3/16 + 1/128th on the other
Reverb / Delay:
-
Delays shorter then 40 ms sound as if they are part of the
original sound, i.e. they do not sound as an echo
-
Adding very little short delay (1/128th) to something can
make it bigger (try panning the delay differently)
-
Use a predelay (1/128th) on reverbs to get a clearer sound
-
Set decay for the 'master'-reverb to 1/2nd
-
Assuming you like a 3/16th delay on a track: increase the delay
time a bit to make this track seem to go slower, decrease the delay
time to make this track to rush ahead
-
Remove low end from reverbs to make the mix clearer
-
Remove some top end from one side of the (stereo-)reverb to make
the sound coming from the other side
-
Add reverb only to the attack of a sound (f.e. drums) by sending
the sound onto another track and compress it very hard (so only the
peaks get through), now add reverb to this track alone
Midi:
Internet:
Books:
Geert at Goltstein dot com |