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Music Production
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
I wanna get started on trying to play around with making my own tracks. I've done abit of research into the different production software out there and just wondered if anyone here makes there own music and what they would recommend to use.
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Personally if I was you I would go for Reason 4. It's relatively easy to learn the basics and its kind of an all in one studio. (You don't need 3rd party applications or plug in's to get going on making tunes)
Also I would invest in (if you don't already have) a decent sound card and speakers. If your just doing it for a bit of fun its not really that important, but using an integrated motherboard sound card isn't the best way to go.
Yeah i've been playing around with the Reason demo, isn't too bad. Think i will go with that.
I really wanna give it a good go, just need to get the hang of it all first.
Cheers
Will talk to you more about it on msn about it.
I use this one:
http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/Oxygen49.html
Also look to get a decent soundcard, don't bother with something like a Sound Blaster, though they are good for gaming and listening to music and movies but for music production you want a card that is made specifically for music production. When your next in town go in to somewhere like WH Smiths and pick up a copy of "Computer Music" mag, it's about the only mag that is aimed at newcomers to music production, I've been reading it for years and still get enjoyment out of it. Plus you get like 7.4GB of samples, tips, free plugins, and you get some wicked video interviews to see how the pros work in their studios.
www.dv247.com is a nice site to buy hardware and software from. Type back if you want any tips of using Reason.
Yeah cheers dude, i'm at work at the mo and can't think of what i want to ask but there is quite a long list of things i wanna ask. Mainly basic things.
One thing i will ask is where can i get good samples from? The ones that come with the package are pretty shite so would be good to have somewhere to get some new stuff.
Would be aiming for techy, trancey, electroey type stuff
Samples, for your sort of music I'd suggest the vengeance sample packs (http://www.vengeance-sound.de/eng/indexes/indexSampleCDs.html) as a starting point, but you can also do google searches for certain sounds/sample packs which are free.
ETA: Be aware that Reason doesn't support VST's (softsynths like "subtractor" or the other ones I forget.. except these are usually made by third parties). Whereas you can probably get any sound you want out of the Reason synths I like to have a nice selection of synths or FX plugins. Good luck and have fun
Just a matter of playing about really. I've youtube'd alot of Reason stuff and there's so much cheesy crap out there people make, dunno how they can be happy with it!
Other advice I'd suggest (which you've probably already figured) is to join forums dedicated to music production. The amount of help you get is invaluable. I registered to serious-sounds.net when I used to produce Trance/Hard Trance.. unsure if it's still running but I learnt a LOT from there.
But even so, if you chuck up any more questions I'll keep an eye out and help out if I can.
I'm starting my commercial music degree, so if you want some more info give me a PM
Wicked i had no idea you were into all this as well
What kinda stuff you making?
Sweet, if you have any techno tracks complete that you wouldn't mind me listening to send em my way
What version of Logic do you use?
I'm using Logic Studio 8 at the moment (which I ReWire into Reason cos I like the ReDrum machine) but some people have said that 7 was better?
Goodfella: If you wanna get more samples for Reason then you need to get some reason refills. If you google around enough a lot of places do free ones, or you could try torrents.
So does that mean the Vengeance Sample CD's wouldn't work in Reason?
Is it just a collection of WAV files?
If so then yea you can use them in Reason. You could just load up a ReDrum machine and it will give you 10 slots to put WAV files in.
There might be a better way but I never really looked into it.
Generally tho I would look for Reason Refills as it will give you much more to play about with. Look out for bits by "Zero-G", they have done some really good Reason Refills for the sort of music your after.
It's all kicks & perc, vocals, stabs, riffs, leads, pads, bass, etc. It's 90% one shots so you can build your own sounds instead of using ready made loops, though there are some loops.
Sound. Give us a pm
Anyway so i've been working on Reason 4 for a good while now. I'm doing pretty well on it i say, slowly picking things up and getting some half decent sounds out of it. Its pretty cool just to play around and find sounds by accident by just messing about.
But theres one technical aspect im having trouble with, its actually quite a basic aspect of a track but im having trouble getting it to sound right.
I hate asking "how do you make this sound" as its always just best to play around until you get it but its quite a basic but important part i feel.
Its the gradual build up atmosphere sound ... builds up and up and up, slowly getting louder and louder then BOOM or building up to a breakdown. I know how to make it gradually louder and louder, its just getting that right sound .. do you just use a single note playing continuously and add the reverb you want to it or is it even simpler then that?
Heres a link to a track that has what i mean .. from the start to when it kicks in theres that build up sound .. thats what i mean ... http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=iwh4ut20bVk
pitch modulation with some reverb stuff might be what your after, but in basic song writing terms you'll probs want to be doing something with layering tracks.
its difficult to explain exactly how i'd do it without bring in lots of musical terminlogy, because i'm first and formost a muscian and think of programmed stuff like i would a song i was writing for a 4 piece band. and also cos i'm a logic user, i can't tell you what plug ins to use with reason.
to the person that was talking about logic 7 being better than 8, thats utter bullshite, its different, and people need to jsut get used to the upgrade. the only people who truely don't like it are xenophobes!
can't find my old techno stuff Gf, nor a lot of my old industrial stuff, but i'll send you the cover we did for our last module at uni
I'd quite like some basic midi triggers more for beat generation... any suggestions?
I was brought up on keyboards and synthesisers. Have you not thought about getting a mid-range for about £400?
I did have a Casio WK-3500 which allowed me to sample WAV files and bind it as a voice. Different key played different pitches of the same sound. It had a pretty comprehensive synthesiser, and allowed 6-track recording. The recordings could then be saved onto floppy disk or onto a Compact Flash card.
I've sold that now and soon be going for a Yamaha S550. This has 8-track recording and allows creation of beats/accompaniments, so it will double up as a drum machine.
He is working with Reason at the moment, which doesnt really work too well with outside sorces like synthesisers. It does have a sampler in it, but I think at this stage it would probably be a bit fiddly.
I will take a listen when I get home GF and see what I think... although by the sounds of it Twisted Trinity seems to have covered most of it.
but i suggest that you experiment, because thats the only way you are gonna learn...
Yeah totally, thats the best way. I just need a general point in the right direction for me to play with
So here is what I would do for doing something along those lines using reason.
Firstly add a Thor Synth to your rack. You wanna right click anywhere on the synth and click initilize. This will put you to the basic settings.
Now click on the show programmer button...
You will see that Ocsillator 1 is set to Analog Osc... click the drop down box and click noise.
You can set the noise to which ever one suits the sound you wanna make (White is the standard but it had others like colour and static)
Next you want to make sure the sound is sustained when you play the note. You will see on the synth a Filter Env and an Amp Env with ADSR and 4 faders above them, you need to set both of them as follows
Attack: Fader at the bottom
Decay: push it to the top
Sustain: also to the top
Release: put it to the bottom
(If you wanna know more about what this is and why just ask..)
You should now have a constant sound when any of the keys are hit.
Now add an RV-7 Digital Reverb effect to the thor and set that up how you want it to sound. I wouldnt over do the reverb because things can get muddy and you can lose alot of the orginal sound.
Next draw a note into the piano roll and we will do some automation.
You cant do portamento on the noise ocsilator of thor because each key is the same pitch so instead you want to add a volume automation track and a pitch automation track to the work area.
Set the pitch nice and low and the volume to nothing or nearly nothing, then raise them over time (say 4 or even 8 bars)
That would be the very basics of getting that kind of sound. I would layer it with some atmospheric pads or other sounds as white noise on its own might sound a bit static (no pun intended)
Also I would make about 3 or 4 copys of the sound we just did and layer them running different processing over each one... like one with a high pass or low pass filter, maybe one 100% wet on the reverb just to get a bit of airyness to it.
Its well worth learning how to use Thor properly. Its incredibly powerful. I don't use reason anymore but I do like mucking around with Thor to make DnB basslines sometimes...
hope this helps fella... if you get stuck just let me know..