Tuesday, April 13, 2010

NOTES FOR 4.14.2010


(Todays Session Above)

Well, short session today...for a couple reasons....but first, lets talk about the notes for today since I will forget if I dont write this one down. It was a good one.

Today, I was cleaning up the bass's, EQing them, and adding a smidge of attack to get a heavier sound. I was side-chaining, and in this particular circumstance, the sidechain was really NOTICEABLE because the kick and bass happen to be really close in frequency in the low bass region. It was just too noticeable of a compression with the threshold LOW, and not enough with it high. Even playing with attack and release didnt seem to be useful. So what I did (as in the picture above), I put a filter on the sidechain compression to match that of the kick. That way, its removing only the clashing element, and still staying around for a general bass/kick driven song. Worked really well. I also split up my bass tracks to eq them separately because one has 2 octave higher harmony....so I wanted a crispier sound on that bass element.

Also, if you look at the EQ in the picture, I added harmonic overtones to the whole bass sound to make it much richer in sound and a little less (low pass) sounding.

Today, I was also thinking about using a HP filter, with a NOISE LFO on it for the kick at the beginning...filter high, and jumping all over the place. Is that too asshole to do to other DJs for mixing? I ended up taking it off.

Also, today, I was going to try to finish the ending of this track, and do the mix-out part...but it ended up taking a life of its own into another part of the song. I just cut up the bass line, and it was too funky not to make a beat out of it again. So, looks like I got more work to do on this track. But not today.

Anyway, a few things are going on in my head recently about music....and its really hard to make music with it on my mind. Ive decided...1. NEW MONITORS. I dont like these JBL, they are old, and they suck. New monitors. That brings me to problem 2....before I buy monitors, I need to know everything about speakers before I do it. This EQing world is important, and without just the right monitors for my place...its just a waste. So I need to study a little.

Also, I need to put about an extra day of EQing on top of each track (or more) than I do now. I just cant EQ right here until I get better monitors. I realized after sending tracks back and forth from my engineer in Vancouver, that I am just not hearing things FLAT. So, until I get good monitors...its kind of pointless to work on tracks...so its study time. I downloaded about 2000+ pages of eBooks on EQing, Music theory, and synthesis. I figure, I will study for the next week or 2, new speakers come in, and clean up all my ableton sets and templates nicely, and then re-kick back into track making. Ive been getting about 4-6 hours of music time each day mon-fri, so I will just convert that into reading those eBooks, and take a break from the computer. The weather is nice, and Osaka Jo Park is so close, I can just go out there in the mornings, read, and relax. I need a defrag.

I got kind of discouraged because of the mastering my engineer was doing...and its so hard to hear things exactly right on shit speakers. I mean, these are JBL's, but old....and def not the best for what I am doing. In japan, unless you have a full blown studio (and thats bitchin expensive in the city)...you kinda gotta keep the volume low. So, I am going to look for a pair of monitors that pack a punch into a smaller design....Genelec maybe.

So, I am printing out those eBooks into manuals tomorrow...and time to hits the books a little. You can never have to much info about music.

Peace!

FroBot

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