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Recording Equipment and Questions, Advice, Etc.


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I'm so lame.  I decided to just stick with my old macbook and garageband and am going to upgrade the harddrive/battery in this thing, after all that advice.

I know someone said Pro Tools/Logic is the industry standard, but the more I fiddle with Garageband, the more I realize there's no reason why you can't get what you want for your sound out of this...you're better off improving what goes in no?  Unless you're an EDM electronic producer, I don't see the point of upgrading.  I was watching this doc on this guy, Steve Lacy, he produced an entire album on his iphone with an iRig and garageband mobile.  He's produced a song for Kendrick Lamar, on his iphone, the kid is like 17 too.  

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23 minutes ago, NJansaid said:

I'm so lame.  I decided to just stick with my old macbook and garageband and am going to upgrade the harddrive/battery in this thing, after all that advice.

I know someone said Pro Tools/Logic is the industry standard, but the more I fiddle with Garageband, the more I realize there's no reason why you can't get what you want for your sound out of this...you're better off improving what goes in no?  Unless you're an EDM electronic producer, I don't see the point of upgrading.  I was watching this doc on this guy, Steve Lacy, he produced an entire album on his iphone with an iRig and garageband mobile.  He's produced a song for Kendrick Lamar, on his iphone, the kid is like 17 too.  

I think what a lot of people don't ask themselves is do they really NEED industry standard ... I get the creative outlet because I do it too but people tend to go over board with these sorts of things to no real justification.

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10 minutes ago, Margie Whipple's Rage said:

I think what a lot of people don't ask themselves is do they really NEED industry standard ... I get the creative outlet because I do it too but people tend to go over board with these sorts of things to no real justification.

I think people think it's going to make them sound better and more professional.  It's not like the virtual instruments in one DAW are going to be out of tune or something. If you are using live instruments, it really makes no difference..they all catch the same mic and all can splice up and arrange the parts how you want it.  I just scrolled through hundreds of variations in synths/strings on Garageband, the free one, and you can have thousands of possibilities considering you can change the pitches, octaves, etc..and can download more.

They really sell it well on all these youtube channels.  You MUST change from Pro Tools to Studio One.

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What I'd recommend Jan is watching some Recording Revolution. He's a weird christian producer but has a few series based around doing a lot with very little equipment wise, and he's a big advocate for starting with the DAW most easily accessible to you. I have learned so many little tricks from him, if you're looking at getting into this stuff I think he's a great place to start. 

For example, he did a playlist of recording everything for under $300 and shows you how he does it. He has a few playlists for different stuff and other guides -

 

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10 hours ago, Margie Whipple's Rage said:

I think what a lot of people don't ask themselves is do they really NEED industry standard ... I get the creative outlet because I do it too but people tend to go over board with these sorts of things to no real justification.

For me its easier to use pro tools because when i pay someone for a mix they always use pro tools. And i talked to one of the most busy mixers here and he says its a pain in the ass when he has to convert tons af tracks in the session he gets sent one by one so he can import it, again one by one into his session. So i think thats a big reason to use industry standard if you’re gonna get someone else to mix and master your music. 

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1 hour ago, Regi. said:

For me its easier to use pro tools because when i pay someone for a mix they always use pro tools. And i talked to one of the most busy mixers here and he says its a pain in the ass when he has to convert tons af tracks in the session he gets sent one by one so he can import it, again one by one into his session. So i think thats a big reason to use industry standard if you’re gonna get someone else to mix and master your music. 

If i send a track of mine to a different mixong engineer i dont want him to work in my session anyway. He just gets the stems and a raw mix, so it doesnt matter what daw you come from.

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30 minutes ago, Neal said:

If i send a track of mine to a different mixong engineer i dont want him to work in my session anyway. He just gets the stems and a raw mix, so it doesnt matter what daw you come from.

Why? Its common practice to send the whole session so it can be worked in. Often the engineer who worked on the recording and the producer have put some plugins in the session for some specific effects and sounds and its good for the mixer to be able to tweak it a little to fit his mix. The session shouldnt be a secret or something. If you want the best sound the mixer should be able to have full access. 

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2 minutes ago, Regi. said:

Why? Its common practice to send the whole session so it can be worked in. Often the engineer who worked on the recording and the producer have put some plugins in the session for some specific effects and sounds and its good for the mixer to be able to tweak it a little to fit his mix. The session shouldnt be a secret or something. If you want the best sound the mixer should be able to have full access. 

I agree with this. Anytime I've used an outside person to do a mix we have always sent the whole session.

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Yeah, I've always sent the whole Pro Tools session to the guy that mixes my stuff. If he doesn't have the plug-ins I use, then I tend to make another audio track and record the track with the plug-in onto the audio track I've just created. I'll do this more with guitar effects like delay, flanger or whatever.

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5 hours ago, Kay said:

What I'd recommend Jan is watching some Recording Revolution. He's a weird christian producer but has a few series based around doing a lot with very little equipment wise, and he's a big advocate for starting with the DAW most easily accessible to you. I have learned so many little tricks from him, if you're looking at getting into this stuff I think he's a great place to start. 

For example, he did a playlist of recording everything for under $300 and shows you how he does it. He has a few playlists for different stuff and other guides -

 

Yeah I came across him and it did reassure everything. He has good insights

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1 hour ago, NJansaid said:

Elaborate?  

I dont want the mixing engineer to be biased by the kind of plugins i'm using and the session i am working on. Thats why i rather have him import the stems into a new session and gives the song his own spin. I'll attach a rough mix so he has a vague idea where i want it to go. But if i'm recording something myself i make sure that i fully commit to each sound and the job of the mixing engineer is to glue it together, and not to waste time with stuff i could've done myself or messing around with sounds. Thats not his job

Printing stems in pro tools is a nightmare though, i dont know if they added multitrack export lately, but when i was on protools you always had to print stems one by one in realtime. Aint nobody got time fo that

Edit: @Regi. It has nothing to do with being secretive. But with restricting myself to only deliver the stems, i bring myself to make sure to fully commit to a sound with less"well my engineer will fix that in the mix". 

A lot of mixing starts in choosing the right sound and tweaking it. Imo thats my job, not the mixing engineer's...

I like my roughmix to be 90% where i want the song to be. A fresh pair of experienced ears adds 10-20%...

I used to send over entire sessions, but from my experience i definately favour the stems aproach and so does my go to mix guy. He gets a fresh start... Also most mixing engineers have their own mixing session template anyway

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5 hours ago, Neal said:

By the way, I dont want to present my workflow here as the"right" way. It's only my opinion. Everyone has different ways to get where he wants to , and that's how it should be!

i love learning from other people's approach

 

Tell me if you find any flaws in my approach..it's clear you have a lot more experience.

Step 1. Write, travel, write. Get everything in mind.  

Step 2. Record the acoustic guitar via condenser mic into DAW.

Step 3. Record MIDI keys, drums, etc.

Step 4. Apply plug ins/edit tones of instruments

Step 5. Step the fuck outside, take a break

Step 6. Edit around/line up tracks and fades/volumes

Step 7. Play on different speakers/headphones

Step 8.   *This is where I get stuck* This would be mastering right? 

Step 9. Export into an MP3 ready to unleash onto the world and become famous.

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4 hours ago, NJansaid said:

Tell me if you find any flaws in my approach..it's clear you have a lot more experience.

Step 1. Write, travel, write. Get everything in mind.  

Step 2. Record the acoustic guitar via condenser mic into DAW.

Step 3. Record MIDI keys, drums, etc.

Step 4. Apply plug ins/edit tones of instruments

Step 5. Step the fuck outside, take a break

Step 6. Edit around/line up tracks and fades/volumes

Step 7. Play on different speakers/headphones

Step 8.   *This is where I get stuck* This would be mastering right? 

Step 9. Export into an MP3 ready to unleash onto the world and become famous.

Haha sure yeah. Its different for everyone. For me I usually just write a “rough” song chord wise and structure. Record a scratch bass or just raw DI guitar. Then record the drums over that. Its just for the drummer to know how the song goes. Then i record bass and guitar chords and usually write the riffs or any other guitar over what i recorded. And listen over and over for some vocal melodies but it helps me to write words to find the right melody. So its a mix of writing before recording and writing after. 

I think i’ve never written a complete song before recording. I usually know when i have just enough to start something. 

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8 hours ago, Regi. said:

Haha sure yeah. Its different for everyone. For me I usually just write a “rough” song chord wise and structure. Record a scratch bass or just raw DI guitar. Then record the drums over that. Its just for the drummer to know how the song goes. Then i record bass and guitar chords and usually write the riffs or any other guitar over what i recorded. And listen over and over for some vocal melodies but it helps me to write words to find the right melody. So its a mix of writing before recording and writing after. 

I think i’ve never written a complete song before recording. I usually know when i have just enough to start something. 

That's so weird to me. I'll have a whole song written guitar / vocals wise before touching recording, unless I'm just recording rough ideas to share with band mates to build the rest of the song later, but if so I wouldn't use that session to record it properly. 

Scratch tracks are super helpful though, especially vocal. I tend to lay a scratch vocal take for when I'm recording everything else and then re-record the main vocal and harmonies last so it's easier to find it's balance in the mix. if I do it too early on it's like I become deaf to where the vocals should land. 

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5 hours ago, Kay said:

That's so weird to me. I'll have a whole song written guitar / vocals wise before touching recording, unless I'm just recording rough ideas to share with band mates to build the rest of the song later, but if so I wouldn't use that session to record it properly. 

Scratch tracks are super helpful though, especially vocal. I tend to lay a scratch vocal take for when I'm recording everything else and then re-record the main vocal and harmonies last so it's easier to find it's balance in the mix. if I do it too early on it's like I become deaf to where the vocals should land. 

Well yeah. Different for everyone. I just love to write while recording and it helps me to have something down to find riffs or melodies and write lyrics. Sometimes me and the drummer met, i only got the vibe of the song, some chords and he found a beat, then we just recorded the drums and i found out later how the rest was gonna go. Love it 

 

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