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  1. Seems like you're trying to fix a performance problem with mixing which never turns out well. When you work with a good vocalist it's easy to record and mix. Bad/mediocre vocals can't be fixed even by the best mixer. This totally depends on the genre though. A lot of songs I enjoy don't have the best vocals.

  2. If you're making EDM it is better to have more than one synth. It's not that you can't make a very full range of sounds with one synth. It's about time and inspiration. Each synth has sounds they excel in. Yeah you can make almost any sound with any synth but how long does it take?

  3. One strategy in mixing is to put a lot of attention to individual busses and tracks so minimal processing is needed on the mix and master bus. When you do this some of the tasks usually done on the master or mix bus are done on individual busses. The advantage is that any clipping, limiting, saturation or compression is focused on the bus. I strive to get a good sounding reasonably loud mix with no processing on the mix or master bus. Once I have a solid mix I'll start adding mix and master bus processing.

  4. It's not only possible it's standard operating procedure for hip hop, EDM and modern pop. One of the most difficult tasks in mixing is balancing the sub bass, mid bass and kick drum. To do this you first need to hear it which requires either a good pair of headphones or a treated room with full range monitors and sub. Or both. Most people use a combination of sidechaining and ducking to make the low end coherent and full sounding. Lots to learn but essential for modern low end.

  5. Arturia effects sound good. They model all the vintage gear everyone else models. Most of the effects have an advanced tab which is pretty nice. I routinely use Intensity Reverb and Culture Vulture Saturation. Their granular software is the most useful granular effect that I use. Don't use the other software all that much. Seems to be very competitive just not into vintage effects that much.

  6. Any problems with stability and/or latency? Anything inshould be aware of?

  7. Latency is determined by your interface and computer. Some VSTs cause latency and you can check for that buy viewing "performance meter" which will give you the latency in PDC. I like to keep my PDC below 250 while tracking or performing.

  8. Valid take on vital - have you tried lowering the voice count on the chorus? Using filter drive on a peak filter instead of distortion (each model sounds different!), or using low attack/release compression for distortion? Lots of weird little tricks that expand its range. I just can’t get away from modulation remap now that I know how to use it.

  9. Vital has a lot of unique capabilities. The pitch filter is one that I've used a lot. If I had to design a sound totally from scratch Vital might be my choice. It's just laid out so logically and I love the one page interface. I got it upon release and have spent several hundred hours with it.

  10. Which effects from pigments do you really value? I’ve been only so-so on them myself, have pigments and love it for the granular capability but haven’t been particularly blown away aside from that - it’s well competent but I see it as equivalent to vital and I know vital better. Just tryna learn what makes it great!

  11. For me the biggest differences between Vital are filers, reverb, granular, delay and arp. I also find it useful to shop the Arturia store which has up to date, well organized preset packs. I'm very experienced with making sounds from scratch but these days I'll write using presets and then tweak those.

  12. I'm not sure they're coming back. About 10 years ago there was an indie/lofi cassette revival but that was short lived. No one owns cassette decks anymore and inexpensive portable cassette players have azimuth and other issues.

  13. This is my big question. I know some of the mixes I make will end up on cassette, and the fact is I'm now seeing cassettes on merch tables more often than not.

  14. I did mastering supervision and quality control for a lot of multi-format releases CD/LP/Cass and never changed the cassette master from the CD master. I did experiment with boosting the high end but it was a subtle change and not worth worrying about. Yes an engineer in a treated room will hear a subtle difference but no real world differences. The tape duplication facility and quality of tape used is much more important.

  15. I say go with what you have. The whole concept of an album is changing. Some artists release multiple singles because new releases have the best chances of getting played and if you release 10 songs at once most of these will be unheard. If your material spans multiple genres you may want to target a song to specific playlists.

  16. There's like 6 and they all have midi message assignments to NI plug ins. I don't know of any other midi controller that integrates that seamlessly, but let me know if you find one.

  17. Arturia Keylab words great with Analog Lab. 18 controllers mapped to every patch. I got Analog Lab 5 free when I bought 61 Keylab essential. Analog Lab also controls Pigments and the Arturia Syth collection so it's pretty useful. Even if you don't buy the other Arturia software Analog Lab will play any preset pack Arturia makes.

  18. One of the best tools to learn compression is to get a channel strip or compressor that has the 3 main compressor types and switch back and forth between them. I think this is important because you keep the same levels attack/release/mix settings as you switch compressors. Scientific method of changing one variable at a time.

  19. MBM has given you a very nice list. This is a great place to start. If you tell us which genre you're making can provide additional resources.

  20. I hear an acoustic guitar layered with an electric. With a strat you could get close with an acoustic guitar plugin like NA acoustic voice or Thu acoustic library. If you know a little bit about buying guitars you can usually find an OK sounding, beat up looking acoustic for pretty cheap. I bought a 30 year old MIJ Yamaha in a pawn shop for 70$. Had writing and stickers on it but it sounded good enough.

  21. When you're hiring session vocalists it really helps to have a vocal guide track. Almost anyone can make a vocal guide track if they try. I get better results croaking out the vocals then making an instrumental vocal guide track.

  22. I think it's important to have a name that can be found using Google. If you have a generic name that may be difficult. If you do use a stage name take the time to research and see what other groups have used that name and what happens when you google the name. I've known people that developed art and branding for their music only to find out afterwards what happens on the Internet. I share a name with an author, a cult figure and several hundred individuals with Internet profiles. Won't be trying to brand my name.

  23. Sounds like a limiter issue as TM said. What's on your master chain? Try removing the limiter and possibly using another limiter and comparing results.

  24. i added more pictures to the og post. (your test is there, thank you!)

  25. I can see the output file isn't quite as flattened out so it looks like the limiter is gone or lowered. It would be interesting to look at the final render screen for the "no limiter" test.

  26. Session musicians got involved when bands had tuning and timing issues. These issues will hurt any song. In the old days of 24 track tape audio we didn't have the ability to address these the way we can now with DAW wizardry. The only practical way to get tuning and timing accuracy was to record it that way.

  27. Wavetable synths like Serum, Pigments, Vital, Phaseplant and Massive X are all pretty similar in basic functionality but have quite a difference in sound generation. Phaseplant is interesting from a learning perspective since it's semi modular and you get to build everything from scratch. I prefer Pigments myself since the effects section is large and sounds good. A lot of synth/sound design relies on effects so learning Pigments is good from the the education and sound generation perspective.

  28. Idk if buying new is a good idea, laptops retain their value very poorly over time and upgrading parts is hard/impossible compared to PCs so ur usually stuck with whatever specs you initially buy. Also the guy that said to look for Windows laptops without a GPU is 100% correct since Reaper doesn't utilize GPU at all so unless you also want to use it for games it would be a complete waste money and would also cause your battery to drain fairly quicker. In terms of CPU for Reaper I really don't think you'd benefit from anything past an i7.

  29. Reaper may not use GPU but many VSTs are GPU heavy so still a consideration.

  30. The biggest problem most people have with composing is that they don't do it enough. A composer/beatmaker/songwriter that creates 10 tracks a year is not going to be as good as someone that writes 100 tracks a year. A method that works for me is to create a song in one session and mix it the next day. Then I move on to writing another track and repeat. I keep listening to the tracks and pick which songs I'll work further on. Sometimes I'll write one good song after another and other times I'll have 4 or 5 mediocre tracks in a row.

  31. Music theory came about by educators analyzing music. It's not like a music theorist came up with an idea and a musician implemented it. It's important to know the theory behind music, but the most important thing is to be able to take music out of your mind and make it real.

  32. My suggestion is to try the UVI subscription. $25 a month for amazing libraries and top level effects. I own a lot of UVI software and I got the sub because there are libraries I don't use often but appreciate the high quality. If you like unique keyboards the keysuite package has that covered. Like others I also recommend Kontakt. UVI Falcon is far more powerful but there are so many good Kontakt libraries out there it's best to have both.

  33. Some reverb software has a ducking control which cuts the reverb when the original signal is present. This functions as an internal sidechain, no routing required. This will take care of a lot of cleanup. If you use ducking on a reverb bus it will duck based on the combined signal so this may or may not be what you want. It will probably work for a backup vocal bus but won't work as well for a multi-keyboard or drum mix. Thought I'd mention in case you didn't know.

  34. Man this was so helpful! A reverb with an internal sidechain sounds so useful! Do you use/recommend one?

  35. My favorite reverb with ducking these days is Arturia Intensity. Has really nice algos. Baby Audio's Crystalline has extensive reverb control but doesn't sound quite as rich. Both go on sale for $50 frequently. I'd try Intensity first. They both have demos. I own way too many reverbs but Intensity and the SIR convolution reverbs are the only ones I currently use.

  36. This is a pet peeve of mine with certain players. An E played on second fret of the D string will not have the same energy as if it’s played on the 12th fret of the E-string and a lot players don’t get this. I’m not saying you are these certain players though.

  37. You're right the player has a lot of control over this. I have the same pet peeve. People searching for technical fixes for performance issues. If you're not involved in the recording process that's a different matter but if you are re-track.

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