The Grid in shedload of good info shocker

[serox]

what worries me more than my lack of understanding though is that i positively don't want to understand that stuff. i don't want to hear music in those terms. but is it possible to produce the fattest dance music in a purely software environment without that kind of understanding? i constantly improve, but still my mixes sound odd and lack largeness. it must be possible though still... i hope!

agreed. All I know is in the 90s there were a lot of good tracks made and they didnt know what they were doing most of the time!

All this stuff is too geeky, I just want to make music.

[nospin]

cheers for the positive words MK2!

what worries me more than my lack of understanding though is that i positively don't want to understand that stuff. i don't want to hear music in those terms. but is it possible to produce the fattest dance music in a purely software environment without that kind of understanding? i constantly improve, but still my mixes sound odd and lack largeness. it must be possible though still... i hope!

I dunno, in a lot of areas it seems like some people learn best by just accumulating shedloads of experience, other people find it easier to use a bit of technical theory to make sense of their experience. It's like you could learn how to use a subtractive synth by just twiddling knobs with no idea of what 'cutoff' and 'decay' and 'pulsewidth' mean and just getting used to how the knobs effect the sound, whereas other people find that it helps them to make sense of what they're hearing if they know that lowering the cutoff takes out more high range from the oscillator and changing the decay will have an effect on how fast something falls away.

yeh of course, i guess i just wonder whether one approach is ultimately limiting when it comes to achieving really top-level mixes. my path has very much been a matter of just playing, and often deducing the more basic theoretical stuff afterwards. i just wonder whether this approach limits what i will ultimately be able to achieve

i think people stuck in either approach would benefit from forcing themselves outside of their comfort zone and trying and learning from the other.

also, it depends on your ultimate goal...
you can certainly establish your own artistic sound without being a tech geek... and produce many good and interesting tracks based on what you know and what you like

but it would be pretty hard to become a mastering engineer (or even a mix engineer) who's job it is to satisfy their client and be capable of making all different kinds of mixes, without a little more attention to the hows and whys of the smallest details.

[corpsey]

Has anyone got a link for a book that teaches you basics of production i.e. EQing, compression etc.?

Preferably one I can hold in my hands rather than stare at on-screen.

[james fox]

i have a wicked one called 'the mastering engineers handbook' by bobby owsinski, or similar - you can get it off amazon. not strictly for dance music but full of nuggets of info that will help loads