Dubstepforum.com

Hey folks. Another beginner looking to forward my production skills. Heavily into dub and I've got some ideas to mix a few electronia genres to make some pretty raw tracks. Thinking dark industrial cross psychedelic cross dubstep. Anyway, to start my quest I need to get my equipment sorted. Now please don't direct me to the bible. It's been skimmed through and notes have been taken!

I am curious if anyone produces off a laptop? I know they don't have the best sound cards which is why I am curious if they work okay? Planning to get a Monitor and MIDI controller ASAP and headphones later on.

I do value and rate the 'bible' but it doesn't do so much for a complete beginner. You guys have a nice list of equipment there but you don't say what any of it is really used for. To sort things out I just couldn't leave my questions at that.

So, if anyone was so kind to give a brief run through of what you guys do.. Very brief..

Something along the lines of...

1. Used MIDI Controller to synthesise individual beat
2. Compose relevant beats into a short loop using _________ software??
3. Add beats to DAW software
4. Compose/arrange different beats into a track using DAW software
5. Finished!



Now, that is a very inaccurate crude list of what to do and I am just using it as an pathetic example. If someone can tell me what you're doing, on what piece of equipment or software to end up with a track, that would be very helpful.



Cheers folk. Look forward to seeing you guys around once I become more acquainted with this place.

I use a laptop but I wish I had a desktop now that I'm 1 1/2 years into producing. You want a computer that can handle a lot of shit going on. Make sure your CPU is decent and memory and HD space need to be as high as possible. Building your own desktop pc might be an option if you are on a tight budget, because that would save you money.

GET STUDIO REFERENCE MONITORS. I cannot stress this enough. Until you are producing on a quality system (meant for studio) you won't be getting the results you want.

LEARN a DAW (this will take time). OR, learn Renoise (1-2 week learning curve).

See the thread of gain structure.

Make the music that you want to make, don't make music to get signed or to be a new "style". Make what YOU want to MAKE.

Also, you want an external soundcard. They aren't too expensive and plug straight into a USB slot and then handle all your audio.

I got a Hp pavillion with an i7 2.8ghz CPU, 4gb ram, 1gb nvid, it can handle pretty much anything I need. I use an audio 2 dj soundcard which connects to my other amp which then connects to my monitors and sub. I use a pcr 300 midi keyboard for mainly synth and bass line stuff and occassionally placing percussion. LookIng to get a desktop though so it's easier to upgrade in the future. Oh I use fl studio with renoise wired into it and just purchased massive and also got slot of other vsts. at the end of the day though it's not about gear

i use a white Macbook with Logic Pro, a pair of AKG701 headphones and Novation X Station, which is a midi keyboard and soundcard all in one.

It's do-able, although it's not ideal (will be moving back to proper speakers when i can). Before I had the keyboard, I was just doing it all off the headphone output on the Macbook. Again, it's do-able, I've had tracks released on vinyl that were written with no midi keyboard and mixed down on headphones - but it's a lot more fun with a keyboard to jam ideas on and some speakers you can crank a bit without destroying your eardrums!

I love the laptop route overall though - you are never far away from your studio and can write beats on trains, or take it round to someone else's place to swap ideas, or keep writing when you're on tour and would otherwise be away from your kit for 2 or 3 weeks....

laptop production is do-able, but its honestly a total pain in the ass... i did it for a year and recently switched to a desktop and the difference is like night and day. if you are serious about production, you should consider saving up for a desktop...

Rickmansworth wrote:laptop production is do-able, but its honestly a total pain in the ass... i did it for a year and recently switched to a desktop and the difference is like night and day. if you are serious about production, you should consider saving up for a desktop...

don't find any difference at all, obviously if you were using the on-board audio it might be a pain but i have a proper interface. don't see why you think the difference is night and day.

Rickmansworth wrote:laptop production is do-able, but its honestly a total pain in the ass... i did it for a year and recently switched to a desktop and the difference is like night and day. if you are serious about production, you should consider saving up for a desktop...

your going to get more bang for your buck out of a desktop so unless you need portability a desktop is going to get you more power.

jsills wrote:

Rickmansworth wrote:laptop production is do-able, but its honestly a total pain in the ass... i did it for a year and recently switched to a desktop and the difference is like night and day. if you are serious about production, you should consider saving up for a desktop...

your going to get more bang for your buck out of a desktop so unless you need portability a desktop is going to get you more power.

no doubt your money goes LOADS further, but all about specs rather than desktop automatically being better.

jsills wrote:

Rickmansworth wrote:laptop production is do-able, but its honestly a total pain in the ass... i did it for a year and recently switched to a desktop and the difference is like night and day. if you are serious about production, you should consider saving up for a desktop...

your going to get more bang for your buck out of a desktop so unless you need portability a desktop is going to get you more power.

this

got a macbook 2.2 ghz, recently upped to 4g ram, sometimes use an eidirol ua-25, sometimes a fireface, somtimes a motu 828 mk-2...

I dont really see what the problem is with a laptop... I mean yes it is a couple extra hundred but if you're serious about this, the portability can go a long way... I almost never leave home without my laptop... I bring it to my club night to record the podcasts, go to work with it and fuck around on some tunes on my lunch break... and I also do live sets with it...

it's just that much more versitle... if you wanna dj with your pc or do live sets and produce on the road... laptop... you can get an external screen for your home setup and have the best of both worlds

^^Its no problem theyre both gunna do the same thing, yes?

symmetricalsounds wrote:

jsills wrote:

Rickmansworth wrote:laptop production is do-able, but its honestly a total pain in the ass... i did it for a year and recently switched to a desktop and the difference is like night and day. if you are serious about production, you should consider saving up for a desktop...

your going to get more bang for your buck out of a desktop so unless you need portability a desktop is going to get you more power.

no doubt your money goes LOADS further, but all about specs rather than desktop automatically being better.

sorry that was implied, read the spec sheet compare the price tags......

symmetricalsounds wrote:

Rickmansworth wrote:laptop production is do-able, but its honestly a total pain in the ass... i did it for a year and recently switched to a desktop and the difference is like night and day. if you are serious about production, you should consider saving up for a desktop...

don't find any difference at all, obviously if you were using the on-board audio it might be a pain but i have a proper interface. don't see why you think the difference is night and day.

i was using a macbook with 2.2ghz and 4gb ram (with audio interface), then i switched over to one of the new imacs... maybe the CPU is just wayy faster, but I can now run like 20 instances of massive and plugins and still be under 40% cpu usage... on my laptop, it was about 5 instances of massive/plugins and i'd be at 80%+ CPU.

from my experiences, i'd say the macbook is tough for serious producers, unless you're religiously bouncing midi to audio.

Rickmansworth wrote:

symmetricalsounds wrote:

Rickmansworth wrote:laptop production is do-able, but its honestly a total pain in the ass... i did it for a year and recently switched to a desktop and the difference is like night and day. if you are serious about production, you should consider saving up for a desktop...

don't find any difference at all, obviously if you were using the on-board audio it might be a pain but i have a proper interface. don't see why you think the difference is night and day.

i was using a macbook with 2.2ghz and 4gb ram (with audio interface), then i switched over to one of the new imacs... maybe the CPU is just wayy faster, but I can now run like 20 instances of massive and plugins and still be under 40% cpu usage... on my laptop, it was about 5 instances of massive/plugins and i'd be at 80%+ CPU.

from my experiences, i'd say the macbook is tough for serious producers, unless you're religiously bouncing midi to audio.

it's because of cpu and ram difference. a top of the range macbook wouldn't be tough, although they do only go upto 2.8ghz dual-core but that's still a good amount of processing power. i've got less than that and don't have major issues unless i'm really pushing things but then freezing things is quick and easy.

deXtrous wrote:Hey folks. Another beginner looking to forward my production skills. Heavily into dub and I've got some ideas to mix a few electronia genres to make some pretty raw tracks. Thinking dark industrial cross psychedelic cross dubstep. Anyway, to start my quest I need to get my equipment sorted. Now please don't direct me to the bible. It's been skimmed through and notes have been taken!

I am curious if anyone produces off a laptop? I know they don't have the best sound cards which is why I am curious if they work okay? Planning to get a Monitor and MIDI controller ASAP and headphones later on.

I do value and rate the 'bible' but it doesn't do so much for a complete beginner. You guys have a nice list of equipment there but you don't say what any of it is really used for. To sort things out I just couldn't leave my questions at that.

So, if anyone was so kind to give a brief run through of what you guys do.. Very brief..

Something along the lines of...

1. Used MIDI Controller to synthesise individual beat
2. Compose relevant beats into a short loop using _________ software??
3. Add beats to DAW software
4. Compose/arrange different beats into a track using DAW software
5. Finished!



Now, that is a very inaccurate crude list of what to do and I am just using it as an pathetic example. If someone can tell me what you're doing, on what piece of equipment or software to end up with a track, that would be very helpful.



Cheers folk. Look forward to seeing you guys around once I become more acquainted with this place.

To the OP...

Caveat: this is of course a gross generalization and over simplification of many things; on others I am probably wrong. But

1. You use a DAW (digital audio workstation e.g. Ableton Live, Logic, Reason) as your 'virtual recording, making, and mixing studio'. With a computer you can do everything inside one DAW.
2. Within that DAW you can have a number of tracks, either audio or midi data (normally)
3. If the track is a midi track it will need to have something for the midi data to tell to make noise (e.g. a sampler or a virtual synthesizer).
4. So for example audio track 1 might have kicks on it, audio 2 might have snares. OR midi track 1 might have midi data where you want the kicks to go, which tells a drum machine when to play its sound (or you might have both audio and midi kicks, or whatever).
5. Virtual synthesizers can be used, which can be made to play the noises you have created, again by midi data.
6. Or samplers can be used, with midi data telling the sampler when to play the sample(s) loaded into it.
7. You then create a song (easier said than done). You obviously need progression and a number of parts. Once you have a song, you then need to mix it.
8. Mixing in production terms is not what a DJ does, rather it is the process of balancing the volumes of all the individual tracks, and the distribution of tones across the frequency and stereo spectrum. For example you want kicks and snares at similar (ish) volume so one of them isn't deafening whilst the other is inaudible. Another example, you (normally) don't want two things to occupy the same frequency space. So if your sub bass peaks at 50hz and your kick peaks at 50hz you are in trouble, and will have muddy, loud, mixes - two things in the same space makes it cluttered.
9. This is most of the way to a finished track, if you are getting things released or are feeling like you want to pay, you can then get it mastered. This polishes it. See MACC's posts on here, he is a guru. However, this is the last step. What is important is the thing underneath the polishing, you can't polish a turd.
10. Read this: http://www.dubstepforum.com/this-thread ... 74832.html
11. Read these: http://www.dubstepforum.com/production- ... 32399.html
11. There are about 41 million other things to learn about producing electronic music. Fortunately most of it is on teh internetz. Search, download tutorials, watch youtube, read forums, there is so much amazing information out there.

Good luck!