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Aaaaalright, where my pros at? I have a question for you.

As you got better and began to understand music theory as well as mastering synthesizers: knowing what everything does; did you reach a point in your producing when you could make any sound you had in your head, and the only thing stopping you was your imagination.

I'm just wondering because I'm still a beginner and can't practice a lot due to GCSES, but when I hear a track, I usually end up thinking, "damn, I wish I could re-engineer that", is this a feeling you lose (not completely) as you get better?

if you put your mind to it you can in theory make any sound, just have to listen closely to what the producer you want to sound like does and add this to your own sounds.
also you just pick things up along the way, like literally EVERY time I make a new song i'll learn loads of new little tricks and by doing this for nearly 9 months I've managed to get to a stage where I know most of the basics to making decent sounds, my only downside is mastering still need to learn that I suck at mastering! ha ha
but yeah you just learn subconsciously and pick things up

I'm nowhere near a pro at this stuff, but I have definitely gotten better with every track I made.
Granted I only have 2 finished ones and probably 30 unfinished ones lol. I find myself though listening to some song now and I'm somewhat able to point out different effects or recognize sounds that I never had before. Just keep working at it. I've only been "producing" for about 5 months now. I use that term lightly because what I'm doing is more along the lines of learning haha.

FuzionDubstep wrote:if you put your mind to it you can in theory make any sound, just have to listen closely to what the producer you want to sound like does and add this to your own sounds.
also you just pick things up along the way, like literally EVERY time I make a new song i'll learn loads of new little tricks and by doing this for nearly 9 months I've managed to get to a stage where I know most of the basics to making decent sounds, my only downside is mastering still need to learn that I suck at mastering! ha ha
but yeah you just learn subconsciously and pick things up

Literally, practice practice practice. Your own limitations are only set by your imagination and how much time you put into it!

The "any sound that's in your head" kind of deal, is a bit over rated, I think. Most of the sounds in your head, you've already heard before somewhere. If you just let yourself be creative, and not worry about a certain sound, you may just come up with something WAY cooler!

-T

Sort of. I'm more worried about the drums more than the synths. I always feel like my drums/percs are shitty compared to others.

monkfish wrote:Aaaaalright, where my pros at? I have a question for you.

As you got better and began to understand music theory as well as mastering synthesizers: knowing what everything does; did you reach a point in your producing when you could make any sound you had in your head, and the only thing stopping you was your imagination.

I'm just wondering because I'm still a beginner and can't practice a lot due to GCSES, but when I hear a track, I usually end up thinking, "damn, I wish I could re-engineer that", is this a feeling you lose (not completely) as you get better?

Its more a matter of understanding what comprises a sound... like, might listen to a tune, and hear a bass patch I like, so Id break it down... Saw waves into resonant lowpass filter for squeal then a comb filter for metallics... or whatever.

What this leads to isnt so much a garenteed 100% accurate reproduction of a sound, but rather a rough path that will take me down the road to a sound that is similar and sometimes even better.

With the amount of flukes in synthesis, I doubt even the best of producers could perfectly recreate their OWN patches from scratch, much less other peoples... think about all the times youve made patches, how much of it has been by ear variables... Do you remember what decay time you used in your last reverb? Or the exact percentage of your last resonance knob? Fuck no you dont.

But you remember the jist of the techniques you applied, you re apply them with a new set of ears, and a new sound is born.

Rinse. Repeat.

Something like that.

There aren't too many sounds in my head that I'd want to make that I couldn't, in fact i can't really think of any, I can't make a lot of the dirtier sounds and stuff but i've never really been interested in making them, im sure i could pick it up pretty quick if i spent the time on it, in terms of music theory, taking songs out of my head and putting them on paper is relatively easy, a lot easier than the sound design side of things anyway, so i guess, yea, to a degree you do kinda get to that stage, there'll always be new things to learn and try out and new sounds to figure out, but you do get to a stage where you develop your own sound and your ideas flow quite freely from your head to your daw both in terms of sound design and the actual music.

Sound is 10000000x more complicated than we think it is. Music 100000000000x that. You'll always be chasing something. Sound and music are beyond human comprehension, everything we do is an approximation.

monkfish wrote:Aaaaalright, where my pros at? I have a question for you.

As you got better and began to understand music theory as well as mastering synthesizers: knowing what everything does; did you reach a point in your producing when you could make any sound you had in your head, and the only thing stopping you was your imagination.

I often wonder about this as well. Do people get so talented that they come up with a tune in their head and then faithfully reproduce it in their DAW? Or do they just have a general idea and are really good at building up a great track around it?
The same thing applies to painters and other artists (not the ones doing hyperrealistic stuff of course), do they visualize exactly what their end result is going to be?
My guess would be that the answer is probably somewhere in between those two. If you master the technique AND have great artistic vision something great will come out regardless.

Also, I'm not even close to being a "pro" but IMHO I think it's a great idea to sit down and try to recreate tunes sometimes. Sure, you'll fail (won't be able to 100% recreate the sound) but you'll also learn a lot in the process. If you have problems with making your drums sound good, sit down and try to recreate the drums from a track that you like. You'll learn a lot and improve your drums almost instantly.

nowaysj wrote:Sound is 10000000x more complicated than we think it is. Music 100000000000x that. You'll always be chasing something. Sound and music are beyond human comprehension, everything we do is an approximation.

This was very inspiring for some reason

I guess maybe because it reminded me of the vast unconquered musical territory that we all have the potential to reveal

Anyways, thanks for that!

You shouldn't lose that unless you stick your head up your own ass.

Kes-Es wrote:You shouldn't lose that unless you stick your head up your own ass.

I think when you hear producers saying shit like "everytime I sit down I finish a tune and it's always good" - most of the time they are being pretentious and probably lying. I know a lot of really "musical" and talented people, what separates them from me is the amount of time they put into perfecting a tune. The pro's will here something in the sound they don't like and work like mad to change it so it sounds good, whereas us regulars probably fall under the category of it sounds alright i'll leave it in. I don't think you'll ever reach a stage where you know exactly what you're doing; near enough all musicians suffer from writers block, and I can guarantee more people suffer with it, including professionals, than would like to admit it!!

There is a software that saves the patches you make and you can always recall the patch, settings and all details in the last patch, it's called REASON/RECORD, everyone who uses it can share and swap patches too, the patches are saved in a COMBINATOR, so that when you need "that" sound , you either go to the combinator folder or to your last track you produced and get re-use the patch..

Reason and Record is so intuitive , even though your a beginner, you will learn something everytime you open it up...

tintala wrote:There is a software that saves the patches you make and you can always recall the patch, settings and all details in the last patch, it's called REASON/RECORD, everyone who uses it can share and swap patches too, the patches are saved in a COMBINATOR, so that when you need "that" sound , you either go to the combinator folder or to your last track you produced and get re-use the patch..

Reason and Record is so intuitive , even though your a beginner, you will learn something everytime you open it up...

No way! Other synths should definitely implement saving patches

Captain Planet wrote:

tintala wrote:There is a software that saves the patches you make and you can always recall the patch, settings and all details in the last patch, it's called REASON/RECORD, everyone who uses it can share and swap patches too, the patches are saved in a COMBINATOR, so that when you need "that" sound , you either go to the combinator folder or to your last track you produced and get re-use the patch..

Reason and Record is so intuitive , even though your a beginner, you will learn something everytime you open it up...

No way! Other synths should definitely implement saving patches

Captain Planet wrote:

tintala wrote:

No way! Other synths should definitely implement saving patches

Some of mine do... and they're free.

I doubt some of them would work on windows/mac OS though

im not at the point where i can synthesize anything i want perfectly but i can get pretty close
the most annoying thing is not having enough keyboard skills / theory knowledge

as soon as i got better and gained more freedom with synthesis.. i quit doing it...

its like it wasn't challenging anymore... kinda like being able to emulate a style

i think its a disease... ahhaha

but seriously ... i think im just fooling myself, u never know everything.. and u can always outdo urself... just take a look at the first reflex ur having, and ask urself if that reflex is the only way to do what ur about to do...

woah, im opening fm8 right now

Captain Planet wrote:

tintala wrote:There is a software that saves the patches you make and you can always recall the patch, settings and all details in the last patch, it's called REASON/RECORD, everyone who uses it can share and swap patches too, the patches are saved in a COMBINATOR, so that when you need "that" sound , you either go to the combinator folder or to your last track you produced and get re-use the patch..

Reason and Record is so intuitive , even though your a beginner, you will learn something everytime you open it up...

No way! Other synths should definitely implement saving patches

FLOL!

For me I can have an idea of a sound and take close steps to getting there, I can imagine what waveforms/effects it would take to get it nearer but it's still pretty hit and miss whether it comes out exactly right or not.

And then if it doesn't, chances are you've got a new, intresting sound to play with.