How do you know what to do?

confusionsays · Post by **confusionsays** » Sun Aug 28, 2011 5:20 pm

I've been producing for almost 5 months and I have no idea how to tell when a synth is a good enough to get a song started. I get alot of sounds that I like all the time and have a huge library of sounds I've made but I'm having a lot of trouble with processing the synths themselves. I don't know when to add reverb, chorus, flanger, etc. and when I do add them it will completely change the sound I liked. I'm trying to get get sounds like Subfiltronik, BadKlaat, Requake, Vodex, Doomtrooper, Vylex, and Soap Dodgers, I'M NOT TRYING TO COPY THEM! I like the kind of dubstep these artists produce and I'm trying to produce it myself. Any tips, trick or help that could get me on the right track would be much appreciated, because at this point i'm just overly frustrated lol

ComfiStile · Post by **ComfiStile** » Sun Aug 28, 2011 5:27 pm

You can only know what effects a synth needs after you hear how it sits with the rest of the track. If it's a bit clinical sounding say, a little reverb or delay could soften it up. It's all about how all of the different elements fit together.

By all means though, whop effects straight on if you think it will add to the sound, usually the subtler the better.

lloydy · Post by **lloydy** » Sun Aug 28, 2011 5:48 pm

ComfiStile wrote:You can only know what effects a synth needs after you hear how it sits with the rest of the track. If it's a bit clinical sounding say, a little reverb or delay could soften it up. It's all about how all of the different elements fit together.

By all means though, whop effects straight on if you think it will add to the sound, usually the subtler the better.

Yeah i pretty much agree,i won't add things like reverb and delay unless i know it's not going to mess my mix.All sounds have to sit right or it will sound rubbish and overdoing effects is a sure way to get there.
Also getting the best sound from the synth before adding effects is really important in sound design,i have seen it said here many many times you cannot polish a turd.

-[2]DAY_- · Post by **-[2]DAY_-** » Sun Aug 28, 2011 7:10 pm

if i could get my low end basses+sub to sound anything like badklaat's, i'd know i was done tweaking....

It just comes with experience, knowing what tools you have in the kit that are available for mixing, vs. what techniques and equipment you have at your disposal for Sound design. you aren't going to design a sound as it sit perfectly in the mix. You have to bring it as close as possible and then apply necessary compression and/or corrective EQ, and reverb/delay as mix tools. (note, all those FX certainly can be useful in sound design but in this context are mix tools).

for example... maybe you have a pulsing synth via LFO to filter modulation... part of how you want to play the synth is by automating the filter bypass (for example, in NI Massive).. maybe for half the bar, you want to bypass your filters to allow the raw waveform to blast through and then return to a filtered pulse. So, you slap a square-wave LFO on the bypass fader. works great, except for the portion that you're bypassing, the sound is much louder and has a harsher top-end.

You could slap the same LFO on the gain knob(s) in reverse to compensate for the volume jump.... but maybe that's weakening the sound. What your solution is is to retain the characteristics you like about the sound, and fix the problems in the mix. So if you need it to stay tough but its volume is still bouncing all over the place, you finalize the sound,bounce it to audio, and apply compression. depending on the plugins you have, you ought to know which one most effective for leveling a synth line. a nice leveling amplifier like the UAD LA2A usually does it for me. Then apply the corrective EQ for removing unwanted ugliness, and further EQ for notching out space for other instruments.

sometimes soft-limiting is a final effect i put on this stuff to even out the output level.
Point being, you gotta put in the time necessary to know how much you're capable of doing after the fact, vs. what kinds of stuff you have to try to nail in the sound design stage. A lot of my difficulty personally, is knowing the difference. good luck

today

Turnipish_Thoughts · Post by **Turnipish_Thoughts** » Sun Aug 28, 2011 7:20 pm

I think the problem you're having isn't to do with effects or audio processing per see. When you make a synth patch you're shaping the timbre of a sound, manipulating harmonics e.t.c. creating the texture and flavour of a sound. This process is completely separate from melody/progression which is the backbone of any track.

Once you have a really groovy sound you like you need to spread it out over a melody, the thing is the melody its self could be played by any instrument. So what you're doing is making your instrument and going "right how can i make this into a song". You can't, just like you can't make a song by continually fiddling with the knobs on a guitar head.

I would advise getting stuck into melody/harmony/keys/modes and basic music theory. I would also advise using a basic piano patch to figure out your melodies and layering a very minimal basic beat that consist of only the prominent elements of the end beat you have in mind. Kick and snare is all you need. Get that rolling and mess with melodies in keys you want to write in. Once you've found a decent melody then copy the midi track to your synth and see how it sounds, from there you can tweak it about e.t.c.

so many people into production seriously neglect music theory and for some reason think that sound engineering, synthesis and understanding the innards of a daw is all they need to know to make music. No, it will make music you make sound more professional and aid you in knowing when to use what. but it will not teach you how to make music. That's what music theory is for.

steeze · Post by **steeze** » Sun Aug 28, 2011 7:27 pm

I know it's probably not the answer you want to hear but it's all practice, stop worrying so much about whether your sounds are up to scratch with the pros, because after 5 months they probably wont be, just focus on making sounds you like to the best of your ability and try and write as much as you can. Pretty soon you'll be able to tell what a sound is lacking almost instantly. You'll probably notice it most with EQ, at least I did anyway, being able to tell that a sound is too muddy and knowing that this means you you need to scoop out some 200hz business is the kind of thing you'll start doing without even thinking about it. It'll come man, have fun

mitchAUS · Post by **mitchAUS** » Mon Aug 29, 2011 2:33 am

dubturbo. u need dubturbo

mitchAUS · Post by **mitchAUS** » Mon Aug 29, 2011 2:36 am

but on a serious not read this:
http://www.dubstepforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=153739

confusionsays · Post by **confusionsays** » Mon Aug 29, 2011 4:18 am

Thank you for the replies guys, do any of you use reason? I would like to collab to get a better understanding of what im doing wrong/ doing right. I have millions of unfinished projects bcuz I feel like i use too much stuff. I read up on dub turbo and it sounds weak....

Codox · Post by **Codox** » Mon Aug 29, 2011 4:32 am

confusionsays wrote:I've been producing for almost 5 months and I have no idea how to tell when a synth is a good enough to get a song started. I get alot of sounds that I like all the time and have a huge library of sounds I've made but I'm having a lot of trouble with processing the synths themselves. I don't know when to add reverb, chorus, flanger, etc. and when I do add them it will completely change the sound I liked. I'm trying to get get sounds like Subfiltronik, BadKlaat, Requake, Vodex, Doomtrooper, Vylex, and Soap Dodgers, I'M NOT TRYING TO COPY THEM! I like the kind of dubstep these artists produce and I'm trying to produce it myself. Any tips, trick or help that could get me on the right track would be much appreciated, because at this point i'm just overly frustrated lol

throw some shit together, bit crush eq blah blah there

confusionsays · Post by **confusionsays** » Mon Aug 29, 2011 4:45 am

Codox wrote:
confusionsays wrote:I've been producing for almost 5 months and I have no idea how to tell when a synth is a good enough to get a song started. I get alot of sounds that I like all the time and have a huge library of sounds I've made but I'm having a lot of trouble with processing the synths themselves. I don't know when to add reverb, chorus, flanger, etc. and when I do add them it will completely change the sound I liked. I'm trying to get get sounds like Subfiltronik, BadKlaat, Requake, Vodex, Doomtrooper, Vylex, and Soap Dodgers, I'M NOT TRYING TO COPY THEM! I like the kind of dubstep these artists produce and I'm trying to produce it myself. Any tips, trick or help that could get me on the right track would be much appreciated, because at this point i'm just overly frustrated lol
throw some shit together, bit crush eq blah blah there

....great advice

mitchAUS · Post by **mitchAUS** » Mon Aug 29, 2011 7:12 am

confusionsays wrote:Thank you for the replies guys, do any of you use reason? I would like to collab to get a better understanding of what im doing wrong/ doing right. I have millions of unfinished projects bcuz I feel like i use too much stuff. I read up on dub turbo and it sounds weak....

i wasn't serious about dub tubo

Its possibly the worst thing I've ever seen

confusionsays · Post by **confusionsays** » Mon Aug 29, 2011 7:58 am

mitchAUS wrote:
confusionsays wrote:Thank you for the replies guys, do any of you use reason? I would like to collab to get a better understanding of what im doing wrong/ doing right. I have millions of unfinished projects bcuz I feel like i use too much stuff. I read up on dub turbo and it sounds weak....
i wasn't serious about dub tubo
Its possibly the worst thing I've ever seen

haha ok good

i was about to kill myself....

Mammoth · Post by **Mammoth** » Mon Aug 29, 2011 8:09 am

DUH TURBO AINT WEEK
Tinker is my suggestion. Tinkering is god.

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