Ask me a question! Anything relating to music production, mixing, mastering etc.
Topic says it all.
I'm making this a public post, so anyone can join.
I'm totally feeling festive on my holidays, and will be glad to answer some Qs relating to what I do: making music, mixing it, samples, sounds, mastering…nerdery!
May be slightly slow as I'll be sipping on my holiday brewskis 24/7 but will try to reply all Qs – unless they're huuuuge like "How to make good music that sells?", ha!
Comments (14)
Hi Janne. Greeting's from the UK. I was wondering. How many of the projects you start get finished. Do you try and finish all of them. Have you ever spent hours and hours on a project. Only to realise the next day it's totally turd. Do you ever have bad days in the studio where you feel like packing everything up and selling everything. I'm asking because that is the Roller Coaster im on at the moment. It's a psychological question but could be encouraging. Regard. Mark
Yes, Ive def spent hours and hours and it's not getting any better. I do have moments when things ain't working out even though I'm really hungry for it. And yes, not being stoked about something you loved yesterday is common. All this is part of the game. I recall Optical saying the same thing in his masterclass…one day you feel you got it, and the next day you dont get sh*t done or something, I do finish everything I keep, BUT I only keep what I find really good. I'm ruthless at deleting things. We can always create more. So trying to avoid the feeling of having too much to finish. Keep at it!
What compression setting would you recommend for sub bass?
Whatever works, really – might try 10ms attack, 50ms release, 2:1 ratio…or maybe even double those. I don't compress it per se unless it's too loud, obviously.
Did you ever / do you still skate?
Yeah! I live close to a nice park actually…but the season here is pretty short, so I mostly skate from April to Aug/Sep…there are indoor parks, and there's one somewhat close but it's so small and crowded, I don't really go there.
Apologies if you have already covered this elsewhere, but do you have any particular favourite approaches to creating tension and release in a track beyond things like risers?
Hmmm, not really! I actually often do these what could almost be called "anti-drops" where the track drops from a point where I make it nearly silent…I think that's what I do more often than builds-ups, actually!
How do you mix projects where you don't have the same plugins as the producer? Does the producer bounce all tracks down? If so, all prior (good or bad) choices they have made with reverbs and compression would be embedded...
I only accept audio tracks: saves all the hassle…no time for that! This is somewhat the industry standard way of working, as not having the same plugs can be a time-waster. Reverb and comp: will have to get to that later!
Happy well deserved holidays man. Imma use this opportunity to casually remind you about posting/walking through your template Live project. Also, Fanu ambient when
Good reminder! My Patreon topic list is long; will bump this in the list, as it's truly a good one. Ambient…I do a have deeper, "genreless" album in the works, and some of that would prob classify as ambient :)
Waves plugins don't seem to be revered in the same way as those from many boutique companies. Are there decent Waves plugins (compressors, reverb, limitor, drum shaping, etc.)? Do the bundles have value? (Horizon, Platinum, etc.)
I'm ssssuper sorry to say I've never really used any Waves stuff! Main reason for me is their annoying license thing: technically plugins can work on only one computer at a time, and you have to go thru cloud hassle to switch it to another computer…and soon you'd switch it back. I only have their Abbey Road Vinyl emu, and that is grand. I bet they are good, and I guess pros use them, too…and there are signature Waves plugins like Andrew Scheps, CLA etc., so cant be bad.