Minimum HW and SW for top/professional audio quality output

[ef37a]

What I managed to achieve with Better Off Alone was a 6 (out of my personal scale between 0 and 10), but I want to get to 10 otherwise I will not enjoy it enough to sustain the effort required to get there

By the way, I bought the Motu2, the DT990 and the low entry gaming laptop only a few days ago. I did the cover with crappy headphones and the crappy default sound card of a my PC (Ryzen 5 - 6 cores 1600; 8 GB RAM).I think that the PC was still fine as the FL Studio CPU never went above 20%... I bought the laptop to get portable...with a significant upgrade of CPU and RAM not be forced to change it soon...

Cheers,
FullPoker

I think your original post wasn’t necessary, you seem to be doing fine.
Also, I find it a bit strange, that you’re rating the things you do on a "scale" of 1-10 this is all a bit clinical, and also, unnecessary.
Just concentrate on your music, and don’t over-think the gear.

Well, "Blows me down Olive" I find myself in almost complete agreement with you for once Mr Tony. (could have added "and room" Boom! Boom!)

Dave.

[Exalted Wombat]

Uncalled-for comment removed --ED.

[Eddy Deegan]

Come on EW, if you want to hear something then ask politely please.

[FullPoker]

But FullPoker has a way to go yet as he's just started out with music software. They're not going to go from someone's 6 to a 10 in a few weeks. Even if naturally talented in composition there's a lot of technique and understanding to pick up, which doesn't come quickly.

When you are new, it's very easy to think you've come up with a great sounding, well produced track, but compared to a full pro track, there will almost certainly be a lot missing, especially variations in sound, rhythm and 'fairy dust'.

You may get from 6 to an 8 fairly quickly with guidance and feedback, but the learning and progress becomes slower from then on.

So I'd suggest carrying on with what you've currently got until you maybe think you're at say an 8, and then review where you are and if you want to carry on. If you do, then think about room acoustic treatment and some good monitors. Because good monitors are only good in an acoustically treated room.

I agree completely!

Hi all,

I agree too! Apart from the topic of the monitors, for which I have zero experience so I cannot really comment.

By the way, I have just re-heard for the first time my "valued 6" track with the Motu and the DT990 and...Wow, it is another track! I hear a lot of things I did not hear with the crappy headphones. Mostly defects rather than nice things...Now I give it a "5" at best!

Anyway, thanks again to all for the replies..

Cheers,
FullPoker

[FullPoker]

What I managed to achieve with Better Off Alone was a 6 (out of my personal scale between 0 and 10), but I want to get to 10 otherwise I will not enjoy it enough to sustain the effort required to get there

By the way, I bought the Motu2, the DT990 and the low entry gaming laptop only a few days ago. I did the cover with crappy headphones and the crappy default sound card of a my PC (Ryzen 5 - 6 cores 1600; 8 GB RAM).I think that the PC was still fine as the FL Studio CPU never went above 20%... I bought the laptop to get portable...with a significant upgrade of CPU and RAM not be forced to change it soon...

Cheers,
FullPoker

I think your original post wasn’t necessary, you seem to be doing fine.
Also, I find it a bit strange, that you’re rating the things you do on a "scale" of 1-10 this is all a bit clinical, and also, unnecessary.
Just concentrate on your music, and don’t over-think the gear.

I hope you are right that I am doing fine. I find music production a huge challenge...the risk of giving up at the beginning is so real...I need motivation to keep going...to break the barrier...

By the way, now that I listened to it with the DT990 and MUTU2 (instead of crappy headphones and crappy PC audio card) I would give it a 5 at best...

Cheers,
FullPOker

[RichardT]

Come on EW, if you want to hear something then ask politely please.

Couldn’t agree more Eddy - it was a very aggressive and unnecessary post.

[RichardT]

You get better gear and your music doesn’t sound so good.

= success!

[FullPoker]

You get better gear and your music doesn’t sound so good.

= success!

Thanks to all, now I know that the gears I have are more than enough (i.e., it will take a lot a time/learning before they will play any significant limit to me). Good! This is very important to me. Now I can concentrate on the next steps.

As for the next steps, I think the following in a chronological order. Please comment/amend as needed:

1) Get fully familiar with the DAW layout (I have FL Studio Signature bundle). I am learning how the Channel Rack, Piano Roll, the Mixer, etc. do work. I think I am 50% through here. But learning shortcuts is key to save time and avoid frustration and slow progress...I miss still a lot there...

2) Learn how to create my own sounds! Besides the signature bundle, I have Augmented Orchestra and Quadra by UVI. So, I get a lot of nice preset sounds and effects in the package. But...I think that nothing is better than your on sounds, right? I have ZERO knowledge how to create sounds. I read that there are many different types of synthesizers (negative, FM, etc...) no clue yet what all that means. My priority is to create nice Chords, Pads, cinematics quality. Any specific tool where to initially focus to start learning and have some practice?
3) Once point 2 is achieved (I think it will require a lot of effort) what next? I I would learn the most important types of effects beyond reverb/delays. Probably EQ, Limiter, Compression are key right? I have have ZERO knowledge here too...

Thanks for any feedback you may give me on that...

Cheers,
FullPOker

[RichardT]

Personally I would skip the learning to create new sounds at the moment - starting out, you can create great results just by using presets. I'm not saying it's something you shouldn't do, you absolutely should, but I'd put it down the priority list for now. Others may not agree!

I think you have two main strands to develop - musical and technical.

On the technical side, yes, you need to learn your DAW and then the essentials of producing and mixing. I'd recommend Mike Senior's book (I mentioned it earlier) to learn pretty much all you need to know about mixing and the use the of EQs and compressors etc.

On the musical side it's up to you how far you go and in which direction, but for sure the more you learn the more variety you can inject into your music.

One very important area that crosses the musical and technical boundary is arrangement - what instruments play what notes at what time. I think this is an area where the very best producers often have an edge.

[Kwackman]

On the technical side, yes, you need to learn your DAW and then the essentials of producing and mixing. I'd recommend Mike Senior's book (I mentioned it earlier) to learn pretty much all you need to know about mixing and the use the of EQs and compressors etc.

Agreed, and there's also great articles from SOS magazine that are freely available, for example
https://www.soundonsound.com/forum/post ... e&p=860429
https://www.soundonsound.com/forum/post ... e&p=860429

and the glossary is very handy for "what does that mean" moments.
https://www.soundonsound.com/glossary

[Drew Stephenson]

Think you might have your links a bit confused there Kwackman!

[Drew Stephenson]

2) Learn how to create my own sounds! Besides the signature bundle, I have Augmented Orchestra and Quadra by UVI. So, I get a lot of nice preset sounds and effects in the package. But...I think that nothing is better than your on sounds, right? I have ZERO knowledge how to create sounds. I read that there are many different types of synthesizers (negative, FM, etc...) no clue yet what all that means.

Richard's point about using what's already available is a good one - especially when you start playing around with the options in the preset and then adding your own effects and automation.
But when you do decide to dig into that particular rabbit hole this extensive series on synthesis would be a great place to start: https://www.soundonsound.com/series/syn ... ound-sound

[Kwackman]

Think you might have your links a bit confused there Kwackman!

You're right!
My fault and too late to edit now.
So, here (hopefully correctly) are the 2 first links
Compression
Reverb

[FullPoker]

Thanks to all for the excellent support. I will do accordingly.
To be continued...

Cheers,
FullPoker

ps I am wondering if it would be wise to share here the mp3 of the cover I did to get some feedback better tailored to my beginner level...

[Wonks]

Why not. Songs for critique go in the Mixing, Mastering & Post Production forum.

The SOS site doesn't host files, audio or photos, so you'll need to host elsewhere e.g. Soundcloud and provide a link.

[FullPoker]

Wow...Mike Senior's book is worth the money!

I wish I had known it earlier...

I have already read 20% of it in one shot...

Among many things, nice to learn that something I perceived as very weird in my cover of Better Off Alone is not weird at all! I am referring to notes in the piano-roll that are perfectly synched to the DAW grid, but despite that do not sound perfectly in synch. And similarly with the pitch! I had spent tens of hours to try to fix it with only partial results. Now I know that it is a real issue and not something that I was just imaging...Nice to learn also that the notes before the one that sounds out of synch might be the cause of the problem and not necessarily that note...

Looking forward to keep reading the book. Sorry, but I could not help sharing this as I was considering synch and pitch as something like math rules which is totally wrong...Our brain does " nice" things...

Cheers,
FullPoker

[FullPoker]

I finished to read the book!

WoW, it was an experience... I learned the following:

- It will take me ages before I will be able to implement the learning effectively. I hope to get enough energy/fun/motivation to keep me going while I will try to apply what I have learned "on paper", otherwise the risk to give up is very high
- I found it surprisingly complex from a technical point of view. I am an engineer, with technical background in the electronic domain, but still I had some difficulties to understand some of the technicalities presented. I think that non-technical people can understand it only via practicing it in the DAW- I do not think they have a chance to understand it real-time while reading it
- The most positive aspect is that I found described in the book all (really all!) the problems I encountered in my cover: a) I got almost crazy with the fader of some instruments. Too loud, too weak, to average...my good! Now I know why!; I have to compress, equalize, etc...As little as needed...;b) I have to prioritize the most important tracks; they will compete and I have to give them space from both a time and frequency point of view according to their priority

I am really happy to have posted this post in this forum...
Thanks to those you have given me such valuable advice.

To be continued...

Cheers,
FullPoker

[Drew Stephenson]

It is a really good book, my copy is on the shelf behind me with plenty of pages marked for reference.
Like you, I read the whole thing through, but also like you I didn't fully understand it until I tried putting it into practice.
And yes, it takes ages to get really good at this, certainly longer than I've been doing it!
But the good news is that you can make a lot of progress quite quickly, so it's still a rewarding experience as go along.

[RichardT]

Getting hands on with some of the techniques will help you get to grips with them - especially compression where there are lots of dials to turn.

Mike talks about lots of tools in the book, but I’d suggest, to start with, you should concentrate on EQ, compression and reverb/delay. In my experience, 90% of problems with sampled instruments can be fixed with those (and that’s excluding dynamic EQs and parallel compression).

[Drew Stephenson]

I'd agree. 90% of mix issues can be fixed with EQ and Compression. But 90% of mix issues are caused by them too so make sure you're regularly checking back against your unprocessed sounds and reference mixes to make sure what you're doing is actually helping!

[The Elf]

I'd agree. 90% of mix issues can be fixed with EQ and Compression. But 90% of mix issues are caused by them too so make sure you're regularly checking back against your unprocessed sounds and reference mixes to make sure what you're doing is actually helping!

Wise words. Good though Mike's book is, I personally don't always gel with everything he says, yet for some it's become a bible of facts, as opposed to one way of doing things.

[Hugh Robjohns]

Ain't that always the way...?

To be fair to Mike, he is describing techniques that work for him and which he thinks (rightly) will help novices to make inroads into making good recordings and mixes.

There are always other ways and other techniques, and some might work better for some than others. Mixing on headphones being an obvious one...

[The Elf]

Don't get me wrong. I think Mike's book is great. I recommend it myself!

My point is that it's just too easy for beginners to believe that it's the only way. It becomes a manual, rather than guidance. That in itself can be dangerous and limiting. Even more so if the guidance is applied without the understanding of why it is being done. I feel sure Mike himself would agree.

[FullPoker]

Thanks to all. Indeed, I had built myself the same idea to focus first on compression and EQ first to fix most of the issues and then to apply reverb/delays for a cosmetic enhancement on something that should have by then reached a decent quality thanks to compression and EQ.

By the way, not sure if Mike wrote something about Spotify in his book. I remember that he wrote something about the quality of online music not being generally good enough to be used for building your reference library, but I am not sure if he mentioned Spotify specifically.

Would Spotify (set in the application to the highest available quality) be good enough for referencing?

Thanks.

Cheers,
FullPoker