Minimum HW and SW for top/professional audio quality output

[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