Can not get a single forward - need some feedback please

[djrmusic]

Very helpful feedback.

Thanks Matt

I agree with Mark and sources of great contemporary sounds seem to be one of the secrets that even the most friendly people are rather unwilling to share From my experience standard quality products e.g. Kontakt Ultimate will certainly give you good 'basic' sounds but (without tweaking them) they will not instantly sound contemporary and it took me quite a while (and a lot of research) to finally find the right VSTs - what is 'right' is obviously genre dependent but e.g. Output.com, Producer's choice, moderproducers.com etc. offer VSTs & presets that sound contemporary. In other words, there are lots of good quality well known VSTs that sound great but that alone does not make them sound contemporary. So you either find good standard products and finesse them and use a lot of modern production techniques (I'm sure there are lots of Youtube tutorials for that) or you use 'boutique' VSTs that offer contemporary sounds/presets out of the box but be prepared that you need to spend some time doing research on these topics to get it right.
My five cents.
Cheers,
Matt

[cosmicdolphin]

Mark,

Thanks for taking the time to listen. I really appreciate it.

I thought I was using some high quality sounds. I have Keyscape and Trillain for the keys and bass and Vienna for the strings and I have spent time learning how to use them. Guess I'm going to have to dig deeping.

Thanks again for the feedback.

Dave

The worst thing was the drums for me ..what are you using for those ?

Keyscape is good but the piano sound in your track does not have any of the depth or realism of the presets I listened to online ? So that's either something to do with choosing the wrong sound, treating it in a way that makes it worse i.e. eq-ing some of the character and tone out of it or you haven't played it sympathetically i.e. velocities etc. Or all 3. It is possible to make high quality instruments sound cheap if you don't use 'em right. And vice versa - you can make free or low cost stuff sound good if you know your stuff really well.

Trillian I've never used although it was well rated 10yrs ago I have no idea how it stacks up now. I use Scarbee Rickenbacker when I need a trad bass personally.

Vienna strings..well it depends which ones but generally they seem well regarded . Again I haven't used them personally but if you play them with no expression controllers they will sound fake and if you also don't mix everything else in with them in a way that they all gel it just exacerbates it.

So it seems like we may be coming back to production. My advice would be to get something like Magic A/B so you can import the reference tracks into your session and easily switch back and forth between theirs and yours. It can be super helpful to hear how your track is stacking up and compare your mix.

Mark

[djrmusic]

I'm using Addictive Drums for my drum samples. The drums are the only things I'm not playing in. Everything else is me playing.

I have taken a mixing course from a company called Rethink Mixing. Honestly, I don't have the ear for it. I'm really only doing basic EQ and compression. Rolling back HPF and LPF, very light compression and then using Ozone 9 for the final touch. Maybe I'm not going far enough, or too far. It might be time to find someone to mix the tracks.

Thanks again for all the input and suggestions. I'm determined to get better at this.

Dave

Mark,

Thanks for taking the time to listen. I really appreciate it.

I thought I was using some high quality sounds. I have Keyscape and Trillain for the keys and bass and Vienna for the strings and I have spent time learning how to use them. Guess I'm going to have to dig deeping.

Thanks again for the feedback.

Dave

The worst thing was the drums for me ..what are you using for those ?

Keyscape is good but the piano sound in your track does not have any of the depth or realism of the presets I listened to online ? So that's either something to do with choosing the wrong sound, treating it in a way that makes it worse i.e. eq-ing some of the character and tone out of it or you haven't played it sympathetically i.e. velocities etc. Or all 3. It is possible to make high quality instruments sound cheap if you don't use 'em right. And vice versa - you can make free or low cost stuff sound good if you know your stuff really well.

Trillian I've never used although it was well rated 10yrs ago I have no idea how it stacks up now. I use Scarbee Rickenbacker when I need a trad bass personally.

Vienna strings..well it depends which ones but generally they seem well regarded . Again I haven't used them personally but if you play them with no expression controllers they will sound fake and if you also don't mix everything else in with them in a way that they all gel it just exacerbates it.

So it seems like we may be coming back to production. My advice would be to get something like Magic A/B so you can import the reference tracks into your session and easily switch back and forth between theirs and yours. It can be super helpful to hear how your track is stacking up and compare your mix.

Mark

[eeoo]

Yeah the mix sounds "safe" to me, like you're trying not to f#^%%ck it up. It might be interesting and fun for you to purposefully mangle it in the mix, just experiment and go too far on purpose and use "save as" for each iteration. Maybe you'll run into some happy accidents that will inspire a unique direction.

[MBantle]

Mark,

Thanks for taking the time to listen. I really appreciate it.

I thought I was using some high quality sounds. I have Keyscape and Trillain for the keys and bass and Vienna for the strings and I have spent time learning how to use them. Guess I'm going to have to dig deeping.

Thanks again for the feedback.

Dave

The worst thing was the drums for me ..what are you using for those ?

Keyscape is good but the piano sound in your track does not have any of the depth or realism of the presets I listened to online ? So that's either something to do with choosing the wrong sound, treating it in a way that makes it worse i.e. eq-ing some of the character and tone out of it or you haven't played it sympathetically i.e. velocities etc. Or all 3. It is possible to make high quality instruments sound cheap if you don't use 'em right. And vice versa - you can make free or low cost stuff sound good if you know your stuff really well.

Trillian I've never used although it was well rated 10yrs ago I have no idea how it stacks up now. I use Scarbee Rickenbacker when I need a trad bass personally.

Vienna strings..well it depends which ones but generally they seem well regarded . Again I haven't used them personally but if you play them with no expression controllers they will sound fake and if you also don't mix everything else in with them in a way that they all gel it just exacerbates it.

So it seems like we may be coming back to production. My advice would be to get something like Magic A/B so you can import the reference tracks into your session and easily switch back and forth between theirs and yours. It can be super helpful to hear how your track is stacking up and compare your mix.

Mark

It seems the Magic AB plugin is no longer available https://splice.com/plugins/7620-magic-a ... mple-magic

[SamGreene]

It seems the Magic AB plugin is no longer available https://splice.com/plugins/7620-magic-a ... mple-magic

True, was looking for that as it was recommended by several places. However, iZotope Ozone has the feature as long as you get the standard edition - and it works quite well.

[cosmicdolphin]

Seems like some other folk recommend Melda's MCompare as magic AB is no longer available

https://www.meldaproduction.com/MCompare

[cosmicdolphin]

I'm using Addictive Drums for my drum samples. The drums are the only things I'm not playing in. Everything else is me playing.

I have taken a mixing course from a company called Rethink Mixing. Honestly, I don't have the ear for it. I'm really only doing basic EQ and compression. Rolling back HPF and LPF, very light compression and then using Ozone 9 for the final touch. Maybe I'm not going far enough, or too far. It might be time to find someone to mix the tracks.

I have AD2 ..which I know is certainly 'good enough' as I have used it in tracks that have been licensed.

If you've done a mixing course as well then you seem to have all the tools at your disposal. So if it's not the gear , it's the ear as they say.

But a great mix starts with great sounds, I mean it should sound pretty decent without even doing any mixing. I've often heard peoples mixes that sound better when all the plugins are bypassed.

I would say you should be able to get pretty far with what you have, even just by using some well chosen instrument and mix presets. What other types of tracks have you tried ?

[djrmusic]

I’ve tried only instrumentals for jazz, inspirational, and positive cues. If you’re interested, I’ve put most of the music in my taxi home and my website. Djrmusic.com

I'm using Addictive Drums for my drum samples. The drums are the only things I'm not playing in. Everything else is me playing.

I have taken a mixing course from a company called Rethink Mixing. Honestly, I don't have the ear for it. I'm really only doing basic EQ and compression. Rolling back HPF and LPF, very light compression and then using Ozone 9 for the final touch. Maybe I'm not going far enough, or too far. It might be time to find someone to mix the tracks.

I have AD2 ..which I know is certainly 'good enough' as I have used it in tracks that have been licensed.

If you've done a mixing course as well then you seem to have all the tools at your disposal. So if it's not the gear , it's the ear as they say.

But a great mix starts with great sounds, I mean it should sound pretty decent without even doing any mixing. I've often heard peoples mixes that sound better when all the plugins are bypassed.

I would say you should be able to get pretty far with what you have, even just by using some well chosen instrument and mix presets. What other types of tracks have you tried ?

[lesmac]

It seems the Magic AB plugin is no longer available https://splice.com/plugins/7620-magic-a ... mple-magic

True, was looking for that as it was recommended by several places. However, iZotope Ozone has the feature as long as you get the standard edition - and it works quite well.

I use this:

https://www.pluginboutique.com/product/ ... -REFERENCE

Before I used to drag tracks into the session and level match them. It took all of 2 seconds. Using this old fashioned but effective method you have to leave your master bus "plugin free" and create an aux track for master processing of your track. The ref tracks go straight to the master where you can have monitoring/metering plugs that don't effect the audio.

I would probably spend a bit more and get standard Ozone if I had my time again. "Reference" is usable but with a limited feature set.
EDIT; It doesn't have metering. For the money it is not a bad little plugin.
Try the trial version first. I dont think it is a cpu hog which Ozone possibly can be in a mix session rather than mastering a stereo file.