Where did you learn to compose, mix and master??

[gregorym]

Cool. This settles that. If I can find the tune on iTunes, great, I'll buy it. If I can't find the reference in iTunes or other stores, I'll find something in that genre and use that.

Thanks guys!

[lesmac]

I could not condone such a thing..that would be almost as bad as using the loopback recording feature on your soundcard !

Some may even stoop so low as to use the free version of this.
https://www.youtubedownloadersite.com/b ... 5178d6f06c

[MBantle]

Back on topic...Andy, where did you learn to produce, mix, master, etc? I would love to hear what you have to say.

Learned on my own. Did an internship at a music house which helped me see what some people did then it was all on me. I studied music in school before that but it was all composition - not music production.

All I have to say is A/B comparisons - if you can hear a difference, then you can get a resource (book, youtube, friend / mentor etc) which can help you figure out what to do.

If you can't hear a difference, your listening is usually just not fine tuned enough. It takes time.

And not everyone is a master of every subject and genre, even after doing this for a long time.

This brings up a question I've been struggling with and I wonder if anyone else does or doesn't do this.

Youtube doesn't allow us to download the audio. However there are sites that rip the audio out and let you download music from youtube. I would think this is NOT allowed. Of course, it would make A/B so much easier. I would be able to compare my track to the reference track in my daw. I imagine we should buy the reference tracks and then we can reference them. That's the way. Yes?

I could think of ways to use Spotify to AB tracks in a studio environment in a way that does not materially violate any copyrights
Cheers,
Matt

[gregorym]

Learned on my own. Did an internship at a music house which helped me see what some people did then it was all on me. I studied music in school before that but it was all composition - not music production.

All I have to say is A/B comparisons - if you can hear a difference, then you can get a resource (book, youtube, friend / mentor etc) which can help you figure out what to do.

If you can't hear a difference, your listening is usually just not fine tuned enough. It takes time.

And not everyone is a master of every subject and genre, even after doing this for a long time.

This brings up a question I've been struggling with and I wonder if anyone else does or doesn't do this.

Youtube doesn't allow us to download the audio. However there are sites that rip the audio out and let you download music from youtube. I would think this is NOT allowed. Of course, it would make A/B so much easier. I would be able to compare my track to the reference track in my daw. I imagine we should buy the reference tracks and then we can reference them. That's the way. Yes?

I could think of ways to use Spotify to AB tracks in a studio environment in a way that does not materially violate any copyrights
Cheers,
Matt

Oh yes. I could just flip back and forth between Spotify or Youtube. That's neat. I've done that. Of course, sometimes I use the daw meters and eq to see what I'm missing. I realize the ears are the best way to tell the difference, but sometimes the graphics show me something that I didn't hear or consider, like everything from 5 to 7k is at -4db, were mine might trail off. I noticed that with a Metheny track I used for A/B. It's late, I hope I'm making sense. Thanks Matt!