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 Forum index » Discussion » Composition
I cant get that sound!
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Wavedude



Joined: Oct 19, 2007
Posts: 38
Location: Florida

PostPosted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 11:47 am    Post subject: I cant get that sound! Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

I cant get that pure sound of all the great electronic music albums out there.

I am using Reason, and Live LE. But I mostly create everything on Reason. After I make a song that I think sounds good, there is always one problem, it sounds so digital! Ok, now, it sounds perfect. Its sounds clean and awesome, but I want to give it more grunge. I like that sound of a album that has that background to it that gives it life.

I am making electronic music, like funk and dance, sometimes ambient or some other synthesizer music. And I really want my tracks to sound professional.

So can anyone give me some mastering or mixing techniques?

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Floppy



Joined: May 09, 2008
Posts: 66
Location: Berlin
Audio files: 2

PostPosted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 12:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

for dirtynes you can try a guitar stompbox (virtual as well)
blood overdrive is a freeware plug that i like, the opposite would would be native instruments guitar rig (opposite in terms of the price)
when i found the blood overdrive i liked it so much that i used it in the master chanel, hahahah ok thats a matter of taste, but try it, will be dirty for sure.

http://www.sonicspot.com/blood-overdrive/BloodOverDrive.zip
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LandOfDoAsYouPlease



Joined: Jul 19, 2008
Posts: 11
Location: Virginia

PostPosted: Mon Jul 21, 2008 4:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Theres a lot of little things I do to make things come alive.

I usually try to make everything a little distortion dirty or overdriven.

I add reverb and effects in my DAW after I create the Reason track to make it sound more realistic.

Also with drums I try to do a lot of hand made echoes in the Reason Redrum.

You just gotta feel for it. Making it sound more lifelike to me is in the post production. Reason is more of a writing tool, not really a production tool.

Also try using a lot of backing tracks with grain to combine grain onto of grain. Or have soft pads and obscure bass-lines that you never intended to be in the song just gentle floating almost inaudibly in the back.

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dewdrop_world



Joined: Aug 28, 2006
Posts: 858
Location: Guangzhou, China
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 21, 2008 7:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

One suggestion (which I hope you won't take the wrong way) is to look at tools other than Reason.

Reason is pretty cool for what it does -- I tried to work with it for a while until I realized that I just hated the sequence editors -- but I have heard from more than one person that it has a "sound" that's hard to overcome and make really individual.

Piping the audio out into a DAW, as LODAYP says, opens up your effect options tremendously.

James

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Wavedude



Joined: Oct 19, 2007
Posts: 38
Location: Florida

PostPosted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 1:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

LandOfDoAsYouPlease wrote:
Theres a lot of little things I do to make things come alive.

Also with drums I try to do a lot of hand made echoes in the Reason Redrum.

Also try using a lot of backing tracks with grain to combine grain onto of grain. Or have soft pads and obscure bass-lines that you never intended to be in the song just gentle floating almost inaudibly in the back.


Um the first quote, "Hand made echos"? Please explain.

And second, You mean using rewire to pipe the tracks into a daw? And with soft pads and bass lines, withs a good way to have those just acoustically in the mix?

Basically, I need help on mixing and mastering techniques. ^_^

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Wavedude



Joined: Oct 19, 2007
Posts: 38
Location: Florida

PostPosted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 1:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

For an example of what I'm wanting, I want my tracks to have the same originality as Justice, most dance and trance producers, Daft Punk, and most rock producers (with guitar).
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Tonsil



Joined: Jul 27, 2008
Posts: 1
Location: Glen Burnie, MD, USA

PostPosted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 5:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

I don't use Reason, but I can give you some general advice. I suggest you start exploring some more analog (for lack of a better term) sound sources. Get away from the clinical purity of the software and experiment with tube amplifiers or old-school spring reverbs (like you might find on old guitar amps). Or you could try looping a decidedly analog source, maybe a beat from an old record, or just something with a rhythm, and instead of using it as a sample, use it to control a vocoder, through which you pass a digital sound source. That way you still have a digital sound, but you impart to it a more 'organic' (okay I hate that word, but it seemed to apply here) feel.

You could also try the opposite, and make an analog sound more digital. One of my favorite techniques is to take a analog loop and run it through severe digital noise reduction, until the artifacts are extremely pronounced and the original sound is unrecognizable. Another way to get there is to take a sample and reduce the bit rate until it becomes glitch-tastic.

Lastly, if your tracks are sounding too lifeless and cold, it could be because you are over-quantizing your sequences. Loosen them up by performing at least some of the parts live, and giving them more of a human touch. There is such a thing as being too perfect. A good example of this is 'Natural One' by Folk Implosion. Listen to the high hat- it's so far off of being in time as to give the beat a very unique style. Otherwise, it would be a very boring and forgettable drum machine beat.
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