Tech-tard pt 2 - What home studio set-ups do you guys use?

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
I am just starting to learn how to use sequencers (have Fruity Loops at the moment, and it seems to work well as a programme to learn with), and I want to purchase the bare minimum of extra kit I'll need. Off the bat, was thinking of a midi controller keyboard and a mic for sampling - is there anything else I'm likely to need? Am leaning towards hip-hop sounds, if that helps.

Thx in advance
 

borderpolice

Well-known member
is there anything else I'm likely to need? Am leaning towards hip-hop sounds, if that helps

Perfectly respectable set-up. I use pretty much the same, just logic/ableton not FL. after a while you'll need monitors for mixing and mastering, but they are not required at this stage. if you have a good track that you want to publish, you can rent a studio for a few hours and get the sound perfected, should be very cheap -- i paid about £25 to do the mastering of my first tune.

Quick hint: make as many tunes a possible. and finish them!. let me say this again: Finish your tunes! ;)
 
Last edited:

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Perfectly respectable set-up. I use pretty much the same, just logic/ableton not FL. after a while you'll need monitors for mixing and mastering, but they are not required at this stage. if you have a good track that you want to publish, you can rent a studio for a few hours and get the sound perfected, should be very cheap -- i paid about £25 to do the mastering of my first tune.

Quick hint: make as many tunes a possible. and finish them!. let me say this again: Finish your tunes! ;)

Thanks for the reply - helps to have confirmation that I'm not missing anything. :)

Quick hat-trick of qs: (1) What MIDI controller wd you recommend?
(2) How did you know what to do on getting to the studio for the first time?!
(3) My friend says the same thing about finding it difficult to finish....I'm presuming it's the mixing that bogs people down...?
 

borderpolice

Well-known member
Thanks for the reply - helps to have confirmation that I'm not missing anything. :)

Quick hat-trick of qs: (1) What MIDI controller wd you recommend?

I use an edirol keyboard , straight through USB! No MIDI in my house ;) Points to look out for:

  • Make sure you can power the keyboard directly from the computer (usually via USB), then you dont have to bother with external powersupplies. (Same for the soundcard, if you have one).
  • Assignable sliders and knobs are vital. The more, the more dimensions of interactivity you have.
  • If you play piano and wish to record your pianoplaying, get as many keys as poss. (downside to this: uses more space). Weighted keys are also very nice for playing.

(2) How did you know what to do on getting to the studio for the first time?!

I didn't really know what i was doing. The reason i went to a studio was really only to hear my music over a big system (i had used headphones for production). just read up on compression and mixing on the web. Then went to that studio, cranked up the volume and fiddled with mixer faders until it sounded acceptable. In retrospect, what I did wasn't very good. But it was a valuable learning experience, and more importantly, it provided a closure of sorts: i had forked out £20 or something, so i just had to send the result to labels/play to my friends. Without exception, they all hated it ;) but i got useful feedback.

(3) My friend says the same thing about finding it difficult to finish....I'm presuming it's the mixing that bogs people down...?

No, mixing is easy. It's the phase of going from some disconnected good ideas to a finished, mixable track with integrity ... you'll find out soon enough! ;)
 
Last edited:

secretagentgel

Well-known member
only get a controller if yre going to use it. do you play piano? or can you not use yr qwerty keyboard or something? same with the mic. are you going to record stuff you can't find samples of elsewhere, like the web? or vocalists? then fine. otherwise, wait till you really need it.

ive been at it in some fashion for 10 years, and have gone thru so much gear, most of which i bought thinking i'd want it/need it and never used it. now im a pc, good monitors, small mixer and small controller (which i didn't get till after three years of piano lessons).

corey
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
only get a controller if yre going to use it. do you play piano? or can you not use yr qwerty keyboard or something? same with the mic. are you going to record stuff you can't find samples of elsewhere, like the web? or vocalists? then fine. otherwise, wait till you really need it.

ive been at it in some fashion for 10 years, and have gone thru so much gear, most of which i bought thinking i'd want it/need it and never used it. now im a pc, good monitors, small mixer and small controller (which i didn't get till after three years of piano lessons).

corey

Yeah, I do play piano, so it would be useful to get a controller of some sort. The Akai MPC (or rather a knock-off version of it) potentially seems like a good idea (great vid of Mannie Fresh using it: ), tho, as you say, could probably use the keyboard just as effectively.

I hear what you're saying about buying too much equipment too soon though. Sound advice. As for the mic, I'm just intrigued to see if I can make some original samples...
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Borederpolice - thanks v much for the tips. You've answered a lot of those niggly questions that have been firing around my head recently. :)
 

Grievous Angel

Beast of Burden
Get good monitors if you can, and put them on decent stands, and position them properly, so your head is at the apex of an equilateral triangle.

Do LOADS OF VERSIONS of tracks. Don't be too self critical and just get loads of stuff down. Keep going, testing out new things.

But be very disciplined about naming them and having them organised so you can go back to them a couple of years later. This sort of project management style discipline is an excellent source of creativity!

Try to imagine what the end result should be like and identify what sort of arrangements you need. Most good music has VERY simple arrangements!

Don't be afraid to churn out a load of 8 bar loops until you're ready to finish, just make sure they're really good.

Try using Live or something to mix your stuff into other people's stuff. It's hugely instructive.

Try to totally copy your favourite tunes, especially the arrangements, with whatever you have available. Almost cetrtainly you will come up with something very different and you'll learn a lot doing it.

Figure out things like quantisation and groove. Read magazines like Computer Music to get the short cuts to the basics of different genres. Find out about things like subgrouping bass and kicks together (and eqing them out of each others' way), and parallel compression and stuff.

If you like Fruity, consider trying Reason, and searching for the hip hop sound sets / drum kits on the web - there's a lot of good stuff out there. Above all, with Reason combined with Recycle, figure out how to grab the groove from your favourite hip hop songs and use it for yourself. This can save you lots of time.

Mix for kick, snare, bass, melody line and vocal in seperate spaces. Make the mix without compression on top of it all, but use compression on individual tracks and sub groups.
 

Grievous Angel

Beast of Burden
The mpc is fantastic (and is a secret ingredient of dubstep!).

But it's a whole other paradigm to fruity.

Read the Premier interview in soundonsound for the real gen on how to use the mpc.
 

barry_abs

lil' beyutch
i just got logic express and all 5 jam packs.. the kind of stuff i do doesn't need knobs and sliders been based mainly round real instruments, as oppose to synths etc.. i haven't used samples in years so can't comment there really..

borderpolice;99858Quick hint: make as many tunes a possible. [U said:
and finish them![/U]. let me say this again: Finish your tunes! ;)

what motivated you to say this? i agree btw, except in the case where the track doesn't warrant it - don't waste time polishing a turd.. i try to get as much feedback as possible before singling tracks out for completion..

i find completion the very hardest part.. find it laborious as it gets technical at this point - where audio tech knowledge is required.. i forced myself to learn compression, eq etc. principals at this point to try match that commercial sound but still find the process as interesting as completing tax returns.. if only i had the money to pay someone else..

so why you labour this point yourself? feedback from labels suggesting they needed 'completed' productions?
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Figure out things like quantisation and groove.

Above all, with Reason combined with Recycle, figure out how to grab the groove from your favourite hip hop songs and use it for yourself. This can save you lots of time.

Great advice, thanks. Only bit I'm not sure about is the above - not clear on exactly what you mean when talking about the groove, and how you would pluck it out of a song for later use....?
 

Grievous Angel

Beast of Burden
not clear on exactly what you mean when talking about the groove, and how you would pluck it out of a song for later use....?

You will find that sequencing stuff often sounds "not quite right" - the way the notes fit the beats can feel wrong when compared to actual records. This is because good producers tend to develop / borrow particular quantized rhythms. A short cut to getting your own is:

1. get audio of a 4bar loop with a rhythm you really like
2. Put it into recycle and get the hit points matched up well
3. save as a rex file
4. take the rex file into reason's rex player
5. on the rex player, send the groove of the rex file to the arrangement
6. right / ctrl click on the rex file on the arrangement, select get groove, see it added to the quantization menu as User Groove 1
7. quantize your music with this groove.

This can inject a vast amount of feel and style into your productions.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
That's really interesting. I'm presuming what you're describing goes far beyond the kind of anti-quantising 'swing' that you get in, for example, 2-step.

From what I've just read, ReCycle is not compatible with Fruity...may have to try Reason out.
 

borderpolice

Well-known member
2. Put it into recycle and get the hit points matched up well

You don't need recycle for this. Kontakt, Native Instrument's great sampler, does it too. Logic Pro has a function for this as well, as, I imagine, do other DAWs, because it's fairly trivial to implement. They may not advertise this feature directly (the main stumbling block being a patent that Propellerhead Software, Recycle's producers, hold on the slider that regulates the sensitivity to beats, Grrr!).

I use this feature all the time to sing my own rhythms.
 
Last edited:

Grievous Angel

Beast of Burden
Yes, I think other DAWs / soft samplers have it... though I find Cubase does it unusably.

It's a great technique and is partly how the original 2step rhythms were created - it's the same principle as quantisation, but with a more complicated output.
 

Martin Dust

Techno Zen Master
Don't really have a fixed set up, sometimes I use the main station with two keyboards, mackie mixer and soft/hardware or two laptops, mixer, tape and deck or just the iMac/laptop.

I don't keep things tidy because Rich always sorts that out. :) Sometimes I sits for hours working on things, but most of the time I just fire things up, turn the volume up and jam things out using whatever takes my fancy. I guess it easier for me as I work with 3 other people so there's never been a set way, two hours of jamming can result in some interesting ideas.

I'd recommend getting a keyboard to play, mixer/controller as there's something about twiddling knobs that just feels better than clicking.

On the software side I use Cubase/Logic/Ableton/Acid/Reason/Fruity Loops and Soundforge.
 

mixed_biscuits

_________________________
so why you labour this point yourself? feedback from labels suggesting they needed 'completed' productions?

As far as I can tell, labels want demo tracks to be pretty much the finished article (though this doesn't mean that they won't suggest particular changes).
 

Gabba Flamenco Crossover

High Sierra Skullfuck
I've been producing for 10 years and have been through a few different set ups. What I do now is based around a PC, and MPC1000 and several hardware synths, mostly analogue. This suits my style which is quite synth-heavy techno/electro.

Tips from me:

Invest in good sound sources - not just money but the time in learning how to use them properly. A good, inspirational sound can carry a track on it's own - conversely, the #1 reason for inexperienced producers screwing up track is using mediocre sounds, attempting to add more parts to overcome this and overcomplicating the arrangement as a result.

Work quickly, and get rid of any equipment/software that slows you down.

Simplicity is best every time.

If you only drop serious money on one thing in your studio, it should be the monitors. Buy the best pair you can possible afford and get some basic acoustic treatment done too.

Get a 2nd hand MPC and try it out. If it doesn't work for you then sell it, but a lot of people moving from software programming find that it's the missing 10% they've been looking for. Seriously, almost every hip hop producer uses one and there is a good reason for that. I would never, ever go back to programming beats on a computer, no way.

Keep things organised so that you don't get dragged down by mundane stuff when you're being creative. Organise your sample libraries so you can find stuff quickly, use sequencer templates so you don't have to set the tracks up each time, discipline yourself to learn keyboard shortcuts - that sort of thing. If you get into hardware, use a patchbay and keep up to date with maintainance.

The advice about finishing tracks is good. Mixing is a chore but the only way to get good at it is to do it - once you do start getting better it gets easier, and having good monitors helps a lot.

Everyone has thier own producing method, but this is the way I do it: Fire up the MPC and some synths and get a good loop going, playing with ideas and trying out different stuff really quickly. Have a blaze and dance around the room a bit, get a feeling for it. Then I use the MPC to block the drum tracks out and do the structure of the tune, I put more synth parts in to flesh it out, and I record everything into the PC as seperate audio tracks. All of that normally takes 4-8 hours of work. Then I back everything up and leave it for a few weeks. When I come back to it, I've got fresh ears and I can be more objective about the merits of what I did - a lot of my tunes get scrapped at this stage. If I do decide to work more on it, I often add little incidental sounds that help the arrangement, and I do a lot of boring work taking noise out of the audio tracks (important when you use hardware).

Once a track's ready to be mixed, I put it in the 'to be mixed' pile. I tend to mix tunes in batches so I can really get my tech-head on.
 
Top